Cold Room – Under Water

We’ve been working on transferring over the laundry from the back room to the cold room which will become the new laundry room. There’s still lots to do but it’s coming together. Here’s what we’ve done so far to the cold room.

In this room we did nothing at first, we just added a few of our own movable shelves to this room and stored some items away. There was a lot of random stuff that was left in here and we figured we’d just deal with it one day. The past owners put in massive shelves across every wall, even over and around the water heater. Taking them down was horrible. There was also a little shelf with damask paper on it on cinder blocks that we kept for awhile but it has now since been removed as well. The walls were black from moisture and the rotting shelves.

Last year we had no choice but to do work on it when it flooded. When it was super cold in February (coldest ever on record?), I was leaving the house and heard an odd sound. I doubled back out of concern opening the door to the cold room to see water, everywhere. As there’s no ductwork in our house, there was no heating in here, it got extremely cold in there with the door closed and a pipe burst. The plumbing for the laundry came from this room, across its ceiling down and through the wall and into the room next to it.  It broke on this pipe coming down the wall. We found out later that it was probably coldest at the wall or in it. Here are some photos of the flood that we took after shutting off the water. Basically this flood chronicles the “beginning” of the renovation of this room.

First view of the flooded floor

Brick Wall Clean Up

I’m taking any tips on how to clean up brick walls. This is a tough one. We have a few exposed brick walls we will have to fix up over time but right now I’m trying to figure out how to make this brick wall look better.

This wall seems to be in need of paint, dirt and possibly tar removed from it??

Also not sure if we should seal it as this room is just being renovated for temporary use – read nothing fancy. Is there anything natural to seal brick??

I am going to be googling away for answers but if anyone out there in the field or any diy specialist have tried anything that’s worked I’d appreciate if you could share your knowledge with me.

Hot Water Off Again

Sad times. For the last week and a bit we’ve had to have the hot water off again. This time it’s winter and washing your hands in freezing cold water sucks.

I’m due any minute too so such comforts mean a lot.

It turns out John is just too strong.  😉

Baby Prep. Dining Room, Bathroom + Cold Room

So there’s so much for us to do and zero time left. So frustrating how much of it I’m not allowed to work on due to pregnancy but the baby’s safety is paramount. The baby is to arrive next week or maybe slightly into the following week. Due to my disorders (eds, pots, mcas etc.) I am to be induced early if she doesn’t arrive naturally. We shall see on Wed. what the fetal specialist says and where I’m at.

So here’s a quick synopsis of what we’ve been working on to get more prepared for the baby. We don’t think we can finish on time but we have a nice clean upstairs bedroom we are still using that we will share with her while finishing up downstairs.

I Hate Bats

I’m trying to finish my thesis draft to send out to the external reader (November / December 2015) before my defence and there are bats going nuts in the walls. They’ve been going for a good 15 minutes so far and haven’t stopped.

Wordless Wednesday

Bleh! Bat Guano removal.

Measuring an Old Home

So I wrote a post a few months ago (Nov) and I guess I didn’t post it? It’s now January so I shall post it now. I’m not sure what date will come up. I have no brain left – pregnancy and brain fog from my disability make Rosie no worky. Anyhoo, check this one out…

What a pain when you’re trying to figure something out that is so all over the place.

WordPress Advice: New BLOG on my GARDENS = Total Rose Screw Up

Okay, so I’ve been obsessed with gardening since having a yard. Last year I held out and just looked at what was in the garden and cleared out as much of the crazy jungle as I could. This year … it’s on. Gardening is in full swing; indoors still for planting and prepping everything outside. So I made a new blog all about our gardens here. So far so good. I made a wonderful blog (toot my own horn) and then I had a great idea.

I decided I wanted a different blog name and decided I wanted to change the blog address (URL). So as usual I googled away on how to perform such an action. I read all the “don’t dos” and the “this is how you do it”. I felt confident I could do this quite easily. YAY!

So away I went … as you know this isn’t going to end well. I messed everything up. Well almost everything.***

Instead of changing my garden blog (elmcenturyhousegarden.wordpress.com) to the new garden blog address with the new title I wanted (arosiegarden.wordpress.com), I changed this renovation blog, my first blog (elmcenturyhousediy.wordpress.com) to the new garden blog address (arosiegarden.wordpress.com).

You think the explanation is complicated … trying to figure out how to put it all back has been a gigantic debacle. There is no undo button and you can not, unfortunately switch back in word press so easily as you can change to a new address in the first place. booooo, hissss. Changing the blog name took less than a minute. Fixing it, is still happening and it’s been 8 days.

Plaster + A Garden

Apparently among those who love to renovate and restore old homes keeping their authentic feel means keeping old plaster walls. I have read it is sacrilegious to remove them and if you do you are not a part of the restorers club.

Ask all that know me, I love to reuse, recycle and I have an affinity for antiques and authenticity but I am getting rid of all the plaster and I hate it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an art to accomplish and it’s beautiful when done well and new but it really isn’t practical here and it’s about 115 years old in spots.

We took off some of the “hot” wood panelling in the house and the wallpapered plaster behind in places was stained and crumbling in a lot of places. We could of patched it, I guess but pulling off the old wallpaper would of been very difficult and would of made most of it crumble more. Then it would be patching most of the house.

Next comes the fact that the house is so crooked. I needed to see behind the lath and plaster to see what was missing and/or needed to be beefed up. It’s hard to just cut a chunk out and replace it. Also on that front the plaster isn’t at all flat and it is crooked too.

Lastly the other big reason the plaster had to go was to best fit in insulation. The walls have none. It’s hard to out it in from above or below a wash of lath and plaster.

So goodbye plaster. It’s absolutely messy and horrible to remove but it’s happening. I am so glad we are removing it as I can really see what is going on underneath it all.

Part of me wants to keep a strip of it somewhere for history/ memory sake. Maybe I can make a “picture frame” of wall and drywall around it. We shall see.

The old horsehair in it really freaked me out at first. Crazy interesting that plaster is. Now to get through the arduous task of removing it and not dying from dust inhalation.

The dining room is done as it was falling apart. The living room is in decent shape so it’s still in tact. I removed the wall panels from the hallway (I’ll have to post this one day) so I’ve decided to start in there next. It’s crumbling in spots but also has super ugly fake wood wallpaper.  I’ve decided to start with just trying to take a grocery bag full of plaster off at a time, so once a day. Today is day 1 so here’s some real time work. The older stuff is super quick to remove for the most part. The patchwork parts are tough.

Window Seat

There were vinyl stickers on this window seat that were just not so lovely.

The window seat when we moved in.