Two important accomplishments this week

First, I finished writing the dissertation to the satisfaction of my advisor, which means that it went to the rest of the committee. So, it looks like I'll graduating in May. There's still a bunch of things that have to happen, but the really big hurdle has been overcome. I am relieved. More exciting than that is that my dad, who does not like to get anywhere near airports, much less on airplanes, is coming to the graduation. I've been dancing in my chair all day.

Equally important, the contractors are finished. The ceilings are put up. The floors and wood has been stripped and stained. The Good Mr. Dr. and Our Good Friend J will be doing touch-ups this Sunday and installing the light fixture in the parlor.

Here's a peek at our new bedroom.
The walls are dark blue and the ceiling and trim a creamy yellow.

The contractor was able to find some replacement doors for us with the original mortise locks and ceramic knobs. We still need to strip and paint the door. Also, we need to get replacement plates for the light switch and wall outlets. But, all in due time.

The parlor is where the touch-ups need to happen. But, still it looks good.

This is the south facing wall. You can see the soffit detail here. The wall is blue, the underside of the soffit is blue-green, and the ceiling is a mild yellow. We used all Benjamin-Moore, low VOC paints, so if you want to know the exact colors, let me know. You can also see the detail of the trim around the doors here. The trim was a mix of stains to look dark red. The door needs to be replaced eventually. This is a cheap, hollow door that is ugly and beat up. We can't wait to get rid of it.


This picture is a little dark and does not do justice to the window trim, but you can see how the paint contrasts nicely with the soffit detail.
We are particularly proud of the door. It was a lot of work for the contractor but we were able to save the door. It is stained the same color as the trim. Obviously one of the things that needs to be done is to paint (until we can stain) the stops in the door frame. Or we could leave it just to highlight the contrast. Or we could paint it the color of the walls. I'll leave that up to Mr. Dr. and Our Good Friend J. Our contractor found a really nice door knob and were able to remove a mortise lock from a door in the basement. The mortise lock (which is the mechanism inside the door) was dated 1862.

Mr. Dr.'s personal project has been the vineyard. One of the selling points of the house was the several foot long grape trellis. Now that the weather is finally beginning to get better he's been able to get back there and get something done. Well, apparently you have to prune the fingers back pretty severely to keep it healthy. Here's the final product:

Check out the pics in the gallery for what this looked like back in December.

Well, that's all for now. Now that my book is done, I am working on the grading that I have neglected for about 2 weeks and my consulting work. Next week is spring break for me. A chance to grade, finish other work, and prepare the house for all of the guests in May. The Good Mr. Dr. finished his second chapter and is starting on the third. We are happy to report that my dad is healthy, my niece survived a bout with norovirus and the baby is o.k. As far as we know, all is well and good with everyone else too.

Almost there

This week we hit three of important milestones. First, Mr. Dr. and Our Good Friend J took down the door frame on the second floor landing. If you remember, this frame, and the plaster "wall" was actually blocking the view to the first floor. So, now, from the third floor you can see all the way down to the bottom.

BEFORE:



AFTER:There's some wall work we have to do and we'll have to figure something out for that rail along the stairwell wall. And, we discovered that the parquet floor on the second floor landing was installed over rug. Rug that had been soiled by cat pee. Nonetheless, it's nice to have the sun shining through to the first floor. We couldn't have done without Our Good Friend J.

The second important accomplishment happened in the bedroom. The painter put skim coat on all of the walls, painted the ceiling, the trim and just needs to put one more coat on the walls and he'll be done. After that, he'll start on the parlor. We'll probably have to pay him for one extra day, but better that than have half painted walls. I'll put up pics next week when it's done. So far, it looks excellent. Our painter is a real artist. He painted straight lines along the walls and ceilings without the use of painter's tape.

The best bit of news comes from the parlor. The contractor has finished the floor in the parlor. And it is beautiful.

So, here's something interesting we've learned. We have been very careful to buy low VOC paints because of my asthma. However, there really isn't such a thing as low VOC wood stain or polyurethane. And since I work from home two days a week, and most mornings, you can imagine how difficult it was to work when there is staining and polyurethaning happening directly below you. However, never let it be known that a little bit of vapors ever stopped me from grading.
Let me tell you, those fumes get everywhere. We (the contractor and team included) had headaches all week long. It also took 5 hours to clean all of the dust that was created by the sanding. But take a look at those floors. Aren't they beautiful.

We are hoping that by this time next week, I'll be able to report that we are back in our bedroom and that the parlor is 95% complete. The contractor and team started sanding and staining the moulding, trim, and parlor door (in the basement). We're not sure when the window trim is going to be finished. That might take another half week. But, the parlor should be painted. We do need to buy new light fixtures, which we are hoping to do next weekend.

In other news, Mr. Dr. finished the second chapter in his book and I finished the final chapters on the dissertation. We went to see Coraline to celebrate that and Valentine's day. Great movie. Highly recommend it. Except for my niece, the Banana, who needs to read the book first.

Slowly but surely

It's been very slow progress since the last update. The contractor has removed all of the all moulding and trim to be taken to a place to be dipped and stripped. We tried to look for new window trim at a place 2 hours west of Boston that sells house parts from old homes that are being demolished. Unfortunately, we didn't find what we wanted, so I think we're going to keep what we've got, depending on how well the dipping/stripping works. The alternative is to buy new, which we're trying to avoid not just because it may save us money, but because we want to salvage as much as we can.

One of the neat discoveries happened when the contractors moved the radiator to get the moulding behind it. Apparently when the last paint job was done, they didn't move the radiator and we found two layers of old wallpaper.

You can see a horizontal striped layer which is underneath the pastel colored more decorative layer. I don't think I'll be able to get it off the wall without it turning to dust. It has been behind the radiator for who knows how many years.

We started to work on the bedroom. I stripped the wallpaper off the wall. It didn't look too bad to me. It was a lot of work washing the glue off the walls. We decided on colors for bedroom. We're going bold. Dark blue walls with a kind of yellow/tan ceiling. The color combination looks something like this:

We were trying to strip the white paint off the moulding in the bedroom. Let it be known far and wide that I hate white moulding. Drives me nuts. It reminds of every cheap apartment we've ever lived in. In the bedroom, we, or rather Mr. Dr., ran into the same problem from the parlor. The chemicals take off all of the upper layers of paint, but there's this bottom kryptonite layer called milk paint that is just impossible to remove. I have ordered a special milk paint remove to see if that works.

On the advice of a friend, we had a painter come to look at the bedroom and parlor to give us a quote on painting, since we have finally realized that we simply do not have a lot of time to devote to this kind of thing. The head painter came Saturday and we earned enough of his pity for him to send us a guy for 3 days of work. He also told us that we need to have a skim coat of plaster since the wallpaper was put directly onto the sheetrock (or blue board). Otherwise, it will look bad.

He also informed us that the moulding in the bedroom is not worth uncovering or saving. So, it looks like we'll be painting the trim in the bedroom the same color as the ceiling. Which is o.k. with me. I'm not too keen on the casements or the moulding in the bedroom. My goal is to take the time and look for really good moulding salvaged from a nice home. Even if it takes 10 years, that's better than Mr. Dr. killing his back trying to uncover cheap moulding.

Today the contractor finished sanding the parlor. That resulted in a new layer of dust. I'm not quite sure what its like to live in a house where I don't have to clean my pants every time I walk down the hallway. But it's done and it looks good. It was dark when I got home (and no we don't have a light fixture in that room yet). But from the light of the camping lamp and the hall light, it looks good to me.

Tomorrow they will put on the first layer of stain and ployurethane. The painter is also coming tomorrow to start on the bedroom. Hopefully, the wood will be ready to come back from the dipping place and we can see how good a job they did. Our contractor also found us some great doors with the original porcelain knobs, so that will be cool.

The last bit of good news is that our application for assistance for the replacing the roof was approved. We will go on Friday to sign the papers. That is a huge relief. Now, if it would only stop snowing long enough for the roofers to actually do the job...

That's all the news from the past two weeks. I will try to do better about keeping to my once a week postings. But, in my defense, I completed two new chapters and started the final chapter. So, it's not like we've been fooling around. At least not much. I will try to get Mr. Dr. to put up the new pictures, but I can only use up so much of my spousal capital for things like this.