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Renovating 103 Mowat Street. or “When to call in the experts!”. The proud owners. The (nosey) neighbours are in no doubt about my origins!. This was what sold us on the house … the hardwood floors, pocket doors and fireplace. NOT the wallpaper!. The kitchen was renovated for us.
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Renovating 103 Mowat Street or “When to call in the experts!”
This was what sold us on the house … the hardwood floors, pocket doors and fireplace. NOT the wallpaper!
The kitchen was renovated for us. Unfortunately there are no before shots! (it was just too ugly to photograph!)
Get a load of the nice pink wardrobe left behind for us!!! Stylin’! In case you were wondering these were the old kitchen cupboards! Now in the basement as laundry cupboards – where they belong!
We had to do the painting of the kitchen. Stylin’! Juan Valdez – our trusty Mexican labourer was a great help!
The Master Bedroom Note: this wallpaper wasn’t so bad!
In the vain hope of not having to drywall • (plasterboard) this room we removed the wallpaper – • all 10 layers of it! • Despite all the cracks • and there were many – • we still thought we could • live with it! Timeline – Mogilny coughs up the puck in overtime of game 7 of the Eastern Conference final of 2002!
And then this large patch of plaster fell on Stacey’s head (and her bum)! So we drywalled the whole thing!
Half-finished product! Juan with raccoon eyes!
Yes – we bought it even after seeing this! This is the upstairs foyer – to the left is the master bedroom to the right the spare room and bathroom.
Once more into the breach – or at least onto the walls to remove that paper! One of several instances of old drywall (the brown stuff)– could come down any minute! This is above the staircase - very hard to get to!
Front hall and stairs. Two things – the stairs were carpeted (left photo gives a glimpse) and the carpet in the front hall was also the carpet in one of the sheds – very classy!
The office – or place to surf the net when bored in winter and it’s 10 billion degrees below zero outside! From lathe and plaster to drywall. Dig the stylin’ baggy pants on Juan!
Never, ever let an engineer do an electrician’s job!!! Every room in the house had ceiling fans – we discovered why in our first summer. But when replacing them it became obvious that the wiring in our house was far from simple. Knob and tube half converted to more modern wiring. Better to have Brad playing with it than me!
The finished product – lots of work will be done here! This is where we make our vids to send home – when we think of it! The halogen lamps were meant to provide bright lights to work by – they turned out to be more romantic than the lighting in the master bedroom!
The back room – an erstwhile den! Behind the white fake wood paneling was some real wood paneling! The new floor was put in for us before we moved in.
Had the real wood paneling been in a little better shape we might have been tempted to keep it.
Bad photo but this is a lesson in the value of the hammer – Luke you can go and get another beer, you don’t need this lesson. I am modeling a huge gas heater (another thing we discovered the value of after removing it!) embedded in the back wall. It had to go. Not only was it ugly, it took up too much room. A day later, after many expletives had been uttered and the tool of choice, the hammer, had been brought to the very brink of breaking, the stupid f**king thing was out! Forever!
Hole for new door! Old door! This room and the bathroom were the biggest changes!
Jim attacked the work with great vigour. Or did I piss him off?
Another hole was made for a new window. Time for some open air kissing!
This was the window that cost me 12 stitches in my left hand! Below – the little window was moved to the opposite wall so we now had two small windows on this wall. Above – a new window. much larger than the little one that was there previously.
Ta da!! While I was in Oxford Stacey put the finishing touches on (made the trim herself!) – clever young lass isn’t she!!
Next on the list were the lounge and dining rooms. So we piled all our ground floor belongings into the back room and the hallway to do the job – really this was only to do the floors of the two rooms. I can hear mum’s evil laugh now – her baby boy who hated renovations actually willingly subjected himself to this!!!
And off comes the wallpaper - all 10 f**king layers of it!!! This time we were able to salvage most of the plaster.
Stacey loves this photo. No, really she does!
No the room did not develop syphilis (a la the old valiant). The splotches are corrections of minor imperfections in the plaster. Foolishly we didn’t paint primer over this before going for the top coat! This room wound up with something like 7 coats of paint!
Chalk lines were dropped to create alternating 16 inch stripes of flat and semi-gloss paint. Of course when the red paint hit the blue chalk it turned to black!
Talking to mum on the phone. Stop laughing! Stop laughing! It’s not funny! Just because I bitched and moaned about the Crimson Ave renos doesn’t mean I can’t like doing it myself!!!
Just for comparison’s sake. Which would you prefer – the Victorian red or that lovely floral print in the background?
Somewhere along the line we had time to build a cat scratcher to end all cat scratchers! It’s in significantly worse shape now which is an indication of success – the cat’s love it so much they rip it to shreds daily!
All the furniture was crowded into the dining room so we could do the living room. Cali was intent on something she could see through the pocket doors!
Turns out she was looking at Tigger who found the old wallpaper a fun place to play. What are you looking at?
The back wall had to be drywalled. More of the old brown stuff!
More of the syphilis! He paints, he drywalls, is there anything Juan can’t do?
Finished product! The lounge room is in the same Victorian red (flat) as the dining room but without the stripes.
