Putting Things in Order

For an obsessive compulsive disorder, renovationism takes a lot of planning--or it ends up costing more and requiring rework. I don't know about other sufferers, but I don't like to ruin what I create in order to get my next project done. So, I really think through the steps and what subs need access to what and who is going to be who's way while the work is getting done. And that includes when Alan and I are doing the work ourselves.

In the case of our new house we knew the floors should get done first. You have to have an empty room when they do that work. There is also a significant amount of dust, that I will say they managed to minimize very well. But, you don't want to have to get sawdust off your stuff. So, it only made sense to wait to move in until those floors were finished and cured just enough to move furniture in. We had that luxury since we were in a lease on the apartment anyway for a couple more months. The floors are easy to protect when you begin the other work and I highly recommend taking that step. When we get lazy on this something always gets damaged and we have to pay to get repairs done. We put construction paper down on the floors since it was mostly paint and ladder feet we would be dealing with on the floor. If more extensive work is being done you'd be better off with something more substantial, anything from cardboard to thin plywood or Masonite to cover your beautiful new floors.

I got a little anxious and started ripping off wallpaper. I thought it made sense to get rid of it right way since the house was empty and we didn't have to move things out of the way. That was just the sickness talking. The wallpaper was in the bathrooms and the kitchen. No real furniture of substance, if at all, was going in there. So, I should have waited. Patience is not my virtue. The bathroom paper came off and the backer paper just fell off the walls when I sprayed on the remover. We did find some nasty surprises in the powder room and the master bath, but I'll get to that later. The kitchen was the biggest setback since the backer paper would not budge. I would have been better off living with that paper until we renovated the kitchen so it wouldn't have looked so torn up for so long.

The project that seemed the most logical to do next was the ceilings. Most of them had some sort of color, which can look fabulous, but I didn't like any of the colors. And, the rooms seemed dark in some cases, which lead me to want to go white on the ceiling to brighten up the room. We were going to put in crown molding and in some cases recessed lighting, and I still felt that the paint should come first. I did not regret that decision. It was easier to paint the ceiling without all those obstructions and then go in and touch up and cut in against the crown.

So, I set out to paint all the ceilings in the upstairs, entry hall, and family room. I was planning more elaborate treatments in the living room and dining room, so those had to wait. I prepped the ceilings, filling in some dings and scratches. We also had to do quite a bit of sanding as the previous paint job was sloppy. Alan does the sanding. He has more strength to put his weight into it, particularly when it is overhead. Here I am painting the family room:

You can see how much darker that peachy color ceiling was than white. This room needed all the light it could get since it only had a single window on the north side of the house. I did three coats on this one and alternated direction for each one. So, the final coat was applied with the roller strokes going down the length of the room. On rooms where I thought two coats would do, I painted across the room first. After five of these ceiling my shoulders and arms were really sore. So, I guess renovationism can provide good exercise, but only if you are doing the work yourself.

The next step was painting all those baseboard heating units. I focused on the rooms I was going to renovate first, so there are still plenty of odd colored baseboards in the guest bedrooms even now. But, all the heaters in the public rooms and our master bedroom got painted. There are several options for getting better looking baseboard heaters. You can buy new ones if yours are really mangled and damaged. I've also seen elaborate custom trim molding boxes with mesh inserts for the necessary air flow. Those could even be stained instead of painted. But, we wanted the painted look and elected to do the least expensive option, which is painting the existing units ourselves. We used latex high gloss paint on all the trimwork including these baseboard heat units. I did not want stark white and went through about five different whites before I landed on Cottage White. I used to be a Pratt & Lambert girl, but when they were no longer convenient to purchase, I tried Behr and I've been very satisfied with the quality of this paint and I'm highly loyal.

Alan had quite a bit of work on those heating units. He disassembled them for me and scrubbed all the gunk off them. The pipes and fins were also filled with dust and dirt. Then the little fins were pretty mangled. He painstakingly bent them all back straight.

The big ones were a little unwieldy in the kitchen sink, but it was 10 degrees outside, so this was the best option.

This wasn't even the worst one.

The five-in-one tool is very handy. These fins are very sharp.

In addition to the high gloss paint, I found this tool to be the best way to get the paint on smoothly.  It took 3 coats as these units were painted dark or bright colors. If you are working on new units you will likely need to prime them in order to use latex paint. I recommend spray paint for this step to give you as smooth a surface as possible to paint. You could leave new units just the way they came, but light warm gray looks a bit industrial to me and you can't tie that into your baseboard trim work color. I think they blend in best when painted to match the trim work.

We spent several days getting all the ceilings and baseboard heaters done. Now it was time for the carpenter and electrician.

New York State of Mind

I had planned to live in a one-bedroom apartment for a few months while our house was on the market. We never expected it to sell in one day. We were thrilled and got very focused on finding a house. We knew we were not apartment people. We have renovationism and you cannot renovate property you do not own.

We had no idea how difficult buying a house in New York would be. We knew it would be expensive. We knew we'd have to buy a smaller house than we had before. But, we did not expect what we went through. We were seasoned home buyers, or so we thought. We were really taken aback when the first realtor we worked with asked who our attorney was. What? We'd never even met the closing attorney until we were at the table before, so what is the rush. Then we learned. In New York you have to have a lawyer draw up contracts. There are no legal sized carbonless forms to fill in the blanks on and work through a deal. We also learned that once you have a contract, which normally requires a 10% deposit--that's right 10% of selling price, which is serious 5 figures around here--and anything that goes wrong after that is tough luck. The first house we found was in the construction stage. We did not know that appraisers were not appraising properties for what anyone else in the process thought they should sell for. So, there we were with a contract and an appraisal for $40k less than the negotiated price. Well, back where we came from you just tell the seller they have to come down or it is over. And that could have worked had we been only marginally able to qualify for the loan because not being able to get a mortgage is a way out. Oh no, not us. Apparently, we are quite the qualified buyers. Long story short it took over six months to fight about this and we still lost several thousand dollars.

That might have driven others to rent, but we've got renovationism and those few months in that apartment had us on our last nerve. We were jonesing for some demolition and rebuilding bad. We found another house and it didn't appraise either, but we had learned to drag our feet on the contract until the appraisal came in so we were only out the inspection and appraisal fees. Finally, we found the house we bought. There were a few bumps along the way, but to be expected and all satisfactorily resolved.

After all that you might think we would take our time and recuperate from our trauma. No, within two hours after closing we were in the house ripping out all the tiny baseboards. We had already arranged to have all the hardwood floors refinished and the crew would be there the next day. We also started tearing off the vinyl wallpaper. That first step makes it easier to get the paper and glue off. Or so they say.

Here is a look at those first few days:

The fireplace was nice, but the room has no molding, is dark, and has no lighting other than those eyeball spots on the fireplace.

The entry hall had small dark moldings, a mix of stained and painted doors and pink walls.

You can really see this pink and all the tiny moldings were all painted pink to match. The stairwell is a nice feature, but it was all dark wood.

Gotta love that light fixture and those vertical blinds. The floors are the real gem in this house. There is not a thread of carpet and never was. But, you can see how shiny the surface is. And while the floors were well maintained and of very high quality, we just wanted the fresh start and the satin finish.

This is the living room. Yes, even more pink. That baseboard heat is pink too. The room has no character and once again no light.

You can see the new floors in this photo. We had already moved stuff in and had to juggle the boxes as we renovated each room. The floors really lightened up once all those layers of poly were removed.

This made it look like it was going to be easy to get this wallpaper off. What a nightmare. Couldn't get the backer paper off in this hallway or the kitchen. We still have flocked walls, but those are coming down when we start to renovate those rooms. New drywall will be cheaper and easier. Did you notice the robin's egg blue ceiling? Yikes. It is in the kitchen too.

We picked out this tall baseboard so that the height would match the baseboard heat. I saw that in a trim molding book. We also added garage stop to the bottom to finish. It is a beefier solution than quarter round for molding this tall. Saw that in that book too. I get a lot of ideas from looking at books and magazines.

This is the crown molding we chose. We really liked the antique look. It looks like it might be too weighty for 8 foot ceilings, but it was perfect and we just love it.

Now that the floors were done and the wallpaper stripped, my next job was painting nearly every ceiling in the house so we could get all that trim molding put in. Come back to see how that turns out.

Keeping Up With The Copelands

I fully realize that our compulsion is further fueled by every successful renovation project. Our last house was full of such successes. Take a look.

We replaced the front door with this mahogany leaded glass door, which to save money I finished myself. And, refinished a few years later. Note to self, southern exposure requires a storm door with UV filtering film. Not as pretty, but saves your wood door. The iron railing replaced a traditional wood rail and there was no rail on the plant ledge. The chandelier has those little flame shaped bulbs that sit in a magnetized housing so the bulb sways back and forth. Gives off no real light, but looks amazing. So, we added can lights to actually light the foyer. The last piece we did was the antique doors on the ledge. At Christmas time I hung garland and large bows on all the railings. Getting that on the plant ledge railing required an extension ladder and some gymnastics moves. Every year I said never again and every year I climbed that ladder and hoped I wouldn't fall and break my neck.

This room was one of our early projects. You faced into it when you came in the front door. When we bought the house this room had nothing in it but a window and carpet. We put in the french doors out onto the deck (which was also a project, but I'll show you the redo of that one later), hardwood floors to match the entry, built-in bookcases with ventless gas fireplace, and coffered ceiling. While the fireplace proved to be too strong for the room to actually use, we loved the look and really enjoyed this room. When the construction was finished the only furniture we had in it was the piano, which has a Piano Disc installed. I remember when our grandson would come over and we would dance to the piano music. He was only a couple of years old and I mostly just picked him up and carried him around when I was dancing. Really good times.

The dining room did not require quite as much construction as the living room, but we added the wall sconces with those same cool flame bulbs as the entry chandelier. I stripped off the wallpaper that was under the chair rail and the border under the crown molding. The ceiling was fun. I was working with a decorator for a while at this point and she recommended the metallic ceiling. Told me it would work to roll the paint on and then brush a texture in that center tray. Well, Ralph Lauren metallic paint does not roll on. It streaks with every stroke of the roller. Then, I had an idea. What if I just sponged on a second coat? It worked great. I had the hammered finish look on the whole ceiling and then I used a swirling brush technique in the tray.

Another cool feature of our house was the theater we put in upstairs. My husband is in the AV industry and designs these rooms, so of course we had a showroom right in our house. The system was THX certified and that screen is 10 feet wide. It is hard to tell with the lights so bright for this real estate listing photo, but the ceiling was painted like a night sky. Had light blocking drapes made for the window and the french doors, so even on a bright day it could be completely dark in the room. This room was a favorite of everyone who came to visit us. Especially our grandkids.

The kitchen was one of our more recent projects. The floor was done early on and we upgraded the counter tops back then too, so we saved those countertops to reconfigure on the new perimeter cabinets. Other than that, it was a total gut job down to the studs. New layout, new island configuration, new lighting, and of course all new cabinets and appliances. The floating glass bar top required fabrication by a glass company and an iron fence company. You can't see them, but there are iron brackets that suspend the glass up there that we custom designed. We absolutely loved everything we did in this room and have no regrets about any of our choices. Although I do suspect that the stone fabricator regrets cutting the hole for the prep sink sideways. I think that is why they are so expensive--the fabricators just know they are going to have to buy you a new piece of material so they just build it into the price up front. I'll never forget racing to the stone yard hoping that there was still one more piece of this Capelli marble left from this lot as this type of stone is random and cannot be matched. Thankfully there was and that kept me from having to send someone to Africa with a photo, dynamite, and a chisel, because I was going to have this countertop and that was that.

The hearth room connected to the kitchen and breakfast nook (to the left). Not too much construction here, but we did remove chair rail and then beefed up the crown molding so we could put rope light behind it. Gave the room a really nice glow.

This deck and planting beds were put in just months before we moved. The sunroom was an early project that we updated when we realized that we really did not want an indoor/outdoor room. It needed to be all indoors and air conditioned. The deck was a significant improvement to our first deck, which we discovered had construction flaws after it failed. We did get 10 years out of it, so no complaints. Most folks probably would have just replaced the existing deck as simply and cheaply as possible if they knew they would likely move across the country. But, not us. We made it fabulous just in case we would end of up living here for a long time.

One of our favorite features was the covered cooking area with lights and a fan. You can't see it in this photo but at the end of the counter top against the house was a sink. Only wish the weather was better. It was always too hot and too buggy. We've eaten out on our deck here in NY more times in the months we've been in the new house than the entire time we lived in Memphis. Of course the deck isn't this nicely designed--yet?

The proof that all our work was worth the effort was when we sold the house in one business day. Yep, 24 hours. And in the worst housing market in decades--for our asking price, which was quite a bit more than the house down the street that was also for sale. I can't say we got all our money out of this house, but living there had a value too.

Now the bar is set and we intend to make our current house just as nice even if it doesn't have all the features and square footage of this one. And, in record time. Stay tuned.

Renovationism

My husband and I both have this disorder. Renovationism is the compulsion to renovate your home. Like other obsessive compulsive disorders it often takes years for the afflicted to recognize their problem. As I thought about my binges in an effort to better understand and control my disorder, I realized I've been renovating my living spaces since I was a little girl. I redesigned my childhood bedroom at least four times growing up. I was so intent on getting my first house just the way I wanted it that sometimes I would forget to eat. My second house was custom built, but I still found ways to improve it. Things only got worse after I married a fellow sufferer. The first house we bought together was practically brand new and we systematically renovated it room by room for the twelve years we lived there--the major landscaping project in the back yard was completed only a couple of months before we moved.

Now we've escalated--as serial renovators often do. We moved to the lower Hudson Valley, a suburb of New York City and fully intend to get this one renovated in a fraction of the time we've ever taken before. I suppose we are still delusional and believe if we just work faster we won't feel compelled to renovate any more. We'll see how that works out for us.

New York is a very expensive place to live. We discovered that we could buy half the house we had before for twice the money. We fully intended to buy a home that we did not have to renovate. We were going to recover and beat this sickness. But, we could not find a home that met our standards--at least not in our price range--and, I now believe there is no home, anywhere on earth, at any price, that ever could. So, we settled for a decent floor plan with rooms that were big enough for us to work with.

So, here is what we started with. These photos were all on the real estate listing.

As you can see, we had our work cut out for us. The house was maintained fairly well, but hadn't been updated in years.

Next post will be about our benchmark--our last house. Then, you can watch this renovation unfold.