View from the Innside

mural progress after Valentine's Day

The mural artists ("Airbrushing by Sandy") have completed their work and moved on to the next job.  It is absolutely gorgeous and completely changes the look of the stairwell.

You know how it is when you drastically change something, and it's so much better and so delightful that you just keep going to look at it?  That's how this is.

Since Sandy and Judy left, I worked for 12 hours last Friday on the rest of the pink paint on the ceiling and walls at the upper end of the stairwell where they didn't do any painting.  The remainder of the day was spent preparing, priming and painting one coat of white on the trim and molding.  What a difference!  It now looks so crisp and clean, and it's a cohesive color scheme instead of mint green walls, dark rose carpet and plum-colored trim.  And with the lighter pink walls and white trim, the light really bounces around in there, lightening up the entire area.  I have to put the final coat of white on the trim since it's still a bit streaky with some of the plum color. 

Today, I hope to be able to put the second coat of white on the trim and finish it so Steve can put the switch back in and I can put my vacuum cleaner and tools back in the closet.  Then the real chore begins, because I have five doors to paint--the door at the top of the stairs, a little access door to some plumbing, the original door from the kitchen to the cellar, the laundry room door (louvered, no less) and the door to the Wine Cellar Suite.

I have lots more ideas for improvements.  My trouble now is that I have far more ideas than time, but it will get done eventually.  My goal for the six years we've been here is "improve one thing every day."  I've stuck to that nearly every single day, and now there's not a room in this house where I can't point to multiple things and see what's improved.

I’m having fun--come on along!

Kathy

Bottger Mansion of Old Town
historic bed & breakfast
110 San Felipe Street NW
Albuquerque, NM   87104
www.bottger.com

 

mural progress

Here's a view of the progress on the stairwell so far.  It's amazing how quickly this is going, but when experts do something, they always make it look easy.

Sandy and Judy previously said they thought they would have it done by Sunday, but I want to make sure they have a little time to see some things around Albuquerque and enjoy their time here as well.  We also all just realized it's Super Bowl Sunday.  While I don't care about football and won't watch the game, some people will. 

This is turning out to be a magnificent addition to our bed & breakfast, and I can't wait to see it completed.  On the other hand, I have a ton of work to do once they're done, like finishing painting the rest of the walls and ceiling, prime and paint all the trim, and install two more light fixtures.

But it will be oh so lovely!

I’m having fun--come on along!

Kathy

Bottger Mansion of Old Town
historic bed & breakfast
110 San Felipe Street NW
Albuquerque, NM   87104
www.bottger.com

 

stairwell in need of improvement

This stairwell has needed updating so badly, I don't really want to show the "before" pictures, but here they are.  The walls were mint green, the trim is a light plum color, and the light fixtures didn't put out nearly enough light.

So far we've put in new light fixtures at both the top and bottom of the stairs, which has added a lot more light.  Most of the stairwell now has two coats of a pale pink paint.

Our mural artists are now here and are busy at work painting some grapes and grapevines, faux arched windows, and lots of other details. 

The rest of what we'll do has to wait until after they're finished.  We had to finish the part where they would be working, and the rest we can do later.

Once they're done, we'll finish painting the rest of the stairwell, paint the trim a glossy white, install a light box fixture, and install rope lighting in a track along the top of the steps.

I have to admit that even if we only painted the walls and installed the new light fixtures, it would be a thousand percent improvement, but the painting they're doing will take this stairwell from nice to extraordinary. 

I’m having fun--come on along!

Kathy

Bottger Mansion of Old Town
historic bed & breakfast
110 San Felipe Street NW
Albuquerque, NM   87104
www.bottger.com

 

Introducing our mural artists

Our mural artists, Sandy and Judy, arrived late Tuesday night.   As soon as I saw their car on Wednesday morning, I knew we were in for a treat.  Look at this beautiful artwork on the side of the car. 

Their website is www.airbrushingbysandy.com, and you can view more of their artwork there.

I’m having fun--come on along!

Kathy

Bottger Mansion of Old Town
historic bed & breakfast
110 San Felipe Street NW
Albuquerque, NM   87104
www.bottger.com

 

painting the Violet purple

For nearly three weeks, I've been trying to paint one of our rooms, the "Violet Christine room," or simply, "the Violet."

First you have to know that we have a 100-year-old Victorian house with trim and molding everywhere--door frames, 8-inch baseboard, picture rail, the whole deal.  All of that needed to be sanded, scraped, repaired, whatever.  Lots of dust ensued, resulting in me going home every night to get it off my skin and out of my hair.

In addition to that, we have the original windows with ropes and weights that also needed to be sanded and restored.  Did I mention that these windows are humongous?  They're 48 x 60 inches.  Lifting that bottom sash out by myself is something I only did once.  The next time I got help.  On one of the windows, we're going to have to rebuild part of the sash, since it's so warped that the glass isn't even in the frame any more. 

Sand, scrape, fix, rebuild, clean up, clean up, clean up... prime...  90% of the work in painting is all prep work.  I finally got to put actual paint on a paintbrush to paint the trim about three days ago, and it's taken me three whole days just to paint the trim in that room.  Granted, I run a bed & breakfast, so the painting gets done at the end of the day, after everything else is done.

On Wednesday, July 1st, I was finally able to start painting the Violet purple.

And the song that keeps going through my head is "Painting the Roses Red" from Alice in Wonderland.

It always looks worse before it looks better.

We're having the wall around the house and yard repaired and re-painted.  It's looking pretty disreputable.  We also have a corner of the planter wall next to the neighbor's driveway that's been damaged repeatedly.  I can't believe that people drive so badly that they hit that corner.  I would guess that the damage to their car was greater than the damage to the wall.

I know that especially in the past 20 years, the do-it-yourself movement has really grown.  However, I also know that there are people who do it themselves who should never do it themselves.  Ask me sometime about the extension cord we discovered that had been hot-wired into the light switch...  We're having this done by professionals.

The good news is that whenever we have a big project, I know not to get discouraged.  It always looks much worse before it starts looking better, whether it's putting up new wallpaper, cleaning out the storage building, or having the boundary wall re-painted.

a lovely drop-leaf table is now ours

Can you believe we bought this lovely table for only $50? 

Today was Pattin Auction day (every other Sunday) and we have been looking for a small table to hold a printer.  The printer would be tucked into a corner of the parlor, so it had to be something appropriate, not modern or glass.  We've been trying to find a way for guests to check their email, print boarding passes and maybe cruise the web a little.

We found a charming little child's school desk for the printer.  While we were there, we also found this great drop-leaf table.  One of our rooms has a private sitting room, and we needed a place for business travelers to work in private.  Voila!  Of course, it didn't look like this when we bought it, but I cleaned it up with Murphy's Oil Soap, used a little Old English dark wood scratch remover, and polished it with Scott's Liquid Gold. 

As for the really good price, there's some reward in being patient.  Another drop-leaf table pretty much like this one went for $120 earlier in the auction, but after 3 1/2 hours a lot of the buyers had gotten tired and left.  The last time I went to the auction, I noticed that as people left and the auctioneer got tired, the bidding started lower, went faster, and there weren't as many people bidding.

Of course, the Italian Victorian bicycle poster I wanted got sold somehow when I wasn't looking.  Dang.  That's what I get for going to get that hot dog.

success at the auction on Sunday

Sunday felt like a marathon--up early to make and serve breakfast for eight people, and arrive at the auction by 10 a.m.

Let me tell you, it was a long day.  The auction started promptly at 10:00 a.m. and went for a solid four hours.  I don't know how he did it, but the auctioneer was really good, really fast, and he never took a break the entire time.  He also never lost his voice, which was pretty amazing.  Of course, the items we wanted were spaced out over the entire four hours.  Steve had to leave after about two hours because of the dust, and I soldiered on. 

Fortunately, the big piece that we really wanted came up early.  We got it for just about our top limit.  Somehow I managed not to get a photo of that, so we'll save that for when we remodel that room and install the piece.

After that, we were able to relax a bit and just watch out for the other items.  We let a couple of items slip by as the bidding went higher than we were willing to go.  I'll regret some of those.  But since we passed on several items, we were able to spend a little more on a lovely light fixture for the dining room.  This photo doesn't do it justice.  It's solid brass filigree and the globes are etched glass.

Another purchase was a small iron table base for which we'll have to have a small round marble top cut.  It will be a perfect little table by the front entry where we keep our business cards and brochures.

My final win for the day was a brass magazine rack.  Here it is installed in our front entry, holding the newspaper.  It's both more functional and classier than the rack we previously had there.