No sign of our butler yet…

November 2, 2015November 2, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 2 Comments

… but we sure do like his pantry!

If Jeeves were here, I’d ask him if he liked the burnt sienna backsplash in his Butler’s Pantry… something tells me that his answer would be an enthusiastic “no ma’am.”

The “before” picture — check out those lovely tiles 😉

Burnt Sienna! A perfect match.

Once upon a time, this delightful Crayola color may have been a popular choice, but not anymore! So, we had to bid farewell to all those little orange tiles and give the butler’s pantry a well-deserved makeover.

First things first, I easily chipped away the tiles with a hammer and chisel because the adhesive had lost a lot of its strength over time. Unfortunately, the adhesive kept a very strong bond with the plaster wall between the upper cabinets and the counter top. I tried to chip away at it with every tool I could find, but finally had to resort to our orbital sander and heavy grit sandpaper. It was a dusty, tedious, goggle-fogging job, but I finally got it down to the smooth plaster underneath with only a little damage that required simple patching.

No more tiles!

Close-up of the stubborn glue left behind.

I had to stop every few minutes to wipe out my goggles. Yuck!

Next, we discussed what to use for the new counter top that would complement and preserve the charm of the original cabinets. We landed on the idea of “up-cycling” some of the original ceiling joists we cut out to vault the ceilings in the family room and master bedroom. We took this idea to my dad, the forester and master craftsman, to request his expertise and ask for his help to bring the new counter top to life.

Naturally, he had an ever better idea! Our joists were certainly thick and sturdy enough to do the job, but they were made of pine. As mentioned in the floor refinishing post, pine does not stain well and our “vision” was of a darker, richer wood counter top, not raw pine. It just so happened that my father (the forester, master craftsman, AND wood hoarder 🙂 ) had a stash of beautiful walnut left over from when my parents built their kitchen island. Glory! It was just the thing. We are so fortunate that the Harpers were willing to part with such special materials and my dad created a handmade walnut counter top for our butler’s pantry by joining two large pieces together and lovingly applying coat after coat of tongue oil and polyurethane.

Special Delivery!

Cutting it down to size.

Daddy’s favorite cutting stance. I believe we have seen this move before 😉

Ready to install this beauty!

Wrangling it into place.

Fastening it from underneath, so we don’t mar the wood.

My guys admiring their work…

My dad also made a matching cove molding to give it the perfect finishing touch!

It came out better than I ever expected. In fact, it may just be my favorite part of our nest…

Ta-daaaaahhh! The finished product. Absolutely fantastic.

…and a very special message hidden on the underside. 😉

To Top It All Off

October 28, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / Leave a comment

Meet me at the stone yard, honey! We need counter tops.

Selecting counter tops was one of the few decisions that we went into knowing what we wanted from the get-go and there really wasn’t much deliberation. For the kitchen and master bathroom, we chose granite in Absolute Black and for the hall bathroom we wanted something a little more fun, but with a timeless, neutral color palette.

The large pieces of Absolute Black granite had to be special ordered through a local stone yard, Rozelle Stone, but our hall bathroom vanity was a small enough surface that we could use a remnant piece if we found something we liked. So, one fine Sunday afternoon, Matthew, Miss Pepper and I went for a walk in the stone yard in search of “just the thing.”

There it is -- peeking out to say, "pick me!"

There it is — our little remnant peeking out to say, “pick me!”

…and we found it! Dark Emperador is the name of the marble we chose. It was just a lowly scrap, but it became the crown jewel of our hall bathroom vanity!

Here’s a peek at the finished product:

But the real star of the show is our Butler’s Pantry counter top… stay tuned for the full story of that transformation (it definitely deserves its own post!) 😉

Behold, New(ly refinished) Floors!

September 7, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 1 Comment

Besides the obvious benefit of being able to walk around in our house barefoot, we have brought the final “eyesore” of the nest back to its former glory. Behold, our rich, glossy, good-as-new hardwood floors!

It was quite the process to bring our 75 year old white oak and heart pine floors back to life. First, we patched-in new white oak in the great room where we built up the subfloor to match the height of the kitchen floor. We had to tear out and replace the floors in the kitchen and butler’s pantry/laundry room because the glue used to apply the linoleum we scraped up was toxic and couldn’t be sanded with the rest of the hardwoods. And finally, we had professionals sand, stain, and refinish the original wood flooring left in the majority of our house – white oak downstairs and heart pine upstairs.

Once the old floors are sanded down to the raw wood, they could almost pass as brand new! We thought it might be difficult choosing a stain color to make the floors feel old and “original” to our house, but our refinishing crew put down a few test patches and Matthew and I both liked the “Provincial” stain color. No contest; that was it. (Finally! An easy decision!!) “Onward!” we said, so down went the stain. Three coats of polyurethane later, we have a fabulous set of floors in the nest.

Lots of patching to do in the new hallway (routed through the old laundry closet and guest bedroom closet).

Hall patching complete!

Hall bathroom patched! (We moved the doorway about 18″ to the right, leaving a gap in the hardwoods).

Test patch to discover what species of wood we have under all that gunk. White oak it is!

Test patch to discover what species of wood we have under all that gunk. The answer: white oak!

New hardwoods going down in great room and kitchen.

Progress!

Butler’s pantry floors are installed. (The tan goopy stuff that looks like peanut butter is actually a filler the floor professionals use to fill gaps and help join the new wood to the old in the most seamless way. The filler takes the stain just like wood!

Installation complete!

Miss Pepper approves.

Let the sanding begin!

The miracle machine.

Sanding in progress… can you believe the difference??

All the noble sanding pads sacrificed to make our floors look good as new!

All the noble sanding pads that sacrificed their grit to make our floors look good as new! (The floor guys said our floors were the worst they’d seen and that the finish just turned to goop on the pads. They had to sand them twice as much as “normal” jobs. Eeeek! Sorry guys…from the beginning, this has been no ordinary job.)

Testing stains.

Test patches -- the bottom left was our winner, Minwax's "Provincial."

Test patches — the bottom right was our winner, Minwax’s “Provincial.”

Peeking through the front door at the stain! (We weren’t allowed to walk on the floors, but you couldn’t keep us away! 🙂 )

Peeking in the french doors at the dining room.

Peeking in the dutch door at the great room.

Polyurethane is down. Our floors look brand new!

Upstairs, too!
These floors are all heart pine and were treated with one coat of poly first, then stained with a mix of stain (red mahogany) and polyurethane to recreate the look of aged heart pine. We had to use this method because pine is notorious for staining very unevenly. So, essentially, we stained the first coat of poly instead of the raw wood. This gave it an even, naturally aged pine color to match the ceiling.

Miss Pepper says, “When can we move in??”

We’ve got the power!

August 4, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 4 Comments

It took a signed easement from one of our neighbors, a lot of underground boring, and a crew of Duke Power dudes with a bulldozer squeezing into the smallest part of our yard, but permanent power is ours! Hooray!

Whoa, Dozer!

Our first glimpse of light at The Newton Nest!

This is the first time we have ever seen the inside of the Nest with the lights on and it’s an incredible feeling!

Prep, prep, prep, PAINT!

July 22, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 6 Comments

Fill. Putty. Caulk. Sand. Repeat… as with the outside paint job, the prepping proved to be the hardest part! To say the least, painting an entire house from ceilings to baseboards is quite a challenging (read: sanity testing) experience. I can’t say that either of us have ever – literally – started from scratch with bare sheetrock and trim in every inch of a house, so it was eye opening to realize just how many nail holes must be filled and how many coats of paint it takes to get to the final coat. We prepped for days before we popped the lid on our first can of paint. Fortunately, our painting crew returned and we had lots of help! Matthew’s father, Wayne, carried the team (again!) through more than two weeks of painting frenzy. He was our MVP for sure!

Endless Prepping:

Putty Man Matthew

(With the help of his momma!)

Power Sanding

Hand Sanding (still powerful).

Baseboards for days…

Caulking all the seams!

Finally, a paint brush… putting on the primer coat upstairs.

How many Newtons does it take to paint one corner?

Thank goodness for good help!

The Boss and The Master. 😉

Scraping all the original doors.

Bringing them back to life!

Bringing out the big [spray] guns!

The fun part, of course, was choosing paint colors and seeing our walls come to life! We chose a pretty neutral palette with bright white trim and we think it brings a crisp-yet-calm look to the inside of our nest.

Nest Neutrals:

Our final selection!

The Transformation:

Our biggest challenge in the painting project was making the formal living room suit our style… the wormy chestnut built-ins were very nice, but the heaviness of the dark wood just didn’t agree with the rest of our house. So, brace yourselves wood lovers, we painted it. (I know, I know; you’re horrified.)

A reminder of what the dark woodwork looked like… not bad, but a little dreary for our taste.

No turning back!

While the whitewashed woodwork certainly brightened up the room, a new problem surfaced… despite many coats, the paint just amplified all the little holes and imperfections in the wood. It literally looked like someone had splattered black paint all over whitewashed wood. It wasn’t pretty. Enter: The Peacock Twins (my mom and her twin sister, Julie.)

Holes, holes, and more holes! Yuck!

As with many times in my life, my mother came to the rescue! She and my Aunt Julie helped me spackle and putty every single hole. Seven hours and 30 raw finger tips later, things were looking much better and my spirits lifted. FINALLY, this disjointed room was coming together. I spent the next few evenings after work sanding away to make sure it was smooth before the final coat of paint.

Peacock twins to the rescue!

Filled, primed and ready for paint!

So, here it is, the big reveal:

Ta-daaah!

Although painting the wormy chestnut was a really tough decision, we feel like this is an improvement that brightens the room and makes it feel less disjointed.

Despite the long days and our struggle with “to paint or not to paint” the woodwork, we are oh-so-happy with the final product! (And overjoyed to retire our brushes for a while!!!)

All the trimmings.

June 15, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 1 Comment

Boy, oh boy, the details are fun!
For two weeks now, the trim carpenters have been busy little birdies trimming our nest and making it look its very best. They’ve been more than patient, too. As with any old house, things aren’t exactly plumb and square around here… so the carpenters had to take a few deep breaths and get creative on projects like re-hanging old doors, dealing with a few slightly sloping floors and installing a tongue and groove ceiling in a room that is slightly off from square (They were within a few boards of being done when this little snag became apparent and had to rip it all off and start again with a slight adjustment to compensate. Yikes!).

But, despite a few old-house hiccups, the trim-work is complete and we are just beside ourselves with the transformation! Check out our nest with all the trimmings…

Trim materials have arrived!

Window Trim! (Guest Bedroom)

Laundry room doors are up! (This wall is new, but these doors are original to the house. We repurposed them from a small hall closet that was removed when we rerouted the hallway to the bedrooms.)

A view of the doors when they’re open — they fit perfectly and lay flat against the walls, so they don’t block the butler’s pantry pass-through.

Baseboards and crown molding are up in the guest bedrooms!

Powder room window is trimmed and looking fantastic…

Powder room doors go up.

The HVAC ductwork that runs through all the upstairs dormers is being hidden with little window seats 🙂

Master bedroom ceiling trim is in place. We are really loving the way this detail turned out!

Master bathroom! (Blurry, but you get the idea…)

Ta-dah! Great room ceiling is in.

What a difference!

Going Gray!

June 8, 2015June 8, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 3 Comments

Hooray — we’ve gone gray!

No, I’m not talking about our hair color beginning to fade as a result of nearly eight months of home renovation (although, the lone long-locked Newton has noticed a few new silver strands). We have finally said goodbye to the patchwork shingles and painted the exterior of our house! We settled on a medium gray color for the cedar shakes and then called in reinforcements to help with the transformation.

The slightly more senior Mr. and Mrs. Newton (Matthew’s parents) joined the painting party and we were able to prime and paint the exterior of our little nest in two weekends’ time. Not too shabby for a bunch of amateurs—well, three amateurs and our fearless leader, Matthew’s father, Wayne, who owned his own paint contracting business for 30+ years… as the sole professional on site, he kept the rest of us from messing anything up! Painting all those shakes was no easy task and start-to-finish it took us a month of weekends if you count the prep work too, but we were strutting around with grins of accomplishment when it was all done!

We began by prepping the exterior (a lot more work than I thought!):

Taping off the windows!

Puttying all the little nail holes!

Caulking windows!

Double caulking!

Triple caulking!

Rooftop refreshment 😉

Here we go! Check out the power of a coat of paint:

Shaking up the paint! (My staring totally helped…)

Primer coat is on!

Mr. Newton – head painter in charge – spraying more primer.

Two Newtons and a dormer.

Three Newtons and a dormer. 🙂

All primed and ready for the final coat!

Revving up the sprayer for the final coat!

Matthew and his Momma taking a little break.

Final coat of gray is on; ready to start painting all the trim along the roof!

Trim is looking crisp and white!

Oops! We almost forgot the garage…

Goodbye, basketball goal!

Hello, Bat who was hiding underneath the goal. (Sorry little guy!)

All done!

Hello, gorgeous gray! All that hard work paid off… we are really digging our Nest’s new look.

Many, many thanks to the Newtons for helping us with such a big job – we couldn’t have done it without them!!!

A few Eggs of Wisdom…

It’s true, many hands make light work.
Happy music and time with family makes even the hardest jobs more fun.
If you have a choice between rolling/brushing paint and using one of those handy sprayers, choose the sprayer every time! 😉

Drywall, y’all!

May 17, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 2 Comments

It feels a little like we have come full circle… the Nest has come so far since we were swinging sledgehammers to take down walls. Now, we are celebrating new ones!

It’s honestly hard to put into words how exciting it is to have solid walls again and see all the changes we’ve made take shape. Not to mention, drywall marks the beginning of the “pretty things” like trim, paint colors, cabinets, and more! Get ready, y’all—we’re about to really start dressing up the Nest!

Great Room/Kitchen (The great room ceiling will be covered by tongue and groove, so no drywall there!)

Kitchen view.

View of great room and kitchen from the back door. Looking good!

Who needs a ladder? Stilts are the way to go!!

Dining Room

Dining room opposite view, looking toward butler’s pantry and stairs to second floor.

Formal Living Room

Powder Room and Office

Office, opposite view.

Looking from formal living room into the powder room (thanks to my dad for adding that beautiful window on a whim — more on that in a future blog post 🙂 ).

Guest Bedroom #1

Guest Bedroom #2

Hallway/Hall Bathroom/Guest Bedroom

Super stilts to put the finishing touches on the master bedroom!

Master Bedroom!

Master Bathroom

…and just because I am so impressed by the stilts, here is a little video of our guy in action:

Up on the rooftop…

December 23, 2014March 25, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 1 Comment

…click, click, click. That’s the sound of our roofers, not St. Nick.

Just in time for Christmas, we have a brand new runway for Santa’s sleigh! Well, that’s not the only reason we are replacing the roof, but it seems like good timing, right?

As you know by now, our little nest hasn’t exactly been water tight over the years and most recently, after removing all the plaster ceilings, we realized that a leaky roof was part of the problem. None of the leaks were terrible, in fact, without removing the ceilings, we probably wouldn’t have known for a long time that we had a slowly growing problem because all the little drips were being absorbed into the attic insulation. We were hoping to avoid replacing the roof, but truthfully, I think we are a little relieved to have it done now instead of kicking that can down the road. We’re looking at it as an “insurance policy” for all the work we’re doing on the inside…

Scraping off three layers of old shingles!

Waterproof barrier is on (the bright green stuff).

New shingles going on!

Santa, is that you?

New roof! Front view.

New roof! Rear view.

Saddle up Santa, we’re all ready for you!
(Hint, hint: we like power tools and home improvement gift cards!)

She’s got good bones.

December 9, 2014March 25, 2015 / Lauren Harper Newton / 7 Comments

Two weeks later, framing is complete. And it is GLORIOUS!

First on our list was fixing the weak links. Because of the age of our home and its state of disrepair, we had a few trouble spots to address where there were rotten or otherwise compromised studs and/or support joists. Many of these places were around windows that had begun to leak slowly over the years and underneath the super-heavy cast iron tubs in the bathrooms. Common theme: water. Don’t let it fool you; water can be the destroyer of worlds if you leave it unchecked! Thankfully, we had mostly superficial, ugly-but-not-serious damage. We only had two relatively small “surprises” where floor joists needed to be shored up from underneath the house…both cases in the bathrooms underneath three and five hundred pound tubs. (Can’t say I’m surprised that a few of those poor joists needed some reinforcements after carrying weight like that for 70+ years.)

Damage control:

A couple of nasty rotten spots caused by slow leaks.

Two front doors? Nope! Repairing the joists under the master bathtub/beside the front porch.

Worst water damage of all… the wall in the great room slowly separated from the chimney around the fireplace, creating such serious water damage that the entire wall had to be rebuilt. (Luckily, this was once a garage that was closed-in to make a den, so the floor is concrete and was not compromised.)

Wowzer! It’s pretty clear where the water was coming in…

Okay, now on to the fun stuff…

You may remember from the Best Laid Plans post that we decided to make minimal structural changes to the floor plans, but these small tweaks bring pretty substantial rewards, making our house a lot more functional. So, now that framing is complete, here’s the bird’s eye view of our nest’s anatomy.

Newton Nest - Aberdeen Floorplans 12.9.14

Notable tweaks: opening up the kitchen to the great room, creating a powder room within the office, splitting the butler’s pantry to make a laundry room, and reconfiguring the bedroom hallway to create a true foyer, more privacy and a large closet for the master suite.

Pretty good bones, am I right?

The most exciting part of this framing expedition – something you can’t see on a 2D blueprint – is that because of some unusable attic space and a little creative thinking, we were able to vault the ceiling of the great room…and, as a special surprise… our MASTER BEDROOM! Yay! Talk about a transformation…

You just have to see it for yourselves, y’all! Here goes: