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Sunday, February 20, 2005

Here's some of the progress I've been making these days. I'm restoring an upstairs bedroom and bath in my house, but lately I've mostly worked on the bedroom.

The picture on the left shows the original state, as it was when we bought the house. The picture was taken in January, 2005 -- 12 years after we bought the place. That'll give you some idea how long it takes us to get things done.The picture on the right shows the installation of the beadboard ceiling. Real beadboard can be hard to find. You won't find it in the big box stores, because they mostly deal with major manufacturers. Go to the local lumberyard. The one in the delapidated building. They'll do business with the area lumber mills that the big box stores ignore. They're a great source for good materials. Once we found boxes of old door hardware from the 1940s -- still in the original packaging, in an old hardware store. Dig, dig, dig!See the scraps of wood? Those are my jacks (for lack of a better term). They consist of two scraps of wood, with a screw conecting them. I attach them to the ceiling with screws, then lift the beadboard to the ceiling, turn the loosepiece to hold the board in place, wedge the beadboard tight, and nail it with a pneumatic nail gun. It's a slow process, but it'll last a hundred years, so what's a few days work in the grand scheme of things?

The whole room had cheesecloth, covered with wallpaper. That's the typical technique in old houses from this part of the South. Cheesecloth was tacked to the walls, then wetted to make it shrink taut, then wallpaper was hung over it. This disguised the rough wood beneath, and eliminated the need for plaster. But what a fire hazard!

I've covered the entire ceiling with beadboard (I know. It's flammable too, but not like paper and cheesecloth). The air conditioning registers are indicated by gaps that help me keep track of their location. I still need to cut out the holes there. I bought a great old cast-iron heating register on eBay for the upstairs air conditioning vents. The good old stuff rarely comes in complete sets, so I bought just one (that's all there was), and I'll make a cast of it, and have exact replicas throughout the upstairs.

Here's a good representative shot of where we stand today. The ceiling is in, and the sheetrock and crown molding are done. The crown molding is much smaller and simpler than what I used downstairs. Typicaly, old houses of this vintage have more ornate downstairs woodwork, and each higher level has simpler woodwork.
Old Creole houses were just the opposite, as the downstairs was the utility level, and exposed to floods, animals, etc. By comparison, my home is very modern.

There's still a lot to do in this room. The windows need a lot of work, there's painting and wallpaper to deal with, and the floor needs a finish.

I love the old floors upstairs. They are original to the house, unlike the downstairs oak floors, which were added in the 1950s. I really don't want to sand them down to new wood. I think I'd lose a lot of charm by doing that. I'm going to see if I can clean them and oil them. I wiped mineral spirits on a section today, and it looked great.

When I finish this, I have a bathroom to deal with. We got the "new" tub, which was manufactured in 1913. It'll be a great bathroom!

another hasty insight by Jeff on 2/20/2005

Sunday, February 20, 2005

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