Exterior Paint : It's Gotta be Done

I’ve been thinking a lot about paint these days. Exterior paint, to be exact. My poor old farm house still looks like it always has from the outside. And while that’s been a definite asset for our property taxes, it really would be nice to pull into the driveway and smile instead of sigh. My neighbors would probably be happier, too. 

Three very different directions have been rolling around my head. First, there’s the clean look of white. 

My brother tells me, “Sis, a nice coat of white paint makes all the difference in the world. Everything looks nice and tidy.” He’s right, of course. And my house is definitely a prime architectural specimen for white paint. This old folk Victorian has plenty of peers the same color. Plus, there’s something nice about a simple white house. 

Farmhouse Exterior

But then my bohemian side pokes out her head. She likes bold colors. She likes RED! That’s a new thing with me. I spent over a decade clinging to all things taupe and taupe-adjacent. A former landlady used to laugh and say that no matter where I lived, she would always know my home just by walking in the front door. Because every house of hers that I lived in, and there were a few, I painted taupe. 

Or taupe-adjacent. 

I do love this red, though. I’m not a fan of cherry red or burgundy red, but I love a warm, sort of barn red. 

Farmhouse Exterior by Little Rock General Contractors Bret Franks Construction, Inc.

Once that’s settled down, my sensible side kicks my bohemian side in the shins and says, “No, no, no. You want blue!” Ok, not true blue, not primary color on the color wheel blue. But blue adjacent? I think grayed-down blues are very nice. I remember a long time ago, seeing a paint chip that was called "Federal Blue," and that's always been my bar for gray blue. 

And with white trim, blues can also look very clean. It’s the contrast, I imagine. I really do like the idea of a blue house. And the neighbors might not be as shocked as they would with red.

Oh, but then I remember my poor hubby. He likes red, but maybe not for the whole exterior. He is “meh” about white. I can't even consider anything in the same zipcode as brown, since he hates it so much. And I’m not sure what he thinks about blue. What he likes is gray. 

Not grayish something. Just plain old gray. Battleship gray. Bless his heart. But I do think that maybe, with the right level of gray, that might work, too. Especially with a bright colored door. 

Farmhouse Exterior by Providence Architects & Building Designers Union Studio, Architecture & Community Design

I’m just not sure. I mean, I am sure that the house must be painted. Baby poop brown, which is what I've got now,  is nobody’s favorite. And I really am tired of having the ugliest house on the block. 

What do you think? 

This really shouldn’t be as difficult as it is.


XOXO

Paint can image credit: United Soybean Board https://www.flickr.com/photos/unitedsoybean/ 

Once Upon a Window Seat, Part III

Other installments of this project are found at these links: Part I , Part II and Part IV.

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This is the third installation of my window seat and book case project. In Part I, I showed how Mr. Vagabond and I plotted the layout and started building the framework. Part II shows real progress with the bones of the window seat and book case really taking shape. In this installation, Part III, we’ll take a look at some finishing work issues that arose and how we worked around them. 

Throughout this project, I learned one very annoying thing: It’s not easy to find a straight board. At the finishing carpentry stage, I also discovered that it’s not necessarily a good idea to buy small boards in strapped bundles. 

We needed 1 x 2 pine boards to use as cleats, which would support the shelves. We bought a bundle of “premium” boards that looked pretty straight. The label gave me some confidence about the purchase:

See? Premium lumber. It has to be good, right? We were disappointed when we cut the straps on the bundle at home. 

Aside from the fact that there was not a single straight board in the bundle, we also discovered this:

This made me wonder what other grades they carry besides “premium” and what those grades look like. The challenges that this premium lumber presented were wrestling with each of the boards to mount them relatively straight, and sanding off the rough, gnawed-looking texture. Thankfully, 1 x 2s are thin and light, so we were able to force them into position as we screwed them into place. To do that, we marked off the level line where the board would mount, pre-drilled the holes and then fastened a board with one screw. After one screw was inserted we pushed or pulled to align the board, and then fought with the rest until it was secure and somewhat straight. Never underestimate the importance of checking the lumber that you buy to ensure that it’s straight. If there are several boards strapped into a bundle, cut the bundle and check each one.

Sanding off the coarse surface proved to be an impossible feat. The more I sanded, the worse it looked. It went from jagged to fuzzy, and never improved from that point. I turned the most awful side toward the wall, and let the least awful side face out. Because I needed nice-looking boards for the front edge of each of the shelves, we made another trip and bought cedar 1 x 2s. They had beautiful, clean, straight edges.

Most of the materials that we used were pine. Additionally, we used poplar plywood and some cedar trim. Staining the three to look reasonably uniform was challenging, but it worked out. 

There’s a trick to nailing a board and then hiding those nails, and that trick is called “countersinking.” Finish carpenters know this trick well, and it is one way to make your project look more professional. This is a close-up image of one of the cedar boards after I had driven in a finishing nail. Notice that the small nail head stands proud of the face of the board. Also note the small depression in the center of the nail head. 

The plywood peeking out under the cedar board would eventually be covered with fancy trim molding. 

I drove in each nail, leaving the head proud of the boards by about 1/16 inch. This saved the boards from being dented by the hammer. Countersinking the nails requires a small tool called a nail set, or you can also use a larger nail or a screw, like I am using here. Anything with a small tip and a head that you can whack with a hammer will sink the nails. 

Tap the nail set or nail or screw with a hammer, driving in the nail until it looks like the next photo. This leaves a small depression that you can fill with stainable wood putty, or caulk if you plan to paint the board. 

After the book cases were finished, we started on the cabinet doors. The left and right cabinets needed doors, and we worked around the nailed-down bench seat by building doors for the front side of the window seat. In this photo, the doors are only set into place and held there with shims. This just gave us an idea of how it would look once the doors were hung.

The doors were another very simple design. I cut 1 x 4s with 45-degree mitered corners, forming a frame that fit each opening. Then I covered the back side with plywood. It’s wise to measure each opening separately and build each door to fit those measurements. Measuring one opening and building the doors the same will invariably result in one door that doesn’t fit. After cutting the frame boards, I set them on a very sturdy and very flat surface, pre-drilled through the corners of the frame and nailed the assemblies together. You can use wood glue for a tighter fit at the joints, if you like, but it wasn’t necessary with ours. This is basic joinery; a butt joint. Butt joints are where two pieces of wood are butted together and fastened. If you have mad woodworking skills, you’ll probably want a fancier, sturdier joint. 

Covering the back side of the door frames was fairly easy. I cut the plywood approximately 1 inch smaller on each side, making a piece that fit the opening, and with a generous amount of excess past the edges of the frame opening on the back side. After laying the plywood on the back side of the frame and nailing it down, I secured each edge of the plywood to the frame with very plain, narrow, lipped molding. The small lip slips over the edge of the plywood and fits flush for a clean, tidy look on the back side of the doors. 

At this stage of the game, we were really starting to see major improvement. The whole room took on a more finished look, which is saying a lot. The living room has been one of the biggest challenges in the renovation. It’s a little over 12 feet wide, but almost 30 feet long. The window seat and book cases helped balance the room tremendously, making it feel less like a shotgun and more like a living space. 

My next and last installment will be staining the book case, and a special treatment that I am still applying to the back wall inside each of the book shelves.  


XOXO

Broom Fell, Company's Coming

**It's been a while since my last post. Late winter and early spring always seem to be ridiculously busy. This past season was no exception. But now I'm gearing back up for renovating this house.

Anyone who knows me also knows that my house is never visitor-friendly. It’s a construction zone with (mostly) nail-free sleeping areas, a (mostly) finished kitchen and a (mostly) finished downstairs bathroom. Everything else is a black hole of doom that’s riddled with stacks of plywood and lumber, power tools, hand tools, nails, screws, paint buckets and measuring tapes. After my morning staircase sweeping ritual today, the broom fell in the foyer. If you’re superstitious like me, a broom hitting the floor is never a good sign. It looks like company is coming, so I’d better get crack-a-lackin. 

After settling the broom back against the wall, I looked for my measuring tape. One of my measuring tapes. ANY of the scores of measuring tapes in this house would be fine, if I could just find one. But I found something better, which was a very special old notebook. Like any writer, I have notebooks upon notebooks, many of them so old I can’t even remember what’s inside. But this one is different. I recognized it immediately. This notebook contains every measurement of every wall, floor, doorway, window (even the crooked, round window), alcove and hallway in this house. Forget the measuring tape; I just struck gold. Let’s get this party started!

When I say we measured everything, I mean everything. Even the rafters in the attic!

Now, when planning for company, it’s best to begin with the things that absolutely must be finished by the time they arrive, which will probably be later in the summer by the way the broom bounced. Thank goodness it didn’t flip over. You don’t even wanna know. Mystical broom bouncing has a lot of subtle nuances to consider. With that in mind, I have two major project that I want to complete. Three, if the stars align just right. I need a functional laundry room, I want to finish the windowseat/bookcase combination in the living room and I’d love to have the upstairs bathroom beautified. 

Saying that I need a functional laundry room isn’t quite fair to the room. It functions just fine, but it’s a long way from convenient. When we moved here, Mr. Vagabond had the brilliant idea that we didn’t need any furniture for our bedroom besides a bed and nightstands. In his opinion, we should store all our clothes in the laundry room. I argued with him about that, but I eventually had to admit that he was right. We have never dressed in the bedroom, and we probably never will. We take clothes to the bathroom to dress, and the bathroom is just a few steps from the laundry room. I hate it when he’s right.  The problem with his brilliant idea is that all we have in the laundry room are a couple small cabinets and a bunch of shelves. I need cabinets in there, so that’s on the list. 

I refuse to post an image of the laundry room in its current state. You're welcome.

As for the windowseat/bookcase in the living room, that one shouldn’t be too difficult. I already have it framed out on the floor. I just need to finish building it, and then get it painted. 

The birth of a windowseat and book case. Salvaged lumber came in handy.

I'm thinking about something kind of like this:

This would be an easy build.

Or this:

Not so easy, but I love the idea of a table in front of the windowseat. 

The upstairs bathroom is a whole ‘nuther story. That room is beyond hope. No amount of paint or new flooring is going to cut it. That room has to be gutted and completely redone. 

First, it looked like this:

Ew.

Then it looked like this:

Not much better, but at least it's not disgusting.

The shower stall is so tiny, I can barely shower in it without knocking down the curtain. There's a pile of Romex in the shower and a big weird curtain in this photo. Don't ask. I have no idea why.

As you can see, I have my work cut out for me. What else is new? 

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting photos of my progress. Stay tuned!  And for Pete’s sake, steady those brooms. 

P.S.  Did I mention that I also really, really need a deck out back?

XOXO

Extracting an Interior Design Color Palette in Gimp

A few days ago, I learned how to create an interior design color palette from an image and I thought this info might be useful for others. How many times have you seen an image of a room and wished you knew the colors the decorator used? For me, the answer is lots.

And away we go.

I use photo manipulation / editing software called Gimp, which is very similar to Photoshop. The biggest difference is that Gimp is free. Free!  You can download it here. 

Open an image of a room that you love with Gimp. I fell for the colors in this one.

Cheery little space.

There are so many things to love about this room. The creamy white walls, aquamarine bench cushions, sandy-colored floor tiles, all punctuated with a soft yet bright yellow. And of course the cute pup!

You may not realize it, but oftentimes a room is appealing because of the overall presentation, and not just the main fixtures in the room. If you only pulled the colors of the walls, cabinets, floor, countertop and bench cushions, you wouldn't have all of the components that make this room a thing that resonates beauty. So yes, the colors should include the pup. :-)

In the upper toolbar of the image in Gimp, click on "Colors" then "Info" then "Smooth Palette." A new window will pop up that looks like this:

Each detectible color in the original image is arranged in neat columns for you view in an orderly fashion and select for your personal palette.

The next thing I do is create a new file. I usually make it 640 by 480 pixels. Click on the upper ruler and hold down the mouse button, then drag down into the body of the image. A line will come down from the bar and land wherever you release the mouse button. You can move it if you don't like the position. Repeat that step a few times to make horizontal dividers. I usually make three dividers, which gives me four spaces. Then repeat the whole thing from the left ruler to make vertical dividers. The rulers on the top and side will help you place the guides evenly.

Once the guidelines are set where you want them in the body of the blank image, use the square select tool in the upper left of the separate toolbar (where the paint brushes, bucket fill and other tools are located) to select one square of the grid. The guidelines in the image will act as a slight bumper to help prevent the drag from going past the lines and bleeding into the next section. You can drag the tool past the guides, but if you get close and release the mouse button, it will outline only the selected square. The highlighted square will flicker around the perimeter, showing you that it is selected.

Using the eyedropper tool, select a color in the striped palette that you like. Fill the selected square with color from the dropper tool using the paint bucket or a paint brush tool.

Fill each square with a different color that you like from the palette using the square select tool, eyedropper tool and paint bucket or paintbrush.

These are the colors I picked.

You probably don't want to create a grid that shows every single color in the image. That would be gigantic. I already have a pretty good idea of the wall color since I used a similar color in my downstairs bath, so I didn't think it was necessary to add it to this palette. But I especially wanted the yellows, aquas and greens. 

The main grid will not have the white dividers between the colors, but that's easy to add after you fill the squares. On the upper toolbar, click on "View" then "Show grid." A tight grid will appear, covering the whole image. Choose the square select tool again and select along two parallel grid lines between two colors, then fill the selection with white. Repeat at the edge of each square. 

Once you have one large palette, you can modify it very easily (and save it with a new filename) to make new palettes. The fuzzy select tool will capture one color at a time in the grid, which is easier than using the square select tool. Click on a colored square, select a color from a palette and replace the color in the fuzzy selected area with the new color. 

And there you have it. The next time you see a picture of a room that makes you go gaga, pull the colors you want to remember and make a palette to help you reproduce whichever elements of the room you like. 

XOXO

The Little Laundry Room that Could

Lately, I think more and more about my laundry room. It's horrifying. I want to change that. 


When we bought this house, we assumed the little room adjoining the kitchen was a dining room. Later, we came to the conclusion that it was the original kitchen, and the existing kitchen and bath were either nonexistent, or they were a porch. Because Mr. Vagabond and I have never, in our 14 years together, used a dining room, I decided to claim it for my laundry.


Sadly, I can't find a single image of the whole laundry room the way it looked when we bought it. They're probably on my other computer. The one without a monitor. Ha!  However, I did find a few that show some of the sad state of affairs.


This photo is a mess!  However, it also gives some perspective on the house layout while showing the level of insanity Mr. Vagabond and I reached by purchasing this house to begin with.  It was extraordinarily dusty inside that day because we were doing demo work. Dust and digital cameras are not best friends. What you see here is my living room facing the kitchen doorway. That is the doorway I later moved to the right because it led straight into the white wall you can see just beyond it. 


On the right wall, there is a doorway beside the nasty book shelves. That doorway led into the laundry. I later walled it up because I didn't want the laundry humming over Princess Bride in the living room.

Until today, I had forgotten just how horrible this room looked back then. I should never complain about my house not being finished. This seems like a lifetime ago.

This lovely image is of the laundry room ceiling. I was kinda heartsick when I saw all the old wallpaper hiding behind the drop ceiling. Sadly, as is often the case in very old houses, ductwork and new plumbing were installed and had to be covered somehow. Drop ceilings are an inexpensive choice that almost anyone can install. Luckily, they are just as easy to UNinstall. Don't ask me why those 2x4s were under the drop ceiling. Our only guess was that the former owners were trying to figure out a way to hang a new ceiling. *sigh*

You know you're jealous. Admit it. 

We had a big problem in here. We could install a drywall ceiling, but I wanted the ability to hang things from the ceiling (eventually). With the joists above so much higher than the level where the new ceiling would be, there wouldn't be enough support for drywall and whatever I wanted to hang. We opted to hang OSB for extra durability and to give me something to twist hanging hooks into. 

Same ceiling, but with OSB and new wiring installed. Also, Mr. Vagabond's shoulder in the left corner. :-)

OSB is not the ceiling of choice for most rooms. It's very heavy to lift, and the surface is rough. We framed out the perimeter of the ceiling with 2x4s (remember, the level is your friend!), then installed 2x4 braces across the room every 12 inches. We also installed 2x4 vertical supports that fastened to the joists in the original ceiling and the horizontal braces across the ceiling. After the new ceiling framework was in place and sturdy, we screwed the OSB to the braces and the perimeter frame, placing screws about 6 inches apart. Six-inch screw spacing is a bit of overkill, but we didn't want to risk this heavy stuff sagging. 


Now, I have a ceiling that is solid as all get-out. Unfortunately, it still looks just like this. :-(




The next thing we tackled was the floor. It was in very poor condition. Luckily, the old beaded board wainscoting, beaded door molding and even the plinth blocks were still in place and strong. The original baseboards were long gone, and replaced with plastic ones. Yuck. 


That little 3-pound sledge on the right made light work of breaking up the rotted flooring, and that allowed us to assess the damage under the floor. We were both stunned and amazed to learn that the joists under the house were rock-solid. All we had to do was replace the damaged subfloor.

I remain stunned by the way this place looked 5 years ago.

A word of warning about old vinyl flooring. It's brittle, and it can be sharp as a razorblade. There is no such thing as peeling up old flooring like the red brick vinyl we had in here. You lift, it breaks, you lift again, more breaks and so goes the rest of your day. We switched to a flat shovel for prying it up. 

Aside

Another word about vinyl. It is not the same thing as linoleum. They are completely different. Vinyl is the stuff you can buy in rolls or self-adhesive tiles. Linoleum is the old, speckled stuff that lasts forever. The color is solid all the way through and it's eco-friendly. Linoleum is made from linseed oil and a number of other things that are normally waste products like sawdust and cork dust. After helping my former landlady install a gorgeous linoleum floor in the kitchen / keeping room of her massive historic house in Knoxville, I decided I would one day use that material in my house.




Unfortunately, this is where the photos for this room end for now. After removing all the vinyl, we scabbed in plywood where the old subfloor was rotted. That leveled the floor, even though it does nothing for the appearance of the room besides covering the holes. 


After much deliberation, I have decided to lay either vinyl or linoleum in the laundry. I am not a big fan of vinyl, but it's one of the few choices we have that will actually work. Because this room is already about an inch higher than the kitchen that's through the doorway, any flooring we lay in the laundry will raise it even higher. I considered tile briefly, but after installing cement board and tile, the height difference would be significant. We'd either having a tripping hazard in the doorway, or a ridiculously thick and sloping transition strip in the doorway. 


Now that spring is teasing me with on again / off again warm weather, this room is once again at the forefront of my reno dreams. Don't ask me why spring equals laundry. I do wash clothes during the other seasons, too. I swear.


At the moment, I have major issues with the laundry. No real floor, no storage and the old, vintage stove that takes up a lot of room while we wait to have it repaired. I have plastic storage tubs stacked to the ceiling in one corner. There are cardboard boxes stacked everywhere. Tools always seem to levitate to this room, too. Basically, it's a catch-all for everything downstairs that doesn't have a home somewhere else. It's also the landing spot for out of season clothes that I can't manage to haul up to the attic on my own. 


Here are a few inspirational images I have found, and I would like to incorporate them somehow. 

Boxes over the open cabinets would really help with the storage problem

HOW cool is this? Ordinary hooks installed in pairs for the brooms and mops. 

As soon as I can find baskets that are tough enough to support heavy items, I am totally converting one wall in the laundry to pegboard. 

I heart this with a thousand hearts! Beadboard would be super-easy to install over the existing OSB. I love how bright the room looks with the beadboard ceiling painted semi-gloss white. 

I already have a closet like this in the laundry, although it's not pretty like this one. It's the back side of the original doorway leading to the living room. 

In a twist of weird, I painted the walls above the wainscoting aubergine. Not exactly a great color for the laundry. If memory serves, I dumped several cans of paint together and that's what I got. The wainscoting is white now, but I have to strip it. After repeated cleanings, stains still seep through the white paint. I'm not adding Kilz over a hundred years of paint. I'll strip it all, and start from scratch. 


I am gathering inspiration for my laundry room. Storage is the top priority. That, and a floor that I am not required to wear shoes on. 


XO