lights! photos! but not much action.

I will be a very happy person when I don't have to look at primer covered walls anymore. As you can probably guess, our dining room is still not painted. The reason: the plaster crown molding still needs to be repaired. I think I've found a place that can replicate it, now I just have to trace it and order it and have it made and have it installed - one of these years. In the meantime we've hung some things on the walls and just most recently installed the ceiling medallion and new vintage light fixtures (so much nicer than bare bulbs.)

Cracked molding:

Hey, it's a little better than this:

"New" 1970's Barbini fixture and medallion:

Here's the newly refinished dining table (we still need to find chairs we like, so we're making do with these:)

A close up of the "new" fused glass sconces:

I would love to hear your color suggestions for the upstairs hallway - what's your favorite light to medium grey?

I'm taking color suggestions for the dining room too. At first I wanted a mossy, olive green - but it's a big commitment and I want to be sure. There are three landscape paintings hanging in there as well - all with gold and olive green tones. The adjacent living room is painted Benjamin Moore's Iced Cube Silver , so something that doesn't clash with that would be great. Or maybe it should just be the same color as the living room?
Iced Cube Silver:

And finally: if you're an admirer of vintage design you may want to check out Fernando's new blog storefront. It will feature a mix of furniture, art and decorative objects and it will (hopefully) be updated more regularly than Get To Fixin'. We'll be introducing it on Monday... so keep an eye out!

snow day

So the title is a little misleading... this post is not about snow even though it is snowing outside. Just thought I'd show off the extent of our Christmas decorating this year:

Yes, that's all.

Here are a couple of photos showing the bathroom's current state:

We actually don't have swine bathing in our tub. That's grout, joint compound, plaster dust - all kinds of icky stuff that's fallen in there during the work. I haven't scrubbed it yet because it's not finished being filthy yet.

The tiles still have haze on them from grouting here - this was just after the grout was finished. We're showing you the current status of the bathroom. It's sort of like reality TV except here you actually get to see reality. The walls need more skimcoat, the baseboards and trim need patching and painting, the overhead lights are not in yet because we need to paint the ceiling first (and can't decide on a paint color.) Reality.

This is our new soap dish embedded in the wall:

It was designed by my Father and Fernando and the nice people at the place where we bought the wall tile (Monumental Marble) made it for us. It's carrara marble and was cut to mimic the shape of the tub. On top, there are two small indentations for soap. It's quite heavy and partially sits on a beam about 2" inside of the wall for stability. If we are lucky, it will never fall out. ;)

Happy snow day!

I'm going to turn into a zombie just in time for Halloween.

I'm still alive! We've lost almost all of our workers in my blogging absence. Stanley stopped showing up in typical contractor style (I'm guessing he has another job or two) and he was sending his people over to work without supervision. The problem with that is that his workers are clueless without someone telling them what to do every moment. Areas that were patched and ready to sand were primed and painted before being sanded. Regular sheetrock was going up on my upstairs bathroom ceiling instead of greenboard. All of this and we were PAYING them to mess up our house. Two weeks ago we said enough and good riddence. All of the major things except for the upstairs bathroom are pretty much finished anyway. We have a lot of finishing work and painting to do and of course the dining room molding repair (I'm dreading this the most.)

We have not interviewed any new replacements for the work left. We've just been doing it ourselves. I'm exhausted.

My Father has been putting our upstairs bathroom back together again - and doing an amazing job. He did a bathroom for my Aunt and for my Mother in the past but I didn't realize that he could skim coat! We're hoping that it will be almost entirely done over this coming weekend.

Fernando, my Sister, my Mother and I have all been working on getting the trim sanded, primed and painted. Here's the foyer trim freshly painted in Benjamin Moore's Winter Snow:

I'm dreading painting the ceilings and walls so we may have to hire someone to do that after the floors are done. I'm not very good with a roller and it's hard for me to get walls and ceilings coated evenly. In our last apartment, I painted our bedroom ceiling. It was so uneven and I never got around to covering everything and painting it again. I would lie in bed in the morning and stare at all of the mistakes.

You can see how gross some of our doors were (right, silly) and what they look like now (left) here:

That's our poor kitchen up there. It's definitely going to be the last room we finish. The new cabinets have been ready for weeks and we're going to just have them delivered soon and installed at a later date.
We finally had our little sink re-installed in the powder closet on Sunday. The new faucet is by Pegasus and is from the Halo series. It was only available in brushed nickel which was not my first choice - I usually prefer polished nickel or chrome. Since we don't have any other major things going in here to match to it, I'm sure the brushed finish will be fine. I do like it and it makes washing hands in this small sink easier because with the faucet so high, there is more space to move around. Unfortunately, we didn't plan anything for underneath the sink... so I'll have to figure something out to make it look a little nicer.

Speaking of plumbing, when we did our waterproofing project (now finished) we found a cracked waste pipe in our yard! Most of the ground happens to be clay and the clay was packed around the pipe covering the old crack and stopping it from leaking. As soon as the dirt was removed the yard was getting a little "wash" everytime we flushed. Luckily, we had an amazing plumber named Christopher fix it for us for a nominal fee. Christopher also fixed the pipes behind the wall in our upstairs bathroom and installed that little sink for us.

Here's a shot of the cracked pipe:

And here's Christopher in the hole fixing it:

How brave is he? That hole was underneath our mud room... cramped and scary.

We also had a vintage ball lamp installed in our vestibule. It's on a motion sensor - which makes it even more fun.

I do have a better photo somewhere... next time.

let there be light and walls and tile

We have walls in the kitchen again! The new plaster is drying and we've had some new spotlights put in (and the fridge was sold.) There was a little miscommunication and now we have a light that isn't centered above the arch but we're just going to have them take it out altogether. We did have a light wired right into that little passageway so I don't think we'll miss it. There will be 3 new halogen spotlights on each side of the room, the center fixture and a little one between the dining room door and pantry.

As you can see the poor doorbell got plastered into the wrong spot. Hopefully, he will be centered back up above the arch soon.

We also had a couple of spotlights installed in the dining room to highlight whatever we end up putting above the fireplace. We had another installed on the wall to the left between the two windows, also to highlight future art. On the opposite wall to the fireplace we had two sconces wired, one on either side of the window.

In powder "closet" news - the tile has arrived! We're very happy with it. It was hard for me to order something like this online since I wasn't able to feel them or see them in person. This time I really got lucky. I couldn't resist laying them out on the floor (even though the room is still quite gross) and as you can see it's not going to take much to cover it. That's a whopping 4 square feet there!

I've been looking around for a nice wallpaper to use in here and Fernando has been freaking me out with the idea of Men splashing urine on the walls. The room is SO small and the walls are so close to the toilet. He's insisting I need a washable wallpaper or tiles on the wall and I've just decided that this will be a Ladies (or Men who pee like Women) only room.

And with that here's a taste of what I'm imagining for in here:

I guess I could have just scanned a sample since these pics are not a very good representation but I didn't. So, you have to imagine that there is lots of black and a bit of grey and silver and the hummingbirds are coral and turquoise. I may change my mind (or come to my senses and buy something vinyl) tomorrow but this is definitely what I like today.

It's not that I don't want to update...

I haven't had much to update about.
Our Plaster Master has been very ill and has not been able to work. He has sent a team of people to work in the meantime and they have been adding some recessed lighting in the kitchen and dining room and putting the walls and ceilings back up. But there is so much prep work involved... it doesn't make for interesting photos!
We are going away for a few days, up to Hartford for THE ANTIQUES ROADSHOW!!! Yes, I'm very excited.
In the meantime we've been planning out what we should bring to the show. Each guest can bring two items (or collections) for appraisal. Trying to narrow that down is hard when you've been hoarding like we have for the past 8 years!
Hopefully there will be some progress worthy of photos while we are gone and Stanley will start feeling better. :)

Major Update, reporting to duty

So... as you can see, we are not using drop cloths. We are having the floors refinished so it's not a huge deal. It's just gross when you come in and trek plaster dust all around the house with you.

Here are some of the rooms with new plaster. The trim still needs fixing.

The plumbers are finished! We now have a washer hook-up (in 98 years there was no washer or dryer in the house), a hose bib in the backyard, the basement sink now drains into the sewer and not a bucket and the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom is working properly and not leaking all over the dining room ceiling. We hired P.A.C. Plumbing for the job and they were so fast and very thorough. I don't know what P.A.C. stands for? Professional and Courteous? Precise and Careful? There was one mishap involving the top of the upstairs bathroom pedestal sink falling - I think it broke itself because it knew just how ugly it was. They replaced it and the new sink (another pedestal of better quality) is actually nice... I may just keep it when we do that reno in the future.

We came in over the weekend and realized that our kitchen had been destroyed. It makes complete sense since the walls were too far gone to simply repair - still, it was shocking.

Looking towards the pantry and dining room. There is another door (leading to the foyer and basement door) hiding behind the fridge.

Looking towards the back door.

This kitchen has been hard to plan out with all of the windows (2), doors (4) and hearth to plan around. We've opted for two 30" base cabinets with drawers to the right of the hearth. This will allow for counter space right up to the range. There will be four 24" glass front cabinets stacked in twos above that (so we don't go over the brick.) On the left of the hearth we're placing a tall, yet small pantry to fill in the space between the dining room door. Opposite that there will be a skinny wet island with the dishwasher and sink. The fridge will be on the opposite wall with a cabinet above it to utilize the space above. Confused? So am I.

I'm told it will look something like this in the hearth area:

The measurements are not that accurate but the idea is there. Unless we change our minds, the cabinets will be Somerset from Hanssem in "Crystal White." Countertops and backsplash will be some sort of Carrara marble... I didn't realize there were so many kinds.

did i mention that the ceiling is down in the kitchen?

Exposed rafters in the kitchen. We used to have a painted plywood ceiling covering the original plaster ceiling. We're going back to plaster.

That's the bottom of the bathroom fireplace up there! It's currently hidden behind plaster but how nice would it be to have a fireplace in the bathroom?

more covers than linda ronstadt

The electricians are finished. Well almost - they will be coming back to hang two of the fixtures (after they get re-wired.) We had all of the outlets and switches grounded and all of the fixtures checked for safety. They added two sconces in the dining room for two vintage fixtures that we found last weekend. They also ran a lot of new lines for the attic and kitchen and installed a bigger breaker box. We have been assured that our electrical was of the highest quality when it was installed and that it should be safe. Yay!

Now, we just have to replace all of the switch and outlet covers.

Upstairs we have plaster progress! All four bedrooms have been getting the full treatment and are almost finished with their three coats. In the back bedroom (formally of the floral wallpaper) the cracks were repaired and not covered with sheetrock. This was really important to us - I prefer the look of plaster walls to sheetrock. So far, Stanley (Plaster Master) and his team have been living up to our expectations.

We have also officially hired plumbers. They should be starting work later in the week. We can't fix the plaster in the dining room and kitchen until they are finished, so I can't wait to see some plumbing progress.

On the roofing front we're almost finished. There's a little more pointing to be done and the gutters and leaders have to be installed but they have finished the roof and flashing and wood repair along the eaves. It's not going to look pretty and perfect until we have the trim painted but that will have to be a project for next year. Our main priority is making the house livable inside!

New roof without gutters and leaders.

Close-up of the chimneys and shingles/ before the wooden eaves were repaired. The tar on the chimneys is from an old roofing "repair."

humpty dumpty

We hired a plasterer last week. It's all making me very nervous. He came highly recommended and I have been assured that he is a "plaster master." But I'm still nervous. You see, our crown molding is not wood - it's plaster.
The main room I've been fretting about is the dining room. There was A LOT of water damage on the ceiling from the bathroom upstairs. It is still leaking (still trying to finalize a plumber) but not heavily. One of the plasterer's workers removed the ceiling and was able to save the plaster medallion but... there was molding damage! I've been told that it is normal - the water damaged the molding and he managed to save most of the pieces... still, can it be put back together again?

Before.

During demo.

Exposed rafters and pocket doors.

Look up - the missing molding!

No money. Just creepy cobwebs.