That Feeling When You Finish Your First Room!
Rebuilding a Beautiful, Vacant Historic Detroit Home (Episode 34)
The Dream Team Arrives
As a favor to Brandon and my sanity this past week, Brandon’s parents and my mother and uncle arrived from Ohio to help us quickly knock out some work over a long weekend. We really needed all of our bathrooms properly prepped and painted so that all of our tubs, sinks, and toilets could be installed. No one wants to paint trim and color while laying on the floor reaching into an impossibly small space behind a cast iron tub, so it was important that we finished painting behind fixtures in these rooms before plumbing arrived the following Monday.
Brandon’s father got to work helping us with some last minute drywall work, something Brandon and I had begun tearing our hair out over due to frustration. While he worked on drywall, Brandon’s mother did us a huge favor by working on our neglected yard outside, preparing it for the winter slumber to come.
My mom and uncle got to work on spackling, sanding, and priming baseboard on the third floor. After prime dried, they sanded gently again before applying trim paint. Brandon did his research and for wall color, we decided on using Benjamin Moore Aura Bath & Spa paint for our bathrooms. It was more expensive, but this special paint allowed us to choose matte finishes in our bathrooms rather than satin or glossy paints. In our 3rd floor bathroom, this was particularly necessary as our plaster walls on the 3rd floor are very uneven, which a gloss paint would only show more drastically.
After a hard weekend of work, we had the 3rd floor bathroom completely painted, the 2nd floor master bathroom trim painted and walls behind plumbing painted, Brandon’s mother deep cleaned our original pink tile bath before our shower controls are installed and sink, and finally on the 1st floor, my friend Bree had finished painting the trim and walls behind plumbing as well.
Plumbing is installed!
So Monday arrives with much excitement! We didn’t accomplish everything in one day, but by the end of the week we had installed:
- All kitchen appliances — Fridge, Dishwasher, Sinks, Disposals
- 1st floor bath toilet
- All 2nd floor guest bath fixtures
- Master bath — Tub, Shower, Sinks, and our new bidet toilet are all working great!
- All 3rd floor bath fixtures
- New-ish basement toilet
We did run into a few issues we’ll now have to resolve. In some of these rooms, water hadn’t been turned on in over 5 years. We discovered that our 3rd floor sink leaks at the drain, with corrosion on the bottom of the sink, we will need to determine what, if anything, can be done to keep this sink operational. Our 3rd floor bathtub is having some issues with the new supply lines, so our plumber will have to address that upon another visit. Our pink guest bath is working great except for our tub hot water control. It is only trickling out hot water compared to the rest. Thankfully, I don’t imagine this tub will be used as a tub very often, and the new/vintage shower controls work great!
The plumber will return once we have our 2nd floor laundry ready for washer/dryer install. Brandon and I are working on selecting some inexpensive vinyl flooring to go in the bottom of the closet where our washer/dryer will be.
3rd floor bath
Master Bath
Some more electrical work
Finishing touches on electrical are continuing to happen here and there. We now have a new motion-sensor flood light on our garage, new back porch light, and our Insteon smart switches installed around the various rooms of the house. This week we also had our master bathroom sconces installed, so once we get paint on the rest of the walls, we’ll be ready for mirrors!
Winter is Coming
The big concern for us now is to get paint behind every radiator in the home so that they can be reinstalled. We haven’t had heat in this house for nearly a year, and with the weather starting to get into the low 40s and even high 30s in some cases at night, we are growing concerned about our new plumbing. Brandon, Bree and I are all out now on focusing on trim and walls behind the radiators. I now have the 1st floor primed and prepped for trim paint and then color, the 3rd floor is in roughly the same place. We will need to move quickly on prepping and painting the 2nd floor radiator spaces, and I am hoping we can have radiators reinstalled sometime early next week.
It’s doable, but we need to move quickly.
Our Journey isn’t over!
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