Well, here’s an announcement I’m happy to make: we have a functioning toilet in the Pope house! Running water is a dream come true! And as soon as the bathroom faucet gets finished, we’ll be able to wash our hands.
It’s a functioning toilet. Wow.
If only that were as easy to do as it sounds. Apparently, the really cute faucets that we picked out are “chingasos” for Chris (screwed up). They are delicate as daisies and must be carefully installed. Oops.
Well, it IS a pretty faucet and handles.
However, all the fittings are attached to the walls in each room with water in it, and nothing leaks, so I’m impressed as heck. We will soon have flushing and hand-washing options! I can’t wait to see Tubby with running water.
In other areas of work, the floors are finished, other than putting a bit more epoxy in the areas with the glass in them. Much of the stuff Chris put on the floor ran straight through the cracks to the ground. Oops. It will be strong now, however, with it finally sealed. The glass will be subtle, but a cool touch to the room.
The reception room, gleaming away.
We love the color that they came out, and all the character you can see (like my office has both a red splotch and a green splotch that did not sand out). I think it looks pretty darned spectacular. Now we have to let the floors cure and put in the trim around the edges. Ahh.
My office, shining.
On the second floor, Randy worked really hard to get Meghan’s future office all taped off to be painted. He had the brilliant idea of bringing in the old carpet from the other big room and spreading it on the floor so no drips would happen when the ceiling is being painted. They’ll then drag it to its original place, where it will fit perfectly and protect the floors when that room gets painted.
All taped off and ready to paint. I assume the pictures will come down.
We are not sure why this ONE room has a popcorn ceiling, but we are just going to smoosh it down and not remove it. Maybe no one will look up, right?
The wallpaper is off the fourth bedroom. Its shiplap may end up getting painted to lighten up the room, but that won’t happen for a while, because it’s the “spare room” right now. It’s nice to have the scary wallpaper gone.
The piece of furniture in the middle is a wardrobe that’s going in Lee’s office to be his “closet.”
This morning, Kathleen and I got some colorful pots for the new plants we bought. That will cheer up both the outside and the inside of the house!
Because my employer gave us the day off in honor of Juneteenth (good for them), Kathleen and I decided to do something fun. We went to the little local nursery in Cameron to get some plants for the new office, since it’s pretty smelly in there from floor finishing (another post).
New plants!
It was hard to decide what to get, because they had so many lovely things. I got myself a spider plant for my office, because the ones in Austin got aphids or something. Boo. She got a pothos for hers, but I’m going to make one out of the plant in my bedroom (and Mandi May have made me one, too).
We found our company on a poster! Kathleen is wearing her Thelma hat. I happen to have Louise.
I also got a peace plant, and because I messed up Mandi’s, I’ve made it the Mandi’s Mom Memorial Peace Plant. That pleased her. That’s it for indoors.
The peace plant, before watering. Before planting.
Kathleen got three roses for in front of her office and a hibiscus for the patio on the other side. She also got a fern and a corn plant. For now, they are on the front porch, but one is really for the reception office.
The hibiscus. It will be red.
She picked three pretty plants for the area around the mailbox. One the young man at the shop said was a Mexican honeysuckle. The others are purple. I had to look it up. PlantSnap said it was a golden dewdrop. Okay. Duranta erecta is its name and it will be big and thorny. Oh my. But it’s native to Mexico, so it may not make it through the winter.
Golden dewdrop, purple type.
Well, the nursery mostly has Mexican plants, so that makes sense! The people who run the place are very nice and take such good care of the plants. I’m very glad they’re here in our little town.
The Mexican plant collection.
After I went to the farrier visit, we planted the ones that go in the ground. I admit Kathleen did the hard work. I weeded. Then Chris also helped. It was fun, and the weather wasn’t too bad in the shade.
Thelma plants a foundation plant.
It all looks quite cheerful. Tomorrow Kathleen is going to work on the grass, and we are going to get some cheerful Mexican pottery for the indoor plants. Fun times. It’s feeling like a real, cared-for, old house!
Today is a day I’ve been waiting for a long, long time. The Big Sander has arrived, and the floors in my office and the front reception area are getting sanded. That also means that today’s the day we get to to our fun* arts and crafts project of putting pieces of broken glass in the holes in the floor to turn them into features.
Here you can see the glass before sorting.
I took some time on my lunch break to go through our can of glass pieces that used to be wine bottles and separate the really big pieces from the smaller ones. I also had to get rid of ones that still had the labels attached, since they didn’t get taken off before the smashing.
Lots of big shards of glass.
I was very careful not to get tiny shards in my fingers, but eventually I had nice piles of big chunks and smaller ones, which are what’s going in the floor. I’ll share how it comes out!
The smaller pieces of glass are in the container. Some may still be too big.
Meanwhile, Chris and Randy are wrangling with the Big and Little Sanders. Even after the first pass, the floors looked better.
Sanding in progress.
We think we will keep them the color they are, rather than staining them. It goes with our rustic theme, I think. Note that where you still see darker wood is where there are low spots in the floor. It is NOT even at all. After 115 years, it can be forgiven.
After the first pass.
I was so excited about the sanding that I took a movie. It’s probably not going to be a box-office hit, but it’s interesting to see how Chris does it.
Sanding Suna’s office.
Other renovation happenings are that Randy took the wallpaper down on the other upstairs room, the one that used to have giant hounds-tooth plaid in it. Lo and behold, that room also has plain shiplap walls. The other two had plaster, so I’d love to know why two bedrooms got plaster and two did not. I guess they were wallpapered all along.
Shiplap room, with view of future conference room, with plaster walls, through the door.
It’s a big day over here at the Hermits’ Rest, so you’ll be hearing more from me. I find it really handy to write all these happenings up, so I can refer to them later.
Looking toward the door to the balcony.
*Chris has let me know that my definition of fun is anything that I get to enjoy watching him do. So whenever I say, “This will be fun!” I mean, “This will be fun to me to watch you do!” His point is well taken.
We never know what we will find at the Pope house, which is probably true any time you renovate an old place like this. Examples include the arched opening between Lee and Kathleen’s offices and the window in my office that faces out into the hallway, which told us that was once an exterior wall.
The opening to the left of the ladder was hidden behind plaster and the scary staircase that used to be in the central hallway. Surprise!
Today we found another great surprise. Randy has been upstairs removing the wallpaper and other things from the walls in 3 of the 4 upstairs rooms. The room for Meghan’s office is fine as is. The one above Lee’s office has some trim to take down. We are making that the conference room, since it’s the biggest room. We’ll paint it the terracotta color we used on the back downstairs wall.
The future conference room. The carpet has been removed and most of this stuff is gone. The floor under the carpet is great. All we have to do is paint the walls.
The last room is the future storage room. It had wallpaper on every wall, all of which had water damage. Even the ceiling had wallpaper on it, which looked pretty darned awful. So, it had to go.
This shows the wallpaper on the ceiling. Ick.
I went upstairs to see what was going on, and saw that Randy had just gotten started. What? The walls weren’t plastered in that room; they are just shiplap! And wait a minute…the ceiling isn’t the brown beadboard that the other three rooms have. Whoa.
When I first saw the wall and a glimpse of the ceiling.
The minute I realized what the room would look like, I made sure Kathleen had seen it, too. Randy was sure to inform us that Lee said he would put drywall on the walls, so we’d better not contradict the boss. Ha ha, we laughed. We all have a say in this project!
Note that there was once a stove in the room. That hole goes to the chimney.
At lunch we showed these photos and explained how we’d love to keep it in its original shape. Of course, Lee and Chris were fine with it (duh, it will save money for Lee and time for Chris!).
It’s a fascinating collection of colors, but pretty coll on the ceiling.
This happy news made up for the fact that we don’t get the Big Sander until tomorrow, which delays the floor starting. Our trusty team will just have to work on the weekend, meaning I’ll get to help, too.
Here are some more photos of the room, freshly devoid of wallpaper. It should clean up nicely.
Three colors of ceiling.
This is the closet door. To the right is a door that leads to Meghan’s office. Convenient.
All the upstairs rooms have nice transoms.
Remnant of one of the previous wallpapers that were on the walls. I guess they never had plaster.
Looking out of the room
These windows were once exterior windows and are original. Now they look out on the stairwell.
I do love a good surprise. I wonder what new surprises the Ross house will hold? We close on Thursday!
The big day is coming: the Big Sander is getting rented tomorrow and the rest of the downstairs floors are getting finished.
Reception room clean. Doorway is sealed from dust leakage.
But, yes, it takes a lot of prepping to get rooms ready to sand. Both the reception area and my office are now empty and the floors clean as we can get them.
Looking toward the front.
Chris had to carefully check for nails and other metal stuff, because we sure don’t want to break a rental sander.
Ladders are in my office to reach the air conditioner and seal it off tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Lee is slowly getting his office ready. He brought over his pretty gray rug that we’d been storing in the Hermit Haus conference room. He even put some of his things in his bookshelf. It’s good to see him excited.
Lee’s rug.
Tomorrow should be interesting!
Lee’s bookcase with actual stuff on it. We are doing something special with all these cracks. My office window is most attractively sealed off.
There’s a big difference between anxiety (see earlier post from today) and being anxious. For example, I’m really anxious to be able to move out of my current dungeon office at the Hermit Haus and enjoy my cozy new office over at the Pope house. That’s a good kind of anxious.
I am very tired of looking at these paneled walls, and sitting in this dim room I’ve tried to cheer up with paintings and flowers. The bird hanger will hold my purse in the new office.
I am waiting, as patiently as I can, because the floors need to be re-finished, and we couldn’t do that this week. Next week, though, baby, sanding will occur. The old floors will look really cool, and we are going to have some fantastic little touches in my office. Ooh, I’m excited, and that is helping me have something positive to focus on.
Today Chris came by the beautifully cool Pope house to pick up a very important item: the door that’s going to be the base for my new desk he’s making. While we had it downstairs, we decided to see where it will look best in the room. We first tried it lined up with the window in the center of the room, so I could walk around it from all sides. One thing that occurred to me when we did that is that when I’m in Zoom meetings, the camera will be facing the bathroom. It’s a cool bathroom, but…
You can see here how a camera pointing from the center of the desk would look into the bathroom.
It would have looked pretty good from this angle, though.
So, Chris suggested we try angling the desk. With a little shuffling around, I saw that I’d have a better view out the window, a nice view of my wood stove and interior window, and it just felt good. Plus, my computer’s camera would be looking at either the barn door and the wall, or just the wall, which will have either a bookcase with nice objects on it, or a big painting. Ahh.
Pretending to sit, I can see everything pretty, the stove, my chairs, my interior window, the door.
This is what you’ll see looking in the door. Zoom will show either that barn door or the brick it covers when shut, like it is here.
It doesn’t look too weird from this angle, either.
There’s one more decision made.
Mmm, lilacs. I assume the paint won’t smell like them.
Meanwhile, Meghan came up to us and showed us colors she’d like for her upstairs office. She wants a nice lilac color. The color she chose will look great with the dark trim that we’re leaving up there (it’s in great shape). All we have to do to get her up and running will be clean well, paint the walls, and run a 220 outlet up to the office so she can have a window air conditioner that will actually keep her cool.
Felix says that when we are ready to finish out the rest of the upstairs, it will be really easy to put in an upstairs HVAC unit in the attic. That’s for another day, though!
What’s this? We found Tubby’s sibling WITH feet in a house near the Pope house. Ooh, if we buy yet another Victorian house, we might have another project.
Of course, we’ve been hearing how cool the Pope Residence is ever since we started working on it. Heck, it’s a pretty fine place, and we are excited to move into the offices. Kathleen’s in already, and Lee’s office is ready for him. We even have blinds for some of the windows (the big ones are, naturally, special order).
Window blinds, ready to be installed for privacy and light control. And what’s that above the window?
But now, the house is actually cool! That’s right! Felix and his very charming son showed up yesterday to get all our mini-splits and the regular air conditioning unit set up and running. You know that is a relief to Kathleen, since she was in there working and it was getting up to 99 F outside!
Mini-splits getting checked for how well they cool.
I got to enjoy watching Felix and son work on the system, and I was so impressed with how eager the young man (19) is to learn from his dad, and how patient Felix is with his teaching.
Installing the thermostat in Lee’s office.
We were all very happy to see each other, since it had been something like 5 years since I last saw a spindly teen, who’s now an adult!
Supervisin’ – in this case Felix was teaching his son how to measure the hole for the air conditioning filter properly.
The systems are all working great. If you ever need air conditioning work, we recommend Felix! His number is on his shirt, wink, wink.
But There’s More!
That’s not all that’s going on, however. Monday, Chris and I picked up a lot of the stuff needed to finish the downstairs at our new offices. He got to work yesterday and installed the counter-tops in the break room, which are lovely laminate, but don’t look too bad, I think, especially next to the metal wall. I was quite impressed with the angled edge that adds a wee bit more space for us, but won’t cause us to bump into the edge as we turn the corner. The hole for the sink still needs to go in and it will be ready for plumbing!
What the cabinets look like from my office door.
Looking from the back of the building.
This will be to the right of the fridge.
Another little detail that got taken care of is that the remaining tin ceiling tile finally arrived, after having to be re-ordered (it was supposed to be at Lowe’s, but no one could find it). First thing yesterday morning, Chris finished out the bathroom off my office. Hooray! Tubby has a nice ceiling to look at now.
The finished bathroom ceiling (other than a couple of trim pieces). That’s one blingy room!
Exciting New Plans
Because things are changing rapidly at Hearts Homes and Hands, the business that’s going to occupy the Pope house, our plans for the building are evolving. The original plan was for the beautiful front room to serve as both a reception/front office area and an office for the Care Manager (Meghan).
This ugly thing is the upstairs bathroom. Believe it or not, this is a huge improvement.
However, by the end of the month, Meghan will have more responsibilities that will require her to keep documents in her office that need to be protected for HIPAA reasons. That means she needs a door that locks (right now she’s in Kathleen’s old office at the Hermit Haus, which locks). There is no door to the reception area, because we wanted to preserve the beautiful woodwork there.
The lovely woodwork at left is being preserved (we have a door in the other opening; this is a photo from April).
So…we will be creating an office for the Assistant Administrator on the second floor, where a lock can be installed. The office is in a great room that looks out on trees and the balcony. All we have to do is put in a room air conditioner and paint the walls and she will be up and running!
This is the room that will be Meghan’s office, once the trim that will be put back and extra insulation is moved again.
The unfortunate consequence of this change is that poor Randy will have to move all that wood he moved IN that room back OUT to another room. That’s really fun in this heat. Not.
This office will be empty when Felix comes back and finishes the big air conditioning ductwork next week. It’s where the stuff currently in Meghan’s office goes, I think.
Speaking of Randy, he has been busy cleaning out the upstairs rooms and getting them “reno-ready.” Yesterday he removed all the carpets that were in a couple rooms. Ick.
The area where all the filing and storage stuff will go. We will remove the stained wallpaper, which extends to the ceiling, oddly enough. The stains are from a leak in the roof that was repaired.
The back room that has windows looking out to the stairwell is completely empty now. It’s destiny is to become the document storage room. State-regulated agencies generate a LOT of paperwork and much of it needs to be saved for audit purposes and CYA and all that. Since we will need to have immediate access to it, we need it to be in the building. So, the former giant closet room for the previous occupant will be storing something else.
The other side of the future storage room, which has formerly beautiful wallpaper that must come down. Those are original windows. The doors at right are my future desk!
That’s as far as we have gotten with the second floor. I’m not sure how much else we are going to do soon, since after we close on July 1, we will be working on the Ross house project, and that will be a LOT as well. More on that one soon!
It’s beginning to look a lot like an office! Because Kathleen has a lot of stuff happening in the next couple of weeks, and because she was tired of looking at piles of stuff that didn’t fit into her Hermit Haus office sitting in the meeting area, she decided to get her new office set up this week, as I briefly mentioned a couple of days ago.
What a nice desk setup!
She spent a lot of sweat equity (especially so, considering that the air conditioning isn’t hooked up yet) putting together her beautiful office furniture selections over the past few days. Wow, she picked some wonderful things, and the color scheme is so restful and rustic!
The blue corner chair ties in with the door.
There’s enough seating in her office to hold our management meetings, too, so we will be all comfy and cozy. What a great job she did! Later it will have all her art and accessories, and it will look even more amazing.
Love the lamp and cow chair.
Seeing her office looking so nice has all of us excited for when it’s our turn (Lee’s office is full of trim for the other two areas, and we still need to do the floors in my office and the main office…coming soon).
Getting Ready for Glass and Cabinetry
Another thing we are looking forward to is getting the glass for our interior windows and my office desk. Before they can install it, they need a template for the big arched window between Lee and Kathleen’s offices and they need the frame set up for the window in my office that looks out into the hallway.
The wood that sticks out is the frame for my office interior window. Also featured are nails that refused to go into the hard old wood. Time for plan B.
I am pretty darned impressed with this frame that Chris has made for the arch, which they will use to make the piece of glass. Curves are hard.
It’s nearly done now, but it’s in progress here.
It’s blurry, but there are two little open mouths in the picture.
It’s especially hard to work when there is a family of barn swallows right above you who are feeding their extra cute little babies. Who wouldn’t be distracted by that? We’re really enjoying them.
Anyhow, the cabinets are all painted and put together, so this morning Chris and I debated exactly where they are going to go. There’s a low electrical outlet that we have to take into consideration, and we need to leave the right amount of space for the refrigerator.
We hope to have a slanted end counter at the end here, if we can figure out how to cut it and put an edge on it.
But, I think we finally have a good plan and are ready to get the counter tops. Whew.
From the other side. The fridge goes in the gap.
I looked at the in-stock laminate counters, and I think there are some that will look just fine in here. It will be just fine.
For a bit of levity, I stood in for the refrigerator, like the guy in Maytag commercials. At left the door is closed. At right, I am storing food and handing Chris a delicious beverage.
We’ve even got a plan for when to get the big sander for the floors, and the bits of glass for the inserts are smashed to pieces. SOON!
What a big day it was at the Pope house! First, Kathleen started unpacking and building her new office furniture 🪑. It was fun to see her desk, cow chairs, lamps, and more. I tried out her office chair. Ahh.
Some of Kathleen’s furniture.
Besides that, Chris painted the break area cabinets. He first put a coat of Kilz on them to prevent more mildew. He also added some bracing to the flimsy construction. They will be fine.
Cabinets. The bottom one is braces to hold it together.
We have had trouble finding someone out here to cut our granite, so we’re just going to get a nice inexpensive laminate that we can cut ourselves. That will save time and probably money. We also still need a faucet. That will happen this weekend.
Trim for by the stairs got stained. Randy cleaned many of the windows.
Saving the Best for Last
But the most important thing is that Tubby got moved into the bathroom! First, Chris made some black wooden blocks for the tub to sit on. The theory is that it will distribute the weight over more area, so the tile won’t crack.
Suavely black tub stands.
The floor got cleaned very well (that will be hard later). Then, Chris and Randy (in a most manly fashion) lifted Tubby up and carried it right in! Thankfully it went through the door. Tubby looks so white and gleaming!
Clean room
Clean tub
Oh, so heavy
Made it through the door!
Positioning the tub rests
Final adjustment
Ta da!
Tubby goes home.
The sink and toilet are ready to go in, too. Ooh. Ahh. We just need a few fixtures and the plumbers can come!
It seems like a never-ending saga, but it is a saga that will eventually end and has certainly been great for keeping us busy during the pandemic and such. So, what’s been going on at the Pope Residence for the past few days?
Tubby has been getting all white and shiny. Chris has now applied two coats of porcelain paint, and plans to do one more, because he’s not real happy with the bits of texture that show up from using a roller on the second coat. I’m just happy to see Tubby standing up on those new black feet.
Standing up on Tubby’s four black feet!
The first coat finished. You can see brush strokes.
The second coat looks mighty good.
But if you look closely, you can see it’s not smooth.
Chris went into the shipping container and got our cabinets for the break area out. He was most disappointed to discover they had mold on them. It’s not surprising, since it sure has been wet outside, but we thought it sealed better than it apparently does.
Sanding off the ick.
Annoying mold.
Luckily, the stuff came right off, and the cabinets needed to be sanded anyway before they could be painted. While I’m glad to see they were made of sustainably harvested wood, I must also say that the construction quality is less than ideal. They are also really inexpensive, so what did we want, anyway? We will get them looking great before finding our granite and putting it on.
Proof that the cabinets are sustainably made. I believe that’s their best feature.
Other stuff’s been happening, too. The stairs are now curing away and look quite shiny and nice. While that’s going on, Chris is painting miles and miles of quarter-round trim. Whee.
Looking down the stairs. They blend nicely with the flooring, but aren’t exactly the same.
And Randy is back helping out! Today he is arranging things on the second floor to have furniture (new and old) in one room, wood and other supplies in another room, and who knows what in a third. The bedroom leading to our deck will get cleaned up and maybe a couple of pieces of furniture put in it for top-secret meetings (not in the summer!).
Furniture storage world. It has an air conditioner.
The room that will be emptied out and cleaned up.
The spare material storage room.
It’s a good thing we have so many rooms upstairs that we aren’t even using yet! We are tantalizingly close to being able to put the bathroom fixtures in and call in the plumbers…yay.
The Hermits' Rest 