Page 2 Outside of the House

Page 2 Outside of the House Page 3 The Kitchen Process Page 4 Outside of the House Page 5 Cedar shingled Gables Page 6 "Before photos" Page 7 Boy's hallway bathroom Page 8 Master Bathroom Page 9 More recent Kitchen Page 10 Master Bedroom Page 11 Den / Dining Room Page 12 Living Room Progress Page 13 Alcove Bedroom Page 14 Austin Hughes Wiseman Page  15 Austin Hughes Wiseman - A Poem Page 17 My Big Girls Page 18 China Page 19 Improvements during the Fall of 2007 Page 20 1986 Bluebird AllAmerican

This Old House 

These pictures are of the bay window of the alcove bedroom.  There was great old workmanship here but it had been neglected for decades.  We removed the fancy wood work and the wood was reworked; cleaned, repaired, oiled, primed and repainted with the new color scheme for the house which includes a mist mint green, butter yellow and a medium dark green.
 
The outside of the house had very weathered white paint that was well on its way to all pelling off.  We used a high pressure washer to remove most of the peeled paint.  After pressure washing we scraped the old paint and otherwise removed as much of it as we could.   The house was prime painted (white).  This caused the house to really look so much better.  Some area of the outside of the house had not weathered near as much as others.  Some of the old paint fell off and other areas stayed on well even to repeated scraping.
 
The finish coat paint is a mint green mist (Standard American piant).  After the first painting of the finish coat I went around scraping again and assuring the paint was on good.  A second coat of the finish coat mint green mist was applied and after more spot painting the outside of the house really looks great.

Bay windows to the Alcove bedroom.  This is the room I first stayed in at the house.  It basically had the least amount of trash left in it when I bought the place.  The windows had been knocked out by neighborhood boys.  I stapled up clear plastic over most all the windows of the house to keep it where we could keep the air in or out.  All the original wood windows (3' by 7') were gone before I bought the place.  The cheap aluminum windows that were there when I bought the house had been put in during the 60's but were down sized to 3' x 6'.  The original window size was 36" x 84" and the new windows we installed brought the size back to that original to the house.

 

The spindle style wood work above the bay window area was dismantled since it was already falling apart.  Each piece was cleaned, many layers of old paint that had decided to stay attached had to be removed.  The wood was repaired, soaked in oil and eventually prime painted.  Afterwards the wood pieces were hand painted, piece by little piece.  Most colors on the little spindle pieces were painted with little art paint brushes. 

After all of the pieces were painted they were reinstalled on the slates and the whole piece of wood work was reinstalled on the side of the house.  The screw holes were sealed and the wood was sealed onto the house to prevent water from getting into the pieces or between the wood work and the house.

This is the house in May of 2007.  Most of the recent work has been inside.  We have laid about 15 squ. meters of Saint Augsutine grass on the lawn.  The lawn had not been fully cared for and weeds had sprouted.  After digging up the weeds, the bare spots were sodded with Saint Augsutine grass.  More work needs to be done on the lawn but we'll allow this much of it to "grow in" before doing much more.

Heidi and I had gathered some native flat rocks while in SE Oklahoma.  these have been laid as a walkway from the front of the house.... meandering toward the city sidewalk.  They look pretty good but we will need more and the ones installed will need more leveling.  We hope to get more rocks and also to install steps out at the city sidewalk.  This part may have to wait a while.

The outside of the house really needs rain gutters on the second "more square roof level".  Putting gutters around the curves of the porch roof would be a pain.  The next roof layer up is at right angles and actually would catch the rain water where it is at it's most and funnel it off the roof and away form the house.  NOTE: the rain gutters were added around the house at the highest level.... front, sides and rear... it makes alot of difference .... getting the run off away from the house.


This screened in back porch is the only room (400 square feet) actually added to the floor plan of the house.  The area covered by this screened in back porch was outside (north) of the original house.  I've always liked screened in porches so we added this area in the summer of 2004.  The first room into the house from here (once was two kitchens, to the duplex) had to be torn down due to its poor condition.  This newly rebuilt room is the dining room / den in the back of the house.  It once was floor joist covered with wet particle board...

The outside doorway in to the screened in porch is two 30" by 7' window screens.  The entrance into the back of the house is french doors, that have been replaced by some new ones from HD.

This is the east side of the rear of the house.  The screened in back porch is about 15' x 26'.  The next room on the east side toward the front of the house is the east bedroom.  This is the room where Mr. James O'Neil Faires was born.  He was the city attorney of Commerce, TX for many decades.  He died recently.

During the summer of 2004 in this room during re-construction a 1" x 10" shiplap was removed that had writting on the board.  In pencil the board was dated December 7th, 1898.  The 106 year old hard pine board was cleaned up, framed with beaded board and given to Mr. Faires, long time City Attorney of Commerce.

This bedroom has the best preserved floors as it had carpeting.  We prepared these floors and put on a few coats of polyurethane to protect them.  Once this was done I got photos and have them on the web page. 

The floors in this east bedroom got their last coat of polyurethane on December 1st, 2006.  The window seals have been installed and photos posted.

This is a section of the front porch after it has been painted.  The old wood was so dried out it need mosture added.  It was installed and before we could prime paint it we had several rains.  Finally we were able to prime and paint the old wood floors.  Some areas need to be striped and prepared again.  The color turned out to be too close to the color of the house.  I'd rather add a little grey to the porch color when we repaint it. 

The old wood floor shows it age, there are imperfections in it and splinters removed.  The floor doesn't appear to be new and that is fine as the old charactor of the house remains.  The rounded portions of the porch were not easy to design and build.

The front porch on the house was gone when I bought the place in March of 2004.  The porch floor decking we installed is old tongue and groove pine from the interior floor of an old house dismantalled in Ridgeway, Texas.  Dad and I installed a wall board on the house, 2x8 floor joist and a 2x8 on the front.  We then went thru the pains of corner nailing the old tongue and groove pine floor boards in one at a time. 

The porch flooring project lastest for a week... and made such a differnce in the appearence of the house.  The porch has since this picture been painted a mist green color too similar to the color of the house.  The pillars were in the house when I bought the place and Dad put them back together.  We built toe boards and top hats that are now all installed and painted with the same colors on the cedar dog ear shingles on the gable ends.