Airing out the Attic Bathroom

The newest addition to our crew, Ralph, helped us finally get rid of the hideous attic bathroom. He threw it down the stairs!

**Airing out the attic bathroom floor.**


**lovely restoration scene...**

Lovely Lorena Strips the Doorways

Talk about a Full Metal Jacket! The doorways of the house are cloaked in layers of lead paint. Today, Lorena's decked out in riot gear with sci-fi mask and all, attacking the toxic cracks an crumbling bits. The picture on the left is the balcony doorway she finished last week during the historic paints and faux finishes workshop. On the right, you can see her working on the front door (today). The wood beneath the deadly veils of lead is beautiful. By the end of the day, all will be revealed!

Some things we've learned about lead (mostly gleaned from Michael Black during the first Historic Paints and Faux Finishes Workshop):

• There are two means of ingesting lead: breathing it in, and allowing it to be absorbed into the bloodstream.

• It's the lead you can't see that is hazardous. In its particulate and vapor forms (it can be vaporized with a heat gun), it seeps into the membranes of your lungs. ** Do not allow it to become airborne!**

• While it is obviously best to prevent contact with lead if at all possible, while working on a historic home, that can be a little tricky. If you think you've been exposed to lead, get tested!

• While this is not really an effective preventative measure, we have heard that as a disaster management tactic, the consumption of food containing dark chlorophil (for example, wheat grass, kale, or molasses) is mildly beneficial.

  • For more information on lead:

The National Lead Information Center (NLIC) provides the general public and professionals with information about lead hazards and their prevention. NLIC operates under a contract with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with funding from EPA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Contact the National Lead Information Center to receive a general information packet, to order other documents, or for detailed information or questions.

The Miracles of Soy Gel

Nikki has been experimenting to find the most environmentally friendly and cost-effective way to strip the incredibly thick lead paint off these great old doors. There were so many epic layers of paint on them that they looked more like a geological survey of some untouched rock shelf than something that spends its days swinging back and forth in someone's home.
First, she applied soy gel, and waited. A lot of paint came up then, but not all of it...

Then she reapplied the soy gel, covered it with plastic, and let it sit. That seems to be working very quickly!

You can already see those layers of paint bubbling up under the plastic....

Floor Scraping

We have been working on the second story floors for the past week... what a disaster the old linoleum was! The pitch is nasty business, but we discovered that soy gel works well if left on over night under plastic.

We wouldn't wish this project on anyone, the process is slow and painful... but we are slowly getting down to the good stuff and will soon have our lovely old wood floors back!

Stay tuned for more pictures as we make progress.

As promised... The newly exposed floor sultrily peeks out from beneath its veil, whispering, "I was buried alive! What took you so long?"

Chimneys cleared, stairs scraped, floors found, and alliteration abounds!

So even though I posted that Ralph was about to begin demo in the blue room, now, just a couple hours later it's finished and he's in the attic tearing up the nasty floor of the bathroom to reveal large old boards beneath. I've never seen anyone work so fast.
**The room went from this:**

**To this:**

**To these:**



**Can you believe this guy?**
It's insane...you can look at the blue album below to see the before and after pictures of the demo. You won't believe this all happened in the small part of the afternoon in one day! And he didn't just do the demo and clean up in that time. He also neatly stacked hundreds of old bricks...crazy.

Blossom is lonely today. Reggie's not in the office, and I don't have time to play with her. I tried to have her sit quietly in my lap but she kept eating my sleeve.

Ralph found an old photo album in the attic wall. If you recognize any of these people, send an email to howardhall.farm@gmail.com to claim it.

Meanwhile, out in the yard, Harry's preparing the gigantic beams to be hoisted into the attic.

And Lorena is scraping years of accumulated lead paint from the Victorian staircase:

**Look at the lovely rose-colored wood under there! I can't believe people painted over it!**

The hero of the day is Ralph, who is now officially dubbed Speedy Gonzales:

-------------------

On his way out today, I was telling Ralph that it's scary how much work he got done, and his reply was,
"Well don't go into the attic then, because I also ripped out the bathroom floor..."

The Deep Freeze

As it turns out... Winter is not so welcome!

It has been a challenging week here at the farm, though I must say we've been incredibly fortunate that that the house, property, crew and animals have endured as well as they have... no major disasters.

We've managed to stay pretty cozy with our new woodburning stove and with more masonry, windows and doors sured up every week.

Speaking of... we've got some nice before and after images of our 19th Century doors which recently had 100+ years of paint carefully stripped away.