Bye Bye 1960s Design Hell

Instead of doing anything "productive", I decided to get destructive and remove a couple of the details on the house which I really hate. First to go were the vertical wall slats/dividers, shown below.



Yeah, they were in good condition, but they were a bad design idea 45 years ago and haven't gotten any better in my book. Out came the 3 pound sledge and five minutes later I was left with this:




That's a mirror on the near wall, by the way. It's going away soon, too. Although I dislike it, I don't want every wall in the house empty and full of nail & screw holes. After I took this picture, I tore down the same detail which was by the front door (in the background of this pic). When I start the kitchen renovation, I'll tear down the rest of these partial-walls and patch the drywall to hide the fact that the walls were ever here.

I was on a roll, tearing out crappy old details I hated, so I turned my evil gaze towards something my dad would love - wood paneling! It was actually installed well and was decent quality crap - er, wood paneling. My big worry was that it was nailed and glued to the wall, as that's how I would have done it. Lucky for me, the guy who did it wasn't quite as anal-retentive as me and only nailed it over some ugly green paint.




For now, I've re-used the goofy old switch plate cover the previous owners installed. The wall is now full of old nail holes, grime, and ugly green and blue paint. It's still better than when it was covered with paneling. To make it a little nicer, I'll patch the holes and sand the wall making it ready for new knock-down texture, primer, and paint. Those steps will be a while from happening, but at least I am happier with it.

Giving the House a New Entrance

The original door to the house has been weather beaten for decades due to the southern exposure. Having the glass storm door compounded the damage. The wood is heavily checked and loose on the door. The locks on the door are also quite old, and since we have no idea how many copies of the keys are floating around out there, it's time for some changes.




The storm door that came with the house is pretty dated, and not as secure as the style would indicate. It's pretty darn heavy and works fairly well, but the style is just nowhere near what we want so it'll have to go.




An few hours into the project and the new door is in place. It took a bunch of trimming along the top edge to make it fit, but the sides just slipped in between the bricks. Luckily, door sizes haven't changed in 45+ years! The urine-yellow color is the primer which comes standard on the door. I've got some high quality exterior paint for the door which I'll apply once it warms up a bit.




From the inside, the door makes a big difference in this corner of the living room. Since it isn't a dark wood (like the previous door) that corner looks larger and lighter. I still need to re-install the old trim and pull up the old laminate flooring. Speaking of that laminate, the original laminate is hidden under the equally ugly more current laminate. They'll both be removed to make room for travertine floor tile in the near future.




With the new main door installed, I could go ahead and add a new storm door. I prefer the look of not having a storm, but it really makes a difference when the weather is hot. As you can see, the storm has two glass panels. What we really like about this door is that when you lower the upper panel, a screen unrolls from above the top panel to take it's place. You can open it as much as needed for some airflow.

I'm in it past my neck.. (Part 2)

From the outside, you can't tell just how funky this place has been over the years. In my son's bedroom I found traces of old paint which were saved by window treatment brackets. That peach color isn't my favorite, but by compared to the blue it was covered with...! Yes, all four walls were painted that color blue. How bad did it look?




Imagine living in this closet! That's the same blue. This color is NOT in our long-term plan for the house. I wonder if the people who picked colors for this place were imbeciles or if they were all just color blind.




In my daughter's room I found traces of another blue used in the past. The master bedroom and the half-bath were painted this lighter shade of blue at some time. Not much of an improvement over the darker shade, and still nothing I'd ever want on my walls.




The front closet holds another classic color for us - piss yellow. Again, not a color we plan on keeping! I haven't found evidence (yet) as to what the rest of the living room this closet is in was painted yet, but I can't believe that they would have used this color for the main room. Then again, I can't believe the blue paint used in the other rooms, so anything is possible.




In the half-bath, ugly is more than paint deep. The toilet is the original 190 gallon tank version - flush a turd in the morning and by lunch the tank is filled and ready. The vanity was added about 20 years ago, and the linoleum is original (I think). Other than that, the room is perfect. This will be the first room we tackle, as it's not a necessary room for us and it'll give me a good idea as to what other items I'll need to do the full bath. As I buy supplies for this room, I'll just buy the extra pieces needed for the full bathroom which should save me plenty of trips to the store later on.