A New Old House

[Nicholas]

On the sloped ceiling rooms, I would go with a much lighter pale color, and either do the whole room ceiling included, or just make the flat horizontal part of the ceiling white, so that there is a fine line between the lighter color and the ceiling. In the narrow room with the slopes you could also do the border decoration at the top before slope to match the gingerbread look of the house, this could also work if the room is one color.

[Willa]

Nicholas: I looked online about how to paint sloped ceilings and the consensus seemed to be to paint the ceiling the same color as the walls or else the result will be some odd planes that make the ceiling look lower. The small green bedroom has the strangest planes and angles so I may have to agree with the professional advice. The bathroom only has one odd angle so I think I will paint that ceiling a much lighter color. The light fixture in there is a faux antique that points the light upwards at the ceiling. This only accentuates the bad plaster repairs and the chocolate milk color seems to absorb light. The light is also over and behind my head, so this is not ideal for doing makeup, either.

I have an odd little window in the stair well. It is like a pocket door and slides up inside the wall when it is open. When I viewed the house it was late summer and the windows were open, so I had no idea that this window was curved or had decorative carving. The bad news is that someone used silicone caulking as glazing, so I will need to remedy that.

I'm also posting a pic of the typical plaster repairs found here. It was very difficult the capture the scraped off paint surfaces, the textured wallpaper remnants and the blobs of bulging plaster. I am going to start my repairs in the stairwell. You can see I was not exaggerating the intense color. The kindest comparison might be butternut squash puree. While I like this as a food, I will be relieved to not live with this as a paint color.

StairWindow.jpg (45.01 KiB) Viewed 555 times

StairLumpyWall.jpg (11.64 KiB) Viewed 555 times

[Mick_VT]

For what its worth I don't think the yellow is all that bad, but I dont like it with that trim and having it on the ceilings too (as seen in some of your other pic) makes it all the more intense.

[Willa]

It's really intense. In the right context it might be fine but it makes the stairwell quite dark, and the dark grey looks a little purple beside it ? The stairs and trim are painted the same dark grey.

There is a hanging light fixture with a single bulb in the stairwell. The wall color doesn't look great during the day or in the evening with the light. It will feel nice to make that little window the focal point as opposed to uneasy feelings about the lumpy, cracked walls and oppressive color dominating.

[heartwood]

WELCOME WILLA!
I know you will find this a comfortable place to share and ask questions without hesitation...
my favorite part of you new house is the exterior, really sweet!
...jade

[Willa]

Thanks so much Jade. I'll have all winter to think about exterior paint colors, and where to put them.

Before I moved in I had the floors sanded in the three main rooms on the main floor. I did lots of reading about different finishes, and shellac was the winner. I called several floor finishers, but none offered shellac as a finish. One guy told me that using shellac was probably against the law, due to the VOC's. I did find one operation that was willing to do the stripping and sanding, but would leave the floor bare as per my instructions. I ordered flake shellac and alcohol from a place in Toronto, Goudey's. A friend helped me apply three coats, using brushes. I used a thin 1lb cut to start, then did two - three coats of 2.5 - 3 lb cuts. I let it dry for 48 hours then applied paste wax. Then I covered it up with paper, so the movers wouldn't damage the new floor, especially if it was raining or snowing.

I've been in the house for under two weeks, and I am still unpacking. My floors are still under paper but they will feel like a reward when I can see them again.

Initially I had thought that I would sand the floors myself, but time and other concerns made that a difficult proposition. The floors had at least two thick coats of paint and some sort of gummy flooring adhesive under that in parts. They also had a lot of dents and gouges. The floor sanders were done within two work days. I won't regret not doing this myself, as this would have taken me several hard days to accomplish myself. I was very surprised that the wood underneath was so nice.

This is how the floors looked freshly sanded:

ltfloorsanded.jpg (13.52 KiB) Viewed 546 times

sanded.jpg (13.52 KiB) Viewed 546 times

Then with the last coats of shellac with wax on top (not buffed - my buffer pads needed replacing):

lastcoat2.jpg (12.62 KiB) Viewed 546 times

lastcoat.jpg (11.53 KiB) Viewed 546 times

[Eperot]

I really love the house. It's very cute (I have a thing for small houses).

"The full bath upstairs has the original clawfoot tub, but a cheap little new sink. The room is oddly large. "

Any chance it was at one point another bedroom? Judging by the age i'd say a high chance you pre-date bathrooms.
Sometimes retrofitting a bath into a house meant losing one of the smaller bedrooms.

[Willa]

Eperot: Thanks you so much. I'm not too big on cuteness, but for a small house this seemed very complete, somehow ?

I also wondered if the bathroom was once a bedroom ? I looked at other houses of a similar age in this neighborhood, and many had old clawfoot tubs. Since this house has many features that the others didn't - like many transoms, extra trim, fancy corbels, etc. on the exterior, I expect that it had all the latest in up to date features, including indoor plumbing. There is a room on the main floor, not shown in the realtor's pics. I wondered if it may have been the original bathroom ? This room has quite a long L - shaped closet that goes under the stairs. The two bedrooms upstairs both have closets but the bathroom does not. The bathroom also has a smaller, higher window that would be consistent with a bathroom. From the layout of the bathroom, the only place where a closet may have been would be where the bathtub is now - and this would make a very shallow closet, and quite a tiny room.

The previous owner before the last owner seems to have done some updating, including some plumbing. Having a bathroom upstairs by the bedrooms would be preferable. However, given the frugality of what was done I have a hard time imagining that they had such extensive plumbing done including moving a clawfoot tub up a flight of stairs ?

The bathroom has a lot of space in the middle of the room, but without ripping up the floor I can't begin to guess at where things might have originally been located ? Some houses of this style and age had banks of built in cabinets to make use of the sloped ceilings and the awkward space below. There may have been a wall of drawers or a small built in where the tub is now, with the sink, toilet and bathtub in logical places with regards to this ? As it is now the open space in the middle of the room is good for a large decorator mat or small rug but not much else ?

I spotted a house that appeared even more intact than this one a few blocks away. The house next door to it was for sale, but had a difficult seller. If the more intact house ever gets listed I will be the first at the open house to see what answers it may provide with regards to the layout ? It looked like it had everything, right down to the early 20th century address numbers (swoon).

[Lily left the valley]

Open Houses really can be an amazing resource of information about old homes. I used to think the attendees were mostly looky lous and nosey neighbors, but I know better now.

I like smaller but specifically well planned homes. I love a lot of details about your home.

I actually wonder if some of that extra plaster, as it were, was done intentionally. I've seen that in some homes, where it's done as part of the shabby chic or forced texture to imply age-old (regardless of whether it needs to be made to look older because it already is old). I'm thinking due to the color choices, it might be the latter, and not just shoddy work.

I never cease to be amazed at what some folks do intentionally that most folks would find poor craft.

[Willa]

Lily, there is no way that the bad plaster is anyone's intentional folly. I can see where drywall has been badly patched in, maybe when they updated the electrical ? Also loads of mesh tape pattern, cracks, holes, gouges, dings, lumps, textured smears and some paint flaking away around the perimeter of the kitchen ceiling due to calcimine paint below.

The realtor had a heavy hand trying to style it rustic Parisian but the sad plaster is authentically decrepit. The previous owner spent a great deal of time painting all of the rooms, including all of the trim in contrasting colors. It seems very odd to me that none of the most easy to fix cracks and holes were filled ? The mysteries of these houses.