AND SO THE JOURNEY BEGINS…Part 7

We realized that we missed something that we did before we started in the office. We had a work day, well let’s be honest, we have a lot of work days. LOL! Anyways, on this work day, we had a couple come out and help us for a day. The husband worked on the yard, while his wife helped do as much cleaning up of the upstairs as she could. The picture of the wife helping was posted in Part 6.

Our next step was to work on the landing room. This involved cleaning, not only the original mess but the garbage bags of stuff that we threw away from going through boxes for the office. The original messy pictures were posted in Part 6.

We cleaned the area. We pulled out all the staples in the floor. Swept the area again and got up all the additional trash. What is needed in this room is fresh paint on the walls, ceiling, doors, and trim, the banister polished and cleaned up, and the floor sanded, stained, and hopefully only one coat of polyurethane (we will see), and maybe a new light fixture. This room (and the office) has had a two-to-four-persons team on it. The paint we have decided to go with for this room is as follows: For the walls, Valspar 2000 Eggshell Finish Paint in Clay Angel. For the trim and the three doors, we picked Valspar 2000 Semi-Gloss Finish Paint in White, and for the ceiling, we are using flat ceiling paint in White. As for the floor, we learned our lesson with the hand sander, we rented a sander to do the floors in the landing room and the Photography Studio/Wellness Room (these services will not be offered during the same time slots). Anyways, we have used Minwax Satin in Gunstock to stain the floor. We have not used any polyurethane on this floor as of yet. We decide that is one of the last things that we will be doing since we are still moving things upstairs as we find them. However; when we do, we will be using Minwax Polyurethane for Floors Semi-gloss Hardwood Floor Finish in Clear. As for the painting, we need an extension pole for the roller to get the wall that extends from the stairway to the ceiling. We also decided to finish painting the walls in this room and along the stairway, until we are finished moving items up and down the stairs. The reasoning, you may ask, is that we noticed that we have left dirty hand prints on the walls as we move things around, so this is just to try to save us from having to re-paint the whole room.

As the painting started with one person working on the walls and one working on the ceiling, another team member went into the soon-to-be Photography Studio/Wellness Room to pull out the staples that were left in the floor.

Once the staples were pulled up, we moved everything out of the room and started on the painting. The paint for these walls is Valspar 2000 Satin Finish Paint in Hematite. For the trim and the three doors we chose Valspar 2000 Semi-gloss Finish in White; and for the ceiling, the flat ceiling paint in White. While we were working, a couple of friends stopped by for a visit and wanted to help us for a little bit. Say hello to T-Rex and Hei Hei.

We rented the American Floor Sander from Home Depot and the fun of sanding the floor began. We think that T-Rex and Hei Hei did a wonderful job!

We continued with the Minwax Satin Stain in Gunstock and we will continue with Minwax Polyurethane for Floors Semi-gloss Hardwood Floor Finish in Clear. We decided to hold off on the polyurethane until we are coating the landing room. The crew, consisting of Jacob Murphey and Kristoff Kesler, did a great job as well.

Before we leave the upstairs and talk about the stairway, we just wanted to show you another reason that we decided to hold off on the painting in the landing room and the stairway. As you all know, things happen, and you just make the best of the situation. While staining the landing room floor, we got some stain on the baseboards and we just might have gotten some of the stain on the wall.

Now we go to the stairway. Once again, we had, what seemed to be, two million staples to pull out. This area might take a minute, because of what we want to do. You notice we said “want” and not “are going”, well that is because what we want to do and what we can do may not be the same thing. However, the plans here are to stain the steps, trim them out, and possibly do some small details. Pulling out the staples and partially painting the walls are all that we have done so far in this area. Oh, and say to Hei Hei again. He just had to be in another picture.

We head downstairs to the bathroom. There are two bathrooms in “The Manor” (remember, that is our loving nickname for this beautiful old house). The smaller of the two will be turned into a small laundry room. We are keeping the bigger bathroom as a bathroom since it is wheelchair accessible. The toilet was fixed as soon as possible; however, we still have to fix the drain in the sink. It still leaks. We still have the working sink in the small bathroom, so this part of the project is on hold for the moment.

The walls are painted with Valspar 2000 Satin Finish Paint in Hematite. The ceiling is a flat ceiling paint in White. The trim has been painted with Valspar 2000 Semi-gloss Finish Paint in White. The railing was taken down and painted with Rust-Oleum Gloss Vintage Gold Metallic Spray Paint and Primer in One. We hung a mirror, a soap dispenser, and a couple of pictures, and we added a small table in the corner. The floor will be put down as soon as we get it. Here is something that we found interesting about this bathroom; the light switch is on the outside of the bathroom. It’s not something we would have done, so all we can say about this is “it’s a choice”. We also noticed that there is missing trim, we will be adding that to this room as well.

As T-Rex and Hei Hei were leaving to head home, we decided this is where we will leave you. We are getting closer and closer to our goals. Some of our goals might have to change from the original ideas, but that could just be a “for now” situation. And, that’s ok. We are rolling along the best that we can.

We thank you for taking the time to follow our journey. If you would like to help you can contact us in the ways listed below. Thank you, Collierville, our friends, our family, and our employees for your time, support, and your love! All of our information is below if you would like to follow, volunteer, or donate to the preservation of the J.W. Houston House (“The Manor”).

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/midnightstarphotography

Website: https://www.midnightstarcollierville.com/contact-10

Email: info@midnightstarcollierville.com

or if you would like to help with a donation: https://www.spotfund.com/story/5dfade47-dc05-493c-91b2-e45356b9a24d?fbclid=IwAR10zSj5PoDijNSZO8Tz1ScdSAUxt3nculDSGeVVLaaDY461G3P42dWed5c&SFID=HoustonHouse