Wall Furnace Be-gone

As promised here is the entry on how I erased all memory of my lack or central heat and air, okay half the memory since I still have a hideous window ac unit that is non-functional.

Removing the wall furnace left a gaping hole between my itty bitty hall way and my living room, essentially making my already small home actually seem smaller. On the plus side, you could see the living room television from the bathroom. . .

I had planned to take this on as a total DIY but my father (former wood shop teacher) warned against. So I lived with the hole 2 weeks until good ol' dad could come help me.

So the first step to patching the hole in my PLASTER wall was measuring the length of the lathe, or little wood boards in the wall that hold up the plaster. I measured the lathe so my dad could cut down 2x6 board to "true" 2 x4 size. apparently over time the size of 2x4s has evolved to match up in size with the width of drywall so it actually measures 1.8 x 3.5 or something crazy.


My dad and I then had to frame out the hole with our "2x4s' which included notching out grooves for the gas and electrical line which meant using the skill saw late into the Friday evening (great way to meet your neighbors).

My original plan was to install built in nick knack shelves on the living room side of the "hole", pictured above. That lovely black plastic pipe in my wall ended all that dreaming. It was far too difficult to build shelves around the existing gas line that had been utilized by the heat and ac guys. Also along side the gas line is the electrical for my thermostat.

After all the framing (2hrs of labor) it was time to put up the dry wall! Yep you read that right I patched a hole in my plaster wall with dry wall aka cement board. After cutting it to size my dad and I (mainly my dad) nailed the drywall to the stud frame we had built.


So after the drywall was in place on both sides of the hole, it was time to put on the mud, I'm not so sure what the real name is since my father insisted on calling it mud but I know it wasn't plaster. This job was pretty messy but definitely fun since it meant the end was near! After putting on 2 layers of mud it was time to tackle texturizing. . .

see that nifty roller at the bottom of the picture? that is a paint texturizer that I picked up at Home Depot for a whopping $7. I layered the mud on pretty thick and gently rolled the texturized roller over it and here is the finished product:

The only thing left to do is haul out the paint from the garage and cover it up. Sadly I only have a mobile upload of the almost finished product, here it is:

In the beginning . . .

There was LOTS of pale yellow flat paint. With the help of my local Home Depot, Behr 2 in 1 primer and paint, and a motley crew of my mom, step dad, aunt, friends etc I was able to paint the entire interior in about 3 days. Now, the problem with the yellow wasn't so much that it was a bad color, it just wasn't doing any of the amazing hand finished plaster any justice.

Here we have my mom probably explaining why the medallion about the fireplace should be outdoors, which is where it actually ended up. Anyway, note the amazing plaster molded fireplace, built in bookcase, and original sconces, classic 1941 art deco architecture.

This is the arch from my dining area to the living room. Again note the flat paint that is a light blue of some kind. Not a bad color, just not doing the space any justice and certainly not a good match for my warm comfortable classic decorating scheme.

Not to worry, there will be after pictures in the coming week, I just want to catch everybody up on what we're working with.

Inside before

So . . .since it's been raining I haven't been able to completely set up my amazing new back yard and show all the great things that were done over the 4 day weekend. Instead I thought today we should take a quick jaunt through how my house began when I purchased it in November.

A little background on the home:

built in 1941, it is 2 bedroom, 1 bath 855 square feet with a single car detached garage.

lots of original charm like plaster walls, wood burning fire place, hardwood throughout, but with many modern updates such as dual pane vinyl windows, new kitchen appliances, updated bathroom . . .and thanks to me central heat and ac!

Here we have me scraping the asbestos filled popcorn/cottage cheese/acoustic ceiling in the master (meaning slightly larger) bedroom. I read up on diy.com and learned to tape plastic over the outlets and go at it with a pressure sprayer filled with water.

Here's my mom doing the same in the living room. It took us 2 days to scrape my bedroom, the living room, and hallway. It was totally worth it. However, the project is so messy I don't know how you could do it it you had furniture in the house. Especially since the wetter you got the ceiling the easier it was.

The first things I did to the house were scrape the ceilings, paint all surfaces in the interior, install a doggy door, put in baseboards, change out some light fixtures, and install the extra washing machine that my best friend inherited when she bought her home. Pictures and posts about all these fun activities will follow.

here's the clean popcorn free hallway with its tacky 70's light fixture.