BEDROOM

My bedroom does not usually look like this. It is being painted. Okay, it's getting READY to be painted. It's been Blue-blue on Blue-blue for as long as I've woken up within it. No wonder I'm depressed. Miles Davis might have seen this.

I've pulled everything away from the walls on one half of the room.

"ONLY HALF???" you scream.

 Hey, I LIVE here!

The bathroom is being redone at the same time (I DO like a challenge). I knew to prep the walls and ceilings first, with caulk and spackle and all. All artwork came down and I squished my room to one end, which is easy when your room is twenty two feet long. Here I have my paint pails, sandpaper, tools and caulk on my antique Wurlitzer organ (the checked tablecloth). I don't know what I was thinking. I would soon transfer them to my Victorian Side Table.

Of course.

Apparently this was a Laundry Day. Bedsheets included.

Note the 1950s recessed central light fixture hanging down. I didn't remove it, despite my hatred for overhead lights, especially this variety in my 18th Century home (even thought his addition was built in the 1950s).

I've simply too much to do before the end of the year. Remember, I have to get this place refinanced or else I LOSE it.

That light fixture will be screwed back in place and forgotten.

The wall I would attack first. Yes, I would remove the heater. Sheesh.

Note the protruding new electrical receptacle (try saying that while drunk; you might as well say 'judicial system,' which makes you sound drunk even when you say it straight), which is not buried in the wall for a good reason.

The reason is because this wall is originally an exterior wall, with lap siding behind the homasote (not drywall, in case I said that before). I will eventually remove the homasote and expose the lap siding.

Blue-blue. On Blue-blue.

Yeccchhh.

Unfortunately the wrong color!

I had decided a number of years ago that I would paint this room peach with sage trim. Some among you might cringe. "How how how....what what what...?"

Now don't get your little girl panties in a bunch.

I had the same reaction when I was restoring the 1845 Cason House in Hodges, South Carolina in 1989. The owner, Peggy Smith, insisted on this color scheme. She even went so far as to suggest burgundy for the door and window trim.

I thought this was ridiculous until we got the paint. Then I saw the madness to her method. Peach is warm and sage is cool. They go together beautifully. And the peach changes color as the light through the windows changes. But burgundy for the trim?

I had my doubts. So, unknown to Peggy, I lightened the red and only used it for the rails and stiles of the doors as well as the window sashes. The outside casing and trim were painted sage. And for the panels of the doors, I concocted a silver-gray for those interior trim elements.

When I was done, I had to marvel at how well it worked. And every morning, when I awoke in my bedroom at the Cason Farm, I smiled at the colors of the room.

But, but, BUT!

Back to Connetykit.

What you see in the paint store is not what you see on your walls. Never is. I knew that I had chosen a "peach" that was closer to a "salmon," and I HATE orange. Nevermind that salmon and peach are both sort of orange. Peach is PEACH. Not salmon.

See the difference?

This shows the new color on top of the old color, the salmon behind the peach. I mixed in almost one to one a lot of ceiling white to get the right shade.

Despite the blue trim, I knew it was the right color.

Of course I had already painted the ceiling.

I'm liking it. Here the sage trim (which didn't need to be altered) can be seen on the door facings. The blue still jumps out and says AAAAUUUUUGGHH!

At least I'm not using the Wurlitzer for a paint table anymore. Note the fan and baby powder. It's June. Eighties already with eighty per cent humidity. It would stay like this until October.

The studio, normally accessible, is now a catch-all as well as a place to prepare paint. Foil, buckets, and all.

I painted the walls, ceiling, and facings other than those of the windows. I also left the spaces below and above the windows for later. I was hurting too much from all the work; the last thing I wanted to do was to sit on the floor (it really hurts, I'm old) to paint the sub-window stools. But now it was time to get the windows ready for paint, and that, as we say in the painting business, is a bitch.

First, one must remove the side stops that hold the window sashes in. Then, one must cut the weight ropes in such a way that the weights do not fall, crashing through the wood sill to become an irretrievable cylinder of rough steel.

And this is the easy part.

Dis windle is ruff. Vey, vey ruff.

The glazing putty has been missing for some time, and despite the storm windows, water has seeped in and peeled the interior paint. My guess is that it was doing this before there were storm windows. I took these and all other lower sashes) to the garage to sand and prime them.

Nice shoelaces, hey?

Proof that the windows were painted without actually removing them,  which is normal and I'm not. And yes, they are a sort of shade of white, not blue-blue as I've been saying. Just wake up to such stuff and you'll be saying blue-blue! Blue-blue! Lots of chunky paint, all lead-based. Was I afraid? Did I cringe and hug the feet of my very cute neighbor girl?

You bet I did.

Or would have, if I had one.

No, I donned my respirator and scraped the paint with a carbide scraper while vacuuming the chunks and dust at the same time. Covered everything, including myself with a Tyvek suit when the dust got fine.

"This is one of my (un) favorite things..."

I HATE brass weatherstripping between the sash and casing. It usually tears and bends, allowing air to get in, and it often makes windows unmovable. It'll cut yer hainds perty good, too, especially when removing it. Which is just what I did. Only this window set had the stuff. I imagine old Chet Izbicki was cold-natured. I am not, but I like my windows to not leak. I use other technologies rather than those available in 1950.

The parting bead is a strip of wood set into a dado (remember these terms, there will be a short quiz after you read this) cut into the window casing. It drives most homeowners wild, as they have no idea what to do with it. This one shows signs of water infiltration, which has caused it to warp and curl from its little dado channel. This will also make the window impossible to operate.

Now these little beauties are NEVER supposed to ne nailed, but most of you cretinous humans don't know that. I, on the other hand am one of the few among you that know how to deal with such recalcitrant pieces of wood.

Because it's already warped, I had to nail it. Actually, I used a tiny screw (predrilled the hole of course). But only after having cleaned out it's channel (oh my!).

What a pain in the ass!

Opening the window weight pocket can be challenging. First remove the stop, then the s sash, then loosen the lower parting bead. Look for the slotted screw about two-thirds the way up the glide (where the window sash slides). Clean this out and remove it. If God smiles favorably upon you (and She doesn't often, I can tell you), it will come out with a little coaxing and effort. If not, get out your multi-tool to cut through the dried paint (again, if you're lucky) or through the wood itself. Many old-time carpenters only cut the bare outlines of the pocket door, leaving it for YOU to complete the cut eighty years later when the rope has disintegrated and the window has fallen, smashing your fingers while breaking all the panes.

Life's good, isn't it?

This one (and all the other six in the room) came out with my multi-tool, though I didn't have to wrest them from their moorings by cutting the wood. Not true for my kitchen weight pockets, which I had to re-carve entirely.

Oh look! Weights! Six pounds each. If I was a truly responsible restoration tech (which I am on other people's jobs if they pay me to be one), I'd rehang the upper sash even though I'd never use it due to having storm windows. Upper sashes were important at one time, and especially in high-ceilinged homes in the South, where it gets hot enough to need them to operate (at least before air conditioning and storm windows came along). But though it gets hot here, the ceilings are only about four inches from the floor. I decided to screw in the upper sashes. Let someone else rehang them. I put the upper weights back into the pockets in case someone else wants to make them work. I replaced the ropes and made the lower sashes work better, tightening their courses.

Windows empty of weights, ropes, stops and sashes. Awwww.....

THIS is what I'm talking about. The Paint Scheme from The Cason House Upstairs. Reproduced exactly. I like it.

Some of you (well, only one, let's admit it) might notice that NEITHER THE BEDROOM OR BATHROOM HAVE FINISHED PICTURES.

There's a reason for this.

They're still not finished.

But I'll have some more-or-less pix soon.

In the meantime...