House in Progress Diary

I really enjoy your sight...and your wit and humor! I think humor is a MUST if you are a bungalow owner and renovating. If you lack HUMOR...it is a short trip to insanity. I love what you have done with your home. It looks fabulous! I esp. like the night picture on your latest posting. I just love the double dormers on the front of your house. Your house has such style! We live in Central Illinois, in a small town of 3,000. We own a 1912 Aladdin Bungalow...the Albany...and we have just begun restoration. When I married my husband in 1995, he owned several rental properties...the bungalow being one of those. One day before our wedding we were discussing where we were going to live as a newly married couple and I mentioned the bungalow. My husband's remark was, "Oh, you don't want to live in that old house! It's ugly!" Well...the renters moved out last year (finally!) and I got a look inside the house. I nearly fainted when I saw the interior! It was GORGEOUS!!! All unpainted woodwork, oak floors, brick fireplace, with a beautiful bookcase archway between the livingroom and diningroom. The diningroom had a built-in china cabinet,which turns out to be the original kitchen cabinet...transplanted. The house has all the original 5-panel doors with all the original door hardware. I remember stepping back outside on the huge front porch, after my initial tour of the house. I was standing there...trying to catch my breath...trying not to totally flip out. Then, my darling husband said,"Cheryll, you look pale. What is wrong?" I yelled back at him and said,"You idiot!!! This isn't just some old, ordinary ugly old house! This house is a Craftsman Bungalow from the early 1900's!" He then said,"Huh? It's a what?" Well...our lives changed at that very instant in time. From then on I have done nothing but obsess over the house. It has become...my baby. The house is the only thing I think about...talk about...dream about. My husband is less enthused, but has decided to go along with what I want...and what I want is to live in that house for the rest of my life. But first...we have to put the kitchen back in it. It had a fifties kitchen, that we took out. The kitchen remains gutted because I can't make up my mind what decade I want to re-create in it. I am thinking late 1920's to early 1930's. I have found a 1927 G.E. electric stove that is buttercup yellow and stands on long beautiful curved legs and I know a man who can rewire it and install new burners so it will be safe to cook on again. Right now...my husband thinks I am nuts because I want him to tear out the china cabinet in the diningroom and move it back into the kitchen, where it was originally and I want all the other cabinets in the kitchen styled after the original. The big argument now is the dishwasher. I've told him that I DON'T WANT A DISHWASHER because they weren't invented yet in the late 1920's and all I want is a big sink with drain boards hanging on the wall. I've also told him that a dishwasher will take up the space I need for the Hoosier cabinet. So...here is my question! Can our marriage survive the restoration of this bungalow? Right now I don't care...just so I get the bungalow (and our 5 cats)in the property settlement. I have already told him he can have the new house we live in and all the equity in it, if we split up. He thinks I am kidding... Cheryll

I want to know if the "Silent Paint Remover" is worth the $400.00 price tag. I saw in a past posting, that you bought one. Did you use it that much to justify the price or did you use some other method of stripping paint more often?! I need your advice on this PLEASE!

Cheryll,

We have had a good experience with the SPR, although we haven't used it recently. It has been most useful on the woodwork in our first floor bathroom.

It is worth it for us with the volume of work we're facing. That said, don't expect the SPR to fully replace chemical strippers--we find a combination of techniques works best.

We have a lot more trim to strip upstairs soon so I'm sure we'll be writing more on the SPR over time...

Great picture.