K-K - 100% of the trim in the house is painted the same charcoal grey. The wood itself appears to be paint grade softwood with lots of dings and unpatched holes (why paint before patching is a real mystery to me ?). Personally I wouldn't have chosen quite so dark a grey. Since it's here I can deal with it and treat it as a neutral given. Originally the main floor floors were also painted this same grey which felt pretty dark, esp. in the north facing garnet-walled dining room.
The plumber is supposed to come by tomorrow p.m. to have a look. I am afraid a)what he will see and b) how much correction and improvement will cost and c) what is possible.
The walls and ceiling in the bathroom were the worst in the house. The seller seemed to have freshly painted all the rooms, probably with a sprayer. The wall by the tub had paint that scraped off easily - like big sheets of it sheared right off with a scraper right down to the calcimine layer. I wish I could have seen the beforeBEFORE the PO did whatever he did to the house. I didn't encounter soap film - that may have been locked under the wall color though. There was a really cheap shower which looked well used in the powder room right off the the kitchen, so the PO may not have been a bath-taker ? It made the tiny room so claustrophobic. I pestered the furnace dude to take it out for some extra cash before I moved it - I hated it so much.
I think the seller got married about 6 months before the house was listed, and I suspect he was living at his wife's place. The guy who owns the business next door did tell me that he never cut his lawn, etc., and just before the house was listed there was DAYS of hacking away at all the overgrown stuff in the yard. I think the PO and his wife worked really hard to make the house look as good as possible, and the owner never lived in it like this ? He owned it from 2007 - 2016, and the person before that bought it in 1974 for $ 14,500 and lived here until 2007. I'd sure like to know who did what, though.
Jane Powell's (author of Bungalow Bathrooms and Bungalow Kitchens) "Linoleum" is a nice coffee table book on the history of sheet flooring, including linoleum. Genuine linoleum(mixture of cork, linseed oil and pigment) has been around since the late Victorian period. Right now I think the renovation mania has really upsold people expensive finishes for their homes, which may or may not be an improvement over "lesser" products like formica and sheet flooring. I grew up in a late 50's house with fancy period lino type flooring with opalescent and glitter patterns, that my mother kept polished to a high shine. I wish there were products available today that looked as nice.
https://www.amazon.com/Linoleum-Jane-Po ... l+linoleum
