HEY GUYS! I’m back!
So here’s the scoop: at the end of the month (God and all other deities willing) I am buying a beautiful old Dutch Colonial Revival in the hills of the Joliet Cathedral area that was built in 1908.
Our current house is still a clusterfuck of stress as we are 1.5 weeks out from closing and are still waiting on the appraisal to come back before we can finish negotiations for that sale. YIKES!
I am biding my time by packing and making plans for my new (old!) place and also trying to keep my boys from killing each other because it’s summer break and they spend all their time either insulting or being insulted. Ah youth!
I am VERY excited to get into this place and as I start renovating, share with you guys what I am doing! I have NO experience with anything like this at all, but I know that I will learn and do as much as I possibly can on my own. This means multiple fails, lots of fuck ups, and hopefully laughter and life experience!
Most of the house (trim, floors, all woodwork) is oak – and most of it is in really good shape! There is one very large window that is dark wood and we were trying to puzzle out why ONE window would be different. Then we looked closer. OH ok – this is just years of built up something! Wax? stain? shellac? Who knows. I am a member of a restoring old houses group on facebook so I posted these pictures and asked if anyone had experiences removing stuff like this without damaging what was underneath. I’m lazy, don’t want to have to sand and refinish if I don’t have to!
Most of the comments were helpful, looks like I’ll be trying denatured alcohol (I’ll keep you updated on this process once I get in there and start!) but then there was this one.
I don’t even OWN the house yet and already people are seeing ghosts and this one had me rolling with laughter and also SO stupid excited that I am about to own a home old enough that someone sees GHOSTS in the WOODWORK. I just cannot. and by the way guys, I 100000% believe in ghosts… but just…. this was a stretch.
Life is good you guys, life.is.good.