Thursday, October 23, 2014

Two Months



It's hard to believe that we've only owned our house for two months. It feels much longer than that but I suppose that's because we first looked at it in May. It wasn't until mid-June that we would know if it was for sale, and at least another month before we were able to do an inspection. 

So although we've only owned our home for two months, we've 'known' her for almost six. 

I forgot to mention in my previous posts that I haven't set foot inside the house since the floor re-finishers began sanding the floors several weeks ago. All of the pictures I've posted on sanded floors are pictures that Mike has taken to 'show' me updates. 

He took the above photo of the center hall stairs while standing outside the front door. If you recall from the initial house tour post, the stair treads had been painted white. 


This is an updated photograph of the downstairs bathroom. I'm happy to have these beautiful wide plank pine floors out from under all that vinyl and plywood. 


The living room (playroom), which is off of the kitchen in the back ell of the house, was also sanded. We opted to include this room in the re-finishing effort because although they were not painted with lead paint, they did have a very dark stain on them. 

More importantly, they were also in rough shape with lots of scratches and animal ware from previous renters. 

But floors have not been at the forefront of our minds this past week. With  the abundance of rain we've had recently, we've had to turn our attention to a new roof for the main house. This was unexpected but I suppose that we are at least happy to have found out before winter. 

So new roof will be installed on the main house next week. Not very exciting but very much comforting to know that we'll be able to weather our first winter free of leaks. 


Thursday, October 16, 2014

New (Old) Floors



Our resourceful floor re-finisher, who is quite passionate about historic floors, has found some new wide plank white pine floor boards for us to use in our kitchen. They have been sitting in storage at a nearby saw mill nearby and were surprisingly affordable. 

While the two bathrooms had the original wide plank flooring beneath the linoleum, the kitchen floors did not. These new wide planks are the next best thing as they are the same wood species (white pine) and similar width as the floor boards throughout the rest of the house. 

They are resting in the kitchen, becoming acclimated to the environment, before they are installed. 

Here are some updates on the floors in the rest of the house. The sanding of the dining room floor is nearly done. 

Just the edges around the perimeter of the room remain. 

The sanding in the west parlor is done. This photo shows the width of some of the original plank floors. 

Here is the north side of that room.

It's hard to believe that one day we will be cozying up to a fire in this room (hopefully by Christmas). 

Here is the north side of the west parlor. 

The east parlor (otherwise referred to as the office) is now also paint free. The downstairs bathroom is just off the office, which has yet to be sanded. 

Here's the north side of the office. 

Things are progressing slowly but surely on the rest of the house. 


Sunday, October 12, 2014

The Downstairs Bathroom - Updates


This is what we started with. So beautiful really, as it was. But the bathtub, sink and toilet all needed to be replaced, as did the flooring. 


Here is the vintage sink and bathtub, from the art deco era. 


There was also a lovely little linen closet which seemed about twenty years old judging by the materials used to construct it. 


The wallpaper was removed first, which came off quite easily. 

Here's the room with just the wallpaper removed. This alone 'updated' the room tremendously - in making it look older and less vintage. 

The toilet, linen closet, sink and flooring followed. 

The bathtub was last due to its weight. 


The linen closet was removed because we are having the original wide plank floors refinished along with the rest of the house. Once those are done, we can begin building the bathroom back up again. 


The bathtub, toilet and sink will all stay in the same places, just replaced with updated fixtures. 

Quite the contrast today. I've found that things often get worse before they get better with renovations, and that is certainly the case here. 

We are in that phase of the renovation where most of the time we have a heap of things on the lawn that are ready to be disposed of. 


Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Floors and Doors



One of the more dominant themes of the last several weeks of our old house renovation has involved doors and floors. What do these two very different house elements have in common? They were both covered with various degrees of lead paint, some of which was in need of repair. 

They are also both considered friction and wear surfaces (as are windows), so they require more attention simply due to the kind of use they endure. 

Thankfully, the other areas in the house (such as walls, crown and most base mouldings) do not sustain much wear at all and are therefore in rather pristine condition considering their age. 

Before we purchased our house, we began making some phone calls (Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Environmental Protection) to better educate ourselves on dealing with lead paint. Through these agencies, I found a non-profit organization that was able to do a lead paint survey on the house. A trained consultant came with a XRF scanner gun that he used to go through the entire house (both inside and out). The key aspect of the XRF scanner is that it senses lead through multiple layers of paint without needing to disturb the paint. He told us where there were traces of lead paint and what the relative levels of lead were in the paint when he found it. For a fee of $200, this was an invaluable investment. 

What we found was that all of the lead-based paint was found exclusively in the main portion of the house. The back ell and barn had none. This was the case for the exterior as well. 

One method of removing lead paint from wood that we found is a soy-based stripper that is applied to the surface, left to sit, and then scraped off. We read a lot about Soy Gel and its success, especially in removing lead based paint. It's a non-toxic formula made from soy and works quite well if you leave it on long enough (about 24 hours in our case). Even the lead abatement specialists were impressed when they saw the floor samples Mike did. 

There are a couple of elements of this method that were not ideal however. First, since we are looking at large areas, we would have ended up with a very large quantity of a gloppy mix of stripper and old paint, and secondly, the stripper needs to be removed from the surface completely and would have required application of a degreaser and lots of scrubbing and rinsing to ensure that the floor finishes would stick.  

We were almost sold on using the Soy Gel until I found a post by Katy Elliot talking about something called a Silent Paint Remover. Upon further research, we ended up ordering one for ourselves and again, were impressed with the results. 


The Silent Paint Remover is an infrared lamp that heats up the wood beneath the paint which causes the paint to release so that you may scrape it off without the risk of creating lead dust. The device only heats to temperatures well below the threshold of concern for lead. As you can see, the Silent Paint Remover was more successful at removing significantly more of the paint than the Soy Gel method.

Mike tested several rooms and found the same result.


The good news is that the Silent Paint Remover really does work quite well. The downside is that it takes a lot of time. If we only had a room or two to do, it would have been the perfect solution, but unfortunately, we had several - nearly 2,000 square feet total to be exact. 

And in the end, there is still paint left on the floor and since we are not repainting the floors but instead refinishing them, sanding the floors is still necessary anyway. We will be using the Silent Paint Remover on the door jambs and other areas that will be repainted.

So we ended up hiring a floor refinisher who is certified to work with lead paint in remodeling and renovation projects. The refinisher also specializes in 19th century wide plank flooring. Among other measures, they seal off each room (and all the nooks and crannies in each room where lead dust could settle) that they are working on, and use certified-HEPA vacuums on the ceiling, walls and all other surfaces. 

When the sanding is complete and the affected space is fully and completely cleaned, a third party will come to test that the lead dust has been fully removed (using lead test swipes). 

We also purchased a Certified HEPA wet/dry vac for our own use on other projects at the house. Government regulations have changed significantly over the last few years regarding HEPA filtration in remodeling and renovation. Look to check that the vac that you are considering purchasing is HEPA-certified,  in which all materials are HEPA-contained upon entering the vac and stay contained until safely deposited into the HEPA bag permanently. Unfortunately, standard shop vacs fitted with after market HEPA-material filters aren't certified (because the filtration comes at the end of the line in the vac and there are ways for particulates to escape before they enter the filter). Certified HEPA vacs are generally of high quality it appears, but with the tradeoff of coming with a higher price tag.


As far as the doors go, I found a local company who was able to remove the paint completely using a steam bath method. The cost of having 100% of the paint removed was about half of what the lead abatement professionals would have charged to reclaim just the narrow strip of the door and the associated jamb where friction could occur.


Here is a close up of the upstairs bathroom door showing the condition of the old paint on the doors. As you can see, we felt removing all of the paint was the best choice. 


The company, which specializes in antique furniture restoration, wrapped each door in blankets before they loaded them onto their truck. 

We sent a total of 28 pieces to be stripped:
16 full size paneled doors 
2 full height but narrow closet doors
1 french entry door
8 small cabinet doors to fireplace mantles 
1 attic hatch door 

Basically, we sent them every door, cabinet or closet door that tested positive for lead paint. 


Today, the doors were returned and they look much better. Above are all of our interior doors, including a french door from the side entrance and several closet doors. They will get a fresh coat of no VOC white paint. 


These are the fireplace cabinet doors. 

As far as the floors go, the floor refinishers are about half way through. Here is one of the rooms upstairs, after the paint has been sanded off. 


Here is the landing. 

And this is the master bedroom. 

As another component to keeping the renovation as clean and healthy as possible, we purchased an IQ Air system that is run after any work is done. Mike leaves it on for 24 hours even though IQ Air operating manuals say that the room's air is completely cycled through (purified) within 20 minutes, depending on the speed that it is set to. 

Once the floors are done, we will feel like we've made enormous progress as it has been a vital component to creating a healthy (and beautiful) home before we move in. 

For stain and top coat, we will be using a green product that I will save for another post. 



Thursday, October 2, 2014

Apple Trees



We have five lovely apple trees on our property. Three of those apple trees run along the drive up to the house. 


The apple tree in the foreground is the oldest of them all, believed to be about 200 years old. It was most likely planted when the house was built. 

There are so many nourishing qualities to an apple tree. Their bright red fruit tell us that Autumn has arrived and soon we will be bundled in wool, sipping hot apple cider and enjoying baked apple goods. 

I also like being in the middle of conversation or playing in the yard with our children and hear an apple fall to the ground with a thud. It makes you pause, even for a second, just to process all that that sound means.

A summer ripened fruit, a turning season, cooler nights, and the coziness to come. 

The apples vary in size and color and I'll have to do some research on what varieties they might be. The arborist that came to the house encouraged us to prune them of all their dead limbs. Over time, they should become much healthier with that alone. 

Image via Pinterest 

So that's what we'll do.  

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