Restoring the Reis Timberlake house

Maybe a blog resurrection?

2012-02-03T09:36:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting somewhere other than facebook to post a few photos of things around the house, so maybe I'll actually do it here.

We finally got the bathroom renovated!

Here's the awful, terrible before picture. It's from when we bought the house so it wasn't quite this bad right before we started the bathroom project, but still--it's what we started with when we moved in.

Brent did the awful, dirty work of removing all the old tile and paneling.

He then rebuilt part of the floor to try to level it since the bathroom slopes pretty dramatically. It's much better--as good as we can get it without the inside of the bathroom going higher than the hallway. Ah, old houses.

We tiled the walls with subway tiles.

And the floor is a mosaic basketweave pattern with a border of subway tiles, all in marble.

After the floor was done, we had Thompson Fiberglass come and refinish the sink and the tub, then a plumber got rid of the stupid old shower coming out of the wall, and installed all our shiny new fixtures from Henry Plumbing. The fixture installation was a two person job, so it was me and the plumber Josh. It all went pretty well until we found that the sink drain opening was waaaaay too small for the fixture I bought.

A little metal filing, some creative use of the lathe, and a little soldering got us a part that worked. I cut down the brass flange to fit, Josh soldered it to a smaller drain piece, and filed out the opening to allow it to fit, and voila! Sink drain works :)

After all the demolition, the glass of the chandelier was pretty dusty so I knew we needed to clean it. Brent realized all the tarnished brass parts would polish up on a buffing wheel, so he went to it. We went from old and brown to shiny and new. It looks great. I don't get all these brass hating people. With the right color palette, it can look great.

Here's the finished view into the bathroom.

And a look up at the gorgeous ceiling. Brent did all the crown moulding.

2008-05-10T07:32:00.000-07:00

Our wireless doorbell decided to at first not work, then work when it wasn't required. It's been removed, and a new butler style doorbell was installed.
The bell

And the new button on the front door

More updates

2007-09-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

First, in the kitchen. Carrie made curtains and hung the curtain rods.

Then I finished the back transom and got it in place using the reproduction antique hinges. We also found some brass latches for the transoms. A 6-foot pole with a brass hook for reaching and opening the latches is currently drying in the basement.

Early this year we found a chandelier for the second floor bedroom on sale at an antique store. It sat around for a while until we found some replacement crystals to fill it out. Then all of that sat around until we finally decided a couple of weeks ago to get it in place.

We went online to architecturaldepot.com and found a ceiling medallion we liked. It arrived in a few days and the first step was to paint it with a couple of coats of the ceiling color

Then after some experimentation both on the computer and on the medallion, colors were picked and a paint scheme developed

After it was all dry, it was time to attach it to the ceiling using mostly liquid nails, but four finishing nails were used just for a little extra help. It looks a lot smaller way up there.
The last step was raising and attaching the chandelier, then making sure all the crystal pieces were in place. We counted 80 hanging pieces. The finished, working, restored chandelier:

Kitchen Paint and Stain

2007-09-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of work going on lately. Here's some pictures of progress in the kitchen.
The first step was picking a color for the walls, getting the unfinished trim stained, and attempting to do some refinishing on the cabinets.

That's as far as the cabinets got. It looks like they may just be painted after all.

The corner block rosettes in the dining room all need to be modified to match the thicker-than-usual trim. These two on the kitchen doorway are all that are done so far.

After all the window and interior doorway trim was finished, it was time to start on the two exterior doors. This one is the "front" door that opens to the side deck. The transom has been removed and boarded in this photo.

Here's the transom after stripping. The flat surfaces were stripped with the heat gun, but for the routing I used a chemical stripper, followed by lots of hand-sanding.

And here it is after staining (sideways photo, I forgot to flip it)

For the doors and transoms we found reproduction antique cast-iron church-steeple hinges. There are a few doors and transoms in the house that still have these original hinges, but most of them are covered in paint, or in bad shape. We got enough to start with the two doors and transoms in the kitchen.
And here it is working again. The brass latch is still on it's way here. The door is still waiting to be stripped.
Across from that is the back door. Here is preparation for staining.

Here is the completed trim and the sanded and filled door, ready to be stained and finished.
And finally, the upper-half of the walls were painted.

Remaining still is to strip the front door and rear transom, and to put the new hinges on those pieces. Plus we have to decide exactly what to do with the cabinets.
As a garden report, we got a decent haul of potatoes with quite a variety of shapes and sizes. Here's a sampling from one plant immediately prior to being made into dinner.

More Yard Work!

2007-06-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

We've been busy bees out in the yard, and the work keeps going on as long as the weather's nice like it has been.

After a weekend of working outside, I figured it was picture time. It's hard to capture in photos, but it's really quite pretty! We need a couple more garbage cans full of mulch to finish the mulching. Maybe tonight or tomorrow, if I can convince Brent :) He's currently digging a trench for another brick path, so I'm thinking he won't want to do mulch tonight.

Here we have a current status picture of the south side of the yard...

and another of the north side.

Now for some closeups. Roughly following from the bottom of the steps around the yard in a clockwise direction.
My Rhubarb has really taken off! It keeps getting new stalks and leaves and is looking extremely healthy!

These 2 elephant ears have come up nicely and put out some lovely leaves. There are 3 more that are just barely up now, so they'll be coming out with leaves soon too.

I just planted a bunch more ajuga after seeing how well these plants have taken on the task of filling in the bare ground. I read they're in the mint family so it makes sense that they'd spread well.

Speaking of Mint, here's a nice view of mine--all contained in a pot though. Mmm, mojito anyone?

The corn is looking a bit windblown. Who knows if it will manage to make ears of corn this year or not. We shall see!

The potato plants are thriving. The critters seem to be leaving them alone now, after a few early nibbles on a couple plants.

My lettuce looks awesome. I just thinned it, but it still looks a little crowded. They seem to spread out to take up as much space as possible.

Brent put in a new path from my car to the sidewalk a while ago, so I filled in around it with some pretty annuals. Mostly yellow snapdragons.

and another view

The petunias under the birdbath are loving their location since the birds are constantly splashing water out over them.

One of my Canna lilies is looking quite handsome. Seveal others are a few inches tall right now and should start sending out their large leaves soon.

I don't remember what this plant is, but I really love its purple leaves. They make me think of dragon scales with their almost iridescence.

I also took pictures of my berries (strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry), but they were blurry. There's 1 strawberry that is very nearly ripe and nothing has eaten it yet. I hid it under some leaves a little bit, so maybe it will make it til tomorrow when it should be ripe.

Some gardening

2007-04-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

This spring I planted 55 gladiolus bulbs in a corner of the front yard. I like to plant them fairly close together so they have a better chance of not falling over when they're fully grown. You can see a few of them are up. I think I counted 15 or so. I put the 2 big pots around the patch so people would quit stepping in it. Someone even stepped in them when it was obvious there were things sprouting! The nerve.

In the back yard next to the porch, we have a bed of irises and lilies. I never saw the irises last year, but this year they're gorgeous. All white and with tons of blooms!

Here's the north half of the yard. In the far left corner, I plan to do some elephant ears and some shade plants under them once they're established. You can barely make out the ground cover plants near the garden boxes. Speaking of garden boxes, lettuce and carrots have begun to make an appearance! I'm hoping to see potatos any day now. I also got some small watermelon plants at the nursery and added them in one of the boxes. We'll see how they do. Under the big tree in the back, I'm planting a bunch of impatiens. It's too shadowy to see them right now. I'll try to get a better photo this evening.

I've spent most of my time on this part of the yard. It houses all the fruit stuff: blueberry, raspberry and blackberry bushes, and a pot of strawberry plants. I've filled in with a bunch of other plants too. I really like these leaf-only annuals with red, white, and pink leaves. They're quite colorful. I also put my hens and chicks in this area. I do so love them (and have since I was a kid).

The Bathroom door

2007-03-11T15:47:00.000-07:00

There hasn't been much activity here, but there has been a lot of activity on the house. We've just not done a good job of taking pictures of it.

Since we've been here the second-floor bathroom door has been less than adequate. It's a solid pocket door. When we moved in one of the rollers was broken completely. I tried to replace it with an off-the-shelf one, but it never really worked, and eventually it broke, too. This meant it was time to take out the entire old door header and put in a new, more substantial one. First step, rip out the wall and take the old door parts out:

Next step was to put in the new header

Next the steel-encased split studs that support the wall go in. This required the addition of a small access hole on the inside of the bathroom.

With all that in place, it was time to put new sheetrock in. All of this happened in one afternoon:

During this same time, the door was taken down and sanded, stained, and refininshed. Once it was complete, it could be hung. The new header had rollers that clamp onto brackets screwed into the door, rather than connecting to the door directly. This allows the door to be removed without taking out any trim or jamb pieces, something the old mechanism didn't offer. There is no way the rollers can come off the track, making it impossible for the door to fall off as it did before.

With the door in place, it was then time to replace the jambs. The old ones were fairly beat up, so I ran to Lowe's bought new pieces, stained and finished them and hung and shimmed them. The sheetrock was sanded and primed.

The original trim was taken down and stained and finished before reattaching it:

Inside view:
The final step was adding the reproduction antique hardware so the door could be pulled open and locked shut:

Closeup:

Cheating a bit

2006-12-06T12:06:00.000-08:00

And just posting some pictures here of what's been going on :)

Staining, Shellacking, and Window Coverings

Front door painted and decorated

Cats in a box

Paint Progress!

Some Decorating

2006-11-26T13:55:00.000-08:00

With the assistance of some doorbuster coupons from the fabric store, we got a bunch of material for curtains. I got out the ole Singer, and hemmed up the fabric for some curtains. First up was Brent's studio. It's so bright in there he can hardly use his computer during the morning or afternoon. He picked out a heavy navy blue pattern. Here's what his sliding doors look like now:

And here's a detail of the fabric pattern. It's darker than shown, but has a shiny pattern, so it gives you an idea of what that pattern looks like.

Next up, I started on our bedroom. The door came first, as it's much shorter than the window. Unfortunately, there was a mistake in measuring which led me to change my design and add a contrasting panel. Once I did that, I realized it needed a tie, so I went and got a tie that matched the trim I had purchased for the window. Here's my door curtain masterpiece:

I then started work on a roman-style shade for the window. It does seem like it's going to raise and lower as expected once we get it installed. But first, brent's staining the window it goes in:

I'm now working on some panels to go in front of the shade for more layers and light blockage as necessary. You can see how they'll go together here as I've laid them out from the mantle. The striped shade will be inside the window box, and the green will be outside of the trim and hang to the floor. I've still got to make the other green panel, though it's already cut out.

It's good to make some progress

2006-11-11T19:34:00.000-08:00

After acquiring a heat gun a couple weeks ago, Brent and I have been slowly but surely scraping paint off the woodwork in the upstairs living room. We've got most of the panels under the windows all clear now. They look like this now:

We're still working on the baseboards. The existing ones are painted with graining patterns and we still need to dig up more from the basement to put back in the rest of the way around the room. I like me some baseboards.

After estimating the cost of having all the wood-graining completed I decided to put an interim solution in place. I'm staining and shellacking all the woodwork to approximately the same color range as our desired graining will be. I know we'll cover this later when we hire someone to add the oak graining, but for now, it's going to give us a much more finished-looking house. I'm using a dark walnut stain and amber-colored shellac. I've got one door done so far, though it needs some more shellac. It's very annoying to have to use a tall stepladder to do this job though. It's one time when I wish our ceilings were lower. Anyway, here are some pictures:

Also, Brent investigated some electrical issues today. Our ceiling fan and light quit working in the living room. He couldn't find anything wrong with the wiring, and I researched the switch. Apparently it's run by some fancy circuit board and switch, and seems likely that something on that circuitry is hosed. We're going to look into getting a new fan and light. Neither of us really like this one that much anyway.

He did, however, successfully fix both the light in the back hallway and in the laundry room. Yay! We have an awful lot of lights in the hall area now, but I'm pleased as punch since I've really needed that laundry room light.

Big day, courtesy of the brain

2006-11-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

I had today off today and we got to go shopping at Home Depot with a $500 gift card from my company. Yay!

We knew from the start that a new garbage disposal topped the list for today. Not exciting, but definitely needed. After picking up a $99 3/4HP Badger, we headed back to the light fixture area. Finally, we found one that should help brighten up the kitchen! From there we moved on to the appliances to look at wine refrigerators. There was one for $199 that included a nifty corkscrew. We pondered over why it was so cheap for a while, then decided to get it.

After we checked out I looked at our receipt. The chandelier was $20 cheaper than listed and the wine fridge was $30 less than the marked price. Woo hoo!

Picture fun:

The new garbage disposal after being installed by Brent:

As he started pulling things from under the sink, he noticed they were wet. We found a surprise leak as the drain from one of the sinks had completely detached. Here you can see it after Brent reattached it. No leaks now!

All the items under the sink are sitting out to dry off now before we put things back in.

Here's what the kitchen light looked like before. It was ugly, beat up, and really really dark for the room. I hated it.

And here's the new light as assembled by Carrie and hung by Brent. It feels much higher than the old one, though it's really about the same height. I like it a lot. One of the included light bulbs didn't work though, so we have to go pick up a replacement.

And though it doesn't have much to do with the house itself, it's still fun to show off. Here's our 45 bottle wine fridge!

And here are the contents of said fridge. Hmm...not much in there. I think we need more!

More painting

2006-09-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

As fall is approaching, I'm trying to get some things finished on the outside of the house.
The back porch isn't completely finished, but it's much closer. The corner pieces have been painted and put up, and the lattice underneath has been painted.

There is still some detail work on the overhangs to be done, but more paint and a really tall ladder is needed for that.

The side porch took up a lot of time this summer. The humidity of August stopped much progress, as well as the need for a really tall ladder. Here's a photo of the 2nd floor level last January.

And here's the upstairs today: The chairs came from a friend's garage sale. They were already beige, so I added a little color to match. The doors of this porch open onto the 2nd floor bedrooms, one of which is the "yarn room".

The downstairs is still awaiting some finishing. When we moved in the bottom level had a ceiling, however, there was no waterproofing done, so the ceiling plywood was rotting and falling out. Instead we removed it all and just went with open beams. The problem with that was the wiring for the light was just laid down in the ceiling, meaning conduit had to be run for the light fixture.

The detail woodwork is already primed. The detail work will be done whenever I get a tall enough ladder and more paint. Then the ceiling can be sprayed, the floor can be painted, and a matching hanging light installed. The original porch had corner pieces as well, and bits of those have been found among all the wood in the basement. The new porch is built a bit differently, so we'll have to construct new corner pieces that match the old ones. They were solid carved blocks, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Finally, here's a picture from inside. We test-painted a section of the 2nd floor living room to see if we really want to paint the entire room teal. It looks like it's a go.

Paint Ideas

2006-08-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

I started playing with some colors of paint in the guest room upstairs. I have a purple and green quilt in there, so that was the inspiration for the color choices. We're having some issues with the primer sticking to the drywall. All the paint keeps wanting to peel up if I use tape on it. It's a pain in the butt.

I did manage to get some paint on one wall, as shown here. It's a dark lilac with a creamy yellow. The idea is to split the purpla sections into panels with dark green dividers, then to put some sort of panel decoration on them--Probably in gold. I like shiny things.

I cut a stencil for the motif I want to use on the upper section of the wall. It's giving me the effect that I want, but I did a really crappy job at stenciling it. The paint bled all over. I need to work on my technique before attempting that again. If I can't get better at it, I'll probably change my plan and use small individual designs that don't need to be paneled like the one I tried out here.

Oh, also, the cats are great helpers, so here's a picture of two of them too :)

Storm

2006-07-20T20:21:00.000-07:00

Big storm last night. There's lots of branches and leaves in the yard, but we came out mostly unscathed. One medium sized branch needs to be cut out of the big cottonwood in the back. Our neighbors three houses to the north lost a very large tree that made a big mess of the fences between us and them. This is a photo from the third floor roof deck.

Porch Stuff

2006-07-03T14:24:00.000-07:00

	Here's what the porch looked like when we first bought the place. Notice the bare wood rails, peeling bannister, and general run down look.
	First up, I started by scraping and painting the bannister and the stairs and the balustrade up to the porch. It was here that I worked out the color scheme to incorporate the house's red, green, and beige. You can see a bit in the back that the other rails are being primed as this picture was taken.
	We taped off and painted the details on all of the rails around the porch. Here you can see the tape and the red stripe going on the top rail.
	In the meantime, I started painting the corner pieces for the roof/ceilng line. Uh, they still look like this. I ran out of tape. Yeah, that's why they're not done :)
	Brent loves using the paint sprayer so here's a shot of how we put up plastic all around to allow for painting of the ceiling. It blew down once, so the job took longer than expected, but he got it done.
	I snapped this through the window as Brent sprayed primer on the beadboard-plywood ceiling.
	Here's the current view, facing north out of the kitchen door. The floor has been painted green. The light fixtures are both up and working.
	This is the view looking south. The lighting is a bit better in this picture and you can see the dark red ceiling. It looks very nice, especially compared to the plain plywood look it had previously sported.
	Finally, here's the appearance from the yard. In this shot you can see the bare wood lattice. That's one of the next things to paint (besides those fiddly corner things). Brent wants to do it dark red like the ceiling.

Introduction

2006-06-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

This blog will serve as a place for me (Carrie) and my boyfriend Brent to post about our adventures in rehabbing a 120 year old house called the Reis-Timberlake house, in Carondelet, a neighborhood in South Saint Louis.