The plan for Year 3? Finishing Phase 1!

I’ve decided that this round of heavy-handed repairs that took over the whole house should be called Phase 1. Phase 2 will be a bunch of smaller projects that can be done independently of each other… after I take a good long break. Anyways, if I want to make this sound fast and easy, I have 4 jobs to do. Painting, installing trim, sanding the floors, and putting in a Phase 1 part of the kitchen.

The big hurdle here is floor finishing, the last time I have to clear the house and hand it over to contractors. This means that in classic Crooked House fashion, I’ll be dividing all the work between things to do before and after floor finishing.

The first thing I want done, really done, is the bathroom. Paint the walls so and I can bring the bathroom sink and toilet tank back upstairs and install them for good (until I get my Phase 2 sinks). It’ll be nice to not have to dump buckets of water into the toilet bowl anymore.

But why stop there? I can have A BATHROOM DOOR! And it’ll be a lot of fun to see woodwork in this room. Not only is this an important step towards making the house civilized, but I would like to shut the door and let the bathroom be a safe, clean place for my stuff while the floors are being sanded. Though I guess I could do that with plastic.

And I decided that yes, I’m keeping most of my new-old interior doors stained. I bought them at Philadelphia Salvage peeling, splattered with odd colored paint, and full of gouges and nail holes. The plan was to strip them, fill the damage, and paint them, but when I stripped them, the wood looked so good I decided to keep it. All that damage morphed into patina.

Needless to say I won’t be using paint stripper in my living room after the floors are finished. So these will have to be stripped (and possibly stained and varnished) before the floors are done.

The old plan was to spray paint and install the door casings and what not before the floors are finished, but the Irishman corrected me that I’d be nuts to install anything that goes to the floors before they get sanded. So instead I will be doing some windows and closet shelving and putting up all the woodwork in the bathroom, but the rest of the woodwork is gonna have to get stored in the basement.

Then there are thresholds and other flooring transitions to make. Radiators and other furniture to spray. Stripping the railings? Sealing brick? touching up mortar around my brick walls? I’ll be busy for a while.

And after the floors are done… Woodwork! Furniture! A kitchen! I should be able to properly store clothes there as soon as the floors are done. There’s not much doubt that I’ll get there, but how long will it take? Your guess is as good as mine.