Restoring an 1884 Victorian for expectant parents

Woodland, California

Easton Painting – “A painter is a colorist, a carpenter, a double-hung window restorer, drywall installer, plaster repairer … and a psychologist.”

In just nine months, a baby grows from a single cell zygote into a whole human being. For expectant parents, it can feel like forever and the blink of an eye all at once.

There is so much to do to prepare. One of the big ones is setting up the nursery. It needs to be safe; it needs to be cozy. For many homeowners, this is a time when they need contractor help the most. They want the project to be on autopilot while they worry about everything else.

In Woodland, California, one such couple turned to Don Easton.

“A painter is a colorist, a carpenter, a double-hung window restorer, drywall installer, plaster repairer … and a psychologist,” Easton said. “Work is play, as long as you love your day to day.”

The house was an 1884 Victorian that hadn’t been treated kindly over the years. DIYers had painted the wood trim in a faux stain and finish, installed the wrong size drywall on a crumbling plaster wall, and replaced an original door casing with one that was fashionable in the 1980s.

Easton started by putting up barriers to control the mess. Next, the wallpaper had to be stripped. The bad drywall and crumbling plaster were removed. Gone were the stained trim and 1980s door casing.

Now that he had a fresh canvas, Easton installed dogwood flower square rosetta to match the other door casings, which were carefully scraped and sanded to preserve the wood.

“Plaster repair included new sheetrock to fill the voids, plaster powder to fill the gapping cracks throughout, and a blending of the plaster and sheetrock patches from the DIY,” Easton recounted.

The most difficult part was all of the plaster crown molding, which had a concave shape. That meant Easton had to snake his hands into tiny crevasses in weird positions with his head cranked sideways.

As for the best part, it was the last day on the job when he finally got to meet the person he was building the room for. “The customers wanted us to see their new baby that they brought home the night before.”

Materials Used:

• Abatron
• Sarco glaze
• Samson #8
• Sherwin Williams Designer series