Upstairs Wood

Another ongoing project is the upstairs wood. All of the wood upstairs is "paint grade" which means that it was originally painted, probably white, and always was painted...that is until we came along. For better or worse, I decided it would be nice to have the upstairs wood stained. (Actually, the previous owner, Tina, began stripping some of the wood in the master bedroom. This is probably what got me started down this slippery slope.) This has turned into a MAJOR piece of work.
We began doing some of the paint stripping ourselves when we first moved in, and realized we needed some help. We hired two guys to help us--they worked full time for about 8 weeks last summer and got most of the paint removed and did some sanding, but the wood still was not ready for stain. There's lots of paint left in nooks and crannies, as well as finish sanding left to do. Since summer, we stained (on the exterior) and rehung ten double hung windows just to get all the windows back on the house for the colder weather. We took a major hiatus, but have been back to work over this winter break from school. Our friends the wood strippers took ten doors off of their hinges, unlabeled, and we took a day to figure out the puzzle of which doors hang where. Today was an exciting day because we finally finished staining the wood in the smallest of the four bedrooms. This wood still needs three coats of polyurethane, so the work is not quite done yet, but it is nice to see something that resembles a finished product. We like the lighting fixture that Tina put in this room, and are planning to paint this room in a shade of rich yellow/gold to compliment the fixture. This room will probably be used as Raphael's "playroom" where he can set up his bass guitar, and other toys.

Upstairs Bathroom

One of our areas of focus is our upstairs bathroom, which was gutted when we bought it. In trying to get the bathroom toward a more finished state, it seems we have to make a bigger mess first. We have stained the window and door frame, and bought subway tile for the walls, a pedestal sink and toilet by St. Thomas Creations, and some lovely lighting fixtures from Schoolhouse Electric. The previous owner also left us a clawfoot bathtub, which we found sitting in the living room the day we first saw the house. (Several of our friends, were brave enough to help us get the very heavy tub up the stairs on the day we moved in. Phil thought of a way to hoist the tub up the stairs using rope and a lot of brute force.) We bought a shower riser which will convert the tub into one of those cute showers with the curtain that goes all the way around the tub.
When we called in the plumber to check if all of the pipes were lined up correctly, he discovered that the toilet waste pipe was not to code, and would have left our new toilet sitting uncomfortable close to the side wall. Also, we opted to tear our part of the wall in order to convert a 4" ventilation pipe into a more current 2" pipe. This allowed us to remove a weird little section of wall which jutted out to accomodate the larger pipe. The electrician also came in and made some nasty holes in the lath and plaster walls and ceiling while putting in our new ventilation fan and wall mounted lights. We are a bit worried about how these walls will get repaired, and how much of the lath and plaster will have to be torn out and replaced with drywall. Our next step in the bathroom is to install the subway tile on the walls, and the white hexagon floor tile.

The Beginning...

Our story began about a year ago...we were looking for a Craftsman house...possibly in Pasadena, or Eagle Rock. We saw an ad for an open house in the West Adams area and decided to check it out on a whim. We fell in love with the large rooms, built-ins, and the wonderful Batchelder fireplace. We decided we could make an offer on the house, and we got it!

Wow, we're living in the heart of the city, instead of a bedroom community like "Bungalow Heaven" where we had been looking. We were a bit shocked, a bit nervous. To our amazement, neighbors began to come over and introduce themselves, welcoming us to the neighborhood. We thought we were in Mayberry. It wasn't too long before we knew most of our neighbors by name and were actually socializing with them. There are wonderful people here.

We moved into our house in February of 2005. Our house is a 1905 Craftsman built by the California Bungalow Company. The house was previously owned by a flipper who held the house for less than a year. She had some work done, including new plumbing and electrical, and a bad exterior paint job, but ran out of money and didn't quite finish too much, and simply made a mess of other things. Our plan is to live downstairs while we finish the entire upstairs, and then move upstairs to finish the downstairs.

Our first order of business was to get a new foundation--a very costly proposition, but necessary for our peace of mind. Next, we decided to strip all the upstairs wood, even though it was originally painted. We are still working on that project ten months later. Most recently, we've been shopping for tile and fixtures for the upstairs bathroom which was left completely gutted. It seems it is easier to go shopping than actually go upstairs and try to get some paint out of a nook or cranny. Many weekends go by when we do no work on the house at all, so this whole project may take a great many years.