And now, today…
The walls are painted a very soft shade of spun pink. I wish the color was a bit more obvious, but I was afraid to go much darker. In a room this size that had the potential to be too much pink. I just wanted a blush of pink to set off the couple pieces of pink depression glass from my great-grandfather Norman.
I think I still need more stuff on the walls, but it comes slowly. Almost everything is a hand-me-down, mostly from my grandmother.
Now the dining room wall is returned to its original location, and that puts the whole room back in proportion. That makes me so happy.
Both sets of French doors have been stripped of their paint (one set still hanging on the wall they moved, was a dingy white, the other set found in the basement, had been painted half mint green, half liliac), and re-hung.
Now, two small radiators, evenly spaced, make for a much better look. Plus the large one used to be partly in the window bump-out, and I was just never comfortable with that. The floor does slope down there.
Tag: Bungalow
House Tour: Dining Room Before
The Dining Room, as it looked in September 2003…
Really, no too bad. Bland wall color. Really poor treatment of that beautiful bank of windows. The glass shelves across the windows were really special, too. These people really had a thing for wall mounted shelves. They were all over the place. The plate rail around the top wasn’t bad, but it had to be removed when we moved the wall, and we discovered that it was definitely not original, and was very cheaply made. Also the chair rail was added at a later date.
It took me a little while to figure out what was wrong with this room. The proportions were wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. In the picture below, to the left of the French doors, you’ll notice a strange lumpy line running down the wall, right above the radiator. It is hard to tell from these pictures, but that is the edge of the bump out. You see, sometime in the past, probably in the 1950s or 60s, someone enclosed the back porch to make a bedroom. And they moved the dining room wall to make the bedroom slightly larger. Once I figured out what threw this room off, I knew it would bug me until I would be able to move it back to its original location. I just didn’t know it would be so soon…
Note the fabulous press-board entertainment unit the previous owners left for me, mostly because they couldn’t fit it on their moving van.
There are two radiators in this room. They should be about the same size, and they flank the window bump out. As some point, probably when they moved the wall, someone swapped the second small radiator from the dining room and put it in the living room. They took one that was almost twice as big and made it the second one in the dining room. I can only assume this was done to provide extra heat to this tiny, make-shift bedroom. Even now, it is cold back there, and before we rearranged walls there was no heat source in that space, which is also over an un-insulated part of the basement. Burr.
The doorway to the kitchen was also no longer in its original location. It should have been about 32″ wide with a swinging door. The door is still here, and it is in beautiful condition. I was very lucky. Many of the original doors were still tucked here and there around the house.
Also, don’t you just love the 60s-70s “chandelier”? Brass AND wood.
Although I like the plate rail, we never put it back up after we moved the wall. We would have had to replicate the brackets (which I have hung on to), and by the time we were even at the stage to even think about it, almost all of the shelf board had been re-purposed.
For such a simple room, it really looks different today.
House Tour: Living Room After
And now, in the autumn of 2007…
We swapped radiators. This one, which is a more suitable size for the room, was one of two in the dining room. The small one that used to be in the living room was the exact same size as the second one in the dining room. This falls under the category of: what were they thinking?
The curtains are down in these pictures. I can assure you the red thermal drapes are long gone. I did have golden sheers up- they matched the color of the wall, but they made the whole room just a bit too yellow. So, I’m in the process of choosing something new. Whatever I go with, they are hung inside the windows on tension rods, so that all the wood trim is still exposed.
Don’t you just love that orange plaid recliner? It was my grandmother’s and it is very comfy, but it doesn’t really go with the carpet. Some day we’ll have a nice recliner and loveseat in this room.
As you can see, Oli believes that all chairs in the house are there for his comfort.House Tour: Living Room Before
In September of 2003…
Notice the one tiny radiator for this big room.
Don’t you just love the thermal drapes- too short on the big tripple window, way too long on the itty-bitty square windows. Classy.
And the disproportionately small gas fireplace.
But, overall, not bad, right? At the time, I thought we would just paint, clean, and I would move in. Boy, was I wrong.
Auction Day
So, the day of the auction comes. It is a rainy Thursday evening in May. I work until 5 that day, mom and I grab some fast food on the way home.
All day I’m talking to my friends at work, telling them about the house.
I’m still not sure about it.
I wish I felt strongly one way or another. Should we buy, shouldn’t we?
Mom has made financial arrangements to have the 10% down that we’ll need if we buy tonight. On the way home, I’m really getting cold feet. I’m pretty sure we should just go for the experience, just to observe. Neither mom or I had ever bid on anything at an auction. Ever. In our whole lives. Not even a single piece of depression glass.
We meet my Nan and mom’s friend Joyce there, around 6, and we are able to walk through the house before the bidding starts. At this point, I’m really certain we should not buy this house tonight.
A wicked spring storm is rolling in. Looks like we may get more than just a bit of rain this evening.
As I’m showing my Nan the nice features of the house, and we head up the stairs, I pause halfway up, and I turn.
And I look down across the entry and living room. And it just strikes me. I want this house. I want to live here. I fell in love. Just like that.
Quickly show Nan the upstairs rooms, including the ugly bathroom, which mom and I had previously discussed that would have to go. Just count on extra money for that. The rest I could live with, for now.
Nan goes out to the front porch, where the owners, auctioneer, potential bidders, and curious neighbors have gathered. She makes herself at home on their porch swing, where she’ll casually sit and rock back and forth during the whole auction.
I go in search of mom, my adrenaline pumping by now. I must have this house, and I have to tell mom just how much I had changed my mind in the past few minutes. I find her and Joyce in the basement, and we sit on the basement steps, while I frantically tell her in hushed tones. We agree that she’ll be in control of the bidding. I’m just way too excited.
So out to the front porch for the bidding. Full out thunderstorm is raging. So amid the rumbles thunder and occasional flashes of lightning, the auctioneer begins.
I’m standing next to mom, tense. The auctioneer starts out kind of high, gets no takers, goes lower. And lower. And lower. Finally so low, he’s down in my original price range. I don’t want to appear too anxious, but I feel like poking mom. Why isn’t she bidding? She looks cool and calm.
The auctioneer stops. Brief whispers with the owners. They excuse themselves, go inside the house. Consultation. Thunder rumbles, storm is moving off a bit now. The auctioneer and owners reappear.
The auctioneer says the owners must sell for a certain named amount, or the house will not be be sold tonight. Will anyone give him that low amount? Nobody makes a move. Long, tense silence. One couple whisper to each other. Everyone looks around to see who will make the first move. I’m rigid. I’ve left the bidding up to mom. In my mind, I’m screaming to her “we cannot let this house slip through our fingers, not at this price!” Finally, just when it looks like the auctioneer is about to give up, mom says sure, she’ll give him the minimum. Anyone else? The other couple ups us by one thousand. The auctioneer looks back at mom. She offers another hundred. He pauses, surprised, says, okay, he wouldn’t usually, but… I guess he figures he’s not going to be able to get much more out of us. At one point, mom bids against herself, and the auctioneer tells her to be quiet. Back and forth a by hundreds with the other couple. A frenzy of auctioneer-speak, and SOLD.
And he is looking at us.
I forgot to breathe.
Oh. My. God.
I just bought a house.
Green Bungalow Craftworks 