What I did at my house today...

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Corsetière
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Re: What I did at my house today...

Post by Corsetière »

Manalto wrote:
You're being far too kind. I'm convinced that that purple color - and the color of the walls - is a good part of the reason this house sat on the market as long as it did.


Exactly! I am sure it worked in your favor! lol!

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awomanwithahammer
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Re: What I did at my house today...

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Corsetière wrote:Well it was a very special weekend! I finished up abatement in the dining room and so I am down to just one room and the entire first floor will be done (except for the final cleaning just before the risk assessor arrives). Get 'er done!

It was also very exciting to caulk the windows (most of my window are replacement windows) before painting and to remove the contractor paper "curtains" that I have been living with for 2 years! LOL! Things are getting positively luxurious around here!

:eusa-clap: That's wonderful, Corsetiere! Light at the end of a tunnel that isn't a train!
Bonnie

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Gothichome
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Re: What I did at my house today...

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Great news Corcetiere, pretty soon you just might be able to change from your working coveralls to formal coveralls suitable for excepting guests.

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Corsetière
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Re: What I did at my house today...

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Gothichome wrote:Great news Corcetiere, pretty soon you just might be able to change from your working coveralls to formal coveralls suitable for excepting guests.



lol! Thanks, guys! Glamorous!

I think I just have 2 door casings and 2 doors to paint and then I will done with the first floor (until Spring when I will need to strip the front and back doors).

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Willa
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Re: What I did at my house today...

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Corsetière wrote:I think I just have 2 door casings and 2 doors to paint and then I will done with the first floor (until Spring when I will need to strip the front and back doors).


You are making excellent progress.

Have you painted with a color or is primer considered sufficient for abatement purposes ? What products are you using ?

Painting is such a labour intensive task but the results are easy to see at least. How does all this hard work feel, now that you have powered through ?

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Corsetière
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Re: What I did at my house today...

Post by Corsetière »

Willa wrote:
Corsetière wrote:I think I just have 2 door casings and 2 doors to paint and then I will done with the first floor (until Spring when I will need to strip the front and back doors).


You are making excellent progress.

Have you painted with a color or is primer considered sufficient for abatement purposes ? What products are you using ?

Painting is such a labour intensive task but the results are easy to see at least. How does all this hard work feel, now that you have powered through ?



Thanks, Willa! I feel a lot better now that I have one floor pretty much knocked off my list!

I am just painting pretty much all the trim with a regular white latex paint for now. Anything that tested positive for lead and is a "non-friction surface" is ok to just "paint stabilize", so all the baseboards, window and door casings, mantels, etc are all ok to just paint. A few friction surfaces( door jambs) tested positive for lead so I have to strip those particular ones. I have one jamb (of 5 done) and so I have my technique down pat now. I am applying Piranha NexStrip 8 with a putty knife, covering it in plastic, waiting an hour, and then the paint comes right off. :lol:

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Corsetière
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Re: What I did at my house today...

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I also am down to only 6 contractor bags of trash in my garage to get rid of! It's a miracle! I thought I would never see the day!

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Gothichome
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Re: What I did at my house today...

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Sneaking them out to the curb on garbage days, one at a time? No need to comment if you think the garbagemen secret service are monitoring you. :character-blues:

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Manalto
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Re: What I did at my house today...

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Today I made a run up to Easton, Massachusetts to see a Chambers B (1939-1946) stove for possible relocation to Alabama. The seller warned me it needed work, but I found the price ($200) for a Chambers seductive, and it looked OK in the photos:

ImageChambers stove by James McInnis, on Flickr

However, there wound up being enough wrong with it (too much cosmetic damage, broken hinge, missing pieces) that I passed, even though he lowered the price to a hundred. Next stop, Wellesley (MA) to see a Magee stove from the 20s, a freebee. Multiple reasons for passing on this one too, including a steep piece of property up which the stove would need to be hauled - with no assistance. After looking at - and having - multiple stoves, I'm moving more in the direction of the earlier models on legs (late teens to late 20s, more or less). The Glenwood DeLuxe is my holy grail:

ImageGlenwood DeLuxe stove by James McInnis, on Flickr

A stove guy told me that the horizontally-opening doors on the Glenwood assure that they close with a tight seal, unlike the drop-down doors (the style we see in modern stoves) which tend to get "tired" and loose. I passed on a Glenwood DeLuxe several months ago, thinking $700 was a bit too steep. I still think so.

Upon my arrival home today, I decided to finally download the photos I had taken before leaving Alabama. Herewith, a few:

The plant supplier I had bought my sabal palm (visible in the distance, with bracing) from came down with the flu, so I told her I'd wait until spring to buy the shrubs I had requested. Two days before I had planned to leave, she called and, to my surprise, told me my plants were in. I could have said, "But I told you..." but decided the plants would do better coming out of winter than going into summer (with no one there to water them), so I scrambled to clear grass, weeds, stubborn stumps, and a morass of roots to prepare for the foundation plants:

Image085 by James McInnis, on Flickr

The shrubs flanking the stairs are Pittosporum tobira 'Glen St. Mary', a selection that stays smaller than the species. In front of the ADT sign (and on the other corner of the house, are boxwoods. These shrubs may seem pitifully small, but there is method to my madness. Container plants only have root systems as large as the pots they're in, so I've found through experience that 3 gallon root systems can support the top growth of the plant, where larger container plants require diligent watering until a root system large enough to support the plant develops. Often I've seen 3-gallon plants outgrow their previously-larger neighbors because the homeowner wasn't religious about watering. Since I was leaving these plants to their own devices, 3 gallon was the way to go. (The tiny plant right against the house, tucked into the corner of the stairs, is my Christmas poinsettia. It's an experiment to see if it will survive.) I intend to do more planting at the foundation, including a Hollywood Juniper (Juniperus chinensis 'Kaizuka') at the far corner of the house, where the bed bumps out a little in the above photo. I like the loose, loopy form of this tree against the boxy house.

Imagehollywood-juniper-1 by James McInnis, on Flickr


As I've mentioned before, the plantings around the house had been neglected for many years, so there was a great deal of cleaning-up to do. Here are before and after photos of the removal of volunteer trees under the live oak, which sits close to the south property line:

ImageLive oak Chickasaw by James McInnis, on Flickr


Image036 by James McInnis, on Flickr

Since the 'after' photo was taken, I have replaced the chaotic snarl of vegetation with some (dinky, 3-gallon) shrubs along the property line. These shrubs will stay relatively low and won't interfere with the form of the oak. The shrub that in this photo blocks the view of the house across the street is a lowly ligustrum (privet) which will be 86'd once the other shrubs get some size on them. I thought I'd feel a little too exposed if I removed it, too.

My neighbors' house, I think we can agree, looks a bit shabby. They're a couple with three young girls, including a 2 year-old, so they probably don't have a whole lot of free time for home renovations. I thought it was interesting, though, that the husband/father made it a point to tell me his intentions regarding improvements. He even called my arborist to have the branches of the oak trimmed from his roof. I'm telling you, when you start fixing things up, it's contagious!
Last edited by Manalto on Thu Feb 01, 2018 12:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

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awomanwithahammer
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Re: What I did at my house today...

Post by awomanwithahammer »

Very nice, James; I envy you your green thumb. It's going to be beautiful in a few years. Are you planning to move down there any time soon?
Bonnie

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