Because they had to build the house in the most expensive way possible

One of the point-of-sale violations the city is requiring we fix is the peeling paint on the trim and stucco on the front of the house.

The faux Tudor elements are not in good shape. I've found it difficult to scrape without gouging, due to the slightly damp surface of the wood. Water has somehow been getting underneath the paint, even in places that are a significant distance from cracks in the paint. I'm not sure if this is because some of the boards are bowing up at the ends or if it is because moisture is getting in some other way.

I somehow ended up scraping a nice, clean, dry, area. This was probably to even out some edges and because I had an über sharp scraper. The wood underneath looked great. Further, it looked like it had a layer of varnish on top, which seemed curious, but didn't really register.



The lone bit of good wood appears to be walnut. The color of the varnish would make it about the same shade as the house's interior woodwork. At first, I figured that there had been a leftover board and that they had used it on the exterior. Then I saw that some peeling paint by the windows revealed similarly varnished wood.

I'm now reasonably sure that the trim on the front of the house was originally unpainted walnut with a relatively light varnish. While this might have looked quite interesting, the lifespan was obviously quite limited.

The vertical boards in the first photograph will have to be replaced eventually. There is simply too much damage to the wood. There's no way to bring them back to their original appearance without an insane amount of work.

The question then comes as to what to do when replacement time comes. I'd like to have the house trimmed as it was originally, with unpainted wood trim. I imagine it would look quite interesting, and distinctly different from every other Tudor in the neighborhood. With the heavy duty varnishes that are available today, there might be one that would hold up long enough to keep me from going crazy re-varnishing every few years.

I'm going to look into this. I suspect my search will lead me to a wooden boat supplier. As always, I welcome thoughts on the insanity of this all.

Making progress on the guest bedroom

Before


During


Almost done

The painting was mostly done by A - I did the finish work. The third photograph is the more accurate representation of the color.

We'd peeled up the corner of the carpet during our first walk-through of the house and found that the flooring was in excellent condition. I've pulled up the tack strips and all the staples - now all that remains is to scrape off the remaining bits of padding and scrub the floor.

The padding, by the way, is really nasty.

Yes, that is a near-mint, framed, Star Wars one-sheet, style C, sitting on the bed. Ah, how tastes change.

Photographs, of course, by A.

Now, with more paint!

The following are some photos of the second floor hallway and part of the stairs, illustrating the lovely new paint. I'm so glad to finally have this project done. Mostly. There's still a bit of touch-up work to do - the little blue specks in the last photograph are bits of masking tape I left on the wall so I could see where I needed to touch up. The photographs were all taken by Audrey.

I haven't been able to figure out how to take apart the globe light fixture. The bulb hasn't burned out, but I know it will some day. I may finally have to contact the previous owner about that.



Someday, I'd like to get rid of the spikey plaster on the ceiling. It has never been painted, and comes off with relative ease. The little bit of green showing at the top is an area that I accidentially scrubbed off when I was scrubbing the walls of their wallpaper glue.

Painting!

Before:


After:


The front hallway is finally painted. I began this project in, um, November. These two photos showing the completed painting courtesy of the always lovely Audrey.



Stripping the wallpaper glue was a pain in the neck. We managed to complete the removal of the glue in the second floor hallway and about halfway down the stairs before I got completely discouraged. I recalled a suggestion that we could put a coat of Killz over the glue, a skimcoat, and another coat of Killz. What I failed to remember was that this would only work if the glue has relatively little texture.

Skimcoating took forever, as did sanding it. The entry hallway, however, is finally done. Last night, I painted the second floor hallway with the roller. I also did some brushwork - enough to finish up the paint I had in the tray. Tonight, I'll finish the second floor hallway and hopefully clean up this mess, too. Ugh.

In unrelated news, the trap on the paint sink started leaking last night. From the looks of the corrosion on it, this has been an issue for quite some time. Ugh. We'll put a bucket under it for now and add it to the list.

Dorkyness of flashing painted copper green?

Among the plethora of projects around the house, one is painting some of the galvanized flashing here and there where the paint is peeling off. There are two possible choices for the paint color here: we can either go with the brown of the rest of the trim on the house, which we still have to decide upon, given that there are no fewer than four shades of brown used on the exterior trim on the house, and I'd really like to just have one; or we can paint the trim a patined copper green.

Painting the flashing brown has a certain amount of merit. It will require less work, becuase for uniform results, we won't have to repaint everything. It'll be a little more subtle, too - it won't scream "look, there's copper on this house, come and steal it!". But it'll be boring, and what's the point of having commer gutters if you're going to be boring about them?

In the past, I've tended to think of the idea of painting flashing green to look like patinaed copper was somewhat dorky. Now, I'm not so sure. I've come to realize that there's more copper on this house than I had thought - the gutters and downspouts are all copper, though some have been painted. Would a bit more green look good or would it just be silly?

Anyway, I'd love to hear some thoughts on the subject.