Progress on the old house---awnings!

Dear friends,

While I was inside, in the cool air-conditioned house, working on my new novella, Husband Rudy has been slaving away out in the heat on the painting project. He's still working on the awnings, being very meticulous about getting the stripes just right. We're using the original wooden ones that came with the house, made of antique pine and many of them are still in really good shape.

Here's a finished one, ready to be installed. After a really good wash with a pressure washer, Rudy used a paint sprayer on the green body, and did the yellow by hand.

1930s wooden awning

On some of the windows, we had more "modern" awnings, made of aluminum in the 1950s. LOL. Most of these we won't be using on this house, but did have to replace a few of them over some very hot south-facing windows.  Thing is, they went over three windows, making the awning very loooong.

So, now the question was, where to put the stripes on it? One thing I've done over the years is to "try out" colors using a photo and computer software. I love Photoshop Elements and use it for everything, home stuff and business stuff like business cards, flyers, ads, book covers, etc.

I converted the photo to black and white and printed it out after playing around with virtual buckets of paint in various arrangements. I came up with one I liked, that was balanced, and printed out the b/w photo for Husband to look at. I did the same thing with the backside of the house, on the body colors.

It's a really bad photo, but that doesn't matter. I'm not entering any art contests here--it's just a guide for him to look at as he's painting. These were two large awnings joined together to span four huge windows, so we needed a larger stripe in the middle. These are set at the back/side of the house, and will be partially hidden by trees.

Notice some of our dead grass has a few green sprouts now. LOL.

Installation is coming very soon!

Hope you're enjoying this little journey through our remodeling efforts. There's more to come (always, unfortunately). :-)

Happy trails,

bobbi c.

In honor of Earth Day---our "recycled" house!

 Just a few in progress photos.  Other than a bit of touch-up and cleaning, the front is DONE!

On this one, you can really see the BEFORE and AFTER

Unfortunately, the white downspout (to be painted) and the strange green rosebush hide the awning from the front.  Time to give that rose a trim!

 

Awning before.  They just don't make them this well anymore!

Time to let Husband rest for a few days. :-)   Onward to the south side!

Happy trails,

bobbi c.

Progress on the "Big House" and the "Tiny Cottage"

Both Husband and I have been busy, taking advantage of this wonderful weather we're having.  Yes, we had an early freeze last week, but today it's 70-degrees, with a light wind.  MY kind of weather!
Here's the view from my dining room window, towards the garden at the back.  There's still a LOT of green-goodness out there!

Rudy's been busy with the front door project.  If you want to see it in live action, check out the short video, showing how he tamps down the insulation inside the wall:

http://youtu.be/QWWiSdmSjfA

Here, part of the siding has been filled in, wiring for the cable TV and an electric outlet has been added, and he's adding the cellulose insulation.

This photo shows the placement of the door.  Once all the siding is replaced, it will be sanded, caulked, scraped, caulked some more, sanded some more, primed, and then (WHEW!) painted!  Like I mentioned in a previous post, we saved the siding (antique pine ship-lap in the smaller profile) from the greenhouse lean-to we tore down last year because of a rotted roof.

We still haven't decided what exactly to do with the front porch railings.  I do love the old oak leaf and acorn wrought iron, but would like something a bit more 1930s looking.

And for my building project--I got motivated to work on the backyard cottage (future garden room/studio/guest room/who-knows-what building) after my friend came over and fixed the ceiling that was falling down, patched, textured and painted.  It was a big-ol saggy cracked mess before.  She did a wonderful job, BUT we are on blackland prairie soil, and houses here have a tendency to float back and forth like a ship on the ocean, especially after a rain.  Or after a drought.  Or pretty much anytime. 

It's one of the things we put up with in order to live with this "magic dirt." Cracked ceilings, cracked floors and cracked walls.  Sigh.

So far, so good--no cracks.

 

One big job was to remove all the excess floor trim that a former carpenter had installed.  I swear he was trying to recreate the Great Pyramid of  Giza.  He had three layers of wood trim around the entire (tiny) room.  And in a room that small, every inch counts.  Not to mention all the extra dust it catches. With my trusty hammer, cat's paw and large pry bar, and a few select curse words, I was able to remove all the trim in two days, clean it up and caulk the living daylights out of it.

Can you say, overkill?  Here's before:

And After.  Yes, I know.  It's not beautiful.  Yet.  But, it is starting to look like a real little house instead of a nasty, dirty Roach Palace.  

The floors were previously covered with some horrible 1970's vinyl.  I'll probably clean, patch and paint this floor and use washable rugs.  Even though the Big House is on a pier-and-beam foundation, the garage and cottage are on a concrete slab.

Here are a few "in progress" pics of the rest of the room.  This door leads to a tiny powder room.

There is actually a nice-sized closet to the left of that blue wall.

Two north-side windows make this an excellent place for painting.

And here's another rose bouquet shot I took this morning, just because.   And no, I was NOT drinking wine for breakfast.  The bottle holds some green pepper cuttings I took before the  freeze we had last week.

Happy trails,

bobbi c.