The Parlor

We decided to paint over the wallpaper in the parlor. You may remember about a year and a half ago I was trying to scrub the wallpaper. It cleaned up ok but it was still discolored.

It doesnt look so bad in the picture but in person it wasn't good. So we decided to go ahead and paint over it. In the end I'm glad we decided to do it. You can still see the wallpaper pattern through the paint and the color is what the wallpaper would have looked like originally.

You cant see the wallpaper pattern in the pictures but you can see it in person.

You can see the one area I didn't paint behind the curtain. I still need to go back and paint that.

You may also notice that the fireplace mantle is different than what was originally here. We found this mantle in an antique shop and it turns out it came from an old victorian house in Fayetteville that I used to drive by every day. It was destroyed in a tornado about 6 years ago.

The mantle has many layers of paint on it, so many that much of the detail is obscured. I will eventually have the mantle dipped to remove it all but for now I put two coats of trim paint on it to clean it up.

I'm also going to be replacing the surround and hearth eventually. I had mentioned in a previous post about how the fake brick surround and hearth tiles were installed in the 40's, and that I had found the original hearth tiles underneath the brick tiles.

AUTGA5GMTKMU

Dining Room

I took Thanksgiving week off to finish up some projects around the house.

The Dining Room was what I really wanted to get done the most. It has been half done since I moved the wall to make more room in the kitchen almost three years ago.

Here is what it looked like at the beginning of last week.

First I moved everything but the furniture out of the room, then I moved the furniture to the center of the room.

Next I scrapped the peeling walls above the picture rail. Once it was all scraped I mudded above the picture rail completely around the room.

With that done I worked on the door casings for the exterior door and the door that leads to the hallway.

The casings on the door that lead to the hallway had separated and were loose. I removed them and reinstalled them properly.

Next I worked on the door casings for the exterior door. You may remember in previous posts that the original doorway was closed off in the past and I reverted it back to a doorway.

First I finished mudding the area.

Next I began working on the casing and rosettes. the only two rosettes I had left were both split in half. I used my doweling jig and glued them back together with dowels.

Once they were dry I installed them above the door along with the casing.

Next I installed the picture rail on the wall that I rebuilt.

With that done I was ready for paint. I went around the room and glued down any loose wallpaper.

I really hated to paint over the wallpaper but there were just too many places where the paper was in too bad a shape.

First I primered and painted the trim.

Then I primered and painted the walls. It turned out that there was something wrong with the paint I chose, it was way lighter than the paint sample at the store. I didn't have a choice though and had to use it. I painted on Thanksgiving morning so we had to hurry and get the furniture back together for Thanksgiving dinner so I didnt get any pictures until after the dinner.

I also had to do some last minute electrical to get an outlet in for the china cabinet light.

I still have a lot of wainscoting to caulk and paint, I need to have some casing replicated for the door to the kitchen, and the ceiling needs to be primered and painted.

Dining Room Walls

Two and a half years ago I moved the wall between the Kitchen and the Dining Room three and a half feet to make more room in the kitchen. I put sheetrock up but never got around to mudding it.

Yesterday I finally decided to finish it. I had to put up a few small pieces first. Then I taped and mudded it.

Today I will sand and put up the second coat.

On another note, we have unfortunately decided to paint over the wallpaper. I really liked it but it has a lot of issues. I would just tear it off the wall, it's vinyl and comes off real easy, but there are two other layers underneath and they are paper. That's a nightmare I dont want to get into right now.

Parlor

The Parlor is the next room I've started on. All of the wallpaper and trim is stained yellow from what appears to be years of cigarette or cigar smoke. A few weeks ago I started scrubbing the wallpaper and it looks like I will be able to get it clean enough to save.

I'm using bleach and a scrub pad. I still have about half the room to go.

I went ahead and prepped and painted all the trim over the last few days. I dont have a good before picture of the ceiling but here it is after I scrapped all the loose paint off:

And here it is after painting:

All the trim is now complete. I still need to scrape the paint off the windows and a few areas need some caulking.

I pulled the fireplace mantle off the wall because I intend to strip it down and refinish it. In pulling it off I've discovered that the mantle is oak. The mantle is just leaning on the wall for now:

I also found a piece of original hearth and surround tile:

The red brick looking tile was installed sometime in the 40's when the oak floors were done. The floor was laid over the original pine floor so the brick tiles were just put over the original green glazed subway tiles to bring the hearth up to the same level as the oak floor. I am going to tear up the red tile then carefully remove the original tile then lay down a new mud bed then reinstall the original tile. I need to find some salvaged green tile for the surround though since that was removed.