More home improvement pictures

The whole reason we've been painting and redoing portions of the house is in preparation for Mom to move in, she's been having some difficulties living alone in her apartment. So in order to give me some peace of mind, and get the house ready for the market (once the economy turns around again) so we can can get what the house is worth, or at least what Nancy paid for it, we've been working our way around the house.

These pictures are of the fully completed (painted) double living rooms. As I mentioned in an earlier post, "P" came over last weekend - the 4th of July - and did the majority of the work in these two rooms. She is a GREAT painter and did a wonderful job! Nancy also did a great job patching two rather big holes in the plaster walls. There's so much trim in these rooms, 4 archways, crown molding, a chair rail, base boards and 4 windows! LOT'S and LOT'S of painters caulk was used!! Prep work, prep work, prep work! You can NEVER do too much prep work when painting out rooms!! Especially in a 100 plus year old house!


This is a shot of the second living room with the new paint color! The top is a terracotta and the bottom is pumpkin-y, and the trim is a sage green. We had the drapes and furniture, which go beautifly with the new colors! We still have to Kirby the area rug that will go in this room and a chair or two of Mom's will go in here too. To the right you can see the "key hole" arch leading in to what will be her bedroom.


I'm standing in the "front" or "first" living room here. You can see the "key hole" arch and on into what will become her bedroom. We will wash down the walls and perhaps repaint the trim in there, but the wallpaper stays. It's difficult to see in this shot but the orange-y reds in the paper really look good against the pumpkin and terracotta walls. I have to find or make a drape that will match to hang in the arch so she has some privacy in her bedroom.


Here's the front room. That love seat will go against the front windows and her green recliner will go in that corner. As you might or might not know, Mom is legally blind and sun and glare bother her terribly. The windows and front door (yep thats a piece of Kathi's stained glass art on the front door!) face east, so the sun comes in the front windows in the morning quite strongly. In the afternoon, the sun is in the west and the house across the street is white so sun reflects off it terribly through the front windows again! So, because the glare from the windows is so strong, in order for to see her TV, it will go opposite her chair, on the southern or driveway side of the house instead of in the front corner like we had it.

Here, I'm standing where her TV will go, next to the arm of the large couch you see in the first picture. This is looking in to the dining room. That's our 20 gallon high goldfish aquarium in the corner.





This shot is taken from inside Mom's bedroom, looking east out into the living rooms. You can also see into the dining room. That little built in houses my Great Grandmothers mantle clock. The chimney runs up through this portion of the wall.




My focus today will be to finish my portion of the downstairs bathroom. I finished texturing the walls with joint compound and I painters caulked all the cracks in the trim work the other day. Today, I'm painting out the ceiling in a light blue and then painting all the walls and trim a light sandy color. After that dries, I'll do a faux technique, wiping on and then off with a darker sandy color. The darker color will seep into the cracks and crevices I made with the joint compound and give an over all stucco, sandstone-y look. You can see the entrance to the bathroom to the left in the shot above. Nancy will then finish out the shower surround next weekend.

After the bathroom is complete, I'll finish up settling my new studio space. Then we'll take a bit of a break from painting while we pack up and move Mom out of her apartment and into our house. We hope to have her moved in by August. In the fall, we'll start painting out our living room (media room) upstairs. After that, it'll be the front hall and stairs (which we'll hire out due to the need of scaffolding and such) then perhaps early spring or even late winter, definitely by next summer -!!- we'll tackle the kitchen! Phew!!

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Copyright © 2008 by Constance Pelkey.

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Thanks!! Connie