75. Upstairs

I don't want to hear about it... I know it's been almost three months.  Let's see... since August, we've been to New York and Connecticut and back.  Dave has changed jobs three times (through no fault of his own - his company got bought out and bought out again).  I have joined Etsy and am now the proud owner of an online shop called Heartkeyologie.  Needless to say it's been a little nuts around here but dare I say things are settling down?  Probably not!

Of course we still run to Daytona as many weekends as we can, and it's actually relaxing getting over there and working on projects.  I know I love it, but I still have a certain amazement that I have found a partner that loves it just as much.

This episode is going to be about some stuff we've gotten done upstairs, and post number 76 will be about the downstairs.  We are really getting into the cosmetics now, and there's lots to tell about.  This is the little hall closet upstairs.  The original door had been cut along the bottom by the previous owners to fit the "new" slope of the floor.  I like closets, especially linen closets and pantries, not to have doors - they stay neater that way.  So that door is at home now, waiting be repurposed into something else, maybe a headboard or display cabinet.

When the center of the house sank years ago, a lot of the plaster was damaged, as is evidenced by the condition of the back wall of this closet.  Since the other side of that wall is open to the crawl space and the top of the closet is just under the roof, we decided to fir the wall out and add 3/4" insulation board.  It made a noticeable difference in heat gain as soon as we installed this.

Here the bead board paneling is up, and you can see the Dr Seuss quality of the shape:  that is not an optical illusion.  The shelves were original and Dave did a great job reinstalling them at dead level, and that's all that counts, right?  I thought I had a picture of the closet after it was painted and the shelves were refinished... but I can't find it so you'll just have to wait for that one.

 We decided it was finally time to do just a little work on the master bedroom.  I wanted to get a guest room ready, so that was first priority, but since we are trying to wrap up any woodwork before the painting starts, this had to be done next.  The windows on the north wall had obviously had some leakage - no surprise considering there were 1/2" gaps in places before we sealed them up.  The paneling someone put up over the stucco in the 70s was beginning to delaminate and buckle.   Frankly I was afraid the whole wall would have to be rebuilt and dreaded this undertaking.  We were pleasantly surprised that the paneling came off and the wall underneath was pretty solid - barely even cracks in the stucco.

As we worked our way around the room, we left the paneling that was still good - it will be fine once painted over.  We cut it at about 36" and installed wainscot below to replace it.

While Dave was working away on that I had the heat gun out and stripped the window sills to prep for paint.

Here the window frames have been all painted nicely and I've placed two color swatches to try to imagine these color on the walls.  Please ignore the horrible brassy ball door knob, that's gonna go!

In closing, I'd like to introduce you to Crabby, a shy visitor that dropped by one night.  She scuttled across the path as I was picking up some things outside after dark, and scared the crap out of me actually (she's about 6" wide).  I thought "poor thing, how will she ever find her way back to the beach without getting run over by a car?"  So I captured her in a bucket and we planned a walk to the beach.  Fortunately, Dave had the brilliant idea to look her up on the internet for identification and we found out she is a blue land crab and is not interested in the water except at mating time.  They dig little holes and live in the yard!  I haven't seen her since, but she taught us something new about our lovely Florida native wildlife.