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.

Starting to add details

Starting to add details with a house is very much like a painting. You begin with an idea, the beginning appears like chaos, form eventually takes place, but the details are what brings it to life.

Added pendant lights over the kitchen farmhouse sink.

Added one of my favorite stained glass creations as a hanging dining room light. About 1,400 pieces of glass in this one . You can see our two kayaks temporarily stored on saw horses out back.

Put the finishing touches in the laundry area just in time for delivery of our washer and dryer tomorrow. Julie will think Christmas came early :0)

These are two of the four louvered doors that will hide the washer and dryer and match all of the other louvered interior doors we have throughout the house.

Also had our  gas stove delivered so we were able to install some of the kitchen cabinets and range hood. At the same time the refrigerator was delivered. The wood counter tops are temporary while Julie decides what counter top material she would like. Starting to feel like home.

The green antique screen door shown below is the entrance to the walk in  pantry.

We also added three vintage "barnhouse lights" for general kitchen lighting.

Finally got around to hanging some art . Looks better than gray drywall.

Added some copper pendant lamps in the living room for general lighting.

Still working on finishing the drywall. Not hard, but time consuming and satisfying.

This was an old dresser we found in Ocala  that was quite rough. Julie sanded , primed and painted it after I cut the hole in the top for the sink. We both love the vintage look this adds to the guest bathroom. Still needs paint on the mirror frame. 

kitchen ceiling, new shower, front porch light and moving in

It has been a busy few weeks. We moved all of our furniture and "stuff" out of our home in Salt  Springs anticipating a November 17th closing. Although it is not finished, we  have moved into our cottage. The necessities are there but it remains a long way from being finished.

                                 The moving crew, Julie, brother Mike and son in law JW.

One necessity was to have a finished bathroom. To keep in the theme of a 100 year old beach cottage, we chose small white hexagon tiles for the floor and small subway tiles for the shower walls. A single row of light green sea glass tiles in the shower helps to keep the white from getting monotonous. The glass is bordered by a rope tile.

Here is Julie grouting the shower floor

Next was tiling and grouting the bathroom floor

We then put our efforts into putting some finishing touches in the kitchen. The beams are 2x10's. After the foam insulation was sprayed in, there was a bit over 4 inches of exposed wood remaining which we covered with a bead board material.

Also added some light fixtures above the bed for reading

I received an early Christmas gift from my mother and brother. This new found  (but not new) bronze front door light fixture as salvaged from a ship.