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Jan. 31st, 2014 05:37 pmStarted renovating the kitchen finally, after 20 years of looking at that ugly-ass colonial blue wallpaper that came with the house. There was a chair rail on the two papered walls, with the same paper above and below. The other two walls were covered with brick face, so we can't do anything with them unless we tear them down completely and put up new drywall.
I peeled the paper from above the chair rail and found unpainted plaster with varying amounts of damage. I patched some of it, and left it unpainted for a few weeks. The paper under the chair rail seemed to be mounted on something other than plaster, so I was considering painting over it. After much hemming and hawing, my husband painted the top half of the room, then got some Kilz (stain-hiding) paint to cover the wallpaper on the bottom half. And then we took a close look at the paper and found it wasn't that tightly adhered after all and probably wouldn't paint well, so we stripped it off. Underneath was masonite, sloppily cut and fixed to the wall with half a million one-inch nails. We talked rather unenthusiastically about patching the masonite and painting it, and then I took a closer look at it.
"What's under here?"
My husband was sure we'd find damaged plaster and advised me to leave it alone. But it was seriously ugly and not even neatly installed, so I pried off a bit. Just to see.
I was rewarded with a lovely row of bead board, which has since been sanded, sealed, and painted white. It looks AMAZING, and we haven't even painted the trim yet. We moved the fridge to pull down the last piece of wallpaper, but underneath that was only plywood. I was confused until I remembered that there had obviously been a doorway in that section of wall -- the unevenly patched, door-shaped section of drywall that's visible on both sides of that wall above the chair rail gave it away. They must have just nailed some plywood onto the studs and papered over it, because that's the sort of home-remodeling geniuses we bought this house from.
Disappointing, but not insurmountable. I have some ideas for the rest of the kitchen that involve MAJOR demolition -- pulling out the cabinets, tearing down the brickface and drywalling over the studs (oh, maybe we can even insulate the outside wall? woohoo!), putting down some new flooring, and combing flea markets and yard sales to find Hoosier-type cabinets to keep our stuff in. If I'm lucky, maybe we'll even find a freestanding kitchen sink (slate would be awesome, but I'm not getting my hopes up). I figure that no matter what I do to fix up this kitchen, the next owner will just want to remodel it. So why not clear it out and put in some furniture? Then when we eventually sell, we can take it with us and the next owners can design the kitchen they want. Or they can pay us extra for the Hoosiers; nice ones are really expensive!
Anyway, the kitchen is WAY nicer even with the small amount we've already done. I can wait until spring and a couple of lucky flea market excursions to start on the rest and if I change my mind by then I'm no worse off. And I'm so much happier with it already.
There's a fairly stupid amount of happy going on, actually, without much good reason for it. I mean the stress is still here, but the hopeless feeling hasn't been hanging around too much.
And in related news, there's a beginning Japanese class being offered at the local tech school on Tuesday evenings. I am SO signing up. It'll be fun to have people to talk to who are also trying to learn. My husband, despite his heritage, just isn't that interested in the language. I can get him talking about the cultural stuff, and he enjoys watching shows and movies with me (as long as there are subtitles, which is fine with me), but he could really care less about writing, reading and speaking.
So! Kitchen renovations and Japanese classes. Oh, and stuff with the kids, but that's a topic for another post.
じゃあ、またね!
I peeled the paper from above the chair rail and found unpainted plaster with varying amounts of damage. I patched some of it, and left it unpainted for a few weeks. The paper under the chair rail seemed to be mounted on something other than plaster, so I was considering painting over it. After much hemming and hawing, my husband painted the top half of the room, then got some Kilz (stain-hiding) paint to cover the wallpaper on the bottom half. And then we took a close look at the paper and found it wasn't that tightly adhered after all and probably wouldn't paint well, so we stripped it off. Underneath was masonite, sloppily cut and fixed to the wall with half a million one-inch nails. We talked rather unenthusiastically about patching the masonite and painting it, and then I took a closer look at it.
"What's under here?"
My husband was sure we'd find damaged plaster and advised me to leave it alone. But it was seriously ugly and not even neatly installed, so I pried off a bit. Just to see.
I was rewarded with a lovely row of bead board, which has since been sanded, sealed, and painted white. It looks AMAZING, and we haven't even painted the trim yet. We moved the fridge to pull down the last piece of wallpaper, but underneath that was only plywood. I was confused until I remembered that there had obviously been a doorway in that section of wall -- the unevenly patched, door-shaped section of drywall that's visible on both sides of that wall above the chair rail gave it away. They must have just nailed some plywood onto the studs and papered over it, because that's the sort of home-remodeling geniuses we bought this house from.
Disappointing, but not insurmountable. I have some ideas for the rest of the kitchen that involve MAJOR demolition -- pulling out the cabinets, tearing down the brickface and drywalling over the studs (oh, maybe we can even insulate the outside wall? woohoo!), putting down some new flooring, and combing flea markets and yard sales to find Hoosier-type cabinets to keep our stuff in. If I'm lucky, maybe we'll even find a freestanding kitchen sink (slate would be awesome, but I'm not getting my hopes up). I figure that no matter what I do to fix up this kitchen, the next owner will just want to remodel it. So why not clear it out and put in some furniture? Then when we eventually sell, we can take it with us and the next owners can design the kitchen they want. Or they can pay us extra for the Hoosiers; nice ones are really expensive!
Anyway, the kitchen is WAY nicer even with the small amount we've already done. I can wait until spring and a couple of lucky flea market excursions to start on the rest and if I change my mind by then I'm no worse off. And I'm so much happier with it already.
There's a fairly stupid amount of happy going on, actually, without much good reason for it. I mean the stress is still here, but the hopeless feeling hasn't been hanging around too much.
And in related news, there's a beginning Japanese class being offered at the local tech school on Tuesday evenings. I am SO signing up. It'll be fun to have people to talk to who are also trying to learn. My husband, despite his heritage, just isn't that interested in the language. I can get him talking about the cultural stuff, and he enjoys watching shows and movies with me (as long as there are subtitles, which is fine with me), but he could really care less about writing, reading and speaking.
So! Kitchen renovations and Japanese classes. Oh, and stuff with the kids, but that's a topic for another post.
じゃあ、またね!
