We are fortunate to be having a beautiful Fall here in the Pacific Northwest, the leaves are turning, the days seem to be getting a little shorter but the sun has just kept shining. The Indian summer has let us paint the house in what should be the beginning of the rainy season. I’m happy to say that the guys just wrapped up today. They did a great job and I’m very pleased to see the house with a fresh coat of paint, they applied a first coat primer to all the bare wood areas then they applied two coats of paint to the entire house and trim. We used Benjamin Moore Paint they have a line called Ben, which is a premium paint that applies thick for great coverage and further has excellent color retention which is a concern whenever you paint with rich, saturated or dark colors. We love our color palette, which I know is not for everyone, but we wanted to do something that was distinctive. Our palette came from observations of reseeding landscapes and I think we were able to accomplish that in the color scheme. The field color is a very rich grey which picks up cues of blue and green depending on light conditions. The trim is a lighter tonal step that highlights the craftsman woodwork and detail without being too cookie cutter. We wanted the house to reseed and look forward to planting the landscape around the house to bring out some color. Check out the pictures.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
go painters go and the salvaged tub
D’ Painting has begun work at our house and it is very exciting. Zan and I focused on the surface prep of the siding but we both felt uncomfortable up at heights scraping the undersides of the soffits. But the guys have no hesitation, hanging off the ladders backwards the guys went after the last of the chipping paint. They have put in two days of prep work and have primed the west façade and garage, scraped much of the 2nd level dormer, started to fill nail holes and calked all of the joints between the door and window trim and the siding. We’re in a holding pattern as a storm blew in this weekend but we have our fingers crossed and hope for some fair weather this week so that progress can continue.
Having the painters take over the exterior, freed me up to work on the master bath. After fighting with the 300 lb beast that is our tub I am happy to say that I installed the claw foot tub trim. The hardest part was the tubs drain and over flow but after setting the trap adaptor below the finish tile, easier said than done, the tub drain was straight forward. The claw foot trim was much like a Lego box of parts but easily erected following the straightforward instructions. The shower looks great and we love having a master bath. We thoroughly tested it this weekend taking many showers. The shower head provides great pressure and feels amazing. We still need to resolve the master sink as we do not like the Ikea cabinet that we purchased. It just is too modern and does not go with the hex tile and claw foot tub. Further, the Duravat sink that we found as salvage from the rebuilding center has a crack in it that we fear will only grow as water works its way into it. I think I just going to build a custom cabinet. Off to Mr. Plywood were I hope to get the plywood for the kitchen carcasses. More to come, check out pictures below.
Having the painters take over the exterior, freed me up to work on the master bath. After fighting with the 300 lb beast that is our tub I am happy to say that I installed the claw foot tub trim. The hardest part was the tubs drain and over flow but after setting the trap adaptor below the finish tile, easier said than done, the tub drain was straight forward. The claw foot trim was much like a Lego box of parts but easily erected following the straightforward instructions. The shower looks great and we love having a master bath. We thoroughly tested it this weekend taking many showers. The shower head provides great pressure and feels amazing. We still need to resolve the master sink as we do not like the Ikea cabinet that we purchased. It just is too modern and does not go with the hex tile and claw foot tub. Further, the Duravat sink that we found as salvage from the rebuilding center has a crack in it that we fear will only grow as water works its way into it. I think I just going to build a custom cabinet. Off to Mr. Plywood were I hope to get the plywood for the kitchen carcasses. More to come, check out pictures below.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
The house in her birthday suit.
We started getting painting bids in mid august which is basically the height of the painting season here in Portland. All the painters that were highly recommended had more work than they could shake a stick at and were therefore passing along astronomical bids to paint our house. In addition, new EPA regulations state that house built before 1975 are assumed to be painted with lead base paint and there for extra precautions must be taken by the painter which again means more cost to us. We seemed to uncover a very expensive problem when we removed the vinyl siding. The north and east elevations, the ones with less direct sun and predominant weather where actually in good shape, there are a few minor touch ups but the bulk of the prep work was going to be in filling the nail and staple holes left from the vinyl siding. However, the west and the south elevations as well as the entire garage were in horrible shape. The paint was failing as it was delaminating from the wood. Zanna brother in law Alex Smith God bless him! Sent us a tool he had used to strip his own house when he recently painted. The tool, the paint shaver pro is basically a Makita grinder with an after market head attachment the turns the grinder into a portable planner made for siding. It has three carbide blades that removed paint from both the face as well as the under side of the clabbers. The tool has a built in dust extraction port and when hooked up to my HEPA vacuum meets the new EPA guidelines for controlled removal of lead based paint. The tool is amazing and is able to strip the siding of paint back to the bare wood. We focused on our problem areas the South and West elevations as well as the garage. It was a lot of work but was really satisfying to see the wood be brought back into shape. I further nailed off the loose siding and repaired or replaced the ones that were truly un repairable. Check out our progress. We were able to lower our paint bids by about 5000$ by doing this portion of prep work. This has brought the painting below our original budget which means we were able to hire a painter and hope to have the house painted in the coming weeks.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Summer Time
I have taken a little break from the posts but want to get back into it. When I look back at the blog I realize that our last post was actually the day we moved in. I think for me the project became more personal once we moved in and the house really became our home. It is very different to see the house full of our belongings. We have made a lots of progress this summer so here’s an update.
Its been a great summer full of visits from family and friends, trips and weddings among it all we have made some progress with our renovation. Lisa’s visit was the great motivation to get us into the house and get a bathroom up and running. Andi and Rod came to visit and showed us the miracles of Windex and razor blades. The windows we had long wrote off as needing to be replaced were given new life with a little elbow grease and a whole lot of scraping. I have found the reflection from the nearly hundred year old wavy glass is one of my favorite attributes of this old bungalow. Zanna has even taken the shadows as a departure point for a new print pattern currently being developed.
Meanwhile in off hours we pulled all the nails and staples that littered the tight grain fir clabber siding. The siding that lay almost dormant beneath the vinyl was in great shape on the east and north faces, only scared by nails and staples holes used to install the haphazard vinyl. The south and west faces did show there years of exposure to the sun and is currently our primary project. More about our paint prep in the next post.
In addition, we have taken to tile work and have found it to be a beautiful finish. We also had a claw foot tub that we got tired of bumping into in the middle of our bed room so we have done a large push to get the master bathroom up and running. We laid cement board over the sub flooring and around the shower surround and used an paint on vapor barrier, much like the down stairs bathroom. Again we used the 1” hex tiles on the bathroom floor but this time we decide on a much darker grout for higher contrast with the small white tile. I also wanted to protect the walls around the tub/ shower so we decided to tile that with large 12 x 4-1/2” tiles; again we used an almost black grout to give the tile a high contrast finish.
I had salvaged a lot of random width knotty pine wall board and re-milled it to run as bead board around the bathroom. I capped the bead board with a vintage craftsman chair rail from Rejuvenation, a great local lighting, millwork and antiques store. Finally, we were able to get the claw foot tub out of our bedroom and it could live in its new home. The tub which we found second hand from the rebuilding center for a steal price had brass plated cast iron feet. We did not like the high gloss brass finish and used a brass ager to give the feet an older patina. Lastly, I set the toilet, a Flowise American Standard, which uses 1.28 gallons per flush as apposed to the typical 1.6 gallons which can save hundreds of gallons of water per year. We ordered the claw foot tub trim from Sunrise Specialty and hope to install it in the coming week.
In addition, I have become an amateur electrician and have built and wired all the houses lighting. We bought some beautiful fixtures for school house electric which is a Portland institution for period lighting but were shocked at how much fixtures and globes could be. So we hit the salvage stores and re-building center and were able to build the rest of the houses lights from old sconces, fixtures, wall mounts and globes. There is a local lighting supply store loving know to us as the light bulb lady who sells modern lighting parts. For the cost of a single school house globe we were able to outfit about twelve other complete fixtures.
One of our prerequisites when we were searching for a house was a place that would allow both of us to have studio space. We have converted the basement into Zanna’s Studio while my wood shop is out in the garage. Both the spaces are quite spacious and we have honed there layout to allow both of us to work at home while still having a true separation from our living space. I recently built zanna a second 4’ x 8’ print table which allows her to now print fabric yardage up to 16’. In my shop I was being inundated with salvaged wood and built a storage loft to clear the work space and provide more room.
Finally, the planning of our kitchen cabinetry is well underway and I have my cut sheet to build the first unit that will house the kitchen sink and dish washer, both additions will be welcomed by us as we are growing tired of busing our dishes down to the shop sink in the basement. Though our friend Rich told me he would surely do more dishes if he too had a garden hose to do them with. I’m excited to get going on the cabinetry but have been postponing while the weather has remained good. We have been prepping the house for painting and have focused on the truly beaten up walls, the south and west faces as well as our west facing 2nd level dormer and the garage. Our paint prep has been an arduous task and will go into it in further detail in the next post. Until then please see a slide show of our summer of family, friends and play and work. Thanks for checking back in.
Its been a great summer full of visits from family and friends, trips and weddings among it all we have made some progress with our renovation. Lisa’s visit was the great motivation to get us into the house and get a bathroom up and running. Andi and Rod came to visit and showed us the miracles of Windex and razor blades. The windows we had long wrote off as needing to be replaced were given new life with a little elbow grease and a whole lot of scraping. I have found the reflection from the nearly hundred year old wavy glass is one of my favorite attributes of this old bungalow. Zanna has even taken the shadows as a departure point for a new print pattern currently being developed.
Meanwhile in off hours we pulled all the nails and staples that littered the tight grain fir clabber siding. The siding that lay almost dormant beneath the vinyl was in great shape on the east and north faces, only scared by nails and staples holes used to install the haphazard vinyl. The south and west faces did show there years of exposure to the sun and is currently our primary project. More about our paint prep in the next post.
In addition, we have taken to tile work and have found it to be a beautiful finish. We also had a claw foot tub that we got tired of bumping into in the middle of our bed room so we have done a large push to get the master bathroom up and running. We laid cement board over the sub flooring and around the shower surround and used an paint on vapor barrier, much like the down stairs bathroom. Again we used the 1” hex tiles on the bathroom floor but this time we decide on a much darker grout for higher contrast with the small white tile. I also wanted to protect the walls around the tub/ shower so we decided to tile that with large 12 x 4-1/2” tiles; again we used an almost black grout to give the tile a high contrast finish.
I had salvaged a lot of random width knotty pine wall board and re-milled it to run as bead board around the bathroom. I capped the bead board with a vintage craftsman chair rail from Rejuvenation, a great local lighting, millwork and antiques store. Finally, we were able to get the claw foot tub out of our bedroom and it could live in its new home. The tub which we found second hand from the rebuilding center for a steal price had brass plated cast iron feet. We did not like the high gloss brass finish and used a brass ager to give the feet an older patina. Lastly, I set the toilet, a Flowise American Standard, which uses 1.28 gallons per flush as apposed to the typical 1.6 gallons which can save hundreds of gallons of water per year. We ordered the claw foot tub trim from Sunrise Specialty and hope to install it in the coming week.
In addition, I have become an amateur electrician and have built and wired all the houses lighting. We bought some beautiful fixtures for school house electric which is a Portland institution for period lighting but were shocked at how much fixtures and globes could be. So we hit the salvage stores and re-building center and were able to build the rest of the houses lights from old sconces, fixtures, wall mounts and globes. There is a local lighting supply store loving know to us as the light bulb lady who sells modern lighting parts. For the cost of a single school house globe we were able to outfit about twelve other complete fixtures.
One of our prerequisites when we were searching for a house was a place that would allow both of us to have studio space. We have converted the basement into Zanna’s Studio while my wood shop is out in the garage. Both the spaces are quite spacious and we have honed there layout to allow both of us to work at home while still having a true separation from our living space. I recently built zanna a second 4’ x 8’ print table which allows her to now print fabric yardage up to 16’. In my shop I was being inundated with salvaged wood and built a storage loft to clear the work space and provide more room.
Finally, the planning of our kitchen cabinetry is well underway and I have my cut sheet to build the first unit that will house the kitchen sink and dish washer, both additions will be welcomed by us as we are growing tired of busing our dishes down to the shop sink in the basement. Though our friend Rich told me he would surely do more dishes if he too had a garden hose to do them with. I’m excited to get going on the cabinetry but have been postponing while the weather has remained good. We have been prepping the house for painting and have focused on the truly beaten up walls, the south and west faces as well as our west facing 2nd level dormer and the garage. Our paint prep has been an arduous task and will go into it in further detail in the next post. Until then please see a slide show of our summer of family, friends and play and work. Thanks for checking back in.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Trunk Show
I'm so happy for Zanna! Her trunk show opened today at modern domestic. Her stuff looked great in the space and it is so nice to show her work in a beautiful retail store. Wish her the best of luck and if your in Portland come in and see her show.
Modern Domestic
1408 NE Alberta St.
Portland, OR 97211
moderndomesticpdx.com
Modern Domestic
1408 NE Alberta St.
Portland, OR 97211
moderndomesticpdx.com
Friday, July 2, 2010
First post from the house!
So we're in! Internet is up and this is the first post from the house. It has been crazy so sorry for the lack of updates, but here we go.
To get Zanna's studio space ready we wanted to white wash the walls and ceiling in the basement as well as paint the floor. We rented a paint sprayer because painting the joist cavities by hand would have been a nightmare and taken just too long. We sadly had to use an oil based primer because you can not paint over oil based paints with latex paint. You need to first apply an oil based primer, then you can paint with latex paints in the future. So we opened all the windows, put on our respirators and sprayed away. Again another project we a very happy with. By painting the walls and joist space white it greatly brightens the space. Now were ready to move all our stuff in to our clean storage n studio space.
We hired both a plumber and an electrician to do “ ruff in” electrical and plumbing which means that the water and electrical lines were run and angled out of the walls exactly where they need to be. However, for the past two days I have been doing the finish plumbing and electrical for the first floor bathroom and plugs and switches throughout the house. I have to say that I now have a new appreciation for plumbing. After fighting with a pee trap and the shower trim I am happy to say that we have a full working bathroom and it looks great. We also fired up the hot water heater yesterday and want to report we have running hot water. We're truly ready to move in, but now we have come to the point that we have been dreading for awhile; packing up and moving. I can’t wait to be in but I’m really not looking forward to moving… I hate moving. Check out the pictures.
To get Zanna's studio space ready we wanted to white wash the walls and ceiling in the basement as well as paint the floor. We rented a paint sprayer because painting the joist cavities by hand would have been a nightmare and taken just too long. We sadly had to use an oil based primer because you can not paint over oil based paints with latex paint. You need to first apply an oil based primer, then you can paint with latex paints in the future. So we opened all the windows, put on our respirators and sprayed away. Again another project we a very happy with. By painting the walls and joist space white it greatly brightens the space. Now were ready to move all our stuff in to our clean storage n studio space.
We hired both a plumber and an electrician to do “ ruff in” electrical and plumbing which means that the water and electrical lines were run and angled out of the walls exactly where they need to be. However, for the past two days I have been doing the finish plumbing and electrical for the first floor bathroom and plugs and switches throughout the house. I have to say that I now have a new appreciation for plumbing. After fighting with a pee trap and the shower trim I am happy to say that we have a full working bathroom and it looks great. We also fired up the hot water heater yesterday and want to report we have running hot water. We're truly ready to move in, but now we have come to the point that we have been dreading for awhile; packing up and moving. I can’t wait to be in but I’m really not looking forward to moving… I hate moving. Check out the pictures.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Tiling
Zan and I are moving into the house in the next week so we are working like crazy people over at the house. We are working hard to get a full working bathroom and have been tiling. This is our first tiling project but we have been doing great. We have laid our bathroom tiles over cement board with a vapor barrier applied to the surface. We used thin-set mortar to adhere the tiles to the cement board. The most difficult part of tiling are quantities estimation. The tiles are an expensive material so we did not want to buy a lot of tile that we would never use but we also needed enough for cut offs an mistakes. I did a cad drawing of the shower surround and was able to hone in on our quantities. We tiled the floor with 1” hex tiles and then the shower with 3” x 6” subway tiles. We are very happy with our tiling work and I can’t wait to test out the tub.
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