Pieceofcakereno

Third Floor is Finished.

After taking a break to renovate a different house (top to bottom), I finally returned to the 3rd floor to finish it. The finishes are not quite as nice as those on the main levels but the space is a very pleasant place to hang out. 5th picture shows one of the unfinished spaces. Picture 6 shows a chess table which I hope to begin using soon. 8th and 9th pictures are of the unfinished space behind the small door in picture 7. The floor in here was mostly missing as the electricians removed a lot of it when wiring. I used scrap flooring and patched it back together. It could be a neat play area after someone bangs all the nails back in the ceiling (which is the underside of the roof).

3rd Floor Renovation – part 1:

The 3rd floor of the house has 5 rooms in it; 3 finished and 2 unfinished.  All were used for storage and contained scrap cardboard boxes and lumber from the prior owners as well as some of our partially emptied boxes.  When the electricians wired the 2nd floor lights (2 years ago) they cut through the 3rd floor/attic floor to access the lights.  The flooring is hardwood and the electricians  somewhat screwed it back down when they were done but there were many weak boards that would not sustain very much weight.  Those boards have now been replaced / stabilized and the junk has been discarded.  The unfinished rooms are now organized (with things we want to keep) and somewhat neat.

The casings for 2 of the windows were missing so scrap lumber was cut to size then disguised to blend in with the existing trim.  North window:

South window:

The baseboards are in the best condition in the entire house sans the splattered paint.  After hours of scrubbing, the years of dirt and spattered paint have been removed (from room #1).  They are ready for a coat of polyurethane.

The floors still require a lot of work.  Even though the boards have been ‘fixed’, there are some wide cracks that need to be filled and the entire floor needs a deep scrubbing.  One section has been scrubbed.

So the dark area in the 1st picture is years of dirt that still needs to be removed.  Once cleaned the remaining major cracks will be filled and stained then the floor will get a coat of polyurethane to help keep it clean.  The walls and ceiling (which are continuous in places) have been painted a cream color – similar to vanilla ice cream.

We don’t have any specific plans for the 3rd floor rooms but with just a little $ and a lot of elbow grease the rooms will be pleasant.

Exercise Room Done

The crown and walls are painted:

The windows and blinds have been cleaned and curtains hung:

The wood floor installed, stained and finished including quarter round.

And the built-in cabinet was updated with paint and wood trim (metal trim around edges replaced):

Here are a couple of ‘before’ pictures for comparison purposes:

There are some punch-list items through-out the house that need to be done but the renovation is essentially complete.

Exercise Room Mostly Done

The ceiling has now been caulked (royal pain in the neck – literally) and painted.  I mixed paint I had on hand and ended up with a soft blue color with a hint of green.

Each picture above was taken from a different end of the room.

The walls were in decent shape but some sections were blistering/pealing so they needed to be scraped and sanded before they could be painted.

The closet was unfinished on the inside where wiring and electrical boxes were visible.  So those walls were covered to provide a finished look.  Then everything was painted a cream color.

Last but not least the hardwood flooring was installed.  Our friend Bobby agreed to help and it took us 2 long days but we got the job done.  Here is the floor before staining it.

Last night I finished putting the 2nd coat of poly on the floor.

The quarter round still needs to be painted and installed and the insides of the cabinets need to be painted then the room will be done.  We will wait at least 2 weeks to move the heavy exercise equipment back into the room to ensure the poly is good and hard.

 

Exercise / Closet & Storage Room (about 9×20)

The room off the 1st floor office and master suite is used as our exercise and storage room.  It is on the south side of the house and gets lots of nice sun light.  It is the last room to get renovated (excluding the attic which has tall ceilings and is divided into rooms).    Here are some before shots:

As in all the other rooms, this one has a radiator (1st picture under the window).   This room actually use to be part of the porch and was enclosed years ago.  The roof over the porch does not have a steep pitch so there were lots of leaks and water damage  when we purchased the house.  After the porch roof was covered with a metal roof the leaks have been fixed (except for the back corner which was a flashing issue).  The 3rd picture shows the lovely water stained tile ceiling.  The 4th picture is of the french doors into the study and it shows the hole cut in the ceiling by the electricians so they could re-wire the light.   The 4th picture shows the door into the master bedroom and also the left french door to the study.

The tiles on the ceiling and the vinyl flooring have been removed.  It is helpful to have a helper install crown molding so Dan helped me with that last Saturday.

I ran out of the primed crown so ran down to 84 Lumber (close by) and they had the same crown but not primed which is fine since it will all get painted anyway.  I decided to make the hole in the ceiling accessible for future electrical work so just made and screwed in a panel and stuffed fiberglass insulation over it.  This ceiling was a bit challenging to install crown onto as it is sloped and it has a vaulted section (below is before crown was installed)

The radiator has been spray painted given the walls and floor still need refinishing.

The next step is to sand down the ceiling as best as I can and fill in the numerous cracks with caulk so it can be painted.  I plan to use left over light green paint on the ceiling and paint the walls a cream color similar to the radiator color.  The floor will be finished in new unstained red oak and stained to match the adjacent wood floors.

 

Back stairwell and landings essentially done

After several hours of stripping and sanding the stair treads and landings the results were still somewhat ugly so I decided a different solution was required.  With a little online research I discovered a technique that provides a pseudo-stain like finish and decided to give it a go – worst case is I would just paint the steps and floors a boring color.

Here are the steps and landings pre-finish:

The step treads were a blue-gray color.  The 2nd picture is after the vinyl was removed and the 3rd after the glue was sanded.

The re-finish technique required the base to be painted a color similar to oak:

Then you apply a gel stain and brush it to get a wood grain look:

I am very happy with the results for  a back stairwell but would not do this for a front staircase.

Here are some more post pictures:

In the 1st picture everything has been painted – including the purple plumbing primer on the pipes.  The 2nd picture shows how the gaps around the pipes in the ceiling have been closed (and it shows the door to the laundry room).  3rd picture shows the “bulk-head” for the outside stairs to the basement.  4th picture is of the water damaged corner.  The drywall for the ceiling has been finished as the leak appears to have been fixed.

Here is a repeat picture of the water damaged corner:

So the tile ceiling and damaged plaster have been replaced with drywall and the vinyl flooring has been refinished.  Still need to install some baseboard trim and corner round but that should not take too long.  Then onto the exercise room.

 

Back Stairwell Landing Dry-walled

The electricians fixed the electrical issues; foam insulation has been sprayed in drafty crevices;  fiberglass insulation has been installed on the inside of the exterior walls; and drywall has been hung on the walls and the ceiling except where the hole is where we look for leaks.   We have not had sufficient rain to determine if our last leak abatement solution works or not.

This is the lower ceiling going down the stairs (it’s the underside of a bathroom).

In the 3rd picture below you can see the hole in the bead-board ceiling where we look for the source of the leak.  Fiber-glass insulation has been stuffed in the hole to block the cold draft.  We turned our gas boilers on today and were pleased to learn all the radiators are working including the one in the corner of this room.  It has been a pain working around the radiator but we don’t want to move it as the pipe leading to it is inaccessible from beneath it and if something should go wrong we would have a problem.

There is plumbing running along the stair walls.  There really is not a good solution for hiding it other than opening up the walls and re-doing the plumbing which we did not want to do.  So the pipes will get painted and somehow disguised with decorative things.

Two more courses of mud need to be applied; the 2 wood doors and trim need to be scraped, sanded, and painted, then the walls can be sanded and painted.  I most likely will try to strip, sand and refinish the floor prior to painting the walls.  I am already dreading the drywall dust and dust from refinishing the floor.

 

Front Stairs Carpet Runner Finished

If I had known how difficult it was to do, and what equipment was required to do it correctly, I never would have tried to tackle the stair landings myself – live and learn!  Turns out the carpet installer’s son (the one who seemed to get it) was available to finish the job yesterday.  So now the landings are done correctly.

And he even connected the stair runner to the hall runner (upper right picture).  The father wanted to lay the carpet the fastest way possible; the son prefers to do it the way it will look best (the reverse of what you would expect from father and son).  It is now done to our satisfaction (and I now know I will never be a carpet installer!).

The next project is the back stairwell landing which is about 6×6.  There is a door leading out to a back stoop (which we never use) and a door to the laundry room which then leads to the kitchen (so that gets used a lot).

The 1st picture is looking down the staircase to the landing; 2nd picture is of the far corner where a metal cabinet use to be; 3rd is of the door to the outside stoop; and 4th is of the window and the door (face masks are hanging on it) to the laundry room.  The ceiling had the 9×9 tiles which were stapled to the bead board ceiling.  The plaster where the cabinet use to be (2nd picture) was badly cracked and needed to be replaced.  What I discovered is the 2x4s in that corner were totally water rotted.  The wood was dry but the 2x4s were like mulch.  So the plaster wall and mulch got removed.  There was zero insulation in the walls so it made sense to remove the lathe and plaster from the other  outside wall so that insulation could be installed.

This room is on the south west corner of the house and there are motion sensored flood lights on each side of the corner.  But they have not worked in months.  We discovered one of the lights was no longer connected to the electric panel and we now remember the other light fixture never shut off so the bulbs eventually burned out.  The electrician will be here Monday to correct those problems as well as to install a light in this small room.

So a big question was, is the water leak that turned the 2x4s to mulch old or new?  We finally got some rain (we had a drought most of the summer) and learned our new metal roof leaks.    In the 2nd picture you can see where a hole was cut in the ceiling to look for the water source.  We tightened and caulked the screws in the roof over this area but learned after the next rain storm that was not the problem.  So we bought some siliconized elastomeric coating to apply around the flashing.  Ideally it would get applied in warmer weather but we’ll just have to pick the warmest day possible.  Keep your fingers crossed this fixes the leak.

Front Staircase with Carpet Runner

Here is a before picture:

After many weeks of visiting carpet stores I finally found a runner online that we like.  They sent us samples so we could verify the colors and design.  So the carpet was shipped and we hired an installer that we found during the shopping process.  This installer was supposed to be an expert at complex installations (which we have given all the turns on the stairs and down the upper hall).  Turns out he is ok at installations but really struggled with the stair landings.  So much so that they ran out of time at the end of the day and left 3 risers without carpet.

They did however do a nice job with the 2nd floor hall:

The installer gave me tips on how they install the carpet so I gave it a try:

I managed to figure out how to lay the carpet but I’m not happy with the quality of the seams so have requested the installer send back his helper (who seemed to get it) to re-do the 2 landings.  The trickiest part was the riser to the second landing.  It’s on an angle which made it longer so we had to patch two pieces together to make it align with the step and landing.  For now it looks ok.

 

 

Front Foyer Floor

We believe the slate-like tile on the foyer floor is called Pennsylvania Bluestone.  It is porous so requires a sealer to protect it.  I just thought it was a green slate tile but then on closer inspection I could see where some of the sealer had come off and the tile was actually bluish in color.  The sealer had yellowed over the years making the tile look green (almost olive green).

After some research I learned how to strip the old sealer and apply a new clear sealer.  You simply use a stripper and a lot of elbow grease.  Much easier said then done.  Here is the floor partially stripped.

You have to apply the stripper and let it work then quickly remove it before it dries back in place.   In which case you get tiles that look like this:

All the brown spots had to be removed.  After about 30 hours I managed to get the floor stripped.  Today 2 coats of sealer were applied so it now looks like this:

The stripper also removes paint so now the quarter rounds need some touching up and the thresholds need to be re-installed.