Sumner Star House

08/31/2025

12/16/2024

12/16/2024

Every child should get the opportunity to demo.

12/16/2024

That door IS going on the doorway.. soon… as soon as I finish wire brushing the painted hinges… which is very time consuming…. And I’m really tired of looking at that red door blanket so that will be getting a door too. Actually we bought 2 from the Blue Iris Motor Inn. Same era. Let me find the pic of them and I’ll put in the comments..

12/16/2024

Sometimes I do really high quality work… and sometimes I’m like.. “MORE FOAM! Foam it till it explodes!” But it’s really easy to cut and stuff in… so, whatevs. It’s not drafty anymore! 🤣 There was a plastic bag and a towel in there when I moved in. Hey, it kinda worked for a while! I’ll be shaving this down and patching/painting this wall. You know… when I’m done with 50 other projects. Trick is to invite people over for Christmas to set a deadline 😎and a 🔥 under my arse. 🎄

12/16/2024

Have you checked your exterior doors? They might have giant GAPS! 😬 Usually less than a $20 fix… if… you… can just.. not get distracted.. Squirrel!🐿️ Also can’t wait to refinish the trim… but.. priorities!

12/16/2024

Rip out the closet! WHY? But closets are amaazzzing!!! You must be crazy! Well, I am, but hear me out…

It was a toss up today… only a limited time before Christmas to accomplish some of these big projects..

I contemplated whether to stick to the highest priorities: Keep heat in/cold out(insulating doors and other gaps) - but that would mean going in the crawl space under the house and squeezing all the way over to the trouble spot where there’s a skunk-size hole in the foundation…..

I could take the porch door off and affix a 1” shim to the bottom to hold a sweep..(to keep the wind out) - might still do this later..

But Will is at work so I decided to work on the project adjacent to his bedroom.

Demoing the closet that will later become a bathroom. Will be relocating a radiator to his room and running pex up through the closet. Then I’ll put up petition walls so we can isolate the blue bedroom (Gideon’s future bedroom), a bathroom, and Will’s room.

12/16/2024

Saving these classic square head nails!!

Starting on a simultaneous project.. (I know, I know.. one project at a time..), but hey, there are sometimes delays on projects and I’m not going to waste my vacation time. I’m going to tackle everything I can! Demoing a closet to later become a half bath.. 😎 🚽

12/15/2024

Sanding Bandits! He lasted about 5 minutes which was fine with me! Safety glasses didn’t fit him and it’s very dusty!!

12/15/2024

Progress pictures! Dark to light-ish. Still a lot of sanding left. Old wood dark spots. Need to go deeper to get to the lighter wood. Then we’ll experiment with a white wash blend to lighten it even more. The goal is to NOT look like a bad paint job where just the knots and stain bleed through. So many bad white washes out there on the youtubes and instagrams…

12/14/2024

And so it begins! 😬 I have contemplated what to do with this dark room from the day I made an offer on the house. I wanted to keep it original but it’s so dark and clashes with the other rooms. Its SO dark. Did I mention how DARK it is?

Well I tried to scuff the thick glossy poly to prep it for paint. I didn’t want to paint it but the thought of sanding for days and weeks, making a huge mess, and struggling to get between every tongue-and-groove was driving me nuts.

The other challenge is that we live here, I react very very badly to the high VOC(smell) stain-blocking oil based primers and water-based primers are rubbish.

I tried a different product from Zinzer that was low VOC but still oil based. Yes it covered the stains but my word it was absolute rubbish to work with and it resulted in a huge headache and feeling brain dead for a whole day even after airing the house out and leaving for a couple hours. When it was 19 degrees out… and that was just the wall shelf! So I had to pivot again.

I considered bleaching or white washing but it has to be done right to look good. Which means….. YUP you guessed it! Sanding every little bit of stain out. So I’m bringing out the big boy sanders and all the PPE and… let’s see how much I regret this! 🤣😎