Kitchen and Bath Refresh
portland, maine | spring 2023
Lillian, the owner of this 1900s colonial in Portland, Maine very thoughtfully restored this home. While we didn’t do the original renovation, she asked us to make some modifications and finish up some details for her. Her desire to preserve the character of the home is reflected in her decisions. On top of that, she was really kind and a pleasure to work for which we always appreciate!
beadboard installation
We added beadboard for a backsplash in Lillian’s kitchen and as wainscoting in her bathroom. The beadboard we used is a high quality, moisture resistant MDF product specifically designed for use in kitchens and bathrooms where water can sometimes be an issue.
The kitchen installation was straightforward, but the bathroom in particular required some creative problem solving. Frequently, as homes settle over the years, floors are no longer level, and walls shift out of plumb. This can cause corners to no longer be square. This is normal and is not usually a structural issue, but it does take extra attention to detail to get the finish work just right. This was especially the case in the upstairs bathroom to get the chair rail corners tight. In order to preserve the tile shower enclosure, we modified the beadboard manufacturer’s baseboard product to work in this application. Then we removed the window sill and made a new sill out of the chair rail cap so that the beadboard would slide behind it as intended.
On a side note, we have an employee who is 18 that recently graduated from high school. He installed all the beadboard which required some pretty tight fits and intricate cuts especially around the bathroom vanity, but he rose to the challenge and did an excellent job! We couldn’t be happier with his work ethic and skill beyond his years!
trim repair
Lillian had opened up the floor plan between the kitchen and the dining room, but the trim work between the two was, to put it nicely, messy. We were unable to find a satisfactory match to the more than 100 year old trim in the home (no surprise there), so we custom milled out our own match. Additionally, the wall width grew from one side of the entryway to the other, so we had to cut our trim to follow the wall.
new light fixture
They picked out a light beautiful wall sconce they wanted added above the toilet to add light to the room. We had our electrician run a new wire. It looks great with the wall color she picked out!
other repairs
refinished the ceiling
There was a patch in the ceiling from a plumbing repair. We opted to re-skim the entire ceiling in order to fix unsightly texture differences.
fixed doors to properly swing
One thing we see a lot of are doors that don’t swing or close properly. There could be a number of issues that cause this such as improper installation, sometimes the house settles over the years, or maybe the hinges need adjusting. In this case, the doors needed to be cut down to accommodate the new flooring.
