Master Bedroom

From the start the master bedroom had windows that were fogged up, paint peeling all over and the floor had been painted years ago with many coats of polyurathane.

.

The first thing to be done was scraping the walls and the ceiling.

.

After the walls and ceiling are prepared then they were primed.

Now for the fun part......first touch of wall color.

Painting the walls and the ceiling took many hours.

Ahh the floor......with such a crude surface to start with the first thing to do was to get a heavy duty floor sander. On the left is what it looked like before sanding. On the right after sanding showing how some areas were not touched by the sander due to the floor not being perfecting flat. Note the transition from original to sanded floor.

.

After using the heavy duty floor sander the remaining areas on the entire floor had to be done by hand...inch by inch. This shot shows the result.



Now the surface is prepared for staining with a natural stain.

Finished with the floor!

Finally after about three months the final product!

First Guest Bedroom

.

From the door way looking into the room before work began.

.

Inside the room showing the doorway and the beginning of scraping the walls.

After the walls have been scrapped and a coat of primer has been painted.

Opps...in cleaning the attic of bat droppings discovered a lot of the droppings fell down the slanted roof. Each board on the upper floor had to be removed to clean out these droppings. You can see how the droppings just fell out and poured onto the floor.

Had to repair the wood pulled from the bottom board and then go back over the walls and prep the room again as the first coat of primer did not cover the walls good enough.

After second prep Nantucket Blue was painted on the windows, doors and trim. Basic White was painted on the walls.

.

Next was the floor. First shot on the left shows before any work done. Middle shot shows floor after floor sander used. Note that not all of the floor was touched by the sander. On the right is the floor after the remainder was hand sanded and the cracks on the floor were puddied by hand.

.

After the floors are done the room is finished! We even have our electric done with a ceiling fan in the room.

And now with some furniture from Liz's mom up in Indiana......the guest bedroom is ready for some guest's!

Who was Captain Hardy Smith

Capt. Hardy Smith, C.S.A., one of Laurens County’s noted veterans, served in the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee. A wound at Mechanicsville resulted in the amputation of his right arm, yet he served for two more years. He then returned home and became enrolling officer for the Fifth Congressional District until the war was over. He later served as Commander of "Smith Camp" a division of the United Confederate Veterans named in his honor. Active in this organization, he rose to Brigadier General and Commander of the Eastern Division.

Captain Smith was a war hero in the eyes of his fellow citizens, but he also had a very distinguished career as a public servant, farmer, and businessman. After the war, he was elected Clerk and Treasurer of the Superior Court. He held that office from 1866 until 1893, when he was elected Ordinary. He was one of the original stockholders of the Macon and Dublin Railroad, serving for years as Secretary and Treasurer of the Board of Directors. Captain Smith married Ella Few Douglas in 1867. That same year, Mrs. Smith, her mother, her sister, and four other women founded the First Methodist Church. Captain Smith was also an active member, donating land next to his house to build a church in 1887.

Miss Ella Few Douglas was a native of Burke County, Georgia. She came to Laurens, County soon after the war with her mother and sisters to make her home with a brother, Dr. Payton W. Douglas, who was a well-known physician and surgeon of the county. He was Dublin’s first mayor. Mrs. Douglas and her daughters became very active in the life of Dublin at this time. On November 21, 1867, Ella married Capt. Hardy B. Smith. In 1873 the moved into their new house on Gaines Street in which they raised 10 children.
Both Captain and Mrs. Smith were descended from patriots in the Revolution. Ella Few Douglas Smith was first cousin twice removed to Francis Scott Key who wrote the "Star-Spangled Banner". The Smith’s have many descendants and kin still living in the area. Captain Hardy Smith died in 1912, having lived a life of service to his fellow man.

Bathroom

The bathroom had a small closet shown here and a partition for the toilet which were both made mainly of dry wall. The bathroom walls had several coats of paint. The ceiling had tiles on it and the floor was covered by vinal tiles.

The partition of the toilet area has been removed here. Not all the floor was covered with tile. The walls were scrapped to remove the pealing paint.

The next step was to work on the floor. This was messy business. Once the upper layer of tile was scrapped off, the layers of tar underneath had to be removed. This was accomplished by using a stripper to losen the tar. Most of the tar came off with the stripper but the remaining tar had to be removed off the wood floor by using a drill with a wire bristle attached. Even after this step there was even yet a thin layer that the wire brush had not touched. What finally got the tar off was a grinding attachement to the drill which got the wood a clean surface.

After spending many hours inch by inch getting the floor down to bear wood this is how the bathroom appeared.

The corner of the bathroom as in the first shot above with the walls scrapped, sanded and ready for priming.

Same corner with primer being applied.

The whole bathroom after the priming was finished.

Framing out the bathroom.

All done. Complete with new shower, closet, toilet and sink.



The new floor is based on the 1920's look with hexagon tiles.

Brand new toilet area!

New pedestal sink in the 1920's Style.

Now the claw bathtub is set in its home.