Staples and Cracked Beams

We have been working on the house, but at a much slower pace this past week. There has not been a lot to share as cleaning and scraping have continued. The changes have been so slight, that there is not much to show for it (or share, for that matter). One of the problems is that as we continue to clean up the varnish and paint from the stairs, we continue to discover staples...and more staples. Some of these staples are in so tight that it takes my poor husband 10 to 20 minutes to remove just one! This makes the improvements on the stairs move at a snails pace. This picture shows the staples collected from just four of the steps!

It also includes a bunch of threads from past carpets (yuck!).

We also got curious about a few things about the house, including the two beams that support the living room wall. These were previously covered with baseboard, quarter-inch round trim, and some kind of filler. Kind of cheesey, if you know what I mean. Plus, the materials used were pre-primed and meant to be painted. Whoever installed them must have thought that they were already painted, since nothing was added to them. When I tried to clean them, the primer turned kind of dingy gray - a rather unattractive color. We  thought that there might be some steel support posts underneath the trim, as this is basically supporting the master bedroom.

You can manage our surprise to find out that the support poles are actually wood beams. That is not necessarily a bad thing...unless one of them is severely cracked!

Which of course it is. This picture only shows part of the crack. There are actually five of them in all. Neither pole has been installed exactly straight either. My husband thinks we should replace it with a different type of pole...one that I can use for "exercise". Not a chance!

In the meantime, we are researching some options for better supporting the second floor, keeping in mind that we eventually want to have the opening to the living room flanked with bookcases. We think we may have to shrink the opening to about 60", which would be okay. Bigger bookcases means I can have more books!

We Have Landed...

We worked on the landing today and got a lot done. Needless to say, my wrists and arms are a little bit sore from all the scraping and scrubbing. These first pictures show the "before" and "after" of the left side of the landing...

Here are the before and after pictures of the right side of the landing...

And a closeup of the floor. 

All the surfaces still need to be sanded down and some residual paint needs to be removed; however, overall, the project has been going much faster and smoother than we originally anticipated. We were pleasantly surprised by how much lighter the floor became relative to the stairs. Where the stairs remain somewhat tinted red, the landing flooring is much blonder in tone. Once it is finished, I think it will be beautiful and well worth all the effort. Now, to turn the corner and complete the remaining steps.