The 3-5 Rule

As tax time draws near and I'm itemizing every receipt for Isthmus House (which is still a rental, friends) I'm reminded of the old adage that if you do work in an old home yourself, it'll probably cost you three times more than you thought and take five times as long. Alternatively, you can pay someone five times more than you thought it would cost and it'll take 3 times as long.

Never has this been truer than with the installation of casings.

After the drywall was installed downstairs and I finished so. many. patches., we had pretty walls but they looked patently unfinished.

To fix this, it was time for casings.

I'm obsessed with old woodwork but, sadly, Isthmus House doesn't have a ton of its original trim left. What was left was staying right where it was so I only had two options left: find salvaged trim to match or have trim made to match the existing. Since four and a quarter inch casings weren't coming up on Craigslist, I really only had the option of having trim custom cut.

It's true that custom millwork isn't inexpensive, but it's worth every dime to have cohesive trim throughout the house.

Once all several hundred feet were delivered, I had some painting to do. So. much. painting.

I could paint 5-6 pieces of casing at a time and every piece needed at least 2 coats of paint before they could be installed.

Needless to say, this was a bit of a long process but I got it done within a few days.

Each individual piece had to be cut perfectly to size and pieced together. With the walls being at least a bit wavy, I didn't feel that my carpentry skills were good enough for the perfect copes necessary for this trim installation so I called in my carpenter. That's where the five times as much money part and at least three times as long rule came in.

Each nail hole then had to be filled with a paintable putty, sanded down (I used the finest steel wool), wiped down and then repainted over.

The casings made the rooms look much more complete just in time for our Christmas party.

Now if only I could have baseboards, too...

A twist in the story - two units become one

The family has come and is on their way back to Detroit and the Isthmus House is looking better! I didn’t have a spare minute to write on here so thanks for your patience and get ready for a shower of posts this week (small pun unintended).

The bathroom is still in progress. I know, it’s a little bit of a teaser right now, but I promise it’ll be worth it. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway!

Something that was done this week though is… drumroll please… the downstairs living room/porch!

Now, if you’ve been reading to this point, you know that the porch was my bedroom.  That's changed and I’m making Isthmus House a single-family home now instead of in a year. If you’re wondering why, well, I have plenty of reasons.

#1 - I’m an introvert (true story!) who likes just a little of her own space – and who doesn’t like a little more living space for everyone?

#2 - the cost to make the porch private enough for a bedroom was roughly equivalent to a month’s rent from the upstairs unit. Broken down over the year, it wasn’t a big difference financially to just rent out the remaining bedroom instead.

#3 - We’re going to have to renovate the kitchen in the next 6 months to a year and it’s a major hassle to not have a kitchen – and I doubt The Roommate would appreciate that much. This way, we can use the upstairs kitchen during that time!

There are other reasons, but I won’t bore you with them all. Getting back to the point, I moved upstairs so the porch is now open except for my box spring that was not going up those stairs without being sawed in half. That might be a project for this weekend but we’ll see.

With the shared space now being more important, the living room also got a face lift. First, my little sister, Laura, dad and I replaced the ceiling fan with minimal cursing and throwing of things like brackets (I’ll take credit for both). Fancy, no? It even has a remote!

 My dad pretty much finished the rest himself. He’s incredible – especially with joint compound, a putty knife and some paint – and he really wanted the living room done this weekend.

While the extra light switch, vent and thermostat where nice, open doorways with casings belonged were problematic, the bigger issue was the severe damage. As I suspected in my last post where I pulled off the paneling, the damage from the paneling or that it covered on the walls was pretty bad.

Around a vent, we found smoke damage. That's not surprising since my neighbors told me there was a dryer fire about 18 months ago but it would have been good to know before I signed on the dotted line. The original baseboards were apparently ripped off, taking large amounts of plaster with them and there were large cracks elsewhere.

On the bright side, we also figured out when the paneling was put up – somewhere around November 1963 – the oldest piece of mail we found behind it! I loved getting a little glimpse into some of what Isthmus House held before this.

After about twelve hours of spackling, taping, patching and sanding he got them to the point where they could be painted for the time being. It’s not quite irreparable - it'll just take lots of time and sanding - but my dad took it most of the way and they certainly look good enough for now. Check out the new “delicate pearl” color. It’s so much lighter and brighter than the paneling and navy and it’s still just temporary!

Isthmus House is coming along – slowly but surely – and my family’s trip was a super productive, much appreciated step along the way! Stay tuned for more on what the family accomplished while they were here!

Off with the walls! Or at least the paneling...

As many of you know from our guest blogger (Mom, aka Sita) on Sunday, my family is on their way into town to give me a hand around the house so I'm taking the rest of this week off starting today. Since my circular saw decided not to work as soon as I started the day's initial project, I began pulling the paneling off the walls of Isthmus House's downstairs living room instead. More on the downstairs bathroom tomorrow!

To be fair, the paneling in the living room wasn’t dreadful. It’s just dark in a room that only has one small window. Here’s what it looked like before I got started.

The wood was pretty easy to pull since it was just nailed in to wood slats attached to the plaster. I tried to save as many pieces with both the tongue and groove as possible but only salvaged a few. Behind the paneling was dust. Not mold! But, holy cow, a lot of dust.

Interestingly, it looks like the top portion of the wall was white at one point, then lime green, then white again and now, of course, navy blue. I have to wonder how it did with the lime but I suppose it would have been lighter and brighter than navy. The bottom color is a kind of pinky beige.

 

I vacuumed as much of the dust off as I could, but the room will definitely need a good scrubbing in the next couple of days before anything else happens.

Here’s what I’ve got now that the paneling’s down. You can see exactly where the baseboards used to be (the dark area). I wonder if they were ever painted.

Since the family's around, it seems like a good time to consider adding beadboard or a panel wainscoting all the way around the room in white – what color do you think the top portion should be? Leave me a comment - we're probably going paint shopping tomorrow!