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1927 Cottage Style Home: Remodeling Update

Before and after of the craftsman fireplace

We have been awfully quite here on the website mostly due to a incredible amount of work that is taking place on the remodel of our 1927 cottage style combined duplex.  Man, that is a mouthful.  We have heard it described as traditional, craftsman, cottage style, etc.  In reality it is a spacious brick home from the 20’s that really does not fit a typical style of the time.  The design feels traditional and almost classical with the mirrored sides, but has eaves and shingles that give it a cottage craftsman feel.  I guess we will go with unique brick?  We gave you a before tour of the home and highlighted some of the good bones.  However, in reality it is taking a ton of work and has some significant challenges.  Of course anytime you work on remodeling an older home you better plan on significant challenges!

Painting. Oh Lord the Painting..

Let us start with the painting…  We have purchased over 40 gallons of paint.  I’d like to thank Lowe’s rebates for making that possible.  (You can read some of my other ways to save money at Lowe’s here).  Each piece of trim is taking not one, not two, but three coats of paint to cover the chipped and yellowed paint.  Of course that is after Adam has gone to the trouble to clean it, nail any loose pieces, caulk and putty all the gaps.  Then there is the ceiling, doors, and walls to paint; the list goes on and on.  I would estimate we are about halfway through.  I would think we were further but I have one room that will require a lot of plaster work so that is going to slow the entire process.

Before and after of the cottage style kitchen
What a coat of paint, and a couple hours of de-greasing, will do for a kitchen.

Some of the hardest parts of the painting have been prep work.  You can’t tell from this next photo but this craftsman style mantel and surround was pulled a good inch away from the wall, had about 20 (not hyperbole) nails, and tons of holes and scratches to sand and fill.  Turned out lovely in the end!

Before and after of the craftsman fireplace
As you can see the paint isn’t even dry in this photo!

We have ripped out a bathroom vanity (two more to go), updated closet storage, hung fans, lights, and blinds.  Blinds were a biggy!  Because guess how many windows this house has?  54…  54 windows…  That’s a lot of curtains and blinds.  Speaking of windows?!  We just placed an order for 52 brand new ones (the missing two windows are in the kitchen that we plan on gutting in the next couple of years).  The replacement window process is worthy of a few posts itself.  As much as we are avid DIYers we have windows on 4 stories and did I mentioned there are FIFTY-TWO of these godforsaken things to replace?  We are contracting out the whole process; which is daunting too.  I think the big lesson here is that when remodeling an older home you have to know when to bring in professionals.

Before and after of the cottage style closet
As soon as the paint was dry we hung new shelving and racks. It was absolutely fabulous to not live out of a box anymore!

Oh and in the meantime we took out 7 trees, hired a wonderful landscaper to basically come bush-hog the whole yard, discovered a hidden gazing pond in the process, and placed 104 bags of mulch already.  Did I mention we have done all that in the span of about three and a half months?  With working full time, teaching in the evenings (Adam), getting promoted (Brianna), starting a new preschool, first grade beginning, and trying to rock out the whole parenting thing, I’d say we have been done in!

We found a pond underneath all of the overgrowth and brush
Yeah… There was a pond under there…

Craft Thyme (and sleep) have suffered BUT I think it has already proven to be worth it.  Peppered through this post are some before and afters of the the progress we have already made.  Plus we have some awesome posts forthcoming, in case you ever want to learn how to remove virginia creeper vines from a house, work with galvanized pipe to make awesome curtain rods (very different than the previous black iron pipe fixtures), purchase replacement windows, eradicate english ivy, properly paint an old door, or plant about 100 bulbs then stay tuned because we’ve got your back!

Junked up garage is now all clean
I don’t think I even mentioned the garage… At least there were some cool tools in there.

 

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CitriStrip vs SoyGel

CitriStrip vs SoyGel on removing the paint from this brass hardware

In a post from a long time ago and far, far away I chose to use SoyGel paint stripper by Franmar over CitriStrip paint remover. I had taken a notion to remove 6 layers of paint from brick and I pitted CitriStrip vs SoyGel and Soygel won.  It was a notion that turned out fabulously, but took forever.  SoyGel was cost effective and had a great workability that was perfect for a vertical brick wall.  Fast forward a few years and I find myself drawn to, yet, another old house.  And what do old houses have in common?  Layers of paint.  Lots and lots of layers of paint.

This time around I find myself wanted to recover some beautiful brass hardware from thick layers of old yellowed paint.  We decided to paint our closet door black, and yucky yellowed hinges were just not going to cut it.  I immediately said to Adam that we need SoyGel ‘like stat’.  To which he calmly replied, have you seen how much this stuff is on Amazon?

CitriStrip vs SoyGel on removing the paint from this brass hardware

It appears, in the intervening years from my 20’s to 30’s SoyGel has increased in price and CitriStrip has gone down.  Better yet, CitriStrip was available at the big box store right down the road.  I’m impatient at the best of times, so generally the item I can grab today is more likely to be bought.  PLUS it gave me a chance to make the comparison of CitriStrip versus SoyGel when it comes to removing paint.

If you want to read all about working with SoyGel you can go get the deets here.  Otherwise I’ll highlight the differences below.

CitriStrip vs Soygel

CitriStrip has a great smell!  In fact it is a little disconcerting to feel like you should be eating something that is clearly meant to remove paint.  So for scent alone it is a winner, though SoyGel doesn’t smell bad like chemical stripper.  The consistency was thinner than SoyGel which made painting it on the hardware a little easier.  The thick gel texture of SoyGel (Methinks that perhaps they got the name from this observation) was perfect for glopping on brick, but would likely be a pain to cover small intricate detail.  So I’ll give the CitriStrip bonus points for this application.

BUT there is a big but here: CitriStrip just didn’t pack as powerful a punch.  It looked like it was working, paint bubbling up in a pleasant, wipe me off kind of way, BUT (see I told you I would deliver) when I actually went to remove it the CitriStrip had removed one layer.  ONE.  Well okay, maybe I didn’t leave it on long enough or use the right tools.  So I put another layer of CitriStrip on and set the timer for another 30 minutes.

Using CitriStrip to remove paint

I spent the time cutting in the walls of the second living room while Adam focused on the corners.  I heard my alarm sound on the phone, turned it off and continued merrily painting.  This gave the CitriStrip plenty of time to work it’s magic.  But once bitten, twice shy; I wasn’t going to take chances this time and brought out the big guns: Steel Wool.  BUT…  Another single layer of paint removed…  Oh boy only two more to go!  I thought I had potentially coated the paint with removed paint thereby causing a paint seal or paintception.  So I washed the entire thing off and started again.  With similar results.

I actually went back and reread my previous post on SoyGel.  I remember the mantel being a breeze to remove but I couldn’t recall how long I had let the SoyGel set.  Trying to make this a fair comparison I took the CitriStrip and coated the hardware in one more thick coat and plopped it in a plastic bag to sit overnight. Well, that worked!  I was able to just rub off the paint and wash everything with soap and water.  I took a little more steal wool to shine up some of the brass.

removing paint from brass hardware.
Just note, this is the interim step in removing paint from brass hardware. I call it the goo stage.

So the final consensus for CitriStrip versus SoyGel?  Well it really depends on your money, time frame, and patience.  I personally think that SoyGel was much more powerful up front, but for a small job CitriStrip certainly did it.  My final consensus on which is better?  It depends on the application.  If you want something quick, cheap, and effective but you’ll need to really scrape and let it sit overnight?  Well CitriStrip works fine.  But SoyGel would still be my go-to if I decide to bring to strip all the paint off a large item like a fireplace or door.

Before and after removing paint from brass hardwareCitriStrip vs SoyGel