When we gutted our stairwell and hallway about a year ago, we got rid of any door and window trim that wasn’t original. Basically, we got rid of a bunch of 1″x4″ boards that had been haphazardly nailed up. That left us with 3 doors and a window looking incredibly sad and trimless, and 2 […]

We had a small attack this morning. As we stumbled out of bed and down the stairs, grumbling about coffee and aching joints (we’re not even 30 – why so much aching?), we noticed 4 honey bees bouncing around on the stairwell window. Still half-asleep, I grabbed a magazine and whacked one. Then another. I […]

This weekend was a hot, sticky, dripping-sweat-just-sitting-around kind of affair. Summer seems to have descended upon us in one fell swoop. We didn’t ease into it the way we usually do, but I’m not complaining. I will take warm and humid over cold and snowing any day. Since both days called for rain, our plans […]

Though it needs a railing, newel post, trim, and some touch-up drywall, you can now see where we’re headed with the stairwell project… Here’s the new view from the dining room: And here’s the new view from inside the stairwell: When you compare it to a photo pre-removal, you can see how much more open […]

In order to get our rather large tub upstairs, we knew we’d be doing some finagling. Our stairwell is tight, to say the least. It twirls to the right the minute you enter it. It’s steep angles and uneven steps are not for the faint of heart. We’ve had a number of run-ins with large […]

We didn’t make any progress last night – too tired, too bored with drywall – but I thought I’d post some photos of last weekend’s wallapalooza. That is the ceiling “before” – you can see the insulation peeking through, and the rough shape of the lathe. This is why we decided to frame up a […]

With our upstairs electrical finished and a full weekend ahead of us, we decided to get crazy and start putting up walls in our stairwel/hallway. Not that I don’t love the open, airy feel of the exposed plaster and framing… it’s the dirt and debris that shakes out of it with every footstep I’m getting […]

We haven’t made too much progress on our hallway since gutting it, but I’m finally getting around to sharing the pics. We were hoping to find a wad of cash in the wall, but so far no luck. Instead, we found lots of sketchy looking wiring (including electrical outlets that weren’t attached to anything solid, […]

Get your mind out of the gutter, would you? While I have no cool photos to post (left the camera at a party this past weekend, but it will be back home soon!), rest assured we spent most of our holiday weekend tackling home improvement projects. In fact, we managed to gut the rest of […]