Finishing painting the ceiling

After a week of painting over my head and standing on scaffolding, the living room ceiling has three coats of paint and looks clean and bright.  I can only imagine how Michael Angelo must have felt painting overhead for four years in the Sistine Chapel.
Attached two copper ceiling pendant lights and the old vintage Hunter fan right out of Casa Blanca.
The living room continues to get brighter and happier.

This first picture was taken during the demolition phase where new wood was added as needed. Also. steel rods had to be added every  6 feet, anchored into concrete,  to tie the roof down to the ground. The ceiling fan was hanging just as a prop to help us visualize the future :0)

The first coat of primer begins. I really like  a product called "Gripper" made by Glidden. 

This picture and the next show how dark the ceiling was.

After three coats of paint on the ceiling and the drywall prepped for paint and the fan hung and wired

After the drywall getting painted white

After the copper lights being hung. We can now begin see how 

the room will appear when finished

PLay day, photos of local scenery

Here are a few photos taken a few days ago on a "play day" at The Canaveral National Seashore, 8 miles south of us.

Lots of water birds in the distance (click photo to enlarge)

Painting the living room ceiling

 The ceiling was flat and 8' tall. They used a material in the early 1900's called Upson Board, a masonite like product. . Almost felt like an extra stiff painted cardboard. It was applied in 4'x8' pieces and the joints were covered with batten strips.
Many years of moisture caused the material to sag in the center. When I did the pre purchase inspection in the attic, I saw some wonderful old lumber.
One of our first jobs when we bought the house was to remove the 8' high flat  Upson Board ceiling.
This made the living room appear to double in size and exposed the tongue and groove roofing material and massive beams and collar ties .  It was a no brainer not to replace the flat ceiling and go with the cathedral ceiling.
This meant the new wood ceiling would require much cleaning, sanding, wood filler, more sanding, caulking, priming, and painting. The wood had become a very dark brown, almost black , so we knew going to white would be a challenge.
We started the process last week.

                                                                  Original ceiling

With Upson Board ceiling removed

The painting begins

With the addition of the gable window, there is so much more sunlight :0)

This is a Southern exposure so Sun should be coming in all day long.

Painting the cottage

                                      For more photos, visit our ongoing blog of this restoration.

                                                              theartistscottage.blogspot.com

Front of the house before and after

After  collecting numerous color strips from Home Depot and much thinking, and purchasing a number of small color samples that were applied to the house, we chose this coral color.
Started the painting process which I enjoy. One side of the house per day. The house is beginning to look very happy.

There are still many details to finish inside. This is a good thing. Without something to do and something to look forward to, life could become dull. 

The new countertops arrive

The marble countertops arrived last week. Time to remove our temporary plywood countertops that I had cut out a few months ago. Julie felt that marble is a stone that was used in the early 1900's so was in keeping with the houses period, it is a natural product, and besides that, it just looks great.

                                             
                                                     This is the cooking area before

And after. Also added hardware to the drawers.

Looking forward to years of good tasting and healthy meals

Adding trim details

With Christmas and family visiting in West Palm Beach, I have taken a little time off from updating the blog, but not from working on projects around the house. Over the Christmas Holidays we had the pleasure of a visit from my daughter Sandra and her husband J.W.   He and I had a chance to work together for a few days doing trim work and installing base cabinets and hooking up the dishwasher. This was all in preparation for the countertops which have been ordered.

First we leveled and anchored the cabinets to the wall and installed the dishwasher.

Here is a view of the dishwasher hookup. It hurt a little bit to cut a 2" hole in a brand new cabinet.

Here are a few pictures of the hallway and doorway trim. Much more to do, but a good start. We are duplicating the original door trim style from the period when the house was built.

Using a chair rail molding to separate the beadboard from the plastered walls in the hallway.

Trim around pantry door

                                                   Trim around guest bedroom door

                                                  Trim around the caretaker's bedroom  :0)

          Trim around the 4' hallway that connects the living room in the front of the house to the kitchen/dining/office area in the back of the house.