Adventures at The Bunny Manse

When we bought the house it came furnished! We spent a pretty significant amount of time cleaning out trash and sorting through various layers of furniture - what could be given away, what few things we wanted to keep, what looked cool but really was broken trash... We put A LOT of bedframes in the summer kitchen to be dealt with later as we cleaned everything and found all the pieces. Since the plaster repair is progressing and we needed to clean out the upstairs where we've been storing the extra wood flooring, we had to clean out the summer kitchen this weekend. I think we found 10 complete headboards and footboards and decided to keep the two Jenny Lind and two metal frames.  Harris spent yesterday making benches out of the rest of them. These will be painted, cushions added, and we'll have seats for inside or outside depending on mood. He might sell a couple if we end up with many extras. Now to get the flooring from the upstairs and neatly stack it in the summer...

I kind of like the look of the raw pine. Harris put it up thinking I would fill holes and we would paint it. Maybe we should just poly it instead? Thoughts?

    Plaster drying on the stairwell and Ed putting the top coat on the walls. Bottom picture is detail work in the suite bathroom downstairs that Harris is finishing today.    

 We have no AC. Have I mentioned that?   Jeffery Harris realized that he has no job and classes don't start for another few days. Instead of sitting in a loud hot house all day why not take off with Madeline Harris and go to the beach.   Under the deck at Aunt Ellie and Uncle Dave's house in Southern Shores just back from the beach with her favorite shell.   Spring is in Durham working...and blogging...and catching up on bad reality tv.  

Materials being used View from the doorway   View from the living room. On the stairs you can see the three coats of plaster. The brown/yellow color is the original plaster, the pink is the plaster weld for the scratch coat, and the silver is the top coat of finished plaster. On up the hallway!     This means plaster repair in the first floor is complete! (except the tiny hallway off the hallway into the bathroom)

 What the entryway currently looks like.     The stairs, but with a second false stair built over the stairs     The upstairs landing (view from the stairs)   Before topcoat in the living room....     Our drying green plaster in the living room...    

12-13 weeks until baby _________ Renee Carpenter arrives. Names currently in the running Margot Frances Matilda Joyce Eleanor Ruth and probably several others I'm currently forgetting. Harris and Madeline have also probably already nixed some of those ideas and I've forgotten that as well. Our asbestos is abated, now just have to have the air test performed to make sure they got it all. Electrical work will start on the 27th. We're upgrading the service from the street to 400 amp and will also fix a couple of random things that were...strange choices someone else made at some point in time. Plaster continues apace. The living room and entryway/staircase should be finished by the end of next week. The downstairs bath - we're waiting for tile to arrive then have to find someone to install it. The living room floor still has to be addressed, but that can't happen until all of the plaster work is fiinshed in there. Ben is working on fixing he orig...

Top coat of plaster should go in the living room this week. We then have the two windows to repair, rehang the light fixture, and replace/sand/seal most of the floor.  THEN!!!! We have a living room and dining room instead of 'couch room'!!! Color for living room plaster tint

We still have an Iron Fireman in the basement. This was a top of the line coal fired boiler system for a house during the depression. The coal fire heated the steam which then pushed hot moist air through the pipes and radiators all over the house. The radiators are long gone, replaced seemingly with the Warm Morning heaters that got us through the winter. The basement however still has some of the steam piping coming off of the furnace and running around the perimeter of the basement and crawlspace. And this is what is covered in Asbestos to insulate againsts heat loss. We got a quote from AB control to abate the asbestos and it was pretty high (~$4,800) so Harris found someone in Greensboro to give us a quote, EME industrial that came in ~$3,300 for the same scope of work. They are currently at the house cleaning out the asbestos while Ed & Brad plaster and Harris studies for class. It's a busy day!

The exterior of the house...on the south and west elevations you can see how the porches will be reopened into a sunroom and entrance on the first floor and a bank of windows on the second floor. We're also planning to add a decklet to the second floor area. And the interior! Sara moved the bathroom around a bit to keep all the plumbing in one central area where it's already piped through the ceiling.