Let’s check out some more before and almost-after photos of the front bedroom. This room will still require lots of work, but we are loving the results so far! A couple of explanations – the floors are still not done, ignore them. And the windows will eventually be replaced so we have only painted the outside trim on those. Eric and I were both here for all of this and even we can’t believe it!
This one is after a coat or two of Kilz.
Casablanca was hopping today! We had so much help and got so much done – what a blessing! We had two projects going at the same time. One of them was to pull down the ceiling in the living room. This is a new room for us to tackle – and the last one of our part of the renovation before we bring in the professionals! Teagen brought her fiance, Ryan, and his little angel, Lily. Ryan dove right in and started by taking down the ceiling fan in this room.
Then he and Eric started pulling down the popcorn ceiling and sheet rock.
Kathryn and Anderson joined in on the fun. Anderson is a demo-day expert – he watches all the HGTV shows and had a blast! They were such a big help and I’m glad Anderson thought he was right in the middle of a television show – without the cameras! He said, “I’m Chip!” Ha! Love it!
Anderson and Kathryn suited up and helped pull out the sheet rock in the wheel barrow! (Shameless plug: Dowload “Shame On You” by Kat Taylor on iTunes – she’s #50 on the Music Row charts!!)
Teagen finished off some trim for us in the dog trot – it was awesome to see that wrapped up!
This ceiling is going to be amazing! The boards are much wider than the ones in the other rooms. They will require much more work to get them finished, but it’s going to be worth it!
Our second project was to start a hard cut-back on the azaleas in the front. These beautiful, old bushes have to be cut back so we can work on repairing the porch. Erika, Hannah, and Brandon came out to help with this! They made a huge dent in this overwhelming outdoor project. Thank you for sweating it out with us, McCalpines!!
The BEST part was hauling the cuttings out to the pasture. The kids loved driving the lawn mower and cart! Brandon and Lily got their first chances at the wheel!
These friends are AWESOME! They did a great job on the azaleas – and, of course, we had to take a time-out for seeing the horses!
Thank you, Friends! You were so much help! We can’t express how much we appreciate you. Can’t wait to share more with you as this dream becomes a reality!
Tropical storm Cindy is raging on, but so are we! Eric and I have been hard at work on our front bedroom, but there’s only so much excitement to be had in more pictures of scraping, priming, painting, yada yada. We’ve both climbed up on the ladders more times than we can count…
And my cutting in skills are seriously on point!
Wooster, short-handle, angled brushes are giving me life right now!
I’m also ridiculously in love with the paint we finally landed on for this room. After trying out multiple samples and getting a vote from everyone who came near the place, we landed on Sherwin-Williams White Truffle. It’s got just a hint of pink in it without making this look like a baby-girl room. The furniture for this room is black, so it’s going to be fab. I understand wallpaper is making a come-back, so we may use some in this room, as well. Here’s where we are after priming and one coat – one more coat to go, then trim goes up – and a new ceiling fan! Should be finished up soon!
More from Casablanca later! 🙂
Well, Operation Workin’ Vacation is over. We need to go back to work tomorrow so we can rest! We did make big progress on the front bedroom. The ceiling is painted and finished! The walls have been Kilz’d to death, but they are finally ready for some paint. Here are some photos of this room at the mid-way point. 🙂
Ceiling (well, actually, this is finished)…
Some wall pics – these walls have primer only.
Next: paint the walls and window trim, then nail in the trim boards.
More doings around Casablanca… Tree update – getting lots of leaves!
Eric and I had fun attending 2 weddings Saturday night. Here’s our very own Before & After photos!
Our Coaling neighbors and the people at the Dollar General don’t even know these people on the right! I hope we have some more updates soon!
The band Sugarland recorded our theme song for the week several years ago – Operation Workin’ Vacation. We’ve been on a work-cation from our day jobs this week to work on our real jobs – this house! Life has gotten in the way a few times, but we’re making progress on this bear of a bedroom! This one needs more TLC than we may be capable of giving, but we’re still plugging away at it!
You know how when you watch Fixer-Upper there’s always that moment in the renovation where they have to call the owner with a “problem” that will inevitably cost about $2000? Well, the lesser version of that happened to us this week. We are now on our third shiplap ceiling in this house and haven’t had a problem at all. But in this bedroom ceiling we kept having stains show through the Kilz – layers and layers of Kilz. See…
So we called our friend Anthony Shuttlesworth at The Paint Spot and he fixed us right up. We got “pigmented shellac” and it worked like a charm. It stunk to high heaven, but it worked. As Eric’s dad would have said, “It had a smell that would knock a buzzard off a gut wagon.” I hope to have some “after” photos of this ceiling tomorrow!
We’ve had to do so much prep in this room – paint scraping, hole filling, spackling, sanding – that there’s not much to see yet. You know the walls are bad if just painting on the primer makes them look so much better…
Basically, this week we have just worked on getting this room to the point where it can be painted. Eric did a ton of plaster repair…
And I’ve sanded everything in sight with my little mouse!
I forgot to take my mask off one time when I went outside. Got a startled look from a passerby – oops!
On to more fun happenings at Casablanca… Dani (my niece) was in town for a few days. She LOVES the horses. And Buckskin and Duchess love her back – particularly when she has apples. And she always has apples.
The one chore we can always get the kids to do is mowing the lawn – as long as the riding mower is operational, that is!
Dani and I took on a new project – flower boxes for the Graceland shed. We got some cedar boards from Friday Lumber, Eric cut them up for us, and we went to work. I think these turned out great. Maybe we’ll end up living in this shed instead!
That’s it for now! We still have one more day of Operation Workin’ Vacation, so maybe I’ll have some updates on our bedroom-from-hades tomorrow! 🙂
Renovating a 164-year-old farmhouse is a challenge. I knew this going in. But yesterday we started on Room #3 – the front bedroom. And all day today, I’ve said over and over again, “this is just a big, fat mess!” At one point this afternoon, I said to Eric, “Do you know what this is?” and he said, “a big, fat mess?” Exactly.
This room is daunting. The fireplace has been torn out and replaced with a book shelf. (Huh?). Wallpaper has been stripped off the walls… almost. And the window trim is layered in decades of paint. If we recover this room we will absolutely DESERVE our own HGTV show! Here are some pics from the last couple of days…
First, Teagen gets the Friend-Of-The-Year Award by showing up for reno work for the third time! We are so grateful. And she brought food, too. I’m just sayin’… hint to our other friends.
Teagen and I painted trim boards. Then she and Eric tackled the ceiling in the front bedroom. Eric pulled down all the popcorn ceiling boards while Teagen pulled out the 4000 nails…
Meanwhile, outside, the sky was looking like this…
Today, Eric plastered the holes from the 4000 nails in the ceiling and sanded it all down…
My job today was to tackle the big, fat mess around the trim on the windows. Here are a ton of “before” pics of this room and my progress on the trim. Excuse the number of photos – remember, we’re using this as our photo diary. But if, while you’re looking through, you think to yourself, “That’s a big, fat mess” then you’re right in there.
And one more… Eric got to put the flag out today!
Finally time for another before and almost-after! The Dog trot has thrown us for a few loops, but we hung in there. Again, ignore the floors. Those will get resurfaced later.
Before:
Today:
We love it!
Casablanca in Coaling 
You must be logged in to post a comment.