We didn’t get much accomplished on the house this weekend, but what we DID do made a large impact.

After narrowly escaping house work on Saturday, Jean and I made our way out to the Kennedy School in NE Portland to celebrate a friend's birthday. Her husband had rented a room in the school (now a McMenamin's of course) and set it up with a buffet as well as Mahjong and poker tables afterward... sadly, we were both beat and had to call it a night around 9pm. We did have a great time, however, and look forward to seeing both Doug and Sunny at a Bite of Oregon in a few week's time...

Sunday I finished installing the filler panels and cornices for the tin ceiling, so all the tin is finally up. I also stained some molding to finish off the beams where they meet the wall, but realized too late that I screwed up my angled cuts and will need to buy more molding to redo them all. Sigh, I even second checked it all before cutting everything. I must have been tired when I was working on that part...

Jean then took over and started painting the previously stark-white beams. Two coats down this weekend and she'll pick up next weekend with the faux finishing part to add a wood grain texture and glaze to add some much needed depth and complete the look. Even only partly done, though, the beams are really starting to tie in the room. I hadn't realized HOW much the white beams made the room look unfinished. The two coats of brown are already a HUGE improvement. I can't wait to see how the faux finishing works :)

The link below will take you to the Renovations album on my Picasa page:

renovations

We worked on the tin ceiling more today. Got the main field up in one section:


Then decided to add the filler and cornices in the same section before we move on to the rest:






Next up is to complete the first section and tighten up all the seems, then move on to do the same thing for the other 3 sections.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure my thumb will survive this ceiling installation. I have hit it no less than 150 times just installing what you see in the pictures.

Rewind to yesterday at 2.30pm when the electrician arrived to find our daunted hero eagerly greeting him at the door. Never a good sign for service professionals I am guessing.

We chat about the issue and I run down the laundry list of troubleshooting steps I had already taken. To my credit, he seemed fairly impressed with my troubleshooting kung-fu; so I got to keep a small amount of dignity at least.

I let him get to work checking the circuit for continuity, etc. and mosey on back to my office to keep an eye on work. As the electrician moves about the house, we continue to chat and talk through the problem.

Let me note here that since Saturday, I had had nightmares (waking and sleeping) of a whole house re-wire project being necessary. That is $25k I just don’t need to spend right now...

Approximately an hour into the diagnostics, he still hasn't found the break, but it is obvious there is one somewhere in the line. At this point I remind him that the plug next to the fireplace is dead as well which is odd since it is the only outlet downstairs which is displaying an issue. This oddity has been bugging me since Saturday when we encountered the problem, and my gut keeps telling me that is where the solution is also. The electrician agrees and we check out the receptacle, which looks perfectly stellar.

Of course at this point he asks me about the wall-plate switch next to the fireplace, wondering what it controls... "Oh", I say... "that is presumably for the non-existant fan motor in the fireplace which was removed sometime long ago prior to us moving in."

And that, my friends, is where things got better. I recalled opening up the grill to allow the removal 3 very long dead squirrels and had seen 4 uncapped wires protruding from the side wall. I thought nothing of them since they had obviously been like that for a decade or more. Unfortunately, it seems I must have bumped them during the removal of dead squirrels.

The ONE thing I completely forgot about and never checked resulted in a slightly expensive lesson learned. The exposed leads were capped in the fireplace, the breaker flipped, and it stuck. Problem Solved! Power is back to the upstairs and most importantly, my home office.

The good news from all of this is that the $180 for the diagnostic was easily and immediately applied to the installation of a whole-house surge suppressor which was also installed yesterday. So while it was indeed an expensive lesson, I still came out okay with additional protection for my home electronics and home office setup.

Whew. The future looks a bit brighter once again.

Last night, Jean and I decided that if we didn't order lighting for the living room now, that we'd just be annoyed by not having that room complete after painting and installing the tin ceiling. So we up and ordered 4 sconces to replace the originals currently on the walls.

Since the living room seems to really love the Mission/ Arts & Crafts styling, we opted to continue in the same theme... so we picked up two each of the following:

These will be mounted by the stairs and front entrance:
Meyda Tiffany reproduction of the famous Green Diamond Sconce first designed c1910 during the First American Mission Movement:





And these will flank the fireplace:
Meyda Modern Arts & Crafts Switched Sconce - Pasadena Rose Modern Mission Motif c1919:



Of course all this was brought on by the fact that our tin ceiling panels, cornices, and filler all arrived this week. The main field panels we will be installing after painting the walls look like this:



I think we will be painting it as well to help open up the room (low ceilings in the living room aren't conducive to darker treatments).

Work will begin tonight or tomorrow, depending on how we feel. In either case, before/after/in-progress pictures will be taken and posted over the next few weeks. The sconces should arrive sometime in the next 2 weeks, just enough time for us to finish painting and get to work on the ceiling installation...

So, through the home renovations and repairs, there comes a time in everyone's life where they just need something to LOOK GOOD.

To that end, we just picked up a great addition for our living room which really ties in the whole style:



Yes, my Mission style kicks your wussy Atomic Age's ass. Bow to my wicked mad interior designer kung-fu skillz.

Now we just need to do... oh, -everything- else!

We got the keys, have ordered flooring, and begun some minor demolition...
Read all about it here: http://siobhan-genie.livejournal.com/88945.html

Sorry bout the cop out...