Play Me a Song

Big E and I are often called upon by friends of ours to help 

with salvaging items from our town's history.  

There was the time we helped move a large built in cabinet, stairs, doors 

and a truck bed load of wainscoting from the old fire house and public school (that post here).  

And the time we helped remove transom windows, light fixtures, 

doors and even cut out an entire entryway 

in the old parochial school at the Catholic Church.

Most recently, we were asked to help move an old, large grandfather clock.

Piece of cake.

No, really, it was, in the world of salvaging Littlestown history,

pretty easy.

(Sorry, I took no photos of the clock. It's gorgeous though, trust me)

While helping to package clock parts for the move, one of our friends asked,

"Hey, you guys wouldn't want an old player piano would you? 

It's just going to get chopped up and thrown away."

Big E's head lifted.

I said no.

Big E went with the home owner and looked at the piano.

I looked at the piano.

I said no.

Our friend reminded us it was going to get chopped up.

Big E said how he didn't want it to get chopped up.

I'm pretty sure you see where exactly this is going.

I gave in, especially after researching the piano and learning it was something that

very well could have been in our own house back in the day.

(meaning a player piano, not this specific one).

This is the photo from the Weaver Piano and Organ Company catalog  in York, PA

that shows the exact same type of player piano we would be owning.

Provided we could figure out how to move it.

There is a reason why you can find many free pianos around.

They weigh 800 pounds or more and aren't easy to move.

 I actually lucked out and missed the whole piano moving process

because Big E wanted to surprise me with a piano in the house when 

I got home from my weekend away.

This was most likely good for everyone since my anxiety is often problematic.

 Our friends managed to assemble 

a big group of people to help with the moving.

Thankfully, they had a truck with a lift gate,

which made the process a little easier.

Currently, the piano is residing in the laundry room.

Eventually, it will live in the dining room,

but it'll take some dining room demo and remodeling 

before the piano will fit in the room.

Not a drastic remodel really, just reconfiguring a plumbing closet

that was not original to the house so the hutch can move to that wall,

and the piano will have a place of honor.

An added bonus was finding the business card of the gentleman who used to tune the piano.

Big E called, and the man was alive and remembered the family who owned the piano.

He was able to check his piano book, and it was determined that the piano was

built in 1923-24.

The piano, of course, needs some work. 

It is horribly out of tune and while all the player mechanisms work,

the bellows aren't pumping to produce the air needed to play the roll of music.

We have leads on 2 people in the area who work on player pianos,

and we hope to get one out to look at it soon.

It's also obvious that the piano was painted.

(why do people DO that??!)

Luckily, I should be able to strip the paint off to uncover the original wood veneer.

There was also some damage to the wood veneer in the move,

but I know of people in the area that also repair that sort of thing.

Along with the piano we also received 2 boxes full of music rolls, 

so once we get it working we'll be able to play it.

I'd love to have it in place for Christmas.

Granted, I only saw 1 Christmas song in the boxes,

so everyone would listen to Silent Night over and over again.

I hear there are some other potential salvaging missions in the works-

can't wait.

Redo of the Redo

So a little over a year ago,

I decided to do something with our upstairs bathroom.

As you can see from the photo,

it was kind of ugly.

I got it in my head to paint it peach.

But the paint was odd and it sometimes looked like peach,

and sometimes it was down right orange.

One day while doing some shopping,

Big E voiced the need for new towels.

I explained I was not able to find towels that matched the bathroom yet

(there was talk that towels didn't need to match the bathroom,

I challenged him to ask any woman in the store.... silly man)

And that's when he voiced his displeasure with the color.

He hated it.

Then I admitted that I too hated it.

So after some thought,

and a whole lot of time on Pinterest,

I went with grey.

It was the right choice.

I managed to find a new shower curtain that 

wasn't so "psychedelic"

as Big E referred to the old shower curtain.

I also found some Aqua colored towels

and a bath mat in differing shades of Aqua

so I have a lot of possible towel colors to use and choose from.

There's only a couple of upgrades that I have left on my list.

I'm hoping to change out the medicine cabinet from the

70's era mirrored monstrosity

to something more tasteful.

And I also have some ideas on shelving above the toilet

that will be pretty easy to do.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

I saw a sign on Pinterest
that I wanted to have for the dining room wall.
But I didn't want to pay for it.
So since I have some pallet wood, stain
and the knowledge to do the lettering,
I opted to make it myself.
I had Big E cut the wood for me
(I'm still trying to convince him to just let me use the miter saw myself).
Then I stained the wood and connected the 3 pieces.

Lettering is actually easier than you think.

Some people use fancy machines to cut vinyl letters

which makes things super easy

(I'd kill for one of those machines).

But since I don't have a fancy machine,

I find a free font I like and print the words using my computer.

Once you have the font size you need,

you rub a pencil along the back side of the letters.

Then position the words and trace with a ballpoint pen.

The pencil graphite will transfer from the back of the paper 

to the wood and leave an outline.

Then you just paint with acrylic paint.

So I was able to make a sign that sells on Etsy for $25 plus S&H

for zero dollars.

I'm pretty pleased with the finished product.

And now I'm eyeing some more sign ideas.

If only I could get Big E to trust me with the saw....

The Upstairs Hallway

In the beginning when we got the house, 

there was a wall 

separating the first and second floor apartments.

It surrounding the upstairs railing of the staircase.

We couldn't wait to open the area up.

The original wall color in the downstairs hallway was an off white,

while the upstairs hallway was a rather dark and dreary dark brown paneling.

We painted the downstairs hallway a light blue color.

You can check out that project here

I was not fond of the dark paneling. 

It sucked up all the available light.

And on the triangular wall above the stairs

was a lovely shade of baby poop mustard yellow.

So I decided to paint the paneling.

Painting paneling isn't really that difficult. 

The hardest part is the cutting in, as 

you need to paint down each of the grooves in the paneling.

And you want to make sure you use a good primer 

to help hide any staining, and give your paint a good base to adhere to.

Even with just the primer,

the hallway looked so much better and brighter.

I painted the upstairs hall the same color as the downstairs hall.

Right now I have to live with the ugly wire hanging by the stairs.

It was originally hidden by the wall that used to be at the stop of the stairs.

Once we replace the door with the new construction window,

the wires will be gone.

The curtains on the door and window were curtains my mom made for her dining room years ago.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the hallway.

You can see where I'm working on the floor.

I've only been able to get the section between the steps and the bathroom scraped.

I'm still working on the other area of the floor.

There's still lots of updates coming!

100 Year Old Planks

So.... I smell another project!

Here is Big E cutting a piece of 12 foot

100 year old tongue and groove pine boards 

from an old Baltimore distillery

so it fits in the truck.

Found these on the Facebook Marketplace.

Drove an hour into the boonies and rooted in a pile of boards

covered with straw in an ancient barn.

SO MUCH FUN

The woman who was selling them told us

her late husband was a woodworker.

She couldn't remember which distillery he told her the boards were from,

but she knew it was a 100 year old building in Baltimore.

We have 4 12 foot pieces

cut in half.

The plan is to build a pub height table for the kitchen

that will serve as a place to eat a quick meal,

extra counter space and

a "bar" or buffet for gatherings.

Can't wait to see it completed!

The Laundry Room Makeover

This is what our laundry/mud/sun room looked like

when we got the house.

Note the aluminum siding still on what was

the original outside of the house,

and the drop ceiling, 

and carpet over concrete.

The carpet was, of course, glued down

and required scraping.

I can say scraping concrete is far easier than scraping adhesive

off wood floors.

We painted over the paneling using a color

called Witch's Brew.

Yes, I often choose paint colors based on their name.

We removed the siding and saved it for other projects-

basically the 2 new construction windows on the side of the house

that will replace the former upstairs apartment door

and the window that was made smaller for the old apartment kitchen.

Note the old ugly door.

This space was obviously a porch that was enclosed,

hence the window that looks into the bathroom.

The window was taken out and boarded up

as part of the bathroom renovation still in progress.

All the above happened a while ago.

Fast forward to this past November/December 2018.

Big E wanted to see what the original house siding looked like

under the tar shingles 

(that were under aluminum siding).

Here is the white wood siding of the house.

And here is a peek at a gray color the house was painted 

before the white. 

Oddly, a medium grey is the color I wanted the house to be 

once we get to that stage of renovations.

Next, Big E needed to build a wall of sorts.

Our water lines were just hanging there as you can see.

We wanted to be able to hide the pipes,

and have a smooth wall.

The finished wall. 

The next order of business was the ugly door into the kitchen.

You might remember, I salvaged an older door (not old in terms of my house old, but aged)

from what was the town's firehouse/borough office/community center.

If you don't remember, you can read about it here.

This was the old Borough Office door,

 and I thought it would be perfect for this doorway into the kitchen.

The pebbled glass would let in light, 

but prevent people from seeing any mess that might be in the laundry room.

Big E was not thrilled with my door salvage.

He actually said no.

But someone tapped out the pins quick,

and voila'.

(I believe in the saying "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission")

Of course, the door was bigger than the opening we had.

So it required some cutting of wood and moving wires and such.

I'm please with how it looks.

(the missing trim and cuts in the kitchen have been patched and repainted)

Then we had to remove the drop ceiling.

We planned to drywall the ceiling rather than stick with the drop ceiling.

I'm not a fan of drop ceilings.

I'm only sharing one photo- the end result-of drywalling the ceiling.

My parents came to help,

and thank God they did.

Someone surely would have died otherwise.

Most likely me, crushed under a slab of drywall.

Next came the really fun part.

Three years earlier, 

Big E and I got laminate flooring for this room at a Home Depot 

Black Friday deal.

It's been sitting in the room for three years,

and finally it was getting installed.

That's our floor guy in yellow.

Kidding.

That's our neighbor who came over to help.  

The weekend before, Big E helped our neighbor with his laminate flooring,

and the favor was returned.

This is how life in small towns should be.

Know, like and help your neighbors.

Luckily, our room didn't require any fancy cuts.

It's basically a box.

The biggest issue was the threshold.

There was a slight incline into the kitchen that they had to figure out.

That and of course the door had to be shaved down

with the added height of the floor.

It was a rainy day.

Not a shocker since all of 2018 was rainy.

The guys used the easy-up canopy to 

make a make shift saw area.

And finally, the finished floor.

We have since put back the trim.

There's still work to be done in here. 

I need to repaint the walls,

spackle and paint the drywall ceiling (and the newly built wall)

and get some accessories for the room.

What an amazing transformation!

Stay tuned!

I have a few completed projects I need to blog about!