Our Green Street Home Renovation: 2013

Cathie and me.

Warning: This post is less for public consumption and more for my personal use. The purpose of the entry is to document changes Cathie and I make to our Green Street place. The entry is filled with boring before, during, and after pictures. Entries remind us of what we've done, and hopefully will give us pleasant memories down the road. I imagine most folks will find this entry (and this blog, in general) painfully boring. Read on if you must, but remember, you've been warned.

Bedroom 1, at the top of the stairs, is Audrey's room. Besides the basement, it was the first room we renovated. The primary goal for the renovation was to repaint the room. However, before we could do that, we had to make some repairs. These repairs turned out to be about 75% of the work.

The first major repair was to replace the exterior door. This door leads onto the garage roof. Someday, we want to build a nice deck out there. The existing door and its frame were rotten and had to be replaced. In addition, the side-roof, outside the bedroom, was improperly flashed, so I fixed that as well.

Other repairs included re-installing baseboards and re-hanging the pocket doors so they hung straight. The baseboard mini-project was a bit of a pain. It turns out the East wall is substantially warped. Moreover, the house is a post-and-beam structure, with (in this room) few wall studs to nail into. This explains the sad state of the original baseboard on this wall. Nailing baseboard into nothing but drywall, while trying to bend it around a curving wall didn't work so well, so the previous renovator chose to let the baseboard lay straight, then caulk the hell out of it to fill the gap between it and the wall. The result was awful. To remedy the problem, I used wallboard anchors to solidly pull the baseboard down onto the wallboard. This worked well. After counter-sinking, plugging, and finishing off the screw-holes that held the anchors, you couldn't see them at all.

Another big (and unexpected) pre-painting sub-project was to trim out the ceiling panels. During a previous renovation 4'x8' bead-board paneling had been installed on the ceiling. Unfortunately, the carpenter didn't do a very good job. The seams between the sheets were ragged, chipped and unevenly caulked. Worse, the boards weren't properly anchored to the ceiling, and, as such, they sagged down in places. Again, like the baseboards, the lack of rafters in the ceiling (especially at critical edges) led to insufficient anchor points. To clean the paneling up, I decided to trim it out with 1x3 MDF trim. At first, I wasn't sure this would look good, but once we were done, I was happy with it.

"Before" Photos:

Here are some photos taken before the renovation began.

How the external door looked before I bought the place. The curtain nicely hides the rotten door. Oops!

After removing the curtain, the poor condition of the door is visible.

Even though the original door was in bad shape, I liked its style. So, when I looked for a replacement I tried to match the style.

The original door as seen from the outside. The lower panels and stiles were rotten.

The exterior door frame was badly rotten.

Once I pulled the door off I could see just how badly the frame was rotten. The whole assembly had to be replaced. It turns out, during the winter, snow piles up against the door. The door heats the snow, it melts, and water drains against the door and frame. Eventually, it finds its way in and everything goes to hell.

To fix this problem long term, I created a small "snow-shed" that I insert into the outside doorway during the winter. This "shed" keeps snow away from the door during the winter and prevents water build up.

A pre-purchase photo of the North-West corner of Bedroom 1. Even in this low-quality picture, the ceiling panel seams are visible. Also note how the skylight trim is missing.

The pocket door didn't hang straight.

A pre-purchase picture of the North-East corner of the bedroom. Notice: a) the thin trim on the skylight, b) the ceiling panel has only been primed, but lacks a finish coat, c) the East wall has a vertical stripe of gooey stuff on it. You can also see part of the rotten door.

A pre-purchase picture of the South-East corner of Bedroom 1. Notice: a) the dirty wall -- it's crayon, b) the unfinished ceiling panel, c) the visible seam between ceiling panels. The terribly caulked baseboard is largely hidden behind the bed.

A pre-purchase photo of the South-wall of Bedroom 1. Even in this low-resolution shot, you can see the seam between ceiling panels, and the sagging in the ceiling panel in the upper-right corner of the photo. Though difficult to see in this picture, the trim-edge on the West wall is comprised of a trim-board, butted up against wallboard, then caulked. The caulking was cracked and the edge looked ugly. This was fixed by adding 1"x3" to both sides of the edge.

"During" Photos:

Here are photos taken during the renovation.

Prepping the new exterior door for paint.

The first coat of exterior paint on the new door.

The new door installed...finally! I had a surprisingly difficult time getting this door installed. In this photo, the trim still needs to be installed and some clapboards replaced.

The new door installed with the grid prepped for painting. Oh yeah, that's Audrey. Cute eh?

The pocket doors adjusted to hang straight.

Audrey painting a pocket door.

Installing 1"x 3" trim along the ceiling panel seams.

I replaced the narrow (1/4" trim) that was originally on the skylight, with 1" x 3" trim.

I also trimmed out the ceiling-wall edges. Using this arrangement allowed me to anchor the trim into the wall studs and press the ceiling panels snug up against the ceiling. This took the sag out of the panels. I also, trimmed out both sides of the wall corner, shown in this photo, to clean up that edge.

Then we caulked all the seams. Cathie, using a Q-tip, meticulously caulked the bead-board gaps. She did an incredible job!

Then we primed the ceiling with Kilz. Two coats.

The primed ceiling was starting to look sharp.

We liked the new skylight trim. It looked more substantial.

The corner detail, primed and ready to go.

Once we finished priming the ceiling, we moved onto the walls. It goes without saying that before we painted anything, we spackled, sanded, cleaned and caulked everything.

A view of the primed West wall (and bedroom entryway).

The primed closet.

A view of the primed North wall.

The primed bookcase.

A view of the primed East wall.

A view of the primed South-East corner of the room.

Then it was time to start the finish coat. We started with the ceiling. First step, mask off the trim. We painted the ceiling panels first, then came back with a semi-gloss paint on the trim.

We used a lot of tape!

Once the ceiling was done, we moved onto the walls. Again we used a lot of tape. This photo shows the East wall cut in with the final color. Audrey picked the colors. I was nervous, very nervous. But it worked out well.

Cut-in for the North-West corner nook.

Cutting in the panel above the entry way.

The final coat on the East wall, North side..

The final coat on the East wall, South side.

The final coat on the South wall.

The final coat on the West wall panel above the entry.

To add visual interest, we applied a two-tone color to the West wall.

The final coat on the East wall.

Once the walls were done, we finished with the floor. We used a floor paint, custom mixed to our desired color. This photo shows the cut-in for the North-West nook. We used a brush for the cut-in, and a roller for the body of the floor.

Cutting in the North and East walls.

Cutting in the West wall edge.

Finishing up the floor.

"After" Photos:

Here are some photos taken after completing the work.

The finished room: a view of the North-wall.

The finished room: a view of the South wall. Note: the southern segment of the West wall is white. This white wall is actually a whiteboard. We applied white-board paint to this surface to give Audrey something to write on. She loves it. :)