Q: We have a 1950s home, and I have a question on the order of projects involved with gutting the bedrooms. Can you discuss the best order to proceed with the following projects?
• Replacing windows, which currently have tile window sills. We want paintable interior wood frames trimmed out with molding for a more traditional look.
• Replacing baseboard molding with a different style and adding molding at ceiling.
• Repairing/refinishing the hardwood floor. It still has staples in it from wall-to-wall carpeting; we will have a gap once the molding is removed.
• Replacing doors on the closet and adding wood trim/doorframe.
• Replacing the plain oak door to the room with a six-panel-painted door and wood framing and trim.
• Skim-coating walls/ceiling of a room to smooth surface (the walls are plaster).
• Replacing the ceiling light.
• Also, can we add insulation in the exterior walls without ripping walls to the studs?
• Painting.
A: Pull out all the old stuff you are trashing first. Then replace the windows and their liners (not the casing yet).
Insulate next. Yes, you can blow in insulation from the exterior, but you will be left with small plugs in your siding. You could also do it from inside, given your situation with imminent work to be performed. And that should save you having to gut out the plaster totally.
Do consult with the person doing the skim-coating, and compare costs with replacement drywall, factoring in reduced conventional insulation costs.
Next paint the walls, finish the floors, install the new lights and re-install the doors and trim, in that order.
But with painted doors and trim, it is not quite as simple as I make it all out to be — the big debate is whether to prime and paint after all the trim is up, or before, or some combination thereof.
The former requires more masking and cutting-in; the latter requires you to do loads of touch-up. Every situation is different regarding amounts of trim, primers, paint colors and sheens, so consider all the ramifications.
If hand-painting it yourself, I would paint the whole deal already up and installed. With a spray rig, I would pre-paint and do touch-up in most cases. But that's just me. Just know that no matter which avenue you take, you will wish you had gone the other way. And that is a normal human reaction.
Speaking of human reactions and various painting methods, three years ago my wife and I purchased a badly rundown six-plex. Some of our early struggles remodeling it were chronicled here in this column.
I'm happy to say that its transformation is complete — after a lot of grief, money, sweat and time. It's now the nicest apartment in the neighborhood. And I have to say I think we have dragged the neighborhood up, kicking and screaming, scaring off the dirt-bags and drug dealers.
Being eternally optimistic and unrelentingly stupid, we bought another one a few weeks back, this one eight units, right across the street. Not wanting it to consume our lives, I told my wife that we would slowly remodel this time, one unit at a time, not the whole building like last time.
She made me a solemn vow — and I even had witnesses hear this. We agreed we were going to only "paint" in the other units and re-rent them as they came vacant. Together we gutted one unit.
But then I left Lisa alone for three hours with a crowbar, and she had another one totally gutted when I got back.
To her, "painting" means all the dark brown '70s wood cabinets, all the doors and basically the entire blasted apartment! And since this would involve masking off all the carpet and countertops that were going to eventually be replaced anyway, wouldn't it be easier to just tear it all out now, she reasoned?
And I ask: Men don't understand women?
Darrell Hay is a local home inspector and manages several rental properties. |
