Saving The Best For Last

We've started packing up the kitchen because next week the demolition starts.

To kick things off right, here are some before pictures from various angles.

First is from the doorway into the back hall looking to the southwest corner of the room. The base cabinets under the window are essentially useless because they hide a large radiator that is completely ineffective in heating the room. This fridge is being moved to the attic's bar area. We're going to re-wire the chandelier because we found its mate in a pile of crap in the attic. Watch for it to re-appear with its mate in the after pictures...  ;-)

Next is the view from the doorway towards the southeast corner of the room. The arrangement of the sconce to the cabinet left of the window means you can't really get into the cabinet... The "broom closet" next to the fridge existed because it wrapped the  plumbing stack for the old master bath. Now that we've relocated the plumbing stack the entire wall can be flush. You can also see the change in ceiling height from where this was changed from 2 rooms into one in the 1980s.  Once we get it down to the studs we'll be able to determine the new ceiling height and have it be flush throughout. Note the awesome work triangle. NOT!

Next is the view to the east toward the dining room. The bump-out on the right, where the range is currently, is the back side of the dining room fireplace.  We have a plan to work around that - stay tuned...

We're hoping to preserve the soft curve and wainscot that leads to the bi-swinging door to the dining room and the china hutch that's furthest from the camera. This soft corner and wainscot was the inspiration for the similar soft corners and wainscot that's sprinkled in the attic.

Next is a view from the current sink location back toward the doorway to the back hall. Where I ripped open the stud cavity, you can see the tubing for the in-floor radiant heat in the master bath above. We're going to ditch the radiators and install in-floor radiant heat in this room, too. The plan is quarter sawn oak flooring that's consistent with the flooring in the public spaces in the rest of the house. Originally I'm sure the butler pantry and staging kitchen would have had fir floors, and I think Gilbert would be OK with us using oak based on modern entertaining methods.  With modern entertaining the kitchen is  a public space after all...

Last is the view to the west from the bi-swinging door to the dining room.  There's not really much else to say.

Except that I wish we could find a way to salvage the glass door fronts.  The carcasses of the cabinets they're in are not original so they are no great loss.  But the doors with their wavy glass are very cool. We've been trying for 8 years to find a way to re-use or re-purpose them with no luck. :-(

Kids in the Hall

As always, there was a deadline. We had our moms  and sister-in-law over for Mother's Day supper tonight.

That's not the only reason that I wanted to get the halls painted, but it was a good one.  And I spent a good part of the weekend in a close relationship with the halls. And now that there's some color on the walls, I can see all the places where my patching was substandard. No problem though, this was always intended to be the first coat of paint rather than the last...

The first photo is a view down the back hall from the back door.

The millwork and stairs still need work, but we're one step closer.

Compare to what it looked like before.

Real soon now that kitchen is getting demolished...

Got My Mojo Workin'

In a previous post I mentioned that I had to patch a bunch of holes in the hallway walls. It took a while for a variety of reasons, but I'm finally done.

Last weekend I was able to prime everything and paint the ceilings.

This weekend I'm putting the first coat on the walls.We're using a traditional color called "Asian Jute" which, for continuity, is the same color we used in the front hall.

I like to listen to music while I paint.

Every once in a while things line up.

I cut in edges free-hand and the song that came on when I was doing the funky transition at the top of the stairs  was Got My Mojo Workin' by Pinetop Perkins.  Apropos; that edge turned out fantastic!

Last night I finished the 2nd floor hall.  Today I plan to finish the stairs and the 1st floor.

Master Bath - Before and After

This project has taken so long I've forgotten what this room looked like before we started.

Originally it was the butler's bedroom.

In the first photo, the light blue paint indicates where there was a restaurant booth in the corner.  I'm certain that was added sometime between the first owners and when we purchased the house. The air hockey table is ours though and has since moved to the attic. ;-)

Here's an after picture from the same vantage point.

And the old corner cabinet.

Which inspired the new corner cabinet.

And the view from the corner cabinet back towards the entry to the butler's bedroom. The rightmost door is the entry to the hall; the leftmost door is the butler's closet.

And after from the same vantage point looking back across the room.

The entry doorway has moved to the right side of the corner. The closet now opens into the back hall for seldom used linens and a beefed up radiator to heat the back hall better.

Blind Man

Yeah, I know it's an old joke.

The window treatments for the master bathroom arrived today. I'm tired of the tissue paper that's been substituting in the meantime.

It didn't take too long to zero in on fabrics and style, but we kept picking fabrics that were discontinued or where they needed to woven by little elves in some far off-land sometime in the next century.

Finally they arrived and I installed them tonight.

Various people expressed concern when we said they were black, but now that they've seen them totally understand.

And here's what they look like in place.

The variation in the embroidery color pulls colors from the walls, floor, and towels.

And now there's a little less excitement for the neighbors every morning...

Patching Holes

Over the years we had to poke holes in the walls and ceilings to do various projects in the attic and second floor.

This one is for the plumbing stack in the attic and shares the wet wall with the laundry room on the second floor.  It's a good thing we never liked the wall color here...

This one wasn't a hole so much as it was hidden by the cupboard that's now in the master dressing room.  The ceiling plaster was falling off and the cupboard was plastered in place.  The edges all need to be feathered into the remaining wall.

I also need to finish feathering in where the old linen closet entrance and butler's bedroom doorways were.

This one was for the toilet and showers in the master bathroom.

And this pair was for the gas line for the attic HVAC, along with the plumbing stack for the master bath tub and sinks.

Now that everything is done upstairs, we can close these and start painting.

Dumpster Diving

In my previous post, I went into the pile of saved molding from elsewhere in the house.  I sorted through all of it to find the pieces I needed for the closet interiors.

As we have only the hallways and kitchen remaining, it's easier to see what we need to save and what we can dump.  We had a bunch of other construction debris along with other random bits of stuff collected by previous owners. They included radiators and doors, it was clear neither of which were ever installed in this house; they didn't match any that are still installed.

So we rented a 10 yard dumpster and filled it up last weekend.

At one point on Saturday as we were carrying stuff out and chucking it in the dumpster, several neighborhood folks paused to check on things or just chat.

Some called friends who came to turn our trash into their treasures, others offering advice about the few bucks we could get by recycling the cast iron from the radiators, others still about leaving things out of the dumpster so the metal recyclers could get to it.

Here are my thoughts:

1. If it's in the dumpster and you want it, be my guest.
2. The going rate for scrap iron is $100 per long ton.  So if you want to haul 600 pounds of radiators to the scrap yard so you can get $25 bucks, you know where to find it.
3. I'm only touching this stuff once. I'm hauling it out of the basement and throwing it in the dumpster, not putting it on the boulevard to see if someone takes it and then later putting it in the dumpster.  See #1.

By the time we called the company to pickup the dumpster a couple days later, some of the stuff had been turned into treasures...

Scavenger Hunt

As I'm prepping to paint the other side of the master bath french doors, I noticed that I needed to touch up some around the door latches as well.

And then I discovered that the casing was never installed on the inside of the linen closet in SWMBO's dressing room.

And, of course, that reminded me that I never put the casing back on the inside of my closet either.

Cleaning the brush from oil based paint is a pain. I might as well install all the molding so I have to clean the brush only once.

This is my pile of salvaged molding, so the right pieces ought to be in here somewhere...

Wish me luck; I'm going in...

The People Under The Stairs

I'm not sure why the basement door has so many locks.

More is always better, I guess.

Back in the day, the kitchen was in the basement. One would think that if you hired kitchen help you wouldn't have to lock them in the basement...

Perhaps it's The People Under The Stairs?

We're missing a few thumbturns on some other doors in the house (see the bottom lock and the middle lock in the photo).  The other "privacy" doors ( bathrooms, etc) have the bolt mechanism, but are missing the thumbturn to operate it.  I might need to re-purpose these if I can't find some on my next treasure hunt...

Nightstand

The nightstand on my side the the bed has always been "off".  In a previous post you see what it looked like.

It was too small for the scale of the room, both in height and width.

We've been looking forever, but could never find anything better than this piece.  Finally we decided the time was right and visited the store on Black Friday.  As luck would have it, this line was on sale and it is being discontinued.  We placed the order, intending for it to be my Christmas present, and waited patiently.

It finally arrived and I picked it up last weekend.

It was a good opportunity to toss a bunch of old junk as I transferred all the contents over to the new nightstand.