Board and Batten in Dining Room

A couple of days after Thanksgiving, our contractor started work on the dining room board & batten.  It took him & his carpenter about two days to do.  Here's a pic taken at the end of day 1...

Once the wood work was finished, we got started painting!

We chose a chocolate brown color for the top, and a semigloss white for the bottom.

We decided that we needed an additional piece of molding to go along the top of the board & batten, so that I could safely display plates up there (without the risk of them sliding off!)

Mike took care of that himself.

He installed it after the first coat of paint, but before the second.

View from the main hallway

View from the parlor doorway-
looking through to the butler's pantry

Then we began the chore of emptying the china cabinet, liquor cabinet & buffet so that those pieces of furniture could be moved in!

I'll have the final before & after photos tomorrow!

Media Room Updates

Although I had declared it done, there are still lots of little things we're working on in the Media Room...


We finally got the rug padding put down under the carpet.  It was a bit of patchwork to get it to cover the entire area under the rug.

I hemmed the curtains using iron on hem tape that I still had left over from making knight costumes for my son's 2012 birthday party!)

And, we're finishing up the moldings.  Here is a section that needed some wood putty to even out the space between the wall & the molding (since nothing is truly square in a house this old!)


 I hope to get the last coat of paint on them this weekend...

Media Room- Window Moldings

The window moldings were a little more involved than the closet doorways...

BEFORE

Mike had to frame out the inside- including making the sill (had to round the edges a bit).

After applying the side & tops, he had to come up with something that looked good on the bottom, under the sill.  We looked around at how they did other windows in the house, and came up with flipping a piece of molding and making angled cuts to each end.  

Once we figured out the first one,
we used it as a template for the second.

Here's the complete window!  

Not all of the wood needed was pre-primed, so after filling with wood putty I gave the "naked" boards a coat of primer.

The moldings really make it feel more finished!

Still more woodwork to do... here's the updated list:

-Two "closet" doorways COMPLETE!
-Two windows COMPLETE!
-3 Door frames (inside the room & in the hallway for each)
-cap molding around the chimney (to make transition from plaster to brick)
-Entire room base moldings- we can't do this until the floor has been installed.

Media Room- Closet Moldings

We started working on the moldings in the media room.

Here's the list of what needs to be done...
-Two "closet" doorways (to access the storage areas under the eaves)
-Two windows
-3 Door frames (inside the room & in the hallway for each)
-cap molding around the chimney (to make transition from plaster to brick)
-Entire room base moldings- but we can't do this until the floor has been installed.

We made a big list of all the measurements, and headed to Home Depot to get our supplies.
We were able to find most of the boards we needed pre-primed (yay for saving a step!)

The first thing we tackled were the closet doorways.
Since almost the entire house has the block corners and fluted side/top boards... there's no need for mitered corners, so it was a fairly straight forward.

BEFORE

First, Mike trimmed out the inside of the opening.
(I missed taking a photo of that step!  But you can see the finished boards in the photos below)

We used glue to adhere the wood
before using the nail gun to secure it

We stacked up boards to figure out where the
bottom of the moulding should be, once the
floor is installed.  Then cut the boards to fit.

The very bottom boards will be installed after
the flooring & base boards are in.

Lots of little nail holes & joints to fill with wood putty,
then painting these can begin!

I'm currently hunting for closet doors...

Next up... window molding!

Raising the Roof...

Well, not really... but I thought it sounded better than "Raising the Ceiling"!

So, now that you know the plan for exposed beams in the future media room... that got Mike thinking.  And that got him ripping...

He was off from work one day, and I came home to find the ceiling of the third floor hallway ripped down!  I was a little upset with him- but only because he didn't take before or during photos.  So, I'll do my best with "before" photos being from the light fixture getting installed (yep- that newly installed fixture had to come back down!)

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

I thought the idea itself is fantastic!  This will make that low ceiling hallway feel much more open!  But it's definitely in the "looking worse before it can look better" stage.

From hallway, looking toward unfinished
 storage area

Mike has built support beams/framing so that we can sheetrock up to the roof peak & enclose the new media room.

He had to do the same thing on the other side, to extend the wall seperating the unfinished storage area from the hallway.
Here he also needed to put up plywood so that the spray foam insulation has something to stick to.

Mike also has been doing this under the eaves, where the unfinished section will meet the finished section's storage area (for insulation purposes).


Of course, we're running into little unexpected issues... like the fact that the molding medallions were cut in half where they met the old ceiling (we were hoping they'd be whole underneath the plaster!)

We'll need to come up with a better solution there!


Also, there's the electric wire that runs down the stairs for the light switch...  It was fine when the ceiling was much lower, but now we need to run it up higher, and it's about 3 inches too short!  Grrr... just 3 inches!!!

Porch Problem

We didn't realize it immediately after, but following Hurricane Sandy, we noticed we had an issue with the ceiling of the front porch.

It started warping... So much so, that a bird was able to make a nest in the space!

And then the crown molding started popping...

Obviously, not good.

Mike took a couple of boards down to take a look.








We discovered that there are a lot of holes & cracks letting cold air through the siding of the house (you can see a couple in the photo-->).








We left it open for a few rains, just to make sure there weren't any leaks.

Mike got up there with some foam insulation and filled in those holes and cracks.

No wonder I could feel a draft over by my corner cabinet!





After nailing the boards back into place, and repairing the crown molding, it's looking good as new!