Room[er]

When we bought the house, there was a pink room.  Its conversion was challenging to say the least.  The textured ceiling, pink wallpaper, and blue carpet had to go.*  I don't really know, but my guess is that this layer of wallpaper (yes, there were multiples) went up sometime in the 80s or maybe even the early 90s.  I remember making wallpaper angels with similar stock in 10th grade.  Also, as a side note, carpet freaks me out a little.  It can look clean but actually be ridden with dirt and dust.

Removing the wallpaper was a whole week endeavor.  Thank you Mom!  Removing the carpet wasn't too bad.  Removing the plywood below the carpet was not quite so easy.  Hiring someone else to do the work of repairing and refinishing the original flooring was simple.

Smoothing out the walls and ceiling was pretty damn awful.  ...torturous.  For me, there was no joy of D.I.Y. in this particular piece of the transformation.

Picking a paint color was fun.

Painting was rewarding.

* The conversion was completed just in time for a housemate to join us.  J. and I were finishing up the last coat of paint as D. started moving in.  He has lived with us (and the two cats, and three chickens) for a year now.  Happy anniversary D.!

Breath

About a year ago, Sandon from San Francisco Window Pros came to take a look at the window situation in our house.  It was pretty cool to learn even a few things from his vast knowledge of old windows.  For one, the diamond-y window upstairs was installed inside-out.

I learned that all the one-over-one windows on our house are actually double hung.  The little rectangle on the outside of the the bottom pane is the area for the weights of the top section.  This is how you know that the top did, and possibly still does, open.

I also learned that the little wavy pieces of wood on the sides at the middle are typical decorative features and are supposed to be there.  Before that, I hadn't really paid close attention and simply assumed that the top window sections on all of the windows had been propped up with a block of wood.  ...not the case.  

When we bought the house, not a single window opened from the top and four of the windows in the first floor living area were painted shut entirely (for eons apparently).  Well... last month, with the elbow grease of three people, the windows once again breathed with life.

It was amazing to open these four windows, and it was doubly amazing to be able to open them from both the top and the bottom.  Although not now, at some point down the road, we will have fully functional, restored windows.

30 march 2013 . saturday .
(day one thousand one hundred eighty-one)