Paint the Wood!

Hello, I'm having a couple of much needed recuperative last minute vacation 

days off from work. I chipped away at

some bedroom painting yesterday which was a beautiful and sunny but 

cold day. I can take the cold as long as I have some sunshine to pour in

through our windows.  As I said our in my last post our hallway needs 

a ton of work upstairs. This is what the downstairs looked

like when we moved in. A dust holding dirty grasscloth like wallpaper

covered the unpainted and very rough plaster walls and the faux

grained shellacked wood was in very bad shape. 

I was over the moon about all our original mouldings and drooled

over pictures of in my favourite shelter magazines of arts and crafts

trim painted white.

Except for the kitchen, carpet covered the stairs and the main floor of our home

including the front hall and we immediately ripped it up 

to reveal wood below, most of it in bad shape.

I apologize to those who are restorationists, I don't believe in ripping out 

old original architectural features such as trim and windows but I do believe

that we don't have to live in the 18th century either if it is not our cup of tea.

Interestingly enough, our home was originally built in 1878 and 

all the trim was painted with milk based paints, then in 1915 it was renovated and some of that

trim was painted over and some was faux grained to look like wood over the paint (as in our upstairs).

This was move in day 10 years ago and you can see the icky carpet

on the floor. 

Don't miss that wallpaper one bit! 

Check out the pattern, it's actually back in style now

in more contemporary colours.

Even though I loved looking at painted wood trim in the magazines

I was so afraid that I would regret it if we did it. 

But after it was done I never doubted our decision. 

Funny thing is that Todd was always for painting it without hesitation,

most men are not.

The next couple of shots are from years ago

after we stripped all the wallpaper

and painted the trim.

The floors still have work

needed, previously patched in pieces. I would

like to keep it and fix it as I love the amber tones

and patina in the oak, Todd wants to

rip it out and lay tile. Heck I can't even get

him to do a temporary refresh just to 

make it look nice until we 

decide what we are doing.

He made the doggy gate as our rottie girl at the time

 had leg surgery and was determined

to push over any temporary gates we used.

It is such a clever and simple idea  if you want to 

keep your pooches out of the upstairs.

My favourite thing was how the mirano glass windows 

pop surrounded with white.

This weekend we are going to see our cutie grandprecious Carrera who is

one year old! I can't believe it has been a year already and we are so looking forward to seeing them.

Grampa Todd and Carrera 

Have a wonderful weekend!

hugs

Sandra