We’re down to the last few weeks of renovation phase 1, which is basically our construction loan period. Soon, we will have to move everything out of our current living area and into the newly finished attic (master suite) and basement. It won’t be too bad, as this is approx. 1200 sq. feet of living space we didn’t have before! Then phase 2 starts, all on the main floor:

Living room and dining room:

• Strip built-ins in place
• Remove window, door, and base trim to be dipped
• Refinish and reinstall all the woodwork (stain and varnish)
• Restore windows
• Blow in insulation
• Repair plaster
• Skim coat plaster
• Install period-appropriate picture moulding, wainscotting and plate rail where it once was
• Install window seat where it once was (maybe)
• Finish stripping the fireplace and/or tile it (haven’t decided)
• Paint
• Refinish floors

Hall:

• Remove window, door, and base trim to be dipped
• Get doors dipped (3)
• Refinish and reinstall all the woodwork (stain and varnish)
• Install period-appropriate picture moulding where it once was
• Maybe nice to do wainscotting/plate rail in the hall too
• Repair plaster and/or redrywall the whole thing (price dependent)
• Paint
• Refinish floors

Bedrooms (2):

• Remove window, door, and base trim to be dipped
• Get closet doors dipped (2)
• Demo plaster (its in really bad shape and we want to insulate properly)
• Insulate exterior walls
• Drywall
• Paint
• Restore windows
• Refinish and reinstall all the woodwork (stain and varnish)
• Install period-appropriate picture moulding where it once was
• Refinish floors

I know it sounds like A LOT, but when you compare it to EVERYTHING that needed to be done before, it is chump change. The big system stuff is done, and all the bathrooms and kitchen. Those were the priciest items too. I’m still targeting to finish up the major items by Christmas.

The part that skerrs me the most is the window restoration. I really really really really really think this is very tedious, and getting Jeremy to do all the windows is unlikely. I may just paint them a shade of reddish-brown to match the restored woodwork until we can get the motivation to go crazy on the windows. We have the book “Working Windows” and its a lot of help, but still its one of those projects where we can’t take our time on for security issues, especially with the front windows of our house. Ugh.

For now, this week I am trying to finish restoring all the doors in our newly renovated area. 9 doors have been dipped. I’ve sanded 6 so far, and applied one coat of gel stain. They all need a second coat and varnishing (4 coats). Hopefully I can sand the remaining 3 doors tonight. I want to get this all done before carpet goes in and I lose my basement workspace and have to do all this sort of thing during daylight hours outside. Ugh. There are plusses to an unfinished basement. :)

Door Restoration Photos

3 Responses to “Phase 1 Complete (Almost)”

1. Stephanie says:

   July 3, 2008 at 8:43 am

   Oh my gosh, what a list! I’m exhausted just reading it. Probably because it looks a lot like our list, which also exhausts me!

   Congrats on all of the progress, and on your new master suite! :-)
2. Andrea says:

   July 7, 2008 at 3:52 pm

   This is probably a stupid question but what do you mean by the doors, windows, and baseboards being dipped? Are they dipped in primer? I can’t wait for you to post some pictures of everything going on. Sounds like you are getting a ton of stuff accomplished.
3. Dawn says:

   July 8, 2008 at 2:52 am

   Ah I suppose I assumed a lot by saying that as we didn’t know such a service existed for quite a while, but now that I finished the doors tonight (last coat of varnish just completed about 30 minutes ago), it was worth every penny.

   Basically, a local company called Houck’s Process Stripping Center, dips the doors (or furniture, metal, whatever) into a solution that strips the paint off all at once. I think it bleaches the wood as well, as we only had to do minimal sanding to restain the wood fresh. I’ve not seen the process in action, but I’m sure glad I didn’t have to worry about that part.

   It takes probably a good 8+ hours to strip each door by hand, and then we would be responsible for the lead paint waste and releasing any (more) lead into our airways. Houck’s disposes in accordance to EPA regulations, which is better that I could do. Its worth the $100 a door they charge. I LOVE IT. However, I do still have 7 more doors we will need to get dipped in the future so you do the math. UGH!

   Dipping the trim is usually much cheaper as they charged by the linear foot. I think we’ve only spent about $300 so far on our many bundles of salvage that our contractor reused almost every scrap of.