that brown house

We just got back from spending the evening putting a coat of primer on one wall of the bathroom:

The wood paneling was only just installed today, but we had to paint in a hurry because the toilet is due to be set tomorrow, which will make the wall much harder to get to.
The other news […]

The weekend started out frustratingly slowly. In spite of Tracy, Alex, and Charles coming by to help, just about all we got done on Saturday was getting the patches on the dining room walls sanded down and some plastic drop cloths and masking tape put up in preparation for painting. Tracy had the […]

A couple of weeks ago, Steph mentioned that we were worried about whether we could get the electrical upgrades done before our homeowner’s insurance freaked out and cancelled our policy. The deadline continued to creep closer and closer and it was getting increasingly clear that we were not going to make it. But […]

First of all, the big exciting news: there is now some tile around the bathtub! I think it’s going to look great.

In our last episode, you may remember, we were preparing to do some more patching on the dining room wall that we had stripped all the wallpaper off of. I went over […]

Last night we did some more sanding and patching in the dining room and kitchen in preparation for painting the walls. The part of the dining room where we stripped all the layers of wallpaper off is still lumpy, so we’re going to try putting on some more joint compound there to see if […]

i’ve been pretty frazzled the past week. i have a fairly significant deadline creeping up on me at work that is demanding more attention than i want to devote to it, i’ve been taking long “lunches” to meet with contractors at the house, and i still need to attend to my responsibilities toward my […]

our bathroom is naked! the awful shower stall has been removed (it’s in pieces in the driveway, but having it out of the house is a big step in the right direction) as have the toilet, lavatory, and the lower 54″ of wall finish! we’re so excited that we took 70+ photos of […]

through the power of the internet eric and i have ascertained that the light fixtures i posted about yesterday are by markel lighting - new england electrical supply, of boston, mass. somebody selling a brightly painted version of one on ebay dated it to the 1920s. i found light fixtures like […]

the electrical work started yesterday. we stopped by the house after dinner to marvel at all the coils of wire in the dining room and pick up the light fixtures that are original to the house that we want to clean up, fit with new sockets and wiring, and have reinstalled. there wasn’t […]

…was written in the warning label on the tin of paint stripper. in other words this product was not intended for us. we bought it anyway. then we proceeded to spend easter sunday playing with toxic chemicals and chatting with neighbors. we did, however, start the day with easter baskets & […]