Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here

 Pretty much since we bought the house, the entryway has been a bit embarrassing. 

Yes, that's duct tape all over the front door. Early on we removed all the wallpaper from the house. In a project that seemed to never end. As we've been moving room to room the entryway and upstairs hallway were next on the list. One final look at that hideous ceiling tile people thought was trendy in the 1950s.

There haven't been many truly satisfying demolition projects in the house recently. But this one certainly was. 

There was some minor electrical work that needed to be completed while the walls were open. Even with minimal breakage, the plaster dust still flew everywhere. Unlike many of our previous projects, we opted to leave the original plaster in place and drywall over support slats. This dropped the ceiling about an inch but saved us from making a huge mess. We also decided to extend the design finishes from the living and dining rooms into the entryway. Just to keep things consistent. 

There was a lot of skim coating to the walls prior to painting. Not just in the entryway, but the second-floor hallway as well. We did opt for a slightly more "period" light fixture in this area than the rest of the house. 

The last project was to come up with a better solution for the ugly 1970s cold air return. Justin made a custom built-in in record time (one night). The benefits of having a woodshop in the basement. 

Some additional touch-ups had to be done and the upstairs hallway painted. But after a few evenings working we were able to complete everything. 

With this project out of the way, we really only have two small ones left. Finishing the tile backsplash/painting the kitchen. And painting the bathroom. We have ambitions on finishing these projects before we reach the 10 year anniversary. But it's hard to say if that will be possible. Either way, the progress we've made in the past 4 months has been amazing. And we're really thrilled to finally see some of these projects finally come to a conclusion.

Living Room Finish

 If you page back through the blog you'll find a post regarding the living room back in 2012.

At that time we were in a mad rush to get things done before move-in. We thought "A couple coats of Killz primer on the walls, and we can paint it later". Well, 9 years later we finally got around to it. Along with some other additions. 

The ceiling in this room originally had some printed cellulose tiles that in many ways inspired our use of faux tin panels throughout the rest of the first floor. That said, they didn't match. So we decided to use the same finish in the living room to keep things consistent. 

As with the dining room, sealing the seams is the most time-consuming part.

This process took about half the time as the last room. We've gotten pretty good at installing them at this point. Caulking the seams on the other hand; started out taking quite a bit of time. Justin figured out that using a paintbrush to blend the caulk instead of the labor-intensive tasks of hand wiping it off sped things up considerably. The excess still needs to be wiped down, but the blending process takes less than half as long. 

Our resident paint ninja.

Commitment is cleaning the woodwork where no one will ever see it.

Brigitte tackled the taping and painting. As well as cleaning the woodwork. Justin had quite a bit of wood trim to replace in this room. As well as creating new crown molding for the ceiling to match the dining room. Not to mention filling 12 holes drilled in random places around the perimeter of the floor.

It's already looking better than when we first bought the house. Back then this room sported sponge painted over wallpaper on the walls. Along with some really sloppy crown molding. We spent weeks removing the wallpaper back then. 

Circa 2012

The floor required quite a bit of attention before moving furniture back in. A heavy coat of boiled linseed oil, and some touch-up of the polyurethane. Followed by some paste wax and buff. Though we had to take some extreme measures to keep the pets out while everything dried. 

Brigitte had a side project as well, finishing up the bookcase. It's part vintage, and new. The base came from another house down the street as a built-in. The top section was recreated to match.

Brigitte's handiwork.

Overall we are thrilled with the results. The only issue we ran into after the fact was that this beautiful room was now occupied by quite a bit of worn furniture. But the redecorating adventure will have to wait for another post. 

Dining Room Finish

 If you look back at the earlier posts from 2012; you'll see just how much damage we had to do to the dining room. More work was done on that room than any other prior to moving in.

And that work was being done right up to the moment we moved in. In fact, the paint was still wet when we started filling it full of stuff. 

The walls were painted with a primer just an hour before showing up with our stuff. And that's pretty much how it stayed for the last 9 years. Until now. 

We've decided on a "design language" we're going to use throughout the downstairs. Some of this draws on the existing woodwork design. Other elements (like the ceiling faux tin) are ideas we've tried elsewhere in the house already. But this room is the first to get it all at once. 


Brigitte contemplating layout.

Putting up the faux tin doesn't take too long. But caulking in all the seams is a bit of a chore. Brigitte handled most of the painting. We decided to stick with white, but this time actual paint instead of just Kills primer. 

Brigitte was the wood cleaning rock star on this project. Years of past painting mistakes had to be scrubbed of almost every piece of trim. 

As Brigitte was out of town, I had to install the new ceiling trim on my own. It was a little tricky to do working by myself. But it turned out well. 

After 9 years, this room finally looks the way we envisioned it the first time we viewed the house. 

The next step is going to be to apply this same style of finish to the living room. Then the foyer. But first, we're going to take a short rest. 

Where we've been. What we've been doing. And why we're back.

Back in 2014 we took a break from the blog. 

Some big things happened in 2014. For one thing, we got married!

Getting married on a beautiful spring day in May!

And as you might expect, we DIYed nearly everything, from wedding invitation design to guest gifts (homegrown tomato plants). We even made our own wedding cake and invited all our guests to bring a dish to pass for a big potluck instead of catering. It was a super fun day...but a lot to prepare for! Not to mention that shortly before the wedding, Justin had a medical emergency that landed him in the hospital. And then a few months after our wedding, Justin had spinal fusion surgery. This entailed a long recovery process, during which we had to put all remaining projects on the back burner. It took a little over a year and a half for Justin's back to finally get to the point where he could be as active as he wanted to be--and resume projects. 

And we had projects galore!

Fixing the concrete in the small section of the garage, and building a mini-shop...

Before: what a mess!

Pouring new concrete.

Ah, much better!

Dividing up the basement to build a woodshop...

Before: what a mess! (am I sensing a theme?)

Coating the walls

Prepping the floor

Getting a layer of primer on everything

Ta-da! It's a woodshop!

Woodshop organization.

And then finishing one room into an office...

Before the walls were finished.

Drywall and doors added...

Justin's work-from-home setup before finishing the room

Justin's work-from-home setup AFTER finishing the room

Not to mention fixing the hideous basement steps...

And you can't even see the ugly half-ripped out ceiling here...

Improved basement steps

And some other eyesores...

This had been shelving, but outside, it's open underneath and gets drafty. We filled it in with insulation, and it sat like this for years. 

Finally, the window seat gets the finish it deserves!

OK...a lot of other eyesores...

Goodbye, ugly plastic shower surround...

Ah, much better! Justin will probably need to do a whole post about what a pain this was, though. 

But this isn't all that we've been doing. 

We've had some fun, too--we've done some traveling, kayaking, and camping. 

At Garden of the Gods in southern Illinois. We traveled to see the big solar eclipse of 2017!

At the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. in 2017.

At Caracol, amazing Mayan ruins in Belize in Feb. 2020 (we JUST made it back home before pandemic lockdowns started)

Kayaking on the Wisconsin River.

And we both got SCUBA certified in 2019! 

SCUBA training at a local pool.

Brigitte diving with a turtle in Belize!

And last but definitely not least, we got a dog (a very sweet chocolate lab named Winkie). 

Isn't she cute?

But this summer, since it's become apparent that we're not really going anywhere any time soon (Delta variant and all that), we've decided to make a big push to finish a lot of the projects left hanging over the years. That is really our reason for revisiting this blog again. So much of what we started 9 years ago is starting to FINALLY reach its conclusion. While this journey is far from over, we'd like to document the final leg. 

So, hold on to your hats! Things are about to get crazy again.