This is the back (south side) of the barn, taken in July.
There was no overhang from the roof so the rain had done damage over the years to that side. Dave fixed all of that - built a new soffit and fascia, got rid of the two windows on the 2nd floor and reshingled it.
And finally, here are a couple of random photos.
Building the soffit and fascia
Soffit and fascia done and painted
Windows painted
Working on the shingles
The completed work
I have to say that this was completely Dave's work, a one man job. Mind boggling to me! Not only does it look amazing, but the soffit and fascia that he built are doing their job. We've had heavy rain since this project was completed, and everything was fine. The rest of the barn will need to be reshingled in the near future...one side down, three to go.
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Now that the debris piles are gone, Dave put down grass seed. It is coming up very well, and hopefully this will help to keep those 'bamboo like' weeds at bay.
To compare, here is how it looked in July.
And here it is, a month after the grass seed was planted.
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Moving on to the Dining Room..
We really needed to do something about our old mismatched chairs, especially after Dave refinished the table. The oak chairs stood out like a sore thumb. We hit the jackpot with these chairs, found on our local yard sale site.
Taken at the seller's house, not ours)
Before photo - old chairs
The old chairs went to the basement, so now when we have dinner guests, we can bring those back up and have seating for 12.
The new chairs match the table well and I think it makes the room look more inviting.
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The next project was the front door, which seemed like a rather straightforward process. Because it is the original door, Dave wanted to strip it down to the natural wood, as it would have looked 125 years ago when the house was built. We had no idea how many hours would be spent on that door!
Layer after layer of paint had to be stripped, then sanded. Because of the inlaid panels and all of the grooves, this was very tedious. Luckily we had warm, sunny weather this weekend, so it was a good excuse to be outside.
The before picture
After the first coat of stripper was applied.... and before we knew what bizarre colors lurked underneath!
Yikes! This turquoise color was a major pain to get rid of!
After many hours of scraping and sanding....and still hints of turquoise!
Getting better..
The cleaned up hardware
Ta Dah!!!
We are extremely proud of the end result, which was 90% Dave's doing, right down to the spruced up hardware.
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The stairs leading to the master bedroom, covered in the nasty carpet, needed work. We ripped it out one weekend, thinking we would have the floor refinishing crew come in and do their work.
The 'before' pictures
After we tore out the carpeting...
It didn't work out that way, as you'll soon read, and now we have an unfinished project. I will have to update this 'work in progress' at a later date.
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Months before we had even removed the carpeting on the stairs, we had removed the carpeting in Liam's bedroom. We discovered the same hardwood floors that the other bedrooms had. The only problem is that his floor was painted a grayish color, not the nice natural wood finish like the other rooms. We put down a very large rug, which covered most of the room, but it was just a temporary fix.
We called in the floor refinishers to have it done this past weekend. Ten minutes later, they left, saying there were too many layers of paint for them to remove. Evidently it could have ruined their sanding machine. Same goes for the stairs. This left us in a situation we had not predicted.
In the end, we decided to sand the floors ourself and repaint them a dark brown color.
Bare floors, ready to start the project..
The puttying process
Sanding
Amanda and I worked together on the priming and painting, which was nice. Here is is all finished!
Primed and ready for the first coat of brown..
After the first coat
After the second coat
It was certainly not the way we had planned to spend our three day weekend, but it saved us $650 and we are happy with the end result.
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And finally, here are a couple of random photos.
We had firewood delivered this weekend, so we should be set for the winter. Dave and kids did a fine job stacking all of it, and it makes a nice fence between the neighbors and us.
Fall mums and pumpkins
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Family room (aka Piano Studio)
A beautiful German table tapestry for our antique table (Thanks, Mom!)
A new window valance, which is more delicate than the last, and allows much more light to come in
Changing our loft gallery space with the seasons is a lot of fun. Since I will be holding a week of Costume Recitals here, I got a little more creative with things.
Here is the newest hanging wall quilt from Mom, which we just love! It goes so perfectly with the colors in the family room. My students enjoy these too, and last week one of my eight year old students exclaimed,"They are so artful!"
This is the one Mom made for my birthday, which coincided with my 20th anniversary of teaching.
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Living room (aka parlor)
Dave found this unique antique mirror at a yard sale. It makes the room feel brighter and larger.
Dave is pretty proud of his homemade bird feeder, which he built out of mahogany. It took a few tries until he found a place that was sturdy enough to hold the weight, but it's a great addition to our assortment of bird feeders.
And finally, our newest hobby: a dartboard in the workshop part of the barn!
We love being to fit in a quick game of Cricket at the end of the week. Dave recently purchased a wood stove for this space, so hopefully we'll be able to enjoy games all winter long.
Our games are always close - great competition!
That's all for now... Stay tuned for future updates.
1 comment:
Any one of those many projects would have been daunting. The changes are incredible!
What a feeling of accomplishment you must have experienced. Go out and have some fun now.
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