The Historic District

what a thorough approach and gorgeous result!! truly a work of art.....the hydrangeas with the border look lovely too...
...jade

Wow, Maxhall! The pathway looks incredible. Really turned out great!

Maxhall, I must agree with the others, what a great and creative way to handle that transition in width of the walk, to match it at the other end is pure genius. Oh, nice picket fence.

Thanks so much for the compliments. Definitely one of my favorite projects. Plus one of the only one's that is 100% done. We do plan on replacing all of our fencing in the next few years. Still trying to decide on a design. I'll try and post some pictures of our guest room that is mostly complete. It's crazy how many lessons are learned with each project.

Very nice work! If you didn't know, you would think that walkway was original to the house.

Sad that you had to cut the bushes, but people don't realize how big things are going to get when they plant them, especially if they aren't maintained. We had to do the same with some 70 year old evergreens in our front. They hadn't been maintained in years and two 24" blizzards did them in.

What a difference your exterior work makes! Very nice.

Wow, that brick path and dining room look excellent! Great attention to detail.

Your work has been amazing. Love the brick path. My husband made me a patio using reclaimed bricks and it was one of the best loved and use improvements of the back yard.

So we tackled one of our guest bedrooms (I've learned to yearn for a smaller house). It's funny how each project you learn so much, your work gets better (I cringe every time I look at my 1st crown attempt... which still involved 3 trys ). Every room involves fixing the plaster walls which we do with the plaster magic product. Certainly not a budget friendly method, but I'm hoping the price of the product is reflective of the quality. I feel like I should make a whole list of sections of mistakes in easy to read format so hopefully I can help people avoid making my same missteps.

1). Penny wise pound foolish:

When it came time to purchase beadboard for the ceiling we did what many noobs did and went to the big box store. I knew I wanted real wood vice beadboard sheets, but I wanted to be as economic as possible, so I purchased 1/4" knotty pine beadboard (emphasis on the knotty). A few months after I put it up the joints starting pulling apart on a few pieces past the tongues of the beadboard... it looked like total crap. So we pulled it all down and I got to pull 100 of nails out of the fir strips I had installed (no bueno ).

2) I have a good idea... lets paint overhead

This was a horrible idea, not only was my neck in pain for days afterword but since it was installed when it expanded/contracted for the seasons the bare wood part of the tongue would show which screams homeowner DIY. Needless to say as mentioned above this stuff had to come down.

3) Before you cut holes in walls for sconces make sure they're the appropriate height.

We restored a couple of old lights complete with cloth wiring and cut the holes in the walls prior to wainscot installation. Well we had to patch the holes and move them up because with the sconces pointing down they were way too low.

4)Make sure to measure the depth of your wall when installing outlet boxes.

So I don't have any pics of this but with the depth of my walls I had to use a shallow box for one of my walls. To make the box fit I had to cut a piece of it off on my tablesaw (making it not up to code... but perfectly safe I might add). So just do yourself a favor and sweat the small stuff because it will annoy the shit out of you afterwards.

5) Put 2 coats of shellac on all knots and then an oil based primer as your basecoat prior to paint if you don't want bleed through

So we didn't do this and had to go back months later to add a shellac to the knots and then prime/paint those spots.

6) Don't mix MDF and Pine when making your rails and stiles for wainscoting.

So I used MDF for the rails, but for the stiles I used 3/4pine for strength for the tiny 2" shelf of the wainscoting that can't be used for anything (facepalm). The issue with this is that due to the width of pine used expansion/contraction is a real B. This means there are gaps that appear during the winter, and no gaps in the summer...honestly wouldn't be noticed by 90% of people but, I'm still super bothered by it.

7) When trimming beadboard or any board for that matter cut the end with the most twist or crown.

When I bought new beadboard I was able to get the length long enough to span the entire length of the room which I highly recommend if possible. Well... when I was cutting the boards to length I gave no thought to cut the more warped side resulting in some pretty creative fixes by yours truly to submit the boards into shape.

So I hope you enjoy your pictures.

Without further ado onto the pictures.

I'm especially proud of this 3 piece crown molding outside corner. I also included a pic showing the holes in the wall that were too low for the sconces.