rocknhorse: blog 
rocknhorse's blog
house: full circle
Published Feb. 21, 2009Views: 522
Well, we have finally made it full circle! When we began this house project, the first order of business was dismantling the stair rails to prep the house for the grand move. This past week finally saw it reassembled. What a GREAT feeling that was! It's just as pretty as I remember it. Before installation, we did sand the banister and stain it a dark walnut. We have not applied the poly yet. We also have not sanded and primed the spindles that remained in place from the beginning. But you can get the idea from the picture of how it will look completed.
We are finally in the last stretch and hope to be completed soon. As for a date, I gave up guessing a LONG time ago. But assuming some checks come in the mail for work we have completed, it shouldn't be much longer. In the meantime, we've been doing as much as we could with materials on hand.
Thank goodness we saved all the original trim. We've been pulling materials out of storage and preparing them for reinstallation. We chose to keep the 1x4 trim around the doors and windows with as much original back band as we could salvage from deconstruction. We also chose to keep the 1x8 baseboards. We will purchase new baseboard caps and shoe molding b/c it's just easier than trying to sand those curves. But we saved a LOT of money by reusing the old wood. Not to mention there was not a single knot in the old wood. It was great quality.
At this point, we have most of the trim primed but not painted. Once we are in the house, we plan to take one original door at a time and remove all the hardware, bead blast it, grease the mechanisms and restore it to original beauty. We opted for all original doors upstairs, but new for downstairs. I would have preferred all original and/or solid woods, but with expansions, we didn't have enough original doors to go around and it was simply easier and more economical to choose new doors for downstairs.
We have discovered some faux-pas' along the way. For instance, in the process of adding the master bath suite to the house, we placed the door too close to the fireplace. As a result, the original mantle would not fit. From the time we realized the error, we've been trying to figure a creative solution. Sadly, we decided to cut a section out of the middle. I was not thrilled to do this, but I think it will work out well anyway. We will curve the top and re-router it so that it won't be a corner to avoid as we enter/exit the master bath. And, as part of my quirkiness, we kept the 9" section we cut out, which I'll reinforce and use as a little accent shelf.
OK. Moment of truth here. I am so glad that we did this project. Every day that I see the house and see the progress, I'm amazed that we did it and it's turning out better than I would have ever imagined. I'm constantly amazed by the outpouring of help from friends and family. But I'm tired! We have passed the 2 year mark since we closed on the land and we're 1.5 years into the house move/remodel. I'm ready to be finished and just relax. Soon. Very, very soon!
One final comment before I have to sign off and head to the house to work. We are enterring in a contest with "This Old House" magazine (one of my favorites). They are taking entries for individual room remodels as well as whole house remodels. We're entering for the whole house. There's some tough competition, but maybe there will be something special about ours to make the cut. Wish us luck!!!
Latest pics: http://www.wral.com/golo/image_gallery/4490737/
Filed under: Home & Gardening
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