Velvett and beastboy....

[HumorMe]

A few months ago beastboy posted some pics of his house when it was just beginning to snow and he also included some inside pics. I posted a pic of my house in the snow on his thread and you said you really liked my house since it is 100 years old. beastboy asked me to post some inside pics of my house so this is what this thread is about.

I recently finished the downstairs of my house which included a lot of new replacement things, painting, refinishing hardwood floors, all new wiring and receptacles, blah, blah, blah.

By the way....I did all of the work on these rooms. Painting, wallpapering, hardwood refinishing, stair spindles......everything. No hired help helped on anything done.

Sooooooo.....here's the nickel tour of my house.

Here is my house from the street....We just replaced the roof and we also poured 60 yards of concrete. The driveway is a circle in front of the house and it also circles behind the house. Both driveways exit onto a side street beside our house.

This is the front porch and entrance. The front door is solid oak and is 95 inches tall and 46 inches wide and weighs about 500 lbs but it is open and you can't see it. I had to special order the storm door for it and I installed it myself. and yes I know the front stairs are cracking and that is next on my list.

This room is the den (converted living room) and is the room you enter from the front door. The picture on the TV is actually the TV Guide station so no it's not a porno.

This is also the den but from a different angle. That bookcase is not going to stay there. It is full of seashells we found on our numerous beach vacations.

This is the stairwell and it is located in the center of the house. I refinished the hand railings and stairs and replaced the spindles....all 67 of them....alot of them are upstairs and each one has three coats of paint of them. Every spindle is a different length. I guess that is the way they built them years ago!

This is from the hallway looking into the kitchen. I painted the table and chairs white then used fine (220 grit) sandpaper and distessed them. Hard to bring myself to do that after I spent so long painting three coats of paint on them but it turned out great. I also wallpapered the kitchen and painted it also, although we might changed the color to all white.

This is the dining room from two different angles. I had to rebuild all of the walls (plaster) because they were in such bad shape and replaced the hanging light.

You can see part of the kitchen here.

This was a spare bedroom downstairs that we made into a crafts room for my wife and a computer room for the kids. It was all dark brown paneling with dark wood shutters and we replaced them all.

This is the bathroom off of the crafts room. I hung all of the wallpaper and replaced the toilet and sink! No leaks either!

I hope you enjoyed this little picture thread. If you have any ideas (decorating) I might be interested in, let me know.

 

[redshirt27se]

i like your bathroom.

 

[SoreArms]

nice place

shameless plug
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=307475

 

[HumorMe]

Thanks redshirt. I'm probabky most proud of my stairs and stairwell. You can't imagine how much work I have in it downstairs and upstairs.

sorearms....I saw your place earlier. Nice place and I love the lifesize Marilyn Monroe thing. Keep that thing. You never know....It might be worth a lot of money one day.

 

[RADAR]

Wow! Nice work man,At least yours look finished, I was due to finish the bathroom this weekend,Had a wedding to attend ,maybe tomorrow.
I'm ready to finish this puppy!



RADAR

 

[gymtime]

Bathroom wallpaper's a little busy.

 

[ChefWide]

Beautiful house that really looks like a home. Great work, you should be proud in a very large way.

 

[jnuts]

Nice!

 

[Forge]

Very nice house. How much property do you have?

 

[goldenone]

Beautiful home.

How tall are the ceilings? 10'?

I really like the front porch area. Does the porch continue around to the left of the house?

 

[tripleblonde]

i loved looking at those pics!

nice job....

 

[HumorMe]

Thanks RADAR. All of the rooms have new paint so at least I am good for about a year when my wife will want to change colors.

gyntime, the wallpaper is not really busy looking. It only has two repeating patterns in it. When I was shopping for wallpaper as soon as I saw it I knew that is what I wanted.

ChefWide, I hear that a lot about the house. Thanks.

Thanks jnuts.

forge, The house is in town so property is not very large. Probably about 3/4 acre. Wish I had more but it means less yard for me to keep up. I hate yard work.

goldenone, Yes ten foot ceilings and twelve inch baseboards and thick crown moldings. A bitch to paint.

tripleblonde, I'm glad you like it. Definitely a labor of love to own an old house.

Bump for velvett and beastboy.

 

[gonelifting]

Great job you`ve done. I love the high ceilings. What`s your heating system like? radiaters?

I love those porches with the overhang, I`ve always dreamed of sitting on there while it`s raining and having a beer or glass of wine with friends or the wife.

 

[HumorMe]

Thanks gl. I have two heat pumps. One for upstairs and one for downstairs. We had a colder than normal winter this year so heating bills were kind of high but summer rates rarely get over $100 per month.

The porch is huge. The floor is toungue in/and groove pine and I have a carport at one end and a screened in porch on the other. Porch just is across the front of the house. I want to put in two ceiling fans in place of the hanging porch lights I have right now. Maybe some rocking chairs or wicker furniture to sit on during the spring, summer, and fall months.

 

[MattTheSkywalker]

It looks really 'homey', homie.

 

[HumorMe]

Thanks Matt.

Bump for velvett and beastboy

 

[HumorMe]

^

 

[onebigab]

Great job. You always feel better when you do the work yourself. May take longer but it's done the way you like it.

 

[PHATchik]

You've done a great job!

 

[beastboy]

Nice! Looks like you could film a Christmas special there. I really like your white moldings.....my wife is begging me to take down our stained oak and paint it white.......I just can't bring myself to do it. I also like that you have alt of color....most older homes I've been in, keep the white wall theme. The porch is the best on a nice summer evening!

 

[HumorMe]

onebigab.....yep I do like doing all of the work myself. I'm real anal about doing things right no matter how long the job takes. It took me 19 straight hours to wallpaper the bathroom. It does give me satisfaction though.

Thanks PHATchik.

Thanks beastboy. Me and my sister-in-law picked out the colors. She is non-professional interior decorator that suits my taste. Her house is just beautiful so I had her help me with mine...she is also my wife's sister and is married to my brother....it's legal.

Stained wood has it's place in every house but painting things a lighter color really brightens the house. That spare bedroom that we converted into my wife's crafts room was so dark with the dark panelling and stained wooden shutters. At first I was apprehensive about painting it that color but after it was done, we love it.

I wish I had some pics of our house when we bought it 17 years ago. We only paid $75,000 for the house but it needed a lot of things done to it. I work on it when I have time and do all of the work myself so it has been a journey.

 

[FreeballinDC]

HM, the interior of your house almost looks like mine, especially the woodwork. What year was your house built?

If it's ok with you, I'll try to post up some pics of my place on this thread later tonight.

 

[HumorMe]

HM, the interior of your house almost looks like mine, especially the woodwork. What year was your house built?

If it's ok with you, I'll try to post up some pics of my place on this thread later tonight.

My house was built in 1901 by a school teacher. Later on she converted it into a boarding house with 2 apartments upstairs. Funny though but the stairs were located outside on the back of the house so if you wanted to go upstairs, you had to go outside. Later on, she did away with the outside staircase and installed one inside as you see in that picture. The only bad thing is, is that a kingsize mattress will not fit up the staircase because of the heigth of the ceiling. Believe me, I tried after purchasing a kingsize bed only to return it and get a queensize bed.

We bought it in 1987. In 1992, we installed new windows (35 of them) and vinyl sided it. The contractor wanted to box in the eaves but the eaves have a lot of hand cut ornate 2x12 beams about 18" apart all the way around the house so I didn't want to destroy the character of the house by doing that.

We recently put a new roof on in October 2003 and some of the molding that lines the outside edge of the eaves was rotten. The molding is no longer available anywhere so I had a serious woodworker friend (I'm an amatuer) of mine send a piece of molding to New York and had router blades cut to match my existing molding. He got them back and cut 48 feet for me at a cost of $400. That what you see lying next to the frontdoor in the second picture. The damn roofer still hasn't come back to install it. That's the problem around here...nobody gets in a hurry to do anything, especially after he has already been paid!

Post up some of your house. I would love to see them.

 

[FreeballinDC]

Thanks for posting up your reply. It's just interesting to see that the styles of the wood work really didn't change much from 1901 to 1923 when my house was built.

Any future renovations that I do will definately keep the character of the current style and design of my house.

I live in a row house in DC. One of the houses (exact same floorplan and style) up the street from me was remodeled. The fool owner gutted the place, woodwork and all. He completely destroyed any interior character that the house had. Un-fucking-believable. I walked into that house expecting a good incorporation of the old wood work with a new design and was pissed at what I saw.

What a dick.

 

[HumorMe]

Thanks for posting up your reply. It's just interesting to see that the styles of the wood work really didn't change much from 1901 to 1923 when my house was built.

Any future renovations that I do will definately keep the character of the current style and design of my house.

I live in a row house in DC. One of the houses (exact same floorplan and style) up the street from me was remodeled. The fool owner gutted the place, woodwork and all. He completely destroyed any interior character that the house had. Un-fucking-believable. I walked into that house expecting a good incorporation of the old wood work with a new design and was pissed at what I saw.

What a dick.

I don't think it would have changed much in that time period although I could be wrong. I know the actual wood didn't change. The wood in my house (especially in the attic) still has some bark on it. Can't find wood like that anymore.

That owner must not have had an appreciation of older homes. They are the best built houses in my opinion. I bet mine was built from a drawing on a piece of paper. Not a square wall or doorway in the house. Frustrating nowadays when you try to repair things and nothing fits...lol.

My best friend lives three doors down from me and his house is much larger than mine (he's a doctor if that tells you anything) and he bought his house for $175,000 in 1993 and it is 5500 square feet and was built in 1845. He spent $350,000 renovating it before he moved in but he had master craftsmen in there duplicating all of the wood work and preserving what they could. The only major thing he did was rewire, replumb, and he installed all new sheetrock and did away with all of the plaster walls. His hardwood floors are 12" plank flooring and toungue and groove ceilings. Nice house to say the least.

 

[HumorMe]

Here are a couple of pics of a neat toy from the early part of the 1900.

It's a "rocking horse" type thing in our screen front porch for young kids that is operated by a rope and pulley mounted near the ceiling. Our kids, when they were younger, loved this thing and I did too until they started punching holes in the screen in the screen porch. Sorry for the mess on my porch but I replaced all of the screens and I will paint it soon. A lot of other shit that I am going to throw away is in there too!

Here's the horse

and here's the pulley system.

 

[velvett]

I love those houses.


You've done a nice job too.

Great moldings and yes it is a cozy house.


Good to see you're not afraid of color - nothing worse than the white on white of white house.

 

[velvett]

This is the stairwell and it is located in the center of the house. I refinished the hand railings and stairs and replaced the spindles....all 67 of them....alot of them are upstairs and each one has three coats of paint of them. Every spindle is a different length. I guess that is the way they built them years ago!

.

My favorite photo.

Always had a thing for stairwells.

 

[HumorMe]

My favorite photo.

Always had a thing for stairwells.

Thanks velvett. The stairwell is probably my favorite too. I spent a lot of time in there doing various things. The wall going up the stairs was so beat up from previous tenants dragging furniture up and down the steps that I thought I would never get to a point of actually painting it.

The old spindles were plain 1 1/4" square spindles with no fancy cuts on them like these. The handrails were painted with orange oil base paint believe it or not. Can't imagine someone painting railings orange!?! I had to sand them and sand them and sand them to get them to their original finish.

 

[from zero]

Cool pics man. I hope I can have a house like that in some years.

 

[FreeballinDC]

The old spindles were plain 1 1/4" square spindles with no fancy cuts on them like these. The handrails were painted with orange oil base paint believe it or not. Can't imagine someone painting railings orange!?! I had to sand them and sand them and sand them to get them to their original finish.

Yes, I beleive that. I think my bathroom was painted primary red at one time.

I am sure that bathroom looked like an insane asylum cell, because it is so small. Small and RED.

 

[HumorMe]

Cool pics man. I hope I can have a house like that in some years.

They are fun to work with and frustrating at times. Make sure you want something like that before purchasing it. Ny father-in-law told me before I bought it 17 years ago that the only way to heat that house was to burn it.

He was almost right.

 

[TheProject]

HumorMe...I can't see the pictures at work, but it sounds like you're in a similar situation to mine. I've got a two story Victorian that was built in the 1880's. I'm working on renovating/remodeling as I have time and money, but it's slow work.

I'll have to pick your brain for tips...

 

[HumorMe]

HumorMe...I can't see the pictures at work, but it sounds like you're in a similar situation to mine. I've got a two story Victorian that was built in the 1880's. I'm working on renovating/remodeling as I have time and money, but it's slow work.

I'll have to pick your brain for tips...

Sounds great! I would love to see some pictures if you have some. These houses are just awesome. Have you ever tried to find out the history of your house? I bet that would interesting. I found mine by going to the county courthouse and going through their records.

Renovations take forever and you never really finish...you just go on to something else. They do take a lot of money almost to the point of being a money pit. Hang in there.

Within a 12 month period, I had to replace two heat pumps, two gas water heaters, washer, dryer, dishwasher, a lot of plumbing including new drain lines from the house to the sewer, roof, and I threw in 60 yards of concrete for a driveway for shits and giggles. I thought I would have to move after all of that!

 

[TheProject]

Sounds great! I would love to see some pictures if you have some. These houses are just awesome. Have you ever tried to find out the history of your house? I bet that would interesting. I found mine by going to the county courthouse and going through their records.

Renovations take forever and you never really finish...you just go on to something else. They do take a lot of money almost to the point of being a money pit. Hang in there.

Within a 12 month period, I had to replace two heat pumps, two gas water heaters, washer, dryer, dishwasher, a lot of plumbing including new drain lines from the house to the sewer, roof, and I threw in 60 yards of concrete for a driveway for shits and giggles. I thought I would have to move after all of that!

I do have some...I'll dig 'em up. I know a lot of the history of the house. I actually bought it from my parents about 5 years ago, and it's been in my family for about 32 years. My parents talked to the owner at the time when they bought it, who was a former high school basketball coach. He and his wife lived in the house for some years, and while I don't remember the exact details, I also know some about the original owner. My mom found a diary in the attic belonging to a girl that lived in the house in the early 1900's. It's not a lot of information, but it is really neat to read. My mom transcribed it via typewriter years ago, and I've got the original and the typewritten pages.

I figure I'll never really be done. I've refinished most of the hardwood floors in the house, and gutted and redid the living room completely. That taught me a LOT of things, most notably about trying to put sheetrock in where plaster once was. My dad redid about 70-80% of the wiring, replacing the knob and tube with shielded romex, and as I tear into ceilings, I replace more of it.

I had to put a new furnace in this winter. The one that had been in the house for probably 50 years finally died (fan went out), and I put in a new high-efficiency Lennox, along with insulation in the attic, and my monthly level pay dropped from $259 to $166/month. Huge difference, not to mention the fact that the house is heated much better.

And the driveway was another fiasco...it was in rough shape, so I had it redone a few years ago. The original bid was something like $5500. Then they tore into it, and discovered this soupy mess of clay underneath. They hauled out I don't know how much of that, then brought in about 20 tons of gravel. By the time it was all said and done, it was about $8000, as I recall.

I'll have to find and bump my dishwasher thread, although I don't think the pics are up anymore. I'd never had a built-in dishwasher before, and improvised one into place.

My next adventure is upgrading the electrical so I can add central air...

 

[HumorMe]

Knowing the history of the house is a great plus. I live in such a small town that all of the older people here have helped me with names of people who have lived in my house plus checking the courthouse records.

Yep, sheetrock and plaster...two totally different horses. I never knew I knew so many cuss words. Sounds like you made a good call on the heating. $100 savings a month is almost too good to be true.

My roof was my fiasco. $5,500 estimate to replace with new shingles turned into a $9,000 nightmare of totally redecking with OSB board and architectual shingles. I have now learned after 17 years in my house that if I have a 2-3,000 dollar project I want to do....I better set aside at least $5,000.

Ahhhh....electrical. Good luck with that!

 

[TheProject]

Knowing the history of the house is a great plus. I live in such a small town that all of the older people here have helped me with names of people who have lived in my house plus checking the courthouse records.

Yep, sheetrock and plaster...two totally different horses. I never knew I knew so many cuss words. Sounds like you made a good call on the heating. $100 savings a month is almost too good to be true.

My roof was my fiasco. $5,500 estimate to replace with new shingles turned into a $9,000 nightmare of totally redecking with OSB board and architectual shingles. I have now learned after 17 years in my house that if I have a 2-3,000 dollar project I want to do....I better set aside at least $5,000.

Ahhhh....electrical. Good luck with that!

The real bitch of the sheetrock is that I discovered AFTER the rock was hung that the studs are not plumb. If I ever do it again, I'll probably have to tag the studs with 2x4's or something to create a flush surface.

My parents had the roof re-done before I bought it. They took off 4 layers of shingles (not even legal anymore), replaced rotten boards, and reshingled. When I added insulation this year, I cleaned out all the shit that was in the attic that the roofers left behind. We used buckets to haul the stuff out, and filled up all 4 garbage cans twice. Nasty work. Total tally was 5 dead birds, one dead squirrel. I think I've got enough the holes plugged now to keep out the animals. That, or they'll eat fiberglass and die up there...who knows.

And yeah, the projects are never as cheap as you think they'll be. I learned my lesson about subcontractors too. The GC that I normally use hired some masonry guys to fix my porch and redo my front walk...was not happy at all with the work they did. I'll use my GC for stuff he's doing himself, and find my own subs from now on.

This summer, I'd like to pull the clapboards off the south facing of the house, put in insulation from the outside, put sheathing up, then put up new clapboards where needed...I just don't know if I'm that brave.

 

[HumorMe]

The real bitch of the sheetrock is that I discovered AFTER the rock was hung that the studs are not plumb. If I ever do it again, I'll probably have to tag the studs with 2x4's or something to create a flush surface.

My parents had the roof re-done before I bought it. They took off 4 layers of shingles (not even legal anymore), replaced rotten boards, and reshingled. When I added insulation this year, I cleaned out all the shit that was in the attic that the roofers left behind. We used buckets to haul the stuff out, and filled up all 4 garbage cans twice. Nasty work. Total tally was 5 dead birds, one dead squirrel. I think I've got enough the holes plugged now to keep out the animals. That, or they'll eat fiberglass and die up there...who knows.

And yeah, the projects are never as cheap as you think they'll be. I learned my lesson about subcontractors too. The GC that I normally use hired some masonry guys to fix my porch and redo my front walk...was not happy at all with the work they did. I'll use my GC for stuff he's doing himself, and find my own subs from now on.

This summer, I'd like to pull the clapboards off the south facing of the house, put in insulation from the outside, put sheathing up, then put up new clapboards where needed...I just don't know if I'm that brave.

Nothing is plumb or squared in my house either! Like I said earlier, I think my house was drawn on a piece of paper and the builders just went from there without a ruler or a square.

I had a layer of cedar shake shingles on mine and three layers of asphalt shingles. I don't think it was legal here either. Nice to know I am not the only one in this boat.

One night my daughter ran into our room and said there was a bat in her room that was flying around. I thought to myself...no fucking way do I have a bat in my house! Sure enough, there was a bat in her room. I felt like John Candy and Dan Akroyd in the movie "The Great Outdoors" chasing that thing around the room. Finally killed it after half destoying her room.

We had vinyl siding amd new windows installed about 12 years ago so I don't really have to worry about the outside except washing it and painting the eaves. Fun fun fun!

 

[FreeballinDC]

We had vinyl siding amd new windows installed about 12 years ago so I don't really have to worry about the outside except washing it and painting the eaves. Fun fun fun!

What kind of siding did you use, and who installed it? I will need to replace the siding at the back of the house sometime soon, and I need a good idea on where to start, and who to work with.

 

[TheProject]

I've thought about doing the siding thing, but my concern is losing the woodwork/ornamentation at the top...how did they seal the siding without going all th way up?

 

[beastboy]

I'm not in this club... My house is only 4 years old.

 

[HumorMe]

I used a company out of Columbia, SC. They wrapped my house with that 1/2 inch insulation (I believe it was Alcoa) then installed the siding on top of that. I used 4" double lap white siding on the bottom floor and Dutch white lap siding on the top. My house had a different style cedar siding on the top floor so we went with two different styles of siding and it turned out nice.

They wanted to box in the eaves and overhangs but I wouldn't let them because the eaves had such nicely handcarved exposed beams and molding. I also left the porch ceiling original because of the toungue and groove boards. I just paint those areas when they need it.

Project...they ran a vinyl drip edge around the top and caulked and silicone sealed the edges. I believe it is a standard item that is used for people who don't want the eaves boxed in. It seems to have worked because I haven't had any problems with it plus whenever I paint I will have the painters redo those areas. I do mostly anything except paint the exterior of my house. That is for the birds. My house is too freakin' high for me to do it plus I am too old to fall off of a ladder.

beastboy......You have a nice new house so you are probably lucky not to have the problems we have when it comes to repair things or redo things. Thank your lucky stars.

 

[TheProject]

Cool, thanks man...do you happen to remember what the siding cost you?

 

[HumorMe]

Cool, thanks man...do you happen to remember what the siding cost you?

The whole project costed $20,000. The windows were a huge part of that because they were brand new style vinyl windows that flip out and had built in grids, etc. It seems the siding was $7-$8,000. I know the top floor siding was different and more expensive plus I had the house wrapped with insulation. Nowadays, I know you can get it for much less than that. Siding seems to have come down a great deal since I put mine own...of course!