Day 2 Progress

The wear and tear on my hands made it hard to do a lot of work today, but thankfully Jeff stepped up and helped out. Generally, Jeff and I divide up paint stripping. He strips paint in the high areas and I do the low areas. I typically do most of the chemical stripping. Jeff sands the weird profiles (usually the picture rail and crowns) and then I sand the flat trim.

The paint started peeling off the wall like wallpaper; it was hard to resist giving it a good tug. :D

Day 1 Progress

Because it was supposed to be hot today, I started stripping the paint last night at 11PM. I only worked on it a couple hours before Jeff shuffled me off to bed because I was making too much noise with the windows open. LOL

Luckily the temperature was not as high as forecast today and we were able to put in another few hours (between us). Unfortunately, my hands have gone soft during my nearly 3-year break from paint stripping and I have massive blisters on my thumb. Oh well. I'll keep at it though, because this is what I'm obsessed with at the moment. I am so determined to finish this project as soon as I can (before I get distracted by some other damn video game).

The pictures are mostly for our own benefit, because paint stripping is one of those awful projects where when you look at it all you see is what you have left to do. It's so hard to feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of a day's work. Usually you don't feel good about the project until it is done.

Furniture Moved

I'm so pleased we managed the motivation to get all the furniture moved today. It was a bit of a challenge by the end because we were tired, but we finished! :D

There is a little bit of mop up left to do (like removing the racks off the wall) and then we can remove the shoe moulding and mask the floors. Oh, and I have to dig around the cluttered garage to find the heat gun and other paint stripping supplies.

The guest room is not open for business right now. LOL

Sewing Room Packed

Finally, I am almost there; just a few more tubs to schlep out. Tomorrow we are going to break down the bed in the guest room and start moving the sewing room furniture in there.

It is likely we'll be able to start paint stripping again in a few days. Not one of my favorite jobs, but it is definitely improved by the fact that this will be our LAST bedroom. Once we are done with this, we can pack away those paint stripping tools for a very long time. :D

Quite a lot of the packed boxes from the room fit in my huge closet, so our master bedroom barely feels cluttered. I didn't even bother to pack up the bolts of fabric; I just stacked them up on top of my dresser. Of course, now my closet is pretty crammed, but I don't go in there much anyway. And it is temporary.

Sewing Room Progress Finally

I have finally mostly escaped the self-destructive habit of playing the ArcheAge game all day and I'm working on my sewing room again. I've packed up all of the hanging and stacked fabrics and most of the stuff in the bookshelf. I didn't really want to declare any progress on the blog again until I had made a lot of progress packing, lest it get derailed like it did last time. :)

I'm hoping to get the room packed up entirely in the next week and get started right away on paint stripping before our weather gets too hot. I'd really like to finish staining the wood and repainting the walls by the end of summer. I'll also plan on having the floors refinished before I move back into the room.

Right now all the packed boxes are being stuffed into the other bedrooms on the second floor, so it's going to be pretty cluttered and unphotogenic for the near future. It's probably going to be pretty crazy when we have to move all the furniture out of the room for the floor refinishing. (I predict the bed in the guest bedroom will get unassembled.)

It was a little painful to start packing up the stacked fabric as I spent so long making those piles just as I liked them. Ultimately, I ended up buying boxes that were just the right size to fit two piles side-by-side without having to reshift the piles. It should be fairly straightforward to put the fabric right back on the shelves mostly the way they were before.

(P.S. about ArcheAge. Don't even think about playing it. The game is being managed extremely poorly by its North American publisher, Trion. I regret some of the money I put into the game, though I must admit I did enjoy it for many months. We hung out with some really nice players and I do not regret the time I spent with them. The game itself is really beautiful, but it unfortunately does not reward hard work, but luck and swiping your credit card. Additionally, many players in the game are really toxic and ridicule players who don't view PvP as their primary desire in the game. Save your time and money. Don't bother.)

For New Visitors

Welcome to my somewhat neglected blog. In it, I document our research and restoration of our 1912 Arts & Crafts house in Laurelhurst, Portland, Oregon. I am deeply honored that American Bungalow has chosen to include our house in their well-respected magazine and I welcome all you folks who got this blog address from that article.

If you are visiting to check out my original source research that I've posted, the best way to see is it to click on the "Inspiration" label on the right side of this page.

If you are interested in individual topics about our restoration, I tried to add tags about the relevant topics. Again, it is best to simply click on the relevant labels.

I do have a few projects I hope to tackle later this year, including making and applying period stencils in our living and dining rooms. I've just got a couple hurdles to get over first (i.e. broken computer with the files we need to recover first).

I'd also like to finish stripping the paint in that final bedroom so we will be DONE. In fact, just thinking about being done almost makes me go pick up those paint stripping tools. Too bad my sewing room won't pack itself up so I can get to the woodwork. LOL

Feel free to leave comments to help motivate us and to follow the blog (so I feel obliged to post new content). :D

Thanks all for dropping by. I hope I can help you find inspiration for your home restoration project.

Pergola Assembled

Jeff paid his friend Eric to come help him finish assembling the pergola last month. Sadly, we did not get it finished this past summer and the wood just sat outside getting dirty. Oh well. Once the weather improves, we'll pressure wash it all down and finish staining it. Hopefully this spring we'll find the motivation to do it.

Jeff and Eric cut out the brackets until they got to the curves and then they needed to find help to get them finished. Jeff hired that last cut out on each bracket. Those were cut to the same specs as the house, which I think is pretty neat.