Introducing "Pumpkin's Castle"

[TechieTechie]

Jen, what a beautiful home you have bought. And with a nice suburban lot. I don’t see off hand any thing that needs redoing right away, just move in and enjoy. I have no need to mention the ‘give it time’ mantra before major projects. It looks like your In a bit of an upscale part of town, so it should be nice and quiet. I look forward to seeing what you will do in the house, if it’s any thing like your efforts on Smellyhouse, it will be a very lucky home indeed.

Thank you. The funny thing with Smelly, is that I never got around to rebuilding it because I travelled every week. But with the hot real estate market (and the fabulous lot), well, let's just say all the smell was worth it

I want to do the electric, crown moulding stripping before I move in, because it will impact the painting. And of course, the floors, since it creates so much dust. But I'm 99% sure I'm going to hold off on the doorway. I realized, once I started to lay out the LR furniture, that if I added the doorway, I would only have about 10 feet of actual wall space in the LR...everything else is be window, small spaces, or door/doorways. Not to mention that both rooms are fairly sunny, so they don't need a pass thru for lighting purposes. Plus, then I can put an upright piano in the DR Only downsides are a slightly longer trip from the LR to the Kitchen and I can't sit in the LR and throw Pumpkin's ball into the DR. But the LR is 23 feet long, so I think we have some decent toy wrestling room

A bigger bonus? Found out yesterday there is hardwood floors under the carpet it the attic (and not just subfloor, actual 2" HWF).

And, one of the things that worried me most about a kitchen renovation is either matching or losing the beautiful built-in that is currently in the breakfast room. And, an idea popped into my head last night...I want to explore if I can remove it and build a cabinet for it....so that it could become a standalone sideboard in the DR. It will fit perfectly between the door to the foyer and the swinging door (which I think may not be shown) to the newly expanded kitchen. That way, I can better utilize that space without giving up on the charm (I LOVE that built in).

It is on a nice residential street. I like my rental house as it looks out over the large yard/mini park of the local elementary school (plenty of running space for Pumpkin). Bad part is that I hear the snowblowers and plows going off at 5:30a many, many mornings. I am only moving a mile away, so I look forward to using the park without the M-F winter alarm clock!

[TechieTechie]

Techie, a closer look of the posted pic indicates the previous owners rebuild the top of the chimney and I suspect reclined the flew, also the lead roof over the gable window looks in pretty good nick. The roof, it looks like slate or an architectural shingle, looks perfect for the home. It’s has had proper maintenance over the years. And that’s a big bonus with an old home as you know.

Yep, the previous owners took GREAT care of this house. One the reasons I pounced on it. The roof is slate and it's been regularly maintained. There are 2 valleys that could use some work, but otherwise, it's in fantastic shape....but not remuddled....hard combination to come by. Even the vast majority of the electric was done correctly. And the security system they put in (not really necessary, but hey) is unbelievably good. Part of me likes the more classic tudor style that is VERY common here (see below), but then again, how many folks can boast about living in a castle?

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1831 ... 1676_zpid/

It needs a bit of pop on the front, so these will be hung off the 2nd floor windows (the brackets are already there) very shortly. https://www.target.com/p/plow-hearth-en ... A-76170108

[Manalto]

The link to google drive at the bottom of the original post that says "more pics here"...

Thanks! It is indeed a really elegant bathroom; the color is calm and soothing. And i agree with the others that it's a great house.

[Gothichome]

Jen, you know you will need a tall antique radio with overly stuffed chairs on either side facing it and start hunting for jadite canisters now.

[TechieTechie]

Jen, you know you will need a tall antique radio with overly stuffed chairs on either side facing it and start hunting for jadite canisters now.

The overly stuffed chairs, absolutely. But first I need some breathing room. I forgot, this house is 3x the size of my previous homes. So the electrical, flooring and painting estimates are a bit higher than I expected

The pretty stuff will likely have to wait awhile

[Gothichome]

Jen, you know you will need a tall antique radio with overly stuffed chairs on either side facing it and start hunting for jadite canisters now.

The overly stuffed chairs, absolutely. But first I need some breathing room. I forgot, this house is 3x the size of my previous homes. So the electrical, flooring and painting estimates are a bit higher than I expected

The pretty stuff will likely have to wait awhile

[TechieTechie]

So, here's the first 'challenge'.

The window casing and baseboards in the public areas are beautifully stained/shellaced. The 4 inch crown mouldings are painted. I wanted to strip a test patch....to see if the mouldings were originally finished with shellac. So, out comes the Silent paint stripper (which doesn't work as well on such curved trim). Anyways, no shellac....it's paint over raw wood.

I'm going to get a bit of stain tomorrow for a test patch, but does anyone have real life experience? Am I going to be able to get all the paint out of the grain such that I can stain/shellac the mouldings?

The other question is, how hard is it to remove the moldings and send them off for professional stripping/refinishing (and the re-installation) There is a place in town that supposedly does very good work. I will be painting the walls/ceilings of those 3 rooms, so I have the opportunity to remove any paint buildup at the seams. I know the trick regarding numbering the backs (I may have to buy a woodburning kit...we have our table leaves numbered and it's SO easy to put them together) but any other recommendations are appreciated.

Thx

[Gothichome]

Jenn if the crown molding was not sealed I would suggest they were always meant to be painted. Getting the paint out of the grain would an exercise in futility I can see why your thinking removal for stripping The issue I see with removing is the damage it may cause to your nice plaster walls. As you have experienced in the past the nails never come out cleanly and tend to leave larger holes in plaster. East fix , yes, but there is the risk of greater damage, more than a simple daub of poly filler and a light sand.

[phil]

there is no way I'd try to strip the crown molding in place since that would present horrible ergonomics. I'd remove it , clean it finish it then put it back but by the time you do that you could also compare the cost of cutting a new one. if it's not too complicated or huge then maybe that would be practical and faster.. Maybe another way is to try your hand at Faux wood-graining?

mine had a added crown and I just removed it all and I used corner bead to get the crisp corners back as I re-drywalled. Your house being more like a palace might be worthy of more. I figured mine never had one so It's gone.

I usually pull any trim I have and strip it in the basement but I'm not breaking too many speed records. I just would rather work on things on a table if I have that option. I just putty the nail holes and when I reinstall I use pretty small nails and not too much damage to fill. I predrill any holes so they aren't splitting the dried out old pieces.

when I rewired my house myself I fished in all the wires and really didnt do much plaster damage but later as I went room by room I opened so many walls or drywaled over plaster that I could have simply done more damage and less wire fishing but I guess a lot of that depends on how much plasterwork you want to preserve. If you plan to rewire and add double the number of outlets then you might think where they will go. I had lots in baseboards so I moved them all above the baseboards and repaired the holes in the baseboards mostly by making joints where I needed to , that left me with all the outlets in the walls rather than cutting a bunch more holes in the baseboards in an effort to provide a modern and practical number of receptacles per room. a fast way is just to bop holes in where you want access and repair that after but if you are in a situation where you dont want to cause plaster damage you can use a more gentle approach. I replaced all my electrical boxes so when I had it inspected it was all new parts. Perhaps the boxes themselves can be re-used if that's your best option.
i found if I pulled the box right out I could then drill up or down through the framing with a super long bendy drill bit then fish it in. faster to make a big hole. normally there is a rule the wire is fastened about once every 3 feet and that makes sense when the wall is open. If you fish a wire in then you can't be there to staple it every 3 feet, and the inspector didn't seem concerned about how it was fastened inside the wall. he did pay attention to the number of wires in each box and the size of the boxes, as there is some code that pertains to that. If you daisy chain from one box to the next and want ot stray off to a third box and have 3 wires entering then you need boxes that are sized appropriately to meet code. they count the wires and the wire nuts each as a wire. there is a table that specifies the details in the code book which may vary from Canada to the US..
some of the boxes cant; be installed without the wall being open since they are intended to be nailed to the studs from the outside of the box. most of the ones I used I was able to attach from inside the box with wood screws. that way you can replace the box without damaging the surrounding wall area. there is quite a variety of boxes so I'd select those carefully. I didn't choose the plastic ones but they might be common and once the thing is assembled and the cover plate is on you can't tell.

I can relate to how doing the electrical and then the wall repairs before move in might be a lot easier than the way I did it. I kept the old system live with an ever decreasing number of usable outlets until I could switch the system over. by the end I had a lot of extension cords running stuff as I had replaced a lot of the old plugs with new but used the previous locations, so they couldn't be powered up until the switchover took place. It was a lot to live through.

[TechieTechie]

Well, luckily, I found what seem to be highly recommended contractors and have pricing that I can live with.

First up is electric. Should take 3 weeks....again, this is slow season, so they can start right away.

• Replace 60 amp exterior service w 200amp

• Replace Main Panel (it's already 15 years old and since I'm upgrading, might as well do it)

• Remove all K&T and rewire to main panel

• Remove junction box with 1950s cloth wiring....replace all wiring and feed into main panel. That's gonna be ugly. I think most overheads are the old wiring

• Replace junction box that has more than a dozen circuits just jammed into it....replace with sub panel

• Remove overhead wiring to garage, run underground conduit and rewire garage

• Add whole house surge protector

• Add some new outlets and change a couple of miswired outlets

• Replace OLD lighting fixtures (most are original and/or connected with the cloth wiring) with all new antique fixtures (ouch $$$$)

2nd up is crown stripping. Found a custom woodworker who has some gaps in his schedule. He's going to strip and stain the woodwork in place. VERY reasonable...and this guy knows what he is doing. Whoot whoot. Should take about a week

3rd up is painting...pretty straightforward. Going to paint all the public areas, the stairwell, the master bedroom and the attic. Should take a week. Plan to start mid-late April

Lastly are the floors. Found an old school guy. I thought I needed the entire house sanded and refinished....but he noticed that the 2nd floor is almost pristine (there is 1 spot of wear, but that's it). So he convinced me to screen the 2nd floor then recoat. First floor will be stripped, sanded, restained and finished (there are some wear marks and big gouges). Attic will have the carpet removed, sanded and finished. Using old school Duraseal Oil. Plan to start 1st week of May.

In May, the house will smell like crap (going to pick up some cheap used HEPA air scrubbers to really get the air moving to help with offgassing). After the big top to bottom cleaning, I'll start moving things over/unpacking things like the closets, bath and the kitchen (since I live less than 5 minutes away and won't need furniture)...then have the movers come around Memorial Day (AGAIN) for the furniture move....and officially move in no later than June 1.

Thats the plan, at least