Newborn House Restoration

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Back in November,

one of our blog updates included this optimistic statement: "The current
major project is to complete the downstairs hall. Andi ripped down the ugly old
(but not period) wallpaper and has started repairing the plaster and cleaning.
The goal is to have the hall completed by Christmas."

Christmas has long since past, but we are finally finished with the main
hall. It’s fair to say, this was a much bigger project than we first imagined.
As you can see from the before and after pictures, the hall has been transformed
from just a big, cluttered space into an elegant, welcoming entry and gathering
place. At long last, the hall is ready for furniture.

Photo galleries:

Before |

After |

Platform |

Painting |

Stair Refinishing |
All galleries

Without torturing you with all of the details, here is a run-down of the
major activities we completed during this part of the project:

Painting:
While the walls and ceiling were fundamentally sound, they did require a lot of
repair and prep work, including removing wallpaper from the area around the
stairs. The basic painting was very straightforward … the ceiling is flat
white, the walls are claire de lune (one of the Victorian Behr colors), and the
beadboard and trim are a white semi-gloss. Just that would have been enough, but
Andi added stenciling to all of the walls. The front hall includes a massive
effort that covered virtually all of the walls and the back hall has a small
part of the pattern repeated on a grid pattern.

Stairwell
platform: Since the ceilings on both floors are 12-feet high, we had to take
time out to figure out how to reach the second floor ceiling and walls above the
open areas of the stairs. My suggestion was to buy a jet pack, but Andi wanted
something a bit more more down-to-earch. So, we build a platform that covered
the entire area. The platform included a hatch so we could go and and down the
stairs during our work.

After building the platform, we started repairing, stripping and painting at
the top. We finished about a third of the upstairs hall before we were able to
remove the platform and continue working toward the bottom. On the stairs, we
build a mobile platform that could be moved up and down the stairs as needed.
(By the way, I later saw where another blogger on
HouseBlogs.net had the
same problem. His solution looked like an accident waiting to happen. Our
solution took longer, but felt a lot safer.)

Stair
refinishing: Once the painting was completed, Andi took on the refinishing
of the stairs with her normal energy and attention to detail. All of the dark
old finish was stripped off of the hand rails and replaced with a clean coat of
polyurethane. The spindles were painted with a crisp, semi-gloss white paint.
The treads were stripped and refinished. And, as a final touch, Andi put a
stencil pattern on the face of each step. Some day, we’ll add a carpet runner to
up the stairs, but even now, they look really amazing.

Lighting
and electrical: When we started, there was no overhead lighting, so we added
wiring for an overhead chandelier in the front hall and for wall sconces in the
back hall. The chandelier came from an estate sale in nearby Social Circle and
the wall sconces were bought on E-Bay. We also added or replaced outlets and old
wiring where needed. The only thing we are missing is a new light going up the
stairs.

In between all of these projects, we had a case of spring fever and did some
minor landscaping and yard work projects that I’ll tell you about in a later
post.

Once of the tactics we’ve adopted during this project is to complete one
project before we start another. In this case, the hall took more than twice as
long as we had estimated, but it’s officially done and we are moving on. This
week, we started work in Candice’s bedroom. She’ll be home from college around
May 15, so that’s the goal for having that room completed. It’s got it’s own
story, that I’ll tell you about soon. Stay tuned.