Sunday, January 10, 2016

All I want for christmas is a finished bedroom.....

Over christmas I had a couple of choices, either do this project or start the plumping for the new bathroom.  Seeing as I had a house full for most of the holidays, I thought this maybe the safer option.  My room has always had this admittedly very useful walk in closet (probably one of the many children that lived in this house's bedroom) and a nook in front of the window.  As charming as they were it made it tight when the bed was in the room and I wanted the light to come in across the bed, I know I know I sound ridiculous, but who doesn't want to lay in bed and have the light streaming in, you know drinking tea and generally being lazy...


Above is how it looked before, perfectly reasonable and in fine shape, I could have just painted and called it a day.  To be honest I think the house wouldn't have had these originally, there is so many little cut up areas, and the granddaughter that I met who's family used to have the house since around the 1900's was telling me that as they had children they just added another sleeping nook.  I would imagine these walls were put in around 1920-40 when they had the 8 children.  As I pulled them out I kept finding little parts of old wallpaper, I love these little discovery.


Every time I start a demo I'm in complete denial.  I always think that I'm just going to cut the wall away in one piece and carry it out, hence the curtains and the furniture still in the room.  You would think by now I would have realized this is never the case.  This house is not made of dry wall sheets.  Every wall is old lath and heavy plaster.  Therefore the dust and mess is intense.  But for some reason I seem to block this out whenever i start a project, you think i would have remembered the living room ceiling demo


See I finally admitted it was messy and took the curtains down.  I kept the desk in, I always need somewhere to put my tea down. Also take note of the beam all covered up in plater that runs along the bottom of the window. Im sure ill find out there is some terribly important reason that the beams are meant to be covered in plaster but until then I'll be busy exposing them...ALL.


You can see in this photo the amount of plaster that is on these walls.  Im always surprised by the weight that this old concrete, horse hair blend weights.  I can feel the house sighing as I take it down. Also here you can see a glimpse of the original beam construction of the house in the right hand corner.  These are the little glimpses that gave me hope when i first viewed the house, never did i image how beautiful the beams were underneath.  I also don't understand why they would have been covered up ? 


I surprisingly kept it somewhat tidy as i took it all down.  Notice the window to the right.  That helped a lot as i just thew it all out onto the lawn.  My neighbors think I'm nuts.


Ah my trusty sawzall.  Still going strong, my best eBay purchase yet, do i need to wax lyrical again about buying tools second hand.  Im on the hunt for a mitre saw if you have any suggestions....


Its at this point when all the walls are down, it all looks a bit messy and depressing.  The old plaster really makes a mess and then where it was connected to other walls it really looks bad.  This is were a little creativity comes in to patch what you can back together and also realize that it will never be perfect and that is how it should be.  Here there was a big indentation where the wall used to be, so I put back in a "beam" that was part of the old wall.  I grey washed it later on so that it is more subtle.  Then i just filled and re-plastered around it.  Also this is where there is an odd little door on to the landing.  These are the parts that i love.  All these old details, I think another person would have taken it out and cleaned and re-plastered the whole wall.  Its really important to keep all of this character, every crack and old detail all adds up to what makes it great.  Its all too easy to take everything away and then you have removed what you loved about it in the first place.  In someways thats why its better thats it just me pulling these bits apart.  You see a team go in and rip the whole walls away and put back a generic dry wall and you loose all that great old plaster.  I didn't have this perspective on day three or plastering around all the "character".


Just messing around and putting the bed frame back in, this is what I call "I need motivation" stage.  I think it was day three and I was still plastering areas and waiting for it too dry.  Its so tedious but necessary.  I did find this amazing filler that drys within 30 mins and is rock hard, but you have to use it within 10 mins of mixing it up.  This was life changing if you have ever waited for plaster to dry you will feel my pain.  Oh and notice the beam, oh and the wall colour.  It was starting to come together.


More beam porn....


and more...and a random piece of brass pipe that i corroded with salt and want to turn into a lamp, at some point in the future....


This was again pretty tedious.  Where the old walls were left a mark on the floor.  This is not a job for a hand sander, but needs must. I think when all the various wall are moved or removed then I will get a seriuous floor sander to rework some areas, there too beautiful to mess up and not respect.  For now you can't really notice it, and its actually kinda nice to see where the old walls where.


Ugh this looks like a disaster.  It basically was.  This was during the many layers of plaster to get some sort of smooth transition from where the old wall was back to the ceiling.  You can see the original ceiling is no ice rink, so it wasn't like i had to be a master plasterer.  But just transitioning over the bumps was a pain.  Anyway I got there after a while and then there is a great technique when the plaster is almost dry to sponge it, this way it looks like the old plaster.  This is also where you at some point have to draw the line as you could go on for ever creating the old plater look.  Im still talking myself out of doing another coat, luckily for me there is more projects to concern myself with..


Adding a little water to the paint mix to create a wash for the wooden uprights I put in. This technique is so simple and always works a treat.


Action shot...


Here we go.  Curtains back (don't worry mum they survived) and that great bed frame back in place.  You can see where the walls used to be and then you can also see how the light now goes across the room.  See I'm not crazy ...Also take note the ceiling is still not painted but is somewhat complete...


I added a dog for effect...


This for me is very paired down, just wait until my hoarding tendency gets to be indulged.



The lion and the dresser that were temporarily in the living room were lugged upstairs, thanks David! You thought you were coming for a relaxing christmas break. (Martha please ignore the dust and finger prints).  Also one of my little painting studies, one day i will get around to doing the large scale version of it, i will get back to painting something other than walls!


The old piano desk is right at home at the side of the bed along with that lamp i picked up at the flea market. Also no room is complete at jordan cottage without antlers!


I love these beams, my whole color story is right there in that one piece of wood.





1 comment:

  1. That foot board on your bed, wow, can't get over how great it is. Letting in more natural light is always a great improvement, especially in northern climates. Nicely done.

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