Our Old House Project- Going from Green To Blue

Ahhhh  --- we are home for a week and getting a few things done on the house.  For my newest blog readers, we fondly refer to our 104 year old home as "Our Old House".  We decided this summer to spruce up the outside.

Long ago our house looked like this: 

When we bought it in 2012 it looked like this:

(vinyl siding was added in the 70's) 

We removed the heavy overgrown cedars to show 

the delicate custom fretwork lattice under the porch.

Some of the cedars broke in the first winter's snowstorm anyhow.

Then I painted up some of the trim GREEN in 2013 like this:

When the previous owners had the house resided with vinyl, they also did  the soffits and eaves.  The soffit material has a pattern of two smooth sections and then two textured sections.  For some reason, they put a piece of the vinyl soffit material along the front of the house as trim???  In 2013, I had painted the textured sections of this material with green just to cover up the dirty looking parts that trapped dirt. 

Next project in mind: Steve is going to tear it off and see what is going on underneath it.  We are thinking of adding some curly cue stuff or trim strips of color or whatever.  Still messing with photoshop on ideas.


Yesterday, I got out my gallon of Cabots Solid Colored Acrylic Stain.... it works so much better than paint on things like concrete or treated wood (or even aluminum like this trim)  It doesn't flake off like paint does. You really can't use it over paint, but you can use it over stain, which is what I used the first time when I did the green back in 2013.  (I did a gazebo with it back in 1987 and it still looks great, as well as the shutters on our log house in 1997)  It lasts a lot longer than paint.

Mind you, Steve HATES painting... whereas I love it.  So this is "my thing" and I only ask him to assist with the difficult or up high stuff.

I went to work on the front steps, which are concrete and then some of the trim along the edge of the porch flooring and three columns from when the house was originally an open porch. 

I didn't get up high on the ladder yet for the top three blocks, but I will do that when Steve gets home and can help me.  He will need to put up the ladder to remove that soffit material with the green squares anyhow. Going from Green To Blue!


Whoooo hoooooo am I blue??? I did wear a bit of the color here and there on my hands and arms.  Hahahah I had fun... I even did the little house numbers as well.  It was a nice cool day in the low 70's and I got double coats on everything.  I think it looks great, and we will be adding to the trim around the windows, perhaps with shutters or some bric a brac or maybe even some corbels around the diningroom bumpout.

I even painted the birdbath (WITH water in it!) 

and I joked to neighbors passing by:

"Since I bought this cute little Dutch Boy and Girl, 

now I have to paint the house to match!"

Next up on my list of ideas was to stain up a bunch of new strips of wood, some quarter round and some half round pieces.  I convinced Steve to get out the air compressor and nail gun to put some up on the front of the house along the bottom edge of the fretwork lattice.  Ahhhh  I think that looks good!   (It's a "test piece" for some of the trim I might want nailed up around the windows and in the gables....)

That was it for Tuesday... 

not too bad for one day's work, don't ya think?   

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Now it was Wednesday!  The weatherman said that it would be nice in the 70's today, but the rest of the week will be muggy and higher 80's.  So if I want to get ANY more done, I better do it today!!!!


I had the paint department mix up a quart of matching paint to the same color of the solid colored stain.  Because this adorable little round picnic table and benches had been painted before, I was more confident using paint on this for a new color.  The table was red, and I bought it for a donation to the Wisconsin Sheltie Rescue Group a few years ago. I like it better than a rectangular picnic table with attached benches.  This one fits better in the corner by the back porch and the benches are positionable for comfortable seating while eating.

I had Steve spread out a tarp in the shade, but the sun was moving fast so I had better hop to it!   I set out an MP3 player with my soft celtic music and spent the whole morning changing my table from red to blue!  I did all of the legs first one coat, and then a second coat in that order.  Once the legs were all done, then I could do the edges and tops of each piece.

Ahhhhh I got them done before 11 a.m. and just in time because I was losing my shade! It looks a little lighter blue in the pic because of the sunshine, but it's the same colonial type blue color as on the front.

Once that was done, I still have paint on my brush.... I asked Steve to remove the triangles from the cross buck design from the two storm doors on the back of the house.  They are not my "favorite" feature, more of a ranch house design.  I would love to find two old fashioned wooden screen doors with some character and bric a brac to replace them with.  But then we would still need winter storm doors....   Steve said we could in the future keep that in mind.

I finished up the triangles and set them to dry... 

After that I painted the stairs to the back kitchen door as well. 

This is using the stain again, because that is what I used before 

on the bare treated wood that was here when we bought the house. 

Steve put the triangles on the doors while I took a shower 

(and a nap!) 

He also moved the picnic table back into place and set the benches around it. On top in the center goes my funky big coffee cup planter that I garbage picked last summer.  My jade plant wintered well indoors, and we have been bringing it out daily to acclimate it to outdoor temps again.  I even painted the filigree holder for the garden hose next to the back door to the basement.  Hey.. when I get a paint brush in my hand, there is no stopping me!  LOL

Ahhhh 

now that part of the house is done!  

except maybe some strips of color trim

or shutters around the windows? 

I am anxious to see what we are going to do next ????

Our Old House - Laundry Room Makeover

This week I worked on an Our Old House project.....

Originally, when we bought this house, this small room had been a pantry with a sink. The previous owners had added some modern light oak cabinets and also had the refrigerator and dishwasher in this section. There is a larger main kitchen that had only contained the stove and a small set of cabinets original to the home,

To me, it didn't make much sense to have the sink and fridge and dishwasher all crammed into this little pantry, but the stove out in the main kitchen with the table and chairs?  It was sunny and bright but tight quarters.  Only one person at a time could be in there cooking or cleaning up. 

This Part Happened Four Years Ago:

We decided (four years ago when we bought the house) to revamp this pantry room a bit. That meant moving more items into the main kitchen room.

First, we added more cabinets to the main kitchen. I found some beautiful 100+ year old ones that came out of a mansion in Fond du Lac. I lovingly refinished them and we installed them all along the north wall in our main kitchen.

We also added a large island of dark woodwork to match. Inside the island on the other side we installed the dishwasher underneath.  This is the way the main kitchen looks now.  Ahhhhh I love it!

Now back to that smaller pantry room----  our solution four years ago:

We pulled out the lower cabinets and sold them on Craigslist. We also moved the refrigerator and the dishwasher into the Main Kitchen leaving the smaller pantry room basically empty.  We laid new flooring to match what we had in the main kitchen.

Our plan was to now make this a First Floor Laundry Room! 

That is when we moved up the washer and dryer from the basement and the laundry sink too. The laundry sink is important because our washing machine has a wonderful feature called "Suds-saver". (I had this on my washing machine in Green Bay and loved it)  When doing multiple loads of laundry I can have the sudsy wash water pump out into the sink.When when I'm ready to start the next load I turn the switch to a feature which pumps it back into the washing machine. By creatively managing the loads, doing the least dirty light things first, the same load of wash water and soap can be used two or even three times depending on the items I am washing. Saves on water too. I used to use the third load for Steve's work clothes, which were usually pretty grubby. Now that he is retired, I'm only doing two loads lately.

Anyhow, the light oak modern cabinets always kind of bugged me. They were not original to the house and the woodwork didn't match. I am a "Matchy-Match" kind of girl.  See how they do not match the dark reddish brown original woodwork of our home?

Fast Forward to This Week:

I had considered going over the cabinets with a poly stain varnish to try and make them a darker like the rest of the woodwork. But the more I looked at them and how dark they were in that room as it was, I decided I would paint them white! Yes! From a person who abhors painted woodwork, I was going to take a brush and roller to paint over these cabinets. Blasphemy I tell you!

Steve HATES painting, so this project was totally all on me.

First I've removed all of the cabinet doors and brought them down to the basement and laid them out on saw horses. From there I sanded all the surfaces with a palm sander to rough them up a little bit. Then I gave it a coat of Liquid Sandpaper. This product helps prime the wood and makes the previous finish kind of sticky so the new paint will adhere better. I opened up the windows in the basement for fresh air to help with drying in between coats.

My prep work also included the front face frameworks 

of all the cabinets up in the laundry room too. 
I used a small foam roller to avoid any brush marks. 

 I didn't bother to do the insides of the cabinets. 

It's only pantry storage and laundry supplies in these cabinets. 

The Next Step was to apply a primer. Well I had this wonderful primer paint mixture that was for exterior painting. So I used that and I figured it should hold up pretty good. I gave it all two coats, thoroughly letting it dry in between. The last coat, I used some white enamel paint on both sides of the doors.


Now while that was drying, what I needed to do was to prep the walls and ceiling in the laundry room. They were a deeper golden yellow, not quite a Harvest Gold of the seventies but still pretty dark. I had half a gallon left from painting my sewing room... a soft pale lemon yellow.  Lighter and much softer and muted than what was on the walls and ceiling right now.

Up on the ceiling there was a little bubbled up area in one corner. I got up on the ladder and started chiseling away at it with my putty knife. Rut Roh! Here it was a big wide swatch of fibered seam tape. As I pulled on it a little bit I realized it was traveling across the entire width of the laundry room from one side to the other! It had been covering a long skinny crack. Well, there was no going back now. I had to pull the whole piece off!!!

ACK!!!

So now, instead of just spackling one little area I had to do a complete plaster patch repair job. I hauled out a bag of plaster and the tools and mixed up new plaster. I eased it up into place and made it as smooth as I could.

While that was drying, I decided to go ahead with painting the ceiling and walls. I could paint up to the fresh plaster and just take care of the rest of it in the morning. I painted the upper portion of the walls that were original plaster.

On the lower portion of the walls, there is a kind of funky vinyl covered wallboard paneling stuff kinda grayish-white. I decided I will throw a coat of paint on that too. If it doesn't hold up, we can always yank it off. I would love to put a white beadboard wainscotting in here and it would really dress it up. That can be my backup plan if this does not hold up.

Also, as a backsplash when it was a kitchen, there is a wide sheet of a mottled printed cream Formica being used as a backsplash between the underside of the cabinets and the trim rail. I really don't like that color so maybe someday in the future I can add beadboard wainscotting back there to to match. That's where Steve can come in and use his talents by doing the woodworking for me. For now this is a kind of interim solution to improve the laundry room.

I cleaned up my mess for the evening, popped a couple of Aleve in my mouth and took a nice long soak in a bubble bath!!!

After the plaster dried the next morning, I used the sanding tool and took down the high edges and smoothed it out as best I could,  I put a coat of primer on the patched crack and now I was able to paint over it and make it match the rest of the ceiling and walls.  Voila!

Now it was time to bring up each of the doors and install them back into place. I had carefully numbered each one with a tiny marker on the hinge itself so I would know what order they went back on.

The original white ceramic knobs look just fine on the cabinet so I attached each knob back into place. Don't you know it, on the very last door, the very last knob would not screw back in properly. I tried to force it with the screwdriver (which of course it slipped) and jammed right up my fingernail! Owiee Owiee Owiee!!!

I got all of the doors back into place, put the curtain back up, attached to fire extinguisher back on the wall, and put up the hanging rail on the other side for the clothing hangers. It was originally a dish towel rod but it works well for hanging clothes as I unload them from the dryer.

It's hard to take pics in this room because of the bright light coming in through the window. So I pulled down the shade and now it appears darker than what it really is. Believe me, it's a very soft light lemony yellow and nice bright white cabinets to match the white washer and dryer and freezer.

There is a really neat swinging door that leads out to the main kitchen. We usually leave it propped open, but it is also handy to block off the noisy washing machine sounds from the rest of the house.  We also close off the dogs into this room when we need to contain them in one spot. They have not figured out how to push on the door with their noses, so it is essentially doubles as their little indoor doggie room too. 

I cleaned up and put away all my mess and tools. It felt so good too have a bright clean fresh light airy room. This is the last room in the house to get painted. So during the last four years every single wall in the house has been coated with a new fresh coat of paint since we bought Our Old House!

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I would like to take this time to wish 

our oldest daughter a 

VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!  

It seems like yesterday she was a tiny baby in my arms.  Awwwwww Erin and her happy family are on the road heading out for vacation with Waylen's folks in Oklahoma.  Happy Birthday On The Road!

What a beautiful, accomplished woman you have become! 

 First and Last Days of school....

One of my most favorite camping pics of Erin

 Where does the time go, sweet little baby girl? 

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I just wanted to pop a few more pics on here.... I was sitting out taking a break in the front porch. I just LOVE how the clematis on the south side is climbing up, covering the windows.  I zigzagged thin white string across the window frame, wound around tiny white nails.  I looks so pretty, even from the inside.

Plus it makes a nice shade from the sun streaming in 

on the south side on the porch. 

I am also working on a new quilt... I got 8 blocks done, and it is slow going and putzy challenging, but fun! Nice to work on during the rainy days we have been having lately.

I am also keeping myself busy with some new rugs on the loom.....  My elbows both were suffering from a "tennis elbow" condition the past 6-7 weeks since we built the fence. Now they have healed enough to slowly weave and take it easy. It's hard, because I tend to push myself and overdo it.

 I am really liking this new pattern! 

Well, it is back to another doc checkup today.... 

all is well and I think I am doing fine.