Living Room – Slow, but Steady

Life moves along slowly, but steadily on our living room project. Some of the tasks, such as wall repair and painting, have been moved to the end of the queue. They will require a few very long work days in order to complete. We normally have longer blocks of time on the weekends. Until then, I keep chipping away at the small, but important chores.

After Andy removed the bulk of the wallpaper as a solo endeavor, little bits of paper remained around the windows and woodwork.

I have been scraping these off as I am removing all traces of the heavy drapes that once hung on the windows. For a long time, it was common for people to screw the drapery hardware directly into the woodwork for a solid installation and to preserve the plaster. In some cases, a wood block was installed in order to create a solid surface for the curtain rod supports. I am removing all of it, and I will fill in the holes before we repaint.

Yesterday, I finished the ceiling demo above the window seat. I cannot get over how heavy plaster is. I weighed each bag so I would not overload them for the trash collectors. In all, I removed around 200 lbs of plaster. Mike Rowe should feature plaster removal on Dirty Jobs. I still have dirt under my fingernails. I wore a mask, and at the end of the demo, my forehead and hair were covered in a fine layer of dust and dirt.

The demolition and subsequent clean-up took me much longer than it takes the people on an HGTV show (minus the magic of television). They whack at that stuff with a sledgehammer and pull it out with a full-sized crowbar wedge. I take a more delicate approach. I have small hands and a bum arm to work with. As a result, I demolish more like an artist than a construction worker. Each rap with a hammer and tear-out with my hand-sized wedge is followed by close scrutiny and the consideration of my next move. My process would be excruciatingly boring to watch which is only one of the reasons why I will never get my own HGTV show. (Here’s the pitch: Middle-aged woman fixes up a historical 1880’s home. She’s got all kinds of heart, but she rarely completes anything because the house breaks faster than she fixes. We’ll call it BHH Vs. Stacy Yes? No.)

I opted to leave most of the lathe. I tore out just the very worst pieces. If we ever get around to restoring the ceiling with real plaster, the old lathe will serve as our guide.

While working in the living room, I found two nice surprises. The first surprise is that I think the living room ceiling is plaster instead of drywall. In the adjoining foyer and dining room, the ceilings have been replaced with drywall. Upon closer inspection of the living room ceiling it looks to be solid plaster. Based on the condition of the other plaster ceilings in the house, it is highly possible that the living room ceiling is not original. If it is not, kudos to a previous owner for the authentic repair. It looks beautiful.

The next lovely surprise was finding out that the window locks and pulls are likely from the 1880’s. They were both covered with a fine layer of paint. Because the paint was not caked on the metal, I made the assumption that they were added at a later date, possibly as a replacement for original pieces. Andy removed them, and I used the crock pot method of paint removal. I was shocked to find this date on the bottom of the locks:

Now that the paint is removed, I can see that they are made of beautiful copper. Once they are buffed and the metal is protected, we will place them back on the windows in their natural state. We look forward to incorporating some other copper pieces into the decor to pull the space together.

The biggest question mark is still the paint color. Last night, when I asked him about his color preference, Andy uttered a phrase that I have grown to love over the years. He told me, “I don’t care.” That sentence is incredibly freeing for me. It means that I can obsess about the colors all I want, ask for his opinion, and I still get to do exactly what I want without the fear that I am being too controlling. It’s a control freak’s dream-come-true scenario–not that I know a control freak, of course.

This weekend will be all about cleaning and prepping for paint. It is my least favorite part of each job, but it has to be done. We have a long way to go until we are finished.