Goodbye Creepy Children (The Hallway, Phase 1)

With the end of summer in sight, we decided to try and tackle one more big project before heading back to work.  One of biggest projects we still have to complete in this house is definitely the hallway.  It begins with the foyer and front stairs, includes what we refer to as "the landing" at the top of the stairs, then continues down the upstairs hall and down the back stairs.  Its massive.  And the whole thing is wallpapered.

 

 

 

 

That's a whole lotta wallpaper! Creepy children wallpaper, to be exact! Its one of those things that you either love, or hate, and i can't say that either of us love it. 

"Girl Swings While Pondering Life"

"Boy Courts Girl With Clarinet"

"Ring Around the Rosie to the Sounds of Banjo Boy"

Although lots of people walk into the house and tell us how much they love it, it's just not our style.  But stripping all of that wallpaper is a big undertaking! So, we have decided to break it into three phases.  We are hoping to have the front hall and stairwell done before heading back to work.  Phase two will be the back stairs and upper hallway, and phase three will be the landing, since redoing the bookshelves will require a lot of work.  The final thing will be removing the red carpet on the stairs.  That way we can protect whatever is underneath while doing all this work.

So last weekend, Jeremy felt the wallpaper itch and started stripping the front hall.  Believe it or not, it came down in full sheets, and in about one hour we had the foyer and stairwell completely stripped back to the plaster and drywall.

 

 

Things were going great until we got to the very top of the stairwell, where we uncovered some unexpected water damage and mould. YIKES!

 

 

After having the roof inspected and repaired, we were able to carefully remove the crown molding, cut out the old drywall and replace it with a new sheet.

We have now been starting to patch and repair all of the damage which will be a fairly lengthy process.  Our goal is to have it completed by the end of the long weekend.  Just in time to return to work!

Round Room Reveal

It's finally done!  This bedroom has been our interior summer project, and has taken us about two months to complete.  It feels great to finally have it done, and to walk into this room and see what we have accomplished.  What a great feeling!

Aside from our closet, this was the first room that we tackled on the upper level.  We chose to start here because we will be having a home inspection done soon for our adoption, and we wanted to have a complete space that could function as our future child's bedroom.  What a great child's bedroom this will be!

Here is what we started with when we first purchased the house.  There was very tropical wallpaper, red velvet drapes, laminate flooring and mirrored closet doors.

Once the wallpaper was down and the laminate floors were torn up to reveal the hardwood underneath, we began fixing the plaster walls and priming everything.  

I was able to use some of the hardwood that we removed from the closet to patch some damaged areas, as well as the holes from where the old radiators would have once stood.

Although there was only one layer of wallpaper, some of the previous paint colours that we uncovered were pretty wild.  

I can't imagine what this room would look like with teal trim and peach walls!

And finally, with everything painted, the floors sanded and sealed and new closet doors that Jeremy built, here is how the round room looks now:

We don't have much in the front half of the room for art or furniture, but at least it's ready and waiting to become our future child's playroom.

And that's one more room down, with many more to go.

The Writing on the Wall

Although we've been spending a lot of time working outside this summer, we also have an indoor project on the go as well.  A few weeks ago, Jeremy started stripping the wallpaper in the front bedroom, or the "round room" as we call it because of the rounded wall.

Now that we are well into the adoption process, we want to make sure that we have a room ready for our future child.  This is the largest of our three spare bedrooms, and a favourite of most people who come to visit (my mom claimed it as hers the first time she came to see the house).  It's actually two rooms, divided by a set of French doors.  

 

When we moved in, the room had red velvet drapes, wild and tropical wallpaper, laminate flooring and mirrored closet doors.  There was also no ceiling light in the room, just an odd track light above the closet.

Jeremy started stripping the wallpaper one day while I was at work, and I came home to a great surprise.  The room seems so much bigger with the large pattern on the walls gone.  The more we looked at it though, the more we wondered about the laminate floors.  Almost everywhere else in the house has hardwood, so we couldn't figure out why this one room would have laminate.  After much debate, we decided to start gently lifting them.  If we found something horrible, we could always put them back...maybe?

Thankfully, there was hardwood underneath!  The floors in the front half of the room are beautiful and shiny. 

Unfortunately the floors in the other half of the room need some work, but we will do our best to patch and repair them, and fill the empty square in the middle with inlaid carpet.

With all of the wallpaper finally down and the laminate out of the room, we started sanding the walls to remove the glue and small bits of paper that were left.  And that's when we found the writing on the wall.

Written next to the door is "Susie & Jennifer were the last to see this wall before the paper went on.  

-Sunday March 1, 1909"

What an awesome find! I've done some research to see if the Courtice family had any children or grandchildren named Susie or Jennifer, but haven't been able to find any links yet.  

After a few days of sanding and filling, we're just about ready to start priming the walls.  It will be a shame to paint over the writing, but we know the plaster will just crumble if we try to cut it out.  I guess a picture and post on this blog will have to do!

We will be spending some time over the next few weeks working on the floors and I'm hoping to somehow update the mirrored closet doors.  Hopefully it will all come together over the next few weeks, before we head back to work.

Fencing in the Yard

One of the biggest projects we have been wanting to do since we moved in is installing the wrought iron fence that we purchased last spring.  We bought it second hand, for $25 a panel. What a deal!

We initially planned on installing it last summer, right after we moved in.  It didn't take us long to realize, however, that the old retaining wall where we wanted to put it wasn't in the best shape.

We hadn't originally planned on doing anything to this wall, but we knew that before we could begin any other projects in this part of the yard, it would have to be replaced.  We spent a lot of time looking at other people's retaining walls, and checking out different types of rock, both natural and man made.  After much consideration we finally settled on the Quebec bluestone that we had installed last fall.

So with a proper retaining wall in place, we were finally ready to install our fence.  Using our hammer drill and a masonry bit, we drilled into the rock and used wedge anchors to anchor the fence down.

With the fence up, we were then able to start building the arbour and lattice privacy panels to fill in the space between the wall and our house.  As always, we went to Pinterest in search of some design inspiration. We found two arbours that we really liked and used aspects of both of them in our design.

www.town-n-country-living.com

www.houzz.com

So after a week of fence installing and arbour building, here is our (mostly) finished project:

We still have a few things left to do, like cut off the fence posts and install caps, landscape in front of the lattice screen and stain it all black to match the fence.  But we are thrilled with how it has turned out, and the dog is enjoying some freedom in the yard now that he doesn't have to be tied up.

 

With Some Spring in Our Step

Now that spring has finally arrived, we've been busy trying to keep up with the weeds, flowers and shrubs that are all coming out in full force.  This is our first spring in this house, and although we came to wander through the yard a few times last year, it was amazing to watch as all of the bulbs and the Magnolias came out in full bloom.

This weekend, the crab apples have been putting on a spectacular show for us while we've been working in almost every section of the yard.  We've been pulling our more overgrown shrubs and filling in some spots where we removed gardens last year.  I also started another rock project in the front garden, to make the front match the side wall that we had installed last fall.  

We have a pretty long list of projects that we'd like to accomplish this summer, with the front porch and car port being at the top of the list.  It will be a big job, but once it's done, it will really change the look of the house.  

After months of looking, we also found some antique shutters that are the perfect size for our windows.  We will hopefully have them within a few weeks, at which time we will be able to replace some of the broken and mis-matched shutters that are currently on the house.  

But for now, we are going to enjoy a day of rest and relaxation tomorrow after working hard this weekend. Happy Victoria Day!