Bathroom Update

This is the photo of the bathroom from the listing.

If only it were actually that bright. Like the living room, it is a dark cave. Purple walls, purple doors, purple ceiling. The walls, like the ceiling of the living room had a really rough, crappy, spiky uneven texture.

 

I had the walls sanded and refloated. Soooooo much better and brighter already.

Like the rest of the house, the ceilings are now white.

Saturday, I sanded and washed the living room walls. Then I filled the nail holes and other divets, sanded, sprayed texture, lightly sanded and washed those areas again. Then I washed the floors. Other than a small hole in the sheet rock that needs to be patched, the room is ready to paint. It was probably a moot point to wash the floors. I'm sure dust is going to be tracked through there before I paint. I really can't paint until the electrical is done. Hopefully the dust will stay off the walls. Sunday I sanded and washed the walls of the green bedroom at the front of the house and marked all the places that need to be filled and spackled. Slowly, but surely it's coming along.

If These Walls Could Talk

Picking up where I left off, here is that weird bump-out in the corner of the kitchen.

In contained an A/C duct that went to...nowhere. Both the top in the attic, and bottom in the floor were not connected to anything. So it came out gaining me more usable space.

And what do you know, the wall had been framed right on top of the gold shag carpeting.

 

Do you think the gold shag carpeting and the pink and red square wallpaper existed together? Can you imagine what that room must have looked like? Once the cabinet and sink came out, then the rest of the sheet rock came off because it will have to be replaced. Take a look at the photo below. See that dark circle in the center? Guess what that is?

Yep! A bullet hole. And not just any bullet--a musket ball. A musket ball! Someone shot a musket in my kitchen. How do I know it was a musket? Because the ball was retrieved from inside the wall...along with part of a book, Vienna's library volunteer badge and a poster of 80s hair band, Kix. How DOES this stuff get INSIDE the wall? I really want to know the story of that musket shot. When did muskets stop being in general use? Why would you fire an antique gun inside a kitchen?

Let's look again at the south half of the kitchen. It started out like this.

And now it looks like this. Look at all that reclaimed space! It's so much more open. The fridge will go on the right and cabinet(s) will eventually go on the left. The hot water will be capped and the cold water will be used as a water line for the fridge for water and ice. The sconce/electrical box that was on the wall is being moved to the ceiling for an overhead light.

Finally! A Photo Update!

I was finally able to download the photos from my camera. Yeah! Here are some before and during shots. Unfortunately, nothing is at the "after" stage yet, but it's moving along.

The dark cave that was the living room. Brown walls, brown ceiling with ugly spiky texture.

Close up of spiky texture

Sanded and refloated.

Looks better already, huh?!?

Since then it was re-textured and painted (white).

Now the kitchen. Remember that funky wall, weird corner bump-out taking up space, and "what was she thinking" mini bar in the kitchen?

The funky wall was original...and solid wood. I discovered that the hard way when I swung a sledge hammer into it with all my might. Ouch.

Above the wood but below the sheet rock I found some old wallpaper. One side was yellow with a cheesecloth texture. It looks to have been signed by either the occupants, or perhaps the contractor's daughters.

The other side had this rose-patterned paper that may have been pretty at one time.

Since the wall was original, it was framed right into the floor. Once the wall was out, a big hole in the floor remained. Also, it turns out that all the walls of my house are built from the same solid wood planks. You can't really tell from the next photo, but the top half of the kitchen appears to have been paneled at one time...or still is...under a layer of sheet rock.

And the weird bump-out and mini bar? You'll have to stay tuned. You won't want to miss it. It involves a gunshot!

Discovery Architectural Antiques and Salvage

I drove to Gonzalez, Texas this morning to visit Discovery Architectural Antiques and Salvage to look for trim pieces, siding, doors, pine flooring and other stuff for the house. What a cool place!

They had the siding, one of the two trim types I needed and the rare 3 1/4 inch yellow pine flooring in 12-foot lengths. I'll have to go back again for the door once I know exactly what I need. I had the measurements but didn't realize there were so many variations to the coving. This place had HUNDREDS of doors.

Look at some of the other neat stuff they had. It's worth a visit if you are ever out that way. It's about an hour from Austin.

stained glass windows

glass door knobs

This makes me wonder if the ones in my house are original. They are only on the french doors in the living room. The plates are definitely original (and painted over about 47 times) but the knobs don't fit the plates exactly. I'll have to look up when glass knobs were in use. The rest of the original doors have the old plates too, but new-looking brass knobs. It would be nice to replace them with either something authentic or glass ones, even if they aren't authentic, cuz they're pretty.

more knobs and some door plates

neat-o trim pieces

Lotza doors...and these were just the ones in the store. The warehouse had a ton more!

Detail of one of the doors. This one was so pretty. Too bad it's the wrong size (and style) for my house.

They also had light fixtures, hinges, hardware tin ceilings, etc., etc. I will be back sometime.

And now for a sneak peak of my actual house. When demoing a corner of the kitchen to remove the soffit/bumpout with the A/C tube that went nowhere, we discovered that sheet rock had been applied over the existing sheet rock and wallpaper. And what wallpaper it was. Yowza!

Lighting Decision Made

The house repairs are costing a bit more than I hoped for. Surprise. Surprise. To save money, I changed my mind about purchasing lighting from Schoolhouse Electric and did a little hunting on ebay. This is what I ended up with. The green one is for the kitchen. The crystal one is for the dining room. I am pretty happy with them.

The green one is a vintage warehouse fixture with a bakelight turn paddle socket. Neat-o.

For the dining room I thought about getting a colored glass murano-style chandelier, but I was unable to find an affordable one. But I did find a clear glass one. I may hang colored crystals from it to give it a little more pizazz.