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.