vintage | Disturing the Peas

Skim Coating Ceilings

by Ed Hyp | Nov 17, 2014 | Home Renovation, Uncategorized

Our ceilings were in pretty rough shape. They’re Plaster and lathe, which was partially cracking, but still solid. They’d been wallpapered (ceilingpapered?) several times and were just generally bumpy and gross looking. The greenish tinted white paint didn’t help either.

I inquired about having the plasterers do the work, but they wanted an additional ~$3000 so I thought we’d have to go a different route. We were planning on putting in crown molding and after getting the walls fixed and the floors put in, I couldn’t put it off any longer. I wasn’t all that confident about skim coating so we started to look at tin ceiling tiles. After learning that you need backing boards for tin ceilings, adding even more cost and work, we looked at styrofoam tiles that glue up. We ordered some samples, and they looked pretty lousy unpainted. So they’d have to be brushed by hand. Then we tried to find filler material and kept coming up short. I started looking at ceilings more and realized that there were a lot of tin ceilings in Pittsburgh and wondered if it was worth it to put in a faux version of what half of the shops here have anyways, at a cost of about $600, and a bunch of time finishing. We went through a couple of other ideas, and decided to put up hexagon molding in the middle room and to tape and joint compound the ceilings. I bought a product called magictrowel and was feeling pretty confident. Just first have to scrape off any loose wallpaper.

There was a lot of loose wallpaper. Most of the ceiling was loose. I painted a few coats of primer to seal the paper that remained and covered everything that looked suspect with joining tape. I got a thick nap roller and thought no problem I’ll mix up some JC and magictrowel it out and it’ll look perfect.

I had no luck at all with the magictrowel. My first unfortunate test with 30 minute joint compound dried so fast the trowel did nothing and I had a textured ceiling. That was my fault, a dumb thing to try. I jumped on a ladder with a 24″ trowel and pressed as hard as I could to try to smooth it. Then sand sand sand to fix my mistakes in a respirator of course (which is exhausting), and with dropcloths covering all exits. I tried with 90 minute, better but not great. Jumped onto ladder with trowel and sponge desperately trying to avoid sanding again. Maggie and I tried one with each. Worked better but not smooth. Again, on the ladder. Which got me thinking maybe I should just give up the gimmicky thing and learn to smooth this stuff the real way. At least I’ll be to blame if it comes up lumpy.

So, I bought a hawk, which was more fun than you’d think and got on a ladder for 6ish hours a day for a week and put up 1/4 bags of 90 minute joint compound until i got the ceilings smooth.

ON TIKI PARTIES

by Maggie | Aug 11, 2014 | Cocktails, Food, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarian

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I was in a bit of funk the other night so Ed cajoled me into walking it off to a nearby bar. It’s the sort of place thats a little too hot and little too crowded until the dinner crowd trickles off and you remember that they serve skillets of melted cheese and tiki drinks dressed up enough to lighten any mood. Nothing turns the night around like a tiny umbrella.

Ed’s grandma was celebrating her 91st birthday this weekend so we decided to give the gift that keeps on giving and bring a big bowl of tiki punch. We decided to keep it simple with the Jungle Bird.

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Lesson 1: Exciting tiki mugs are a lot more hard to come by (and more expensive) than you may anticipate. Luckily your grandmother may already have some! We filled in the gaps with some lucky finds from the wonderful folks at Who New.

Lesson 2: You may need to more than gently remind party guests to Add. Plenty. Of. Ice.

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If you find that your lime cups aren’t quite as impressive as you like, try adding a little grain alcohol.

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ON TAKING OFF 90 YEARS OF WALLPAPER

by Maggie and Ed | May 2, 2014 | Home Renovation, Uncategorized

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On Refinishing a Dresser

by Ed Hyp | Jul 2, 2013 | Home Renovation

We picked up the dresser probably six months ago from Construction Junction. It took a little coercing because it screams ladies and was dirt-butter-yellow, but I’m a sucker for tiny castors, it was $35, and we happened to have a van that day. So it sat in the basement until now. We planned on repainting it a less offensive butter yellow, but as I was Goo-Gone-ing off the price tags most of the paint came with them. We had a Premium Stripper in the basement and decided to see what she could do.

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On Uncovering a Window

by Maggie and Ed | Nov 11, 2012 | Dumb Stuff Old People Do, Home Renovation

Our current lighting isn’t great. I’ll admit that. But despite our ceilings being fairly high, our living room always seemed heavy and dark. A few gems left from the previous owners play a major role in this.

The walls are a pale yellow that seems charming at first, but certainly doesn’t grow on you. In a showing of home town pride, they paired the yellow with black above our stone fireplace. They did not, unfortunately, leave behind the smiley face clock that pulled the whole room together. The transom above the one large window in the room has been covered in the plywood — from the inside — and painted to match the walls. The hardware for the heavy floral curtains was covered by a scalloped wooden panel that I threw in the trash the day we moved in. In retrospect I regret not getting a few pictures.