We went to visit my parents this past weekend, so of course we popped out to the farmhouse to see where things were at there. The first thing we noticed was the roof: new shingles!
My mother, just so you know, is either the most meticulous, artful, patient person in all of the known universe (she did raise me, so) or she's completely off her rocker (again, she did raise me, so).
She's still in the process of stripping every bit of ancient paint from that house - so far she's been at it since May 1 and she's done all the door and window headers, plate rails, window sill plates, baseboard quarter rounds and half of the doors themselves. I'll show you some pictures of the piles of stuff she's been working through so you can fully appreciate the gargantuan nature of this task.
It's a bittersweet thing. The paint job in there was kind of amazing - pastel yellows and minty greens and bubblegum pinks everywhere you looked. Maybe not everybody's taste, but pretty adorable. For example, these are the door headers from a few of the different rooms (they all have matching radiators!):
But paint doesn't last forever, so my mom loaded up a trailer with everything she could pry from the walls, took it all home, and is carefully stripping it. She's done so much that her thumb no longer bends. Like, actually. It's frozen straight from overuse. You could say she's invested in this project.
Here's a lovely picture of the gunk she's scraping off this wood:
Isn't that nice?
But underneath the chipping, old paint and all of that gunky stuff? This:
Beautiful, right?
One of my favourite little transformations is the front door.
Before:
After:
Slowly but surely, she's working her way through that whole house. Some of the wood will be repainted - there's a little girl in Frontier who has laid claim to one of the second-floor bedrooms, and everyone has started referring to it as her room. Mom wants to paint it and wallpaper it similarly to how it looked back in the day. Pink and flowers and all that. She's on the lookout for vintage light fixtures and pretty rugs and wallpaper. The goal, as I understand it, is restoration, not so much remodelling.
Her other little pet project this month, when she wasn't stripping paint, was restringing a vintage chandelier for the entryway. She got it second-hand for $40. Probably because no one else in the world (again, patient, meticulous, maybe crazy) wanted it. Did I mention it was in a million pieces when she bought it?
Here are the first few pictures she sent me, along with a witty caption about her new 'puzzle':
Yikes.
However, I can attest to the fact that she finished it; I'll save the after pictures for when it's hanging in its place.
That's that for now; this was a lot of pictures to scroll through. Dad sent me home with a bunch of the moving pictures though, and I'll upload those later. The process of moving a 100-year-old house 228 km is actually pretty fascinating.
Until then, here's an adorable picture of my adorable parents:
My mother, just so you know, is either the most meticulous, artful, patient person in all of the known universe (she did raise me, so) or she's completely off her rocker (again, she did raise me, so).
She's still in the process of stripping every bit of ancient paint from that house - so far she's been at it since May 1 and she's done all the door and window headers, plate rails, window sill plates, baseboard quarter rounds and half of the doors themselves. I'll show you some pictures of the piles of stuff she's been working through so you can fully appreciate the gargantuan nature of this task.
It's a bittersweet thing. The paint job in there was kind of amazing - pastel yellows and minty greens and bubblegum pinks everywhere you looked. Maybe not everybody's taste, but pretty adorable. For example, these are the door headers from a few of the different rooms (they all have matching radiators!):
But paint doesn't last forever, so my mom loaded up a trailer with everything she could pry from the walls, took it all home, and is carefully stripping it. She's done so much that her thumb no longer bends. Like, actually. It's frozen straight from overuse. You could say she's invested in this project.
Here's a lovely picture of the gunk she's scraping off this wood:
Isn't that nice?
But underneath the chipping, old paint and all of that gunky stuff? This:
Beautiful, right?
One of my favourite little transformations is the front door.
Before:
After:
Slowly but surely, she's working her way through that whole house. Some of the wood will be repainted - there's a little girl in Frontier who has laid claim to one of the second-floor bedrooms, and everyone has started referring to it as her room. Mom wants to paint it and wallpaper it similarly to how it looked back in the day. Pink and flowers and all that. She's on the lookout for vintage light fixtures and pretty rugs and wallpaper. The goal, as I understand it, is restoration, not so much remodelling.
Her other little pet project this month, when she wasn't stripping paint, was restringing a vintage chandelier for the entryway. She got it second-hand for $40. Probably because no one else in the world (again, patient, meticulous, maybe crazy) wanted it. Did I mention it was in a million pieces when she bought it?
Here are the first few pictures she sent me, along with a witty caption about her new 'puzzle':
Yikes.
However, I can attest to the fact that she finished it; I'll save the after pictures for when it's hanging in its place.
That's that for now; this was a lot of pictures to scroll through. Dad sent me home with a bunch of the moving pictures though, and I'll upload those later. The process of moving a 100-year-old house 228 km is actually pretty fascinating.
Until then, here's an adorable picture of my adorable parents:
4 comments:
That is awesome, all of it!
I'm so obsessed with this house it's not even funny.
That front door is GORGEOUS! All the restoration feels like such a labour of love and a test of personal grit and endurance. I am inspired. Is there a theme song for this project or maybe we could develop a cheer??
I love the pastel colors from the previous paint job, but I can understand why she may be ready for a new coat of paint. She did a great job removing the paint and giving everything a new look. The change she made to the front door is amazing. Your mom has a lot of patience to make these changes, but that patience is going to pay off at the end of the day.
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