Hey Hallway, lookin good!

As I've posted before, lathe and plaster is a pain in the butt. If you think walls aren't fun to redo, try ceilings. Not only is it hard to replace plaster ceilings when the 2x4 supports run this way then change to that way whenever it feels like it, but it's also difficult when the ceiling isn't level.

Luckily for me, my Dad's a pretty good bargain shopper, which is why we have a lot of things we may or may not use. If there's a sale, he feels inclined to buy. But occasionally he gets lucky and such was the case for this nifty new ceiling fix - tongue and groove boards designed especially for ceilings to give that wood floor look up above. Dad got a great deal on the ceiling panels, but with only 100 sq ft the question became where could we use it? The master bathroom ceiling was in desperate need of having something done to it, but there wasn't enough square footage to cover it all. So where else could we use it that needed it? The upstairs hallway. Bazinga!

Of course one of the hardest things when putting the ceiling up was leveling off the ceiling. Seems simple, but when the 2x4 studs in the attic run left to right for three feet then up and down for another 2.5 ft, finding studs to screw furring strips to is somewhat difficult. But once it was done, the ceiling was easy and simple. Measure, cut, screw into place. Unfortunately for us, the reason for Dad's bargain shopping was most likely the result of a special order which was returned to the store - with parts missing. There happen to be these little tabs which slide into the grove section and hold the boards in place by being screwed into the furring strips. Well, when the three boxes were returned, only one contained the tabs, so I only got about a third of the ceiling up before I ran out of tabs.

Regardless, the ceiling looks really good (even better once it's done and molding is put up) and I was really happy with how easy it was to drill through so I could hang the light in it's old spot. Here are pics before and after (as far as I can until I find more tab thingys).

Ladybug Invasion!

I know a title of Ladybug Invasion may raise some eyebrows - what exactly does it have to do with the house repairs? Honestly, nothing, except that every time I pass the kitchen/nook to go to my workstation/utility room to get a tool, I have to stop and vacuum up the darn ladybugs which have somehow managed to get into the house. They're usually hanging around the sliding door or the kitchen window, so I just drag the vacuum from room to room and vacuum them up until the latest group of them get into the house (and how they're doing that I'd love to know). Guess until it gets really cold I've just gotta keep the vacuum plugged in.

The last few days have given us great weather - I mean great as in in the high 60s/low 70s for Nov, yet at the same time given us 25-40mph winds (can't figure out why the winds won't blow during a cold and crappy day when I'm working inside so I can have a nice non-windy day to work outside on the ladder). Needless to say, despite the wind, I've spent the last few days working outside on the house, finishing touch-ups on the paint and providing disappointment to the squirrels who live in the porch by blocking off all points of access in the underlying of the porch. Lucky for us, we didn't even need to go buy the wood for this project - our neighbors took down our privacy fence on the east property line when they replaced it with one of their own and were nice enough to leave the old boards in our backyard. Thus, the fence is now a porch roof :)

Since Dad and I redid the northeast corner of the front porch roof, making it more of an actual slope so the water wouldn't collect like it had done in the past (flat roofs are terrible for that problem), it also meant we had to redo the fascia on that part of the porch since it was now wider than it had been (and also giving the squirrels another way of getting into the porch, and from there, the house itself). But that is now fixed and painted, so hopefully the squirrels will leave once and for all.

Well, I'm signing off so I can finish the master bedroom wall, which is just about done - one last final sanding and it will be ready to be painted. More to come later!

How did they build houses with lathe and plaster?

Question - how did they ever build homes with lathe and plaster? It's a pain in the butt and I hate working with it...(see video below!)

I know it's been forever since I posted last, but things have just been crazy! From going to a job interview in Ohio and back and forth between IL and KS after a month's stay in IL working up there for a while - I'm finally back in KS to stay and back to work!

Quick update: The house, except for minor areas like around some windows and the porch railings, has been painted!!! Good to go for another 15-20 years (and hopefully I won't be painting it) So that big project has been tackled. I'll finish the rest bit by bit while the weather holds up, but in my eyes it's done and I don't have to worry about it!

Dad was down here last weekend, so we worked on putting up new sheet rock on the second floor ceiling in the hallway and on the ceiling of the master bedroom. Dad also had some luck in the clearance section of Lowes and found basically what is tongue & groove wood laminate that is designed for the ceiling. We only had about 100 sq ft of it, so we weren't sure where to put it. There were several places upstairs that we could have used it since the lathe & plaster ceilings are cracked and/or falling down, and we seriously thought about using it for the master bathroom, since that ceiling really needs to be redone somehow. But after debate, we decided to use it in the hallway to cover up the unleveled ceiling. Once I have it done I'll be sure to post pics.

As with any old house made of lathe & plaster, several of the walls are cracking or have already fallen down (largely due to the foundation settling and other things like water damage from bad roofs, etc). Luckily, most of the walls that are cracked are being held up by 20 year old wallpaper Mom put up when we first moved into the house, so it's just a matter of putting up new sheet rock on top of the wall and Ta-Da! A new wall! Currently, I'm working on finishing up the master bedroom (see video) and soon will move on to other items on the list - which continues to grow every day it seems like.

Work Continues

Work continues on the house, lately jumping from little project to little project depending on the weather, what mood I'm in. :) Recently it's been busy with drywalling, which takes a few days from start to finish because of the mudding, letting dry, sanding (which I HATE by the way - it's the worst thing about drywalling), then retouching spots with extra mud making sure the new patch is nice and smooth along side the existing wall.

While working on the staircase ceiling/upper wall, I decided to redo the wall in the laundry room which actually would sit behind the washer & dryer (if I had one). Lucky for me, the walls on the north side and west side were two different thicknesses - and unlucky for the walls who wanted to cause trouble, I've got two different thicknesses of drywall :) So all I need to do now is paint.

Work on the outside of the house continues as well. The painting I put on hold for a bit due to the rain we were supposed to get. However, only twice did we get rain when they called for it so I it's possible I could almost be done with the painting by now. It continues now that the rain appears to be holding for the time being, and thanks to great family friends I've got scaffolding to use instead climbing up a shaky ladder.

I do find it interesting that while we have for the most part been in a drought, the grass can still grow. At the end of July I had to venture back up to IL for a dentist appointment and wasn't back for about 10 days. During that time, the grass in the backyard grew knee tall. Let me also point out that during those 1o days, we were in triple digits not including heat indices which under any normal circumstance should have killed off, I dunno, grass that doesn't get water. Needless to stay, it was quite the chore when it came to mowing it. Made even harder by the fact that my mower's start pull-cord snapped at its base = hunk of junk now. What's worse is that the weed whacker broke the day before so I couldn't even attempt to hack down the yard to semi-controlled jungle. Knowing there was no way I could mow down the grass, I went a bought a brand new weed whacker :) And boy, let me tell you it was like Christmas and I was the little girl who couldn't wait to get it out of the box. Took me a few hours and a borrowed mower to get it done, but the backyard (and front yard for that matter) is under control.

Fixing Old Fallen Walls

One problem you have when you live in an old house, particularly one older than 100 years +, are falling walls. Back in the day, lathe and plaster made up standard walls in houses and it worked great - then. This old house, as any old house does, has eventually settled on its foundation over wear and tear, and thus a few walls have cracked here and there. Thankfully, the kick-ass wallpaper my mom put up nearly 20 years ago has helped keep the walls from completely falling to the floor. But occasionally, one must fix the cracked walls to update the house, and let me tell you it's no fun.

Years back (at least 10 or so) our family did a re-roofing project on the house (my first and since then I've done two other houses now and roofing hasn't grown in the 'enjoyable things to do' category) because the old roof severely needed it. We discovered during the process of roofing why certain areas of the roof were bad and thus why water was leaking into the house, ruining the plaster walls and ceilings. (long story short, the roof comprised of three layers of asphalt shingles and two layers of original wood shingles w/o any decking).

One area where the ceiling and walls had water damage that hadn't been repaired was in the staircase. As seen in the pics, our staircase is a beautiful, yet hard to wallpaper, paint, or do any general repairing, spiral staircase. Since there's no real way to get a ladder up there to work on it safely, I built a little platform so I could get up and work without injury (knock on wood).

Part of this area has already fallen, which is great for me seeing that I have less to deal with. But there is still some areas around the already fallen plaster that is loose but the trick is to only take off the loose stuff without damaging the surrounding good plaster anymore. So how do we do this? With a lovely little tool Daddy bought :)

A Little Catch-Up

Having not been a round a while, I thought I'd post a few pictures of some recent happenings around the house.

As you've seen from a previous posting, the pipes in the dining room are now gone and I've gotten about half of the room painted. The problem was that some of the old, 20 year old wallpaper was off and some wasn't, so I wanted to match the color up as close as I could so when I painted over it, it would look ok. I have yet to do the west wall because I plan on putting up sheetrock on top of the existing paster and wallpaper to help reinforce the wall, which if you look closely under the wallpaper is slightly cracked. My theory is because the south side of the foundation sank over the years, the wall cracked in adjusting to it. The downfall of old houses I'm afraid...

Can you see the pipes??
As I mentioned in a July post, the wall on the stair landing was completely redone due to water damaged, and here are the before and after pics. In the picture you can see just how much damage the water did to the lathe underneath the plaster. We didn't have any wallpaper to match what was on the wall already, so I just painted over a little mudding criss-cross design I attempted simply to make it blend in a little with the painted wallpaper next to it.

More to come later on...back to work on the kitchen (all most done!!!)

Weekend Project...kinda

For those wondering where I've been since my last post - busy busy and not around. Last week sent me back up north for a dentist appointment (note: root canal wasn't too bad), but before I headed up toward cooler climates, my dad came down to help with the weekend project: re-roofing the porch area over the front door (as you'll remember from my previous post, it was in dire need of having the 'potholes' fixed.

Despite an hour of heavy downpour and a night of rain (during which we were able to tarp and cover what we could so the water didn't get into the house itself), in two and a half days we put up all new framing (which hadn't been planned, but extremely needed it as you'll see in the following videos), decking, and the felt nailed down. We ran out of time so no shingling over the weekend; however I did manage to get it shingled last night and finished with the cap between the new and old parts this morning. I do still need to put the tar around the edging of the house so water can't leak in there, but at least it's done and hopefully - fingers crossed - the porch won't leak anymore!




More to come on the house projects, but for now you can watch the video on our discovery of why we had so many problems...

Bye Bye Pipes and Wires

Well, for the last two days we've been in an excessive heat warning, with heat indices around 110 degrees. So much for working outside. Last night at 10:30pm it was still in the upper 80s - today was hotter in general so looks like I may actually have to drop the AC from 80 to 75 tonight...

Another project was finally completed today, minus a few minor touch-ups with a mud job. During my childhood, our dining room always had a corner full of pipes and wires, those running from the first floor/basement up to the second story. However, those pipes are now behind a wall! While it took some creative thinking to figure out how to attach the 2x4 and sheetrock to the 6x9" section, but I got the frame up without too much trouble and I've got to admit, it looks pretty good. (see pics below)


Another wall that was falling down has also been fixed - the wall where the washer and dryer used to go before being moved has been replaced and recently painted. I still need to figure out what to do with the old washer connections, but I'll save that for another day...

Back to the Future...

Happy 4th to all! A little late, but better later than ever, right? After a nice, relaxing break with the family on the lake in Branson, it's back to work. First thing to take care of was the lawn, which couldn't be mowed until this evening with all the scattered thunderstorms and damp grass over the last few days. The mower still wasn't quite happy with me, but we got it done. As for the house work, this morning I destroyed the small wall on the stair's platform which had been ruined over the years with the water damage from the roof before we re-roofed the house years ago. I didn't completely destroy the wall :) but there is new Sheetrock now up and mudded at the top of the stairs, which I'll have sanded down tomorrow and hopefully wallpapered (if we have any of the old wallpaper left, I'm not sure and haven't looked yet).

Since I was on vaca for the last few days, I thought I'd share some old pictures taken a few years ago when we added the addition onto the back of the house, knocking out the old bathrooms and adding a breakfast nook onto the kitchen. I'm sure I'll have more to come later for those interested...


This picture was taken before the construction began - you can see the bathrooms between the two eastern/western wings. The double windows is where the entryway into the breakfast nook and dining room became...


Looking towards the back of the house, through the dining room and into where the nook will eventually be. We've already knocked out the windows and pulled down the old plaster and lathe - no fun by the way.


And here is the back of the house after the addition. We're still hoping to put a small deck on the back to connect the two back doors.

That's it for now...back to work :)

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

So many different decisions to make when working on a house. Luckily for me, most are easily solved with thinking 'easiest, cheapest, yet nice looking' theory. After all, if I was working on this house for myself, I'd work on it and do it the way I want. But since it's going on the market and hopefully I won't have anything to do with it very soon (fingers crossed), I just wanna get it done however I can as long as it looks good enough to sell - I'll let someone else deal with it then. :)

I got some of the primer on the kitchen nook walls. Decided there is really no point in completely painting it (unless we did it white); this gives whoever buys it a chance to decorate it however they choose. Plus, with the primer on the walls that gives me the opportunity to see what parts of the walls still need to be touched up with joint compound and alike.

Spent the morning working on the kitchen drywalling, mainly filling in the joints that the previous renters didn't get around to completing. While that dries, I decided I'd figure out what kind of tiling job I wanted to do on the east wall above the counters, where I just put in some new drywall (see previous entries). Since there isn't enough tile to just complete it in white, I'm mixing some black tile in but the question then becomes what kind of design to do. Here are three possible ideas (of roughly the size it would be): the top one actually the first idea that came to my mine when I just started laying them out, a two white/black/white/black repeating pattern; one is a two white/two black/white/black repeating pattern; and the bottom one is simply an alternating white/black. I also have like 6 red tiles, but I think sticking to just the white/black would fit better. The tile probably won't go in until next week, and hopefully the kitchen will be just about finished in the next two weeks as well.

The north second story floor is just about finished with its new face-lift. I've got the green paint still to do, then some of the high trim pieces to redo. The bigger question had been how I was going to paint the rest of the second floor, but luck was on my side as I discovered some family friends had some scaffolding which they're sweet enough to let me borrow in the coming weeks to finish the house makeover. I probably won't get the paint finished until late next week most likely - with the 4th of July coming, I'm leaving in a day or two for Branson to meet up with the parents and my sister, who is coming up from Dallas for the holiday. As much as I love Sterling's 4th of July celebrations and would like to stay and enjoy them, I must say I'm really looking forward to some time off and an actual resting vacation!

The Day's Lesson

Needless to say, if you don't remember the window ever opening, don't try and open it 20 years down the line...

Slowly but Surely...

It's definitely a race for the tortoise; little by little the house is getting there. For the majority, the first floor is now painted and ready to go for the next 15 years :) Honestly, I'll admit it hasn't been too bad getting up bright and early to work outside, especially since the last fews days have been in the triple digits. But the mosquitoes, the bloodly mosquitos! They are EVERYWHERE!!! We get 8" of rain a week and a half ago and the whole world's population of mosquitoes descend to our little town in the middle of almost nowhere! And they're relentless! I spray all over with Off! and they still keep comin'! They even attack me in the middle of broad daylight when it's 100 degrees outside!

But beside the killer mosquitoes, the house is coming along. Most of the weeds have been pulled from the backyard and I'm trying to contemplate what to do with the pond in the backyard. I think it would help the house sell if I could find a way to get it to hold water. it's not on the priority list of things to do, but I do think it would add to the landscaping of the house.


I've been working on the kitchen and this morning after working outside I can in to start work on more drywalling. I thought at first I'd just re-plaster part of the wall that was starting to look a little rough, but instead it just seemed easier to take it off and put up new sheetrock, so that's what I ended up doing before lunch. After all, Dad always said if you're gonna do something, you might as well do it right. (We'll just ignore the fact that it can take years for it to get finished...must be that McCoy curse again).

So now that lunch is finished, hopefully the joint compound is drying so tomorrow I can sand it down and then figure out where to go from there.

I'd Forgotten...

It's been a while since I've done any kind of drywalling, and I'd forgotten how messy it all gets when you sand it down! Worked on the kitchen and breakfast nook this afternoon, once I'd gotten the two door frames blocked off - since I just shampooed the carpets, I'm not about to let snow fall on it. Armed with a dust mask and safety glasses, I let the dust fly to see what damage I could do. I'll let the pictures show how much fun I had being messy! :) Hopefully I'll have most of the sanding and joint compounding done by the end of the week so I can get some paint on the walls, just to help make it a little more homey.

Paint = 1; Jen = 0

Well, just as the rain begins to hold off, here comes the heat advisory warnings! This week central Kansas will finally see the triple digits, with 102 scheduled to be the high on Wednesday this week, due to heat indices it will feel more like 105-108 degrees. All the more reason for me to get up just as the sun's rising to work outside...

So far, I've managed to get the first floor north side painted, all except the porch and the railing. After a quick run to Hutchinson on Friday for the cream colored paint, I began to finish the north side, only to realize the cream paint for some reason or another was thinner than the other paint I'd been using, thus it likes to splatter everywhere, everywhere, and EVERYWHERE!!! (thus Paint = 1; Jen = 0. I guess it could be more Paint = 1; Jen = 1 since I did get it finished, but I think I walked away with more paint on me than on the house). I've already begun painting on the west side and a little on the east this morning - however, when the sun hit the east wall I decided to work on the west wall only to be ravaged by mosquitoes (another problem with 8 inches of water).

As for the inside of the house, I'm started a little work. The kitchen and breakfast nook will be the first to get a makeover, mainly paint and a few new sections of drywall, particularly in the kitchen. Because we're cheap and don't wanna buy new paint for a house we're trying to sell, I'm just going to try and decorate it using the paint the previous renters bought (though some of the colors are interesting to say the very least). I've got an idea in my little head, but if it will actually workout, that is the question...

Amazing how time flies when one's having fun...

Okay, it's only day two of early wake-up calls and let me tell ya, I was not ready to roll out of bed at my 5:30 or my 5:35 alarm.

However, due to my determination, I did manage to roll out of bed and get going. Overall, the whole bottom floor has now been scrapped and is ready for a fresh coat of paint in the AM. After an afternoon run to Hutch for painting supplies, the morning's plan was to start painting this evening. However, our wonderful neighbors rented a carpet cleaner for their carpets and since it didn't need to be back until tomorrow morning, she surprised me with the offer to use it on our carpets, which really needed it. It worked well since the plan was to rent a carpet cleaner eventually, so the evening was spent cleaning carpets, half the staircase, the furniture, in addition to mowing some of the weeds in the backyard.

Good news from last night - I have a water heater back!!! After making some makeshift sandbags out of dirt and Walmart plastic bags, I hoped I could keep the incoming water from rising too high and knocking out the pilot light (which did happen). Fortunately, the water table seems to be going down a bit - the sump pump hasn't been kicking on constantly - so I was able to get the heater lit again and I gotta say, the hot shower this morning was wonderful! I did go ahead and get some sandbags at Home Depot today; however they don't seem to keep the water out any better than my makeshift sandbags did.

Painting, here I come!

Today was fairly successful - started on the north side of the second floor this morning at 6am, and got all the lose paint off as far as I could reach. I also discovered an additional problem with our already leaking porch roof - a pothole! Apparently, the poor design of the northeast flat roof over the front door eventually caused a concave pothole, most likely due to the poor drainage during heavy rains. Lucky for me, the flat roof was already on the agenda to fix this summer - I've just gotta figure out how to fix the roof.

The weather has caused havoc on everyone here - it's harvest season for spring/summer wheat, and guess what? With all the rain and flash flooding, no harvesting is going on and prolly won't be for the next few weeks. After talking with an old school friend this afternoon, I discovered the water table has been up for over a year and some people in the low areas have been pumping water out of their basements all that time. Both the Arkansas River and Cow Creek around Sterling are up several feet, and hopefully the predictions of them cresting tomorrow then falling throughout the week will be right. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Let the Kansas Summer Begin

Did we pick the best weekend to begin summer work on the house, or what? Thunderstorms and flash flood warnings have caused this first weekend of home construction to go slightly slow. Though we don't have more than an inch of water in the basement (seeping in through the cracked foundation due to the high water table), the water heater itself is located in a small dip of the foundation, so there's about an inch of water surrounding the water heater - just enough to keep the pilot light from wanting to stay lit. Fortunately, the sump pump has been working like a trooper. I attempted to block the water by using makeshift sandbags out of dirt and Walmart plastic bags, though they really didn't help much.

As for the housework itself, the majority of the first part will be the repainting of the exterior. The four colors of the house will remain the same, keeping in league with the Victorian color style of the period when the house was built (back in 1875). In addition, stupid little weeds growing in the sidewalk will be pulled, the backyard grass killed off for future replanting, and more than likely the privacy fence will get a fresh coat of paint as well.

Tomorrow the early mornings start - the plan is to be working by 6am until lunch time, since working during hot summer heat isn't fun, then after an afternoon off, work in the evenings again. So we'll see. Keep coming back for future posts on how the mansion make-over is going :)