Finishing The Living Room

I've finished painting the window and door trim in the living room and can show you some photos at last. The before pictures were taken right after we bought the place.

Living room windows before. These were original
to our 1920s-built house and were very drafty.

Living room windows after. Between the energy efficient bay window &
the new door, the room is both lighter & cooler (or warmer) than before.

Our original living room. We replaced the fireplace with our
woodburning stove right after we moved in; the door was later.

Trimwork & painting done! Now I need something for the wall between
the door & alcove. Dan doesn't like the blank wall behind the stove
pipe & wants to hang something there. I'd rather have a chimney oven.

I really happy with the improvements. Even though we have the same floor space, the bay window gives the impression of making our small living room larger. It definitely gives more light, as does the new door. We still have to finish the rest of the front porch, but it's nice to have another room checked off the improvements list.

For details and photos of the entire living room project, check out my Our Old House remodeling website.

 Finishing The Living Room © Aug. 2015
by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

A Little Progress on the Living Room

Besides the new window, we've managed to make a little progress on the front porch/living room, namely, finishing the front door.

The front door as it's been since last December. 

To start, a threshold was needed.

Before

Dan made this one out of a 1 inch oak board.

Screws were countersunk and the holes filled with dowel rod.

For the interior trims the goal is to simply cover the rough edges. The problem is that none of the doors and windows we install seem to be the same depth as the walls of the house. Oh well.

There were lots of gaps. Polyurethane foam fills them and insulates.

Ready to fill the gaps and paint

Our living room walls are cement board & difficult to work with.

My splurge was a new vent register! About $12 at Lowes.

Colors in this photo are probably the most accurate.

Now it's my turn to caulk and paint.

Photos of the finished living room (at last) can be seen here.

A Little Progress on the Living Room © July 2015
by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Rainy Day Progress on the Bay Window

There is so much to do outside but the weather must cooperate to do it! Thankfully we've had house projects for the recent rainy days. Foremost on the list was trimming out the interior of the bay window.

Here it is before we put in the window seat (photos and details on that here.)

Bay window interior before.

And here it is now -

Trimmed out but unpainted. The longer top moulding will accommodate
the curtain rod. The walls are cement board and harder to nail into.

A couple of close-ups...

Ceiling before. The original ceiling is actually the porch ceiling.

Ceiling after. Dan had a couple scraps of drywall for the alcove ceiling.

He used the same moulding for finishing both the seat & ceiling.

The interior angles were a bit tricky. Dan finally came
up with a pillar look made from chair rail moulding.

All trim in place

The next steps will be to fill any cracks with painters putty and then paint. Once that's done I can put up a window treatment and we can get our living room back in order!

Hopefully we'll get clear weather for outside work next. If not, we'll resume working on the front porch. As much as I'd rather be planting, it will be nice to get that part of the house done too.

Front porch progress continued here.

Rainy Day Progress on the Bay Window © April 2015
by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Finishing The Window Seat

When we first planned the seat for the bay window,

Bay window interior last month.

I envisioned adding just a seat and leaving the wall as is. The problem was that the tearing down and rebuilding of the front porch, plus adding the bay window, had caused other problems: The cement board wall under the window had cracked.

Our living room and dining room walls are cement board.

If it had been drywall it would have been easy to fix. Cement board was another matter. After discussing options, we decided to add a front to the window seat, like this -

We actually considered two options, either to stop at the top of the baseboard as pictured above, or tearing out and cutting the baseboard and taking the front all the way to the floor. That also would have involved re-doing the electrical socket. We had too many other irons in the fire, so we stayed with the simpler first option.

The problem was that it looked unfinished. I wanted it to look more like furniture, but how? Not too long ago we spent some time wandering around Lowes looking for ideas. In the table leg section we found this -

Bun replacement furniture foot 

We bought one plus a 2 x 4. With those, Dan did this -

A small decorative moulding finishes the seat edge and "bench" bottom.

He ripped the 2-by and the foot, and made pseudo legs.

I couldn't be happier. On our next indoor work day he'll finish the rest of the window trims, and that will take care of that.

Continued here.

Finishing The Window Seat © March 2015 by
Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Progress on the Bay Window? Not Much

Our recent run of nice weather has seen us busy with the forest garden hedgerow rather than working on the house. Even so, I had hoped to have painted the front porch by now. I did manage to get on the primer, but then it turned a little too cold for painting.

Bay window primed, but we need warm weather for a couple coats of paint.

On rainy days Dan has been working on the window interior.

Certainly lightens the living room. 

We debated about what to do with the area under the window seat. The window was framed out right on top of the new porch decking, so that's its floor. The decking boards have some rather nice gaps between them which allow quite a draft into the living room. The first step was to cover that.

The plastic helped, except when breezes poofed up the plastic. Dan placed a piece of plywood over the plastic, and insulation on top of that.

We decided not to make a storage space under the window seat. This is because we have so much trouble with humidity and mildew, especially in spaces that get little air circulation. This was a huge problem in our old bedroom closets, even when I left the doors open.

The space has been claimed.

The seat itself is made of finished plywood, stained, and polyurethaned. I think it looks real nice.

There is still a lot to do, but finishing this is not our top priority. When we prioritize, our motto is "food first." That includes both for our livestock and us. Dan's not one to leave projects unfinished, but sometimes, house projects have to wait. This latest cold snap may see a little more progress, however, and that will make him happy.

Next → "Finishing The Window Seat"

Progress on the Bay Window? Not Much © February 2015
by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Bay Window for the Living Room

We received an unexpected but wonderful gift for Christmas - the funds to do the living room window! Dan had extra days off over holidays, so we got an earlier than anticipated start on the project.

Old windows, original to the house - single glazed with no insulation
under the molding. The new energy efficient ones are in the corner.

The first thing we did was to take a trip to an area surplus building supply warehouse. We had decided that if we could find the right windows, then the bay window we wanted would be a go. Well, they happened to have recently gotten new stock and we found just what we were looking for - three new energy star rated windows (and for less than the cost of one at full retail price).

The next step was to take out the old windows.

It was a cold day and this promised to be a dusty job so we cleared
out the living room and covered what remained. Having doors for all
the rooms meant that all the cold and dust stayed in the living room.

As Dan feared, there was no header for the window opening. If you look carefully along the top you can see five studs spaced 16" apart on center.

Close-up of how the window opening was originally framed out.

A header would have supported the ceiling, but instead, the builder used the windows to prop up the opening. Not unsurprisingly, there was some sagging there.

With new header installed

Dan doubled two 2x6s with a strip of plywood sandwiched in between to make a new header. Having to do this meant having to rethink placement of the windows. We bought them the same height as the old, but the header decreased the opening by 5.5 inches. Lowering the opening at the bottom would mean having to cut the living room's cement board wall. The other option was the header as a beam effect. After finding several examples of this online, that seemed the simpler option.

Framing for the new windows

My original sketch showed only the windows projecting from the wall. Another option was to build it to look like a room bump-out. Bay windows are very heavy and are usually installed as one unit and attached to the house from above with cables. By building it like a bump-out, the weight of each window could be supported by it's own framing.

Here are a couple of close-ups for details:

How he framed out the top

Nailer on either side for siding and window trims

Next -

I'll paint the siding white for the time being, and then
do the final paint job once the entire porch is finished.

Dan stuffed every crack with either insulation or foam and then applied window flashing. The barnboard siding around the bottom is insulated with batting. He covered the floor with a vapor barrier and will also put down plywood cut to fit. This be covered with a window seat when we get to the interior.

Windows in!

This is a different style from what we've been putting in the rest of the house, but I like the picture window effect.

Siding up, trims installed, ready for primer and paint.

Like the front door, these windows brighten up the living room considerably. With the windows being energy efficient, I won't have to keep them heavily draped all the time. In fact, just yesterday evening Dan commented that this was the first time the living room felt warm in the six winters we've been here. In spring and autumn I'll be able to catch the lovely breezes because the front window is double hung with a screen.

The next step will be to prime and temporarily paint white. Then we'll get started on the inside. More on both of those here - "Progress on the Bay Window? Not Much".

Bay Window for the Living Room © January 2015
by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Front Door!

New front door, installed at last

I'm very pleased to show you our new front door, finally installed. What a difference, both outside and in.

Old front door

The old front door was functional but not very aesthetic. Nothing a fresh coat of paint couldn't spruce up.

This is why I couldn't get rid of this door fast enough

Inside, well, now you can see why something needed to be done. My wintertime solution to this was to tack a folded quilt over the door. Kept the drafts out but, boys howdy, was it a nuisance to bring firewood in from the front porch. We bought the new door back in early 2010, but structural concerns kept Dan from putting it in. One had been the repairs to the front porch floor, which were now done.

The new door was a bit larger, so another concern was whether it would fit into the old opening. Removing the old door was no problem, but there was a problem removing the trim.

Door trim behind the siding

In the above photo, you can see that the siding was installed on top of the door trim. One option was to remove the siding to get the trim out. That, we did not want to do; we've been nailing the new siding right to the old. The other option was ...

Hurray for the sawzall

... the sawzall (reciprocating saw). Once Dan cut through the nails, the piece pulled right out.

Like all the other doors and windows we've replaced in this house, the front door had no proper header.

This is what we found once the door and trim were removed

The way it's just toenailed in makes me wonder if this was the original location for the front door. Dan's upgrade -

A lot of my photos are wonky. It's the camera, not the house!

Then he covered the gaps and we were ready for the door. Cracks and openings were foam insulated  from the inside.

I missed a good shot of the next step, which was to put up a sheet of the new siding first. The new door was installed on top of that.

One sheet of new siding went up first, then the new door. 

This is the same barnboard-look siding we're using on the rest of the house. (Photos here and here). For now, I primed it and painted it white.

Once the rest of the siding is up I'll do a proper paint job with the proper color scheme.

House colors: blue siding, brick red doors, white trim.

Inside? What a wonderful difference that window makes.

Needs trim, which won't happen until the windows are in 

No more getting dressed in front of the woodstove in the morning, but I love all the light the window lets in. The living room was always so dark because I keep the windows heavily draped to insulate from cold in the winter and heat in the summer. We used to have to turn on a light to see anything, but the new door lets in plenty of natural light and I love that.

The next step will be to replace those windows, although there is no time table for that yet. [Click here for that post.]

Front Door! © December 2014 by Leigh
at http://www.5acresandadream.com/