The Historic District

Beautiful. What an improvement. It really highlights the nice features of the porch and arched doorway.

Love that paint scheme!

It strongly reminds me of one of my favourite but long-gone blogs, the 1907 Miller House restoration.

Wait a second, I googled it and the web page is online again!
http://www.bctonline.com/~whisper/house.html

Texas!!! I remember that blog! They were originally on OHW. Can't recall if they went to WG.

BungalowMo wrote:Texas!!! I remember that blog! They were originally on OHW. Can't recall if they went to WG.

It was one of the first blogs I read! I don't think Kassandra made the move to WG, she stopped posting a while before OHW drowned in spam.

It will soon be 20 years that I purchased my 1922 Bungalow home. The interior has been a slow restoration as the house was very livable as it was bought. I finished up the last major room restoration last fall. This picture shows the room from the fall of 1996:


Over the years I stripped and refinished the window/door moldings and doors. The baseboard was finished up the fall of 2015. Finally did the wall treatments and refinished the floor in November 2015. The wallpapering was a nightmare. The Bradbury and Bradbury frieze is digitally printed, but they now use "archival water based inks". I'm used pasting and booking the wallpaper, applying it to the wall and shifting and moving it to the final position. It is second nature to use a wet sponge to work out the bubbles and clean the paste off the surface. Hanging this "new paper" requires a special "low moisture clay based adhesive" which is applied directly to the wall. You then apply the wallpaper onto the pasted wall. I was able to special order a gallon of this elusive paste through Home Depot. You can't get this new paper wet on the surface and once it is on the wall it does not shift... you paste the wall and then apply the paper and pray you are dead on level. I've used Bradbury and Bradbury papers pretty much exclusively in this house. I've always been impressed by the quality and accepted it was upper end expensive. In the past, this size digitally printed frieze paper came two on the paper. Now it is just one. I'm pleased with the end result but I will never hang this style wallpaper again.

The wallpaper below the chair rail is the traditional hand screened paper. The wheat based wallpaper paste had to be special ordered through Amazon. Local stores no longer stock this once staple item. It is this kind of aggravation that takes the enjoyment out of restoration.

November 2015:

Nice job Jamie!

I too remember the Miller "haunted house" blog. That was an amazing restoration.

what a dramatic improvement. bringing the wood back sure made a night and day difference. it looks beautiful!

I haven't posted this one yet...

Gezzz, all these projects look so well done.