So It Begins...

So, it happened! After weeks of no sleep and driving/walking by the house almost every day, on Jan 23rd 2013 at 11:am - we finally closed! Both so excited we could cry, we walked through our dream home completely by ourselves for the first time. The house seemed twice as big this time and we knew we would have our hands full, but everything felt so right. . .We knew we were in the right place.

We have now been in the house for about a month and a half now and we've been so busy working on it that I haven't taken the time to post on here. (hoping to get better about that in the future)

before we closed 

before we closed 

before we closed 

So far we have had all the overgrown trees and vegetation removed and took care of all the boring little things like maintenance on the heat, sewer, security, etc. I ripped out almost 8,000sf of carpet (couldn't wait) and started stripping the paint on the massive door jambs...not something I would wish on my worst enemy! This house will definitely be a labor of love.

first corner ripped up! in the dinning room. 

Under the carpet we found a house full of Douglas Fir, which apparently is normally just sub-flooring, only ours have decorative diagonal cuts in the corners...and are all painted. 

Fortunately, with exception of the two Parlors (seen above) where it looks like they had glued down some mats and put holes in the floor, all the floors are in great condition. Being that the house had been both a hospital and rented out room-by-room within the last 125 years, I think we lucked out!

After stripping the the first door jamb, I swore I could hear angels singing! The wood is in much better condition than I  ever thought it could be... 

first coat of Jasco 

a few coats of Jasco, plastic scrapper, some steel wool and elbow grease.  

I still have soooooooo much more paint stripping to do. . . . .And running into the oil based paint has slowed it down considerably. However, the results are very encouraging!