Paint, Paint Everywhere!
Rebuilding a Beautiful, Vacant Historic Detroit Home (Episode 41)
Color Me Busy
Painting is officially in full swing! Jeff and Kurt have been working very hard around the house with sanding, filling, and painting our trim around the house. The first big task is to get as much painting around the staircase done as possible so that our handrail and balusters can finally be reinstalled. Jeff and Kurt started by laying out all of our balusters on saw horses so they had good access for prep, and spray painting. By tinting the primer to the final color, they eliminated the need for too many coats of paint and quickly got our balusters looking shiny and clean!
We are very happy with the results of the balusters and are especially happy that we took the time to strip every single one ourselves of the layers upon layers of old paint down to bare wood so that they would look their absolute best. Looking at them now, you’d never assume that these are the original balusters and not just a modern replacement because they look so good.
Jeff and Kurt are keen on only using oil-based paints and so all of our trim and woodwork is being painted with Benjamin Moore Impervo to ensure that the paint is incredibly durable and adheres well to every surface. This means that the paint takes longer to dry, about 1–2 days to touch, and about a month to fully cure, but the results will be much better than traditional latex-based paints once complete.
Ceilings and Plaster get a Fresh Face
While we wait a few days for the balusters to further cure and schedule our stair contractor to come and reinstall our staircase, Jeff and Kurt took to our ceilings and plaster work on the 1st floor.
We spent a ton of time Photoshopping pictures of our dining/library room and painting swatches of various shades on the ceiling. We want these two rooms to be more on the moody side, as we are wanting to use these rooms as more of a bar/lounge and piano space for entertaining. We decided on a dark grey paint for the walls and a lighter shade on the ceiling, leaving our rose plaster trim white so that we can ensure it really pops in the room.
Kurt and Jeff spent time running around the house and spraying all of our plaster crown moldings and ceiling medallions with a satin oil paint, this little bit of sheen helps the plaster details stand out. Next, Kurt got to rolling and painting of the ceilings, putting the lighter grey I had chosen in our bar/lounge space for us to see in person for the first time.
Planning for the Living Room
Last week, we had our fireplace properly repaired and our mantle reattached to the wall. Our next step with this room is deciding what we can do to help make the mantle become more of a focal point to the space. Our mantle is original, however roughly 50 years ago, a piece to our mantle which made it much taller and more grand was removed. We discovered this after finding the EXACT SAME MANTLE except for the taller design in one of our neighbors homes (which we recommend you follow their great work as well, which is only just beginning!) We then found a line running across the plaster where the rest of our mantle would have sat, which confirmed that it had been altered at some point!
Again, Photoshop was our friend, and while I don’t like this exact design, it became clear that some kind of wallpaper or artwork will really help make our mantle seems more grand in our large living room.
Finally Finishing our Shower!
After a couple small tile repairs, Brandon and I took to finally sealing in the grout of our master shower. This week has been the first time we can start to fully use our Master bathroom, and it feels so satisfying!
More Painting and Sanding!
With essentially every door removed in the house, Kurt has been hard at work sanding and prepping them for paint!
Jeff got to painting our trim upstairs and so far has nearly finished the entire 2nd floor landing space’s trim. He has also painted all of the trim around our staircase and has started some paint on some of our windows. We are essentially to the point now where all of our mustard yellow trim and plaster is finally gone!
Just a Dash of Fun
And finally, this past week I took up a mini project of redoing our spice rack. We were using a very nice spinning William-Sonoma rack up until this point, but with our new cabinets having doors with spice racks built in, we decided it was time to clear some of our counter space and come up with a new system to hold our spices.
Brandon found these nice glass jars from Crate & Barrel and I got to work on some simple label designs. Growing up, my cousin had made himself a funny spice rack where he had written insulting spice puns on his spices. I still remember “i hate you, and so does rosemary” written on one of his jars to this day, and so I decided to carry the torch with my spice rack.
The jars look quite nice with their spices in them, so overall I am really happy with the result. I bought some Kraft Sticker Paper off Amazon and designed my labels and puns over the course of the week.
Learning About Steam Heat Vacuums
Brandon and I are learning all kinds of things about our steam heat system from the nerdiest steam nerd who ever lived…. a man named Harry who was the chief engineer at Detroit’s Fox Theater for over 30 years! We’ve learned that our boiler, when running correctly, operates UNDER A VACUUM!
A one-way air vent means a vacuum is created by the condensing steam inside the radiators and allows the condensed water to then essentially boil a second time as the boiling temp for the water decreases while under vacuum. This means that the heat remains inside the radiators longer and more heat can be effectively transmitted through the house. Crazy stuff, but awesome to know that in the 1920s we somehow had this all figured out!
Next…
Painting is still in full swing, so more results on that front to come!
Our journey isn’t over
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