Robert and Michael's Home and Gardens - Fellsway East, The West End of Malden, Massachusetts

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Welcome to Robert and Michael's

(Osiris and Tiger the cats) Home, Part II

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You just gotta love all that beautiful woodwork! The image on the far left was before the treads and floors were refinished just after my sister (Thanks Judy!!! Couldn't have done it without you!!) ripped up all the carpeting, nails, staples and tacking. Polishing that wood is sure a lot of work! And you can't find solid 5 panel doors anywhere. The middle image shows the almost completed hallways...wallpaper gone and the walls are now Linen White, a nice neutral background for all my photography.

This is the lower part of the entrance hallway on the left. You can see more of that hideous brick veneer (which we are scared to remove for fear of taking off the plaster...update...Robert got the nerve on 01/05/1998 to rip it off and most of it came off fairly easily with only 2 small holes!) It is hard to see but in the right image there is some very nice leaded glass detail.

Completed Hallway view #1

Here you can see the completed stairs with the brick veneer removed, the holes patched, and the Linen White paint.

Main Stairs and Hallway completed

View of both sets of stairs

On the left is a different view of the main stairs. You can also see the "back" stairs. On the right is the completed upstairs hallway.

Completed Upstairs Hallway

Welcome to the next leg of our journey in our "Old Gambrel". We now bring you up the next set of stairs into the attic. This was quite the bonus and most unexpected: it has heat and there are the original hardwood floors under the indoor/outdoor carpeting.

Image #1: This is looking up the staircase to the attic. Original oak newels, railings, treads and risers are intact, unbelievably. Wallpaper has been removed (one stubborn roll actually took a huge chunk of plaster off the wall right on my head!) and we actually have finished patching, priming and painting (Linen White, same as all the other halls.) Hope to have those pictures up around Feb. 1st.

Image #2: This is the landing at the top of the stairs. It's about 65 square feet, a nice little place to read. This is all painted also.

Attic bedroom #1

Image #3: The smaller of the 2 bedrooms up there. There was some hallucinatory wallpaper from the 1970's left: black and orange circles. Whew, gave me a headache just looking at it. The rest of the room is awash in paneling and dropped ceilings (UGH!). We have begun our excavation under the paneling, and were delighted that the woodwork around the window and door is still intact, as well as the baseboard. There is a nice sized cedar closet under the eaves.

Image #4: This is the larger of the 2 bedrooms. Same paneling and dropped ceiling. This will be another guest room, eventually.

Attic Bedroom #2

And now on to the latest and most time consuming project which is still ongoing as of 03/10/1998: The back hallway between the kitchen and the dining room: Originally it was the same as the attic rooms upstairs: dropped ceilings, paneling and plastic folding closet doors. Again lots of hugs and a HUGE THANK YOU to our friend TOM for all of his help!

On the left you can see after the ceiling was ripped out and the paneling removed: all those lovely wires that needed to be put back behind the plaster walls and ceiling. Unfortunately there was also a sheetrock ceiling, but with huge unrepairable holes where the wiring was, so we ripped that out too. But the original plaster ceiling was in terrible condition, so a new one will have to be installed. Parts of the plaster walls were also gutted and wallboarded (is that a new verb?)

In the middle is the original wood floor which was underneath the linoleum which we had to rip out also. The adhesive was scraped off by hand and this is where is it right now. That will be sanded and refinished. On the right you can see that under the paneling was also a layer of plastic tiles which we also removed.

On the left you can see the view into the dining room with the new wood closet doors installed (boy, was that a bitch!) and the new oak wainscoting which we feel is more appropriate for the age of this home. On the right is the view into the kitchen showing the new oak mouldings. Our plan is to put a fabric wall from the top of the wainscoting to the ceiling.

As of 2/16/1999, we have stripped and refinished the woodwork around the doorway to the dining room, the new ceiling has been installed, primed and painted. New moulding around the ceiling is up and all the new woodwork has been stained. The formerly painted white door to the dining room has been stripped, sanded and stained.