A Mid-Century Renovation

I see a home renovation in our neighborhood and I can't help but be politely curious. However, if it's a Mid-Century home I am an all out stalker.  This house is about 5 blocks away from us.  I've been watching it for a while. It went on the market for about a day and then the for sale sign came down and the chain link fence went up.  I feared it would get demoed because the house has no back yard. Zilch. Seriously the house is about 20ft from the neighbor's fence.  But it does have a massive front yard which was filled with loads of trees and thick ivy.   I figured someone would prefer to reconfigure the large corner lot. But instead it's getting what seems like a marvelous redo and a major extension to the sides. I'm guessing the square footage has doubled. The ivy is gone and the trees have been thinned out. The front is getting some sort of exterior living space that looks to be blending well with the house's Mid-Century lines. I'm dying to go inside. I'm actually dying to see the plans and drawings.  If only I had some sort of architectural press pass, was taken seriously and allowed to do an interview.  One day... Anyway, the house is looking beautiful and I'm excited to see it develop!

I am an Epoxy Goddess!!!

That's what I yelled as I walked into the house today!  And my husband yelled back "YOU ARE"!


I have all but two things left on the list.  Finish rebuilding the beams with the marine epoxy resin and paint. Yesterday I finally dropped the fear, grabbed the bull by the horns and mixed that three part epoxy and went to town.  All this time I've been fearing this stuff!


The first round of trying to use the stuff didn't go so well.  I wanted it to be like puddy so I could build the beams out but I didn't use enough resin.  I was too afraid of how quickly it was going to set.  Then when I least expected it the epoxy I had in the plastic cup got really, really hot and boom!  Just like that it hardened. It was unmovable.  However, the epoxy I had applied on the beam was still very much like liquid.  Odd. 


Today I kept it the consistency of fluids to give the beams a good even coat of protection.  Then I added resin like mad.  Finally got it to be nice and thick and I started applying.  I loved it. It's like sculpting. The people who use this stuff often and well really are artists.  


I have to go back to Florida on Saturday so the work will come to a hault again but this is what's left to do:
1. build out third and worst beam.
2. sand all "lumpy" beams and spots.
3. paint. 


and I'll be FINISHED!!!!

A little Closer

This weekend we made good progress finally. Two weekends ago I primed everything except the three main beams with rot and last weekend was Halloween.  So, not much has been accomplished lately.


Friday I went to West Marine in Marina del Rey to get marine grade resin epoxy.  The salesman was amazing in helping me understand a product I've never used before and requires three parts to make it work.  As he was explaining  I was holding a squirmy,  almost-two-year old the whole time so imagine my focus.  

Saturday and part of Sunday hubby finished pulling out the rotted moulding and replacing it with a fresh piece of wood.  He also sanded and prepped the second set of window moulding so all I have to do is prime and paint.  


Today I bit the bullet.  The process of rebuilding the beams is freaking me out.  I'm worried about making a gooey mess and having to cut the end off and replace it with and end cap.  I've been told it's not the best method for extending the beams.  

I started with the beam with the least amount of damage so I could get a feel for working with the product.  It turned out ok.  I feel I need to add more in some parts but overall I think it'll look great once I sand and paint. Right now it looks like white snot.  

Next time I will work with smaller quantities of epoxy.  The stuff placed on the beams took time to solidify but what was left in the plastic cup hardened pretty fast.  I will also make the epoxy thicker so I can work with it easier as I have to fill in huge gaps.  


Today I tackled what is the scariest part of this project to me.  I feel good. One more weekend and we should be finished!  

I'm so over it!

Ugh, with Halloween this past weekend and Hubby and I being fatigued beyond comprehension the project is put on hold again.  


I'm over it.  It's not the work that I'm over, its the thinking about how to repair the problem well.  Our initial solution for protecting the moulding has been nixed.  Aesthetically we think it looks bad.  Not bad, just ok. But ok wont do.  It's all in the details.   

Week Three

I was so exhausted from last weekend I didn't get to update the blog.

Friday, we got scaffolding and set it up.

Saturday, Hubby had to work half day so I only had a few hours to continue stripping and taking off rotted portions of beams. I made great progress. One poor beam look like a nub it was so bad.

Sunday we were at Home Depot for 3 hours with our toddler. OMG! What a juggle! The idea was to get all our supplies in one trip and with one purchase. Our Home Depot card lets us pay off any purchase over $300, without interest, for a year. Funny, we were worried we wouldn't get to $300...we spent $600.

After Home Depot and after getting P down for a nap, Hubby went to work on the window moulding. We decided for most windows the top and side pieces of wood were ok. It's the bottom piece/pieces that are rotted.

Upon further inspection we realized pulling out any moulding was more intricate than expected. The bottom consists of three pieces and it looks like originally there was a fourth, which is now missing. One piece the Hubby pulled off wasn't just a square piece of wood. It had a special cut, a wedge, on one end that was made to slide into the interior window hole. Basically, the entire configuration is one big jig saw puzzle meant to support each piece around it solidly. The construction of this thing is amazing....but impossible to replace easily. We're now just trying to protect the wood that's there. While trying to put a piece of moulding back in place Hubby cracked a window! At this point less is more...ie, the less we do the more we'll keep.

The rains came on Tuesday this past week. We had to tarp the side of the house to protect the sanded wood from getting wet. Now, this weekend, it's 95 degrees, sunny and dry but Hubby had to work the entire weekend so we are on hold.

The rains and cold made for some pretty dramatic pictures of our hood. This is the view from our bedroom window. Because of the fog you can really see highlights of our neighborhood. On the far left two tall palm trees stand, hence the name of our community, Corbin Palms. On the right the play structure of our school and soon to be community park.

Takes One to know One

While I was out stripping wood my hubby was on the computer. I left this blog open on the screen. When he sat down he thought it was a page I had left open for research solutions to rotting beams. He looked at the pictures and thought "wow, those people have ugly wood!" and as soon as he had the thought he realized it was his own house he was looking at! We both laughed so hard when he told me. At least we're doing something about our ugly wood.

Beams, beams are good for.....

Our project this weekend (and for the next two weekends) is to "Krisel keep" our beams. The main posts/beams to our house are rotting on the outside. My husband noticed it while lying in bed admiring our house's windows one day. It's suppose to be an "El Nino" winter, which means a lot of rain, so we have to get on this project now while its dry and cooler.

The game plan is to/was to: pressure wash the beams and windows, strip all wood facing south, sand, repair beams, change rotted window molding, prime, paint and wa-la! Ah, it's never that easy.

During the pressure wash the stucco on the south wall started coming off easier than expected. I think we will want to finish scraping that wall clean. (add it to the list) That made me want to test the nearby garage wall that now has no stucco but does have an old coat of paint. Paint came off sort of easy. Now, I know I'll have to rent a professional pressure washer to do the entire house after we take the stucco off and before painting. (add that to the list)

Contrary to my memory, stripping the paint was not/is not easy. I use to refinish furniture in high school and I remember stripping pieces with 4-5 coats of paint and it was never this hard. I think strippers today are weaker than 20 years ago. As long as you left the stripper on for an hour the paint scrapped right off. Not so now.

I bought two different products at Home Depot. Jasco was a better buy but the trick is to slather it on, wait less than 15 minutes (contrary to instructions). As soon as you see the paint start to bubble, start scrapping. If the stripper dries it's too hard to scrape off. AND, it DOES NOT take off more than one coast of paint at a time! I looked at two other methods/products I found on This Old House.com but neither were available at Home Depot or Lowes.

This stripper from Home Depot is not worth the money.

This is the better buy. Not that great tho, in my opinion.

If you've tried using RemovAll or the Silent Paint Stripper I'd love to know how it worked. Next go around at this I'm renting the Silent Paint Stripper. It seems to the easiest and safest method with old lead paint....which I think we have and I'm sure I breathed in yesterday.

Next weekend we need to finish stripping and sanding. I thought we were going to be done with this phase. We still have more to do because the middle of the house is too high for my husband and I to safely reach. We should have rented scaffolding and we probably would have been further along. Half the battle was being in a safe position to muscle the scrapping.

I'm also looking at the best options for protecting and repairing the beams. So far these are a few articles I've found on This Old House.com:

Porch Column Rot

How to Repair Rotted Trim with Epoxy

Here's our rotting situation.