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Living Room Remodeling Progress (w/Pics)

16 years ago

Hi folks - thought I'd post some pics and explanations of the project you've been helping us with.

This is for the living room, there's a thread already about the

My wife and I bought this house in Sept '06. It's a Victorian, built between 1904 and 1906 (title says 1906, but we've found dated work receipts from Jan 1905, they were already plastering by then). We're the 5th owner, and as with most old houses, some of our previous owners have made poor choices (or necessary ones, for all we know, who am I to judge?)

In helping with the history of the house, though, we have a rare advantage. The 4th owner now lives next door, and the 2nd owner is three doors down! The 3rd owner is still in the neighborhood, but we haven't met them yet.

So, on to the living room.

We had a tenant living downstairs for a few months, so we've really only been working on it since December.

Inside the wall was the other set of pocket doors. We knew it was there - the other side was exposed. Whomever installed the wall did a nice job - they put cardboard over the doors to protect them, only locked the door, didn't nail them shut or anything, and even coped the drywall around the original trim! The closet wasn't as nicely done - they cut the trim, so that still needs to be patched.

Under the nasty beige carpets, we found these inlaid floors!

Some of the pieces were missing, and others were severely damaged, so I fashioned some new ones. Unfortunately, I think that the gentleman at the woodworking store mis-identified the species (red vs white oak) but I don't think it's a big problem.

Once we took out the drop ceiling, we discovered why they put it up in the first place - the plaster was pretty severely damaged. There were huge areas of water damage, probably from a leaky radiator above.

We decided to get a dumpster and rip it all out. This gave us access to have an electrician redo a considerable amount of the knob and tube while it was accessible. It also let me run network cabling inside the walls easily, and the cable for TV.

To help with the bouncy floors above, I put in good old fashioned overkill - I used 2x4s for new bridging.

To support the tin, provide additional rigidity to the floors above, and a small amount of sound-proofing, we put OSB up over the studs. You can see our efforts in the background patching the holes in the walls - in many places, there was no wall above the drop ceiling, so it had to be completely recreated with wire lathe and plaster.

Once the paint was done, we started putting up the tin, again with help from the Old House forum. Thanks for that.

The panels took about 2 hours, the filler about 1, the molding about 1. The dang cornice has already taken three days, tonight will be the 4th day I'm working on it. Getting the inside corners coped properly has been pretty stressful - it doesn't help that I only have one spare piece! That was dumb.

Anyway, this picture is framed so you can only see the "done" part - nearly all the cornice out of frame still needs to be put up. The seams need caulking before they'll really look finished.

So that's where we are! Hopefully, I'll finish the cornice tonight, so I can start prepping the floors for refinishing this weekend. Most of it is just going to be moving the tools and trash out of there, really.

Thanks, everyone, for the help!

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Comments (8)

ctlane
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Wow! Thats a big job and well done. Love the tin ceiling and hidden hardwood floors. It would be fun to have the old homeowners over to see the change when you are finished. Keep the progress pictures coming.
mom2lilenj
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
WOW awsome floor find! Looks like this is as big of a job as your kitchen. Love the pictures. Great work!
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bananafana
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
That is amazing! I'm loving your ceiling and the wood floors are killer. Nice work you're doing. I'm off to try to find your kitchen thread. Can't hardly wait for more pictures.
downeastwaves
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Nice! You've done a wonderful job!

Leasa
mpedrummer
Original Author
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Thanks guys!

More progress over the weekend (slower than we wanted, of course) but we got things sanded and one coat on! #2 tonight, #3 tomorrow.

Anyway, here's a few pics of how things clean up:

Ready to sand

Sanding

Corner detail, bare wood:

Border detail, bare wood:

First coat:
{{gwi:2001097}}

Dining room corner detail:

Dining room:

So that's where things stand! More finish tonight, then we're going to try to get some of the cabinets mounted in the kitchen - wish us luck there.

For those interested, here's the link for the kitchen thread - Kitchen Thread

MPEDrummer
mpedrummer
Original Author
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Gah, broken links...my bad.

OK, 3 coats down!

Here's the corner in the living room, all finished.

And here we go with furniture!

And from the dining room:
{{gwi:2001105}}

We're still working on some details - we need to replace the quarter-round in the living room (most of it was missing) and some other little things, but we're pretty much done!

MPEDrummer
IdaClaire
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Your gorgeous wood floor is most definitely swoon-worthy! What an amazing "find" to uncover, and you've restored it just beautifully!
mpedrummer
Original Author
16 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Why thank you! We pulled up that carpet about 2 hours after the tenant's last walk-through. It was one of those moments where you just sorta say "wow" quietly...and then rush to the other room to rip up a corner of carpet in there!

It's been a ton of work - much of it redundant or unnecessary as we learned - but very rewarding.

I'd guess:
2 hours to rip up the carpet
2 hours for the tack strip
8 hours (?) for all the staples - God, the staples!
4 hours to reglue the loose pieces of inlay
4 hours to cut new pieces for the missing ones
2 hours to cut and place plugs for the larger holes
30 minutes to do it again with white oak
8 hours of sanding with the big-boy sander
3 hours of hand sanding under the rads
6 hours of applying finish

Somehow, 39.5 hours doesn't seem like enough, given that it's been a 6-month process...I guess when you isolate just what went into the floors, that's about right, though.

MPEDrummer

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