Tag: House Tour

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House Tour: Downstairs Bathroom Before

Christine

The downstairs bathroom in September 2003… I was very glad to have a second bathroom in the house at all. And it served its purpose. But when we realized we were going to have to tear out the whole bathroom upstairs, I decided we needed to have a place to shower during the renovation of the upstairs bathroom.

This teeny-weenie sink and toilet would go, and they would be reversed in position before it was all said and done. This was the only way we could fit a sink, toilet and shower into this tiny space. Plus, it kept all the hot water lines along an interior wall.
Also, I’ll never understand why they would have gone out and purchased a cheap, hollow-core door for this room when there were two five-panel doors, original to the house, in perfect condition, stashed away in the attic. Duh.

This disgusting little pantry closet (part of the back hall) would become the spot for the shower. I really can’t believe they kept food there. It had no ceiling. It was just open at the top. Open to anything that might be living in those two feet above the drop ceiling. Ew.

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House Tour: Oliver’s Room After

Christine

Oliver welcomes you to see his room. Some doggies have a crate, some doggies get full run of the house. We have found this to be a happy medium. He has limited room to get into trouble. Oli gets to stretch his legs, look out the window, and from the gate he can see straight through the house to the sidelight next to the front door.
This is Oliver’s gate from the kitchen to his room. The door right behind him leads to the back yard (after you go down some scary concrete stairs).
Oli can look out over his back yard from this vantage point…

This area used to be the back hall, but we took out the wall dividing it from the back porch room. It was not a load-bearing wall, and it opened up the space. Now you can do figure 8s around the downstairs. Which does happen sometimes, if I am chasing Oli when he has stolen something. He thinks it is great fun, I think it makes it hard to corner him.

We had to replace about four feet of floor boards in the back hall. They are not a perfect color match to the rest of the back porch room, but they are mellowing with age, and after only two years it isn’t nearly as obvious as it was when the floors were first refinished.

We removed all the paneling: 1950s and 1970s. We took out the drop ceilings and gained 18-24″ of height. And we added three spots of recessed lighting to this room. Mom had Jeff, our fabulous electrician, put nearly every light in the house on dimmer switches. A bit overboard, but often appreciated. … or get a better view by perching himself a little higher while sitting on his chair.

You can see the radiator in the picture above, sporting its shiny new paint job.

All the trim work in this room is new pine. We tried to replicate the original profile as closely as possible. I can see the difference, but I doubt most people notice. We did not put new and old side by side anywhere in the house for this reason.

The tiny, non-opening trailer window was happily replaced with a beautiful set of new exterior French doors. They are wood with the exterior clad in metal. No, they are not true divided lites, they are double pane thermal, and they don’t let a peep of cold air in during the winter. Right now they don’t go anywhere, but someday I would like to put a porch on the back. Not a deck. A porch.
Now this space is light, bright, pretty, and gets great air-flow in the summer. Oli approves.
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House Tour: Oliver’s Room Before

Christine

In September 2003…
The view from the kitchen to the back hall. The open back door leads to the back yard.

This is the back hall, a tiny space with a big radiator, 70s paneling, vinyl flooring, and drop ceilings.

I suspect the wire hanging above the radiator was a place to dry clothes.
The back hall is adjacent to this room, which we called the back porch room for the two years before Oliver arrived.

The back porch room suffered many afflictions: 1950s paneling, no lighting, an ugly ceiling fan, no heat, another “trailer window” which did not open, a lowered ceiling covered in tiles. Remember my previous owner’s affection for wall shelves?
However, this room did have some snazzy built-ins. Monsterously heavy drawers, built out of plywood and paneling, sometime in the 1950s. These had to go, but we kept the drawers, built new frames for them, put them on heavy-duty gliders, and they now house tools, painting supplies, etc. in the basement.
Take a close look at the floor in the photo above. That is a change in the flooring. On the left is the portion that used to be part of the dining room, then there was a transition strip of duct tape, then the original porch floor. They just had a piece of carpet loose over this floor- no padding.
The lovely French doors, painted white, that lead to the dining room.

I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to use this room as my bedroom: no heat, no ventilation, no natrual light, no privacy. Nice, huh?

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Kitchen details- the cabinets

Christine
When I ordered cabinets for the bathroom, the generous salesman at Just Cabinets gave me several boxes of knobs. They were the basic brushed silver knobs that come with all KraftMaid cabinets, and they send them to the store even if the customer ordered something else. So they were just extras to them, but I estimated they saved me at least $50. The best part is that I would have been my top choice anyway.
I decided I really wanted handles on the drawers, even though they were a steep $8 each. I saw them in the store and I just knew they would be perfect. I looked everywhere for a cheaper substitute, but eventually sucked it up and ordered them= $68. The drawers are heavy, constructed of plywood with a front of some other wood. They also have no glides of any kind, so pulling them open with just a knob would have been cumbersome.

Oh, and did I mention that mom and I repainted the cabinets? Yup. And it only took us about six months.

We took all the cabinet doors off, sanded them, and set them aside. Then we attacked the cabinet frames. These cabinets were such a hodge podge. More than I had ever realized. The backs were that 70s paneling, which, by the way, paints beautifully. The doors were made at two different times. Some had rounded corners, and appeared to be made of maple. Possibly. Other doors had square cut doors, and who knows what they were made of. The shelves were quite diverse. Some cheap, warped, rough pine. Some scrap chestnut. Some particle board. The particle board was the best- very thirsty. Oh, and all of it had been covered by a hideous black and red print contact paper. It covered every surface on the interior. Every corner was crisp. We joked that it had been professionally installed, it was that thorough.

Mom and I stood and sat in every concieveable contorted position to sand, clean, then prime and paint these cabinets. I even stood on the counter. And got stuck. I’m not so good with heights, but I was fine while working. It was just when I would try to get back down that I would freeze. Then someone would have to come help me down. All three feet off the ground. How sad is that?

Our “professional” painter (the only person we ever fired) told us that we would need to sand the 70s paneling that formed the back of the cabinets. Well, we tested it: sanded and unsanded, and it didn’t seem to matter. We opted for not going for the extra sanding, and it has been fine.

We used Kilz2 as our primer, followed by 2 to 3 coats of oil paint from Sherwin Williams. Yeah, yeah, I know. Oil paint bad. But I seriously don’t think latex would hold up on such heavily used surfaces like a kitchen. We used foam rollers to apply the oil paint. It is possibly the nicest paint job in the whole house.

In all, I’m pleased with how they turned out, but I would have gladly torn them all out and replaced them, had our budget allowed. I’m also quite confident with the hand sanders now, too.
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Kitchen details

Christine
Well, we replaced the trailer window with a nice boxy garden window. I love it. In the winter it is full of houseplants. They really thrive there. And now I get tons of natural light in the kitchen, and great ventilation.

I have six spots of recessed lighting in the ceiling, one pretty fixture over the sink, and small halogen spots under the cabinets. I kind of wish I had known more about LED lighting when we were choosing lighting. I have halogen or incandescent everywhere, absolutely no fluorescent. I realize that fluorescent is far more energy efficient, and I am all for that, but fluorescent lighting is a migraine trigger for me. So it was strictly forbidden.
When we tore the laminate off the walls we found several layers of wall covering. I’m not sure I even remember all of them, I think I’ve blocked it from my memory. My favourite was the genuine linoleum wall covering. I wish I had taken a picture, but later I recognized it in Jane Powell’s book Linoleum. It was pink, made to look like square tiles, and it had neat shiny gold flecks. Not that I’d want a whole kitchen like that.

When we got down to the plaster, we realized it was pretty beat. It wasn’t falling away from the lath, but it was just in bad shape. So, we decided to cover it with new beadboard. I don’t know if this kitchen ever had beadboard walls, but I don’t care. I like it, and I think it looks appropriate for a 1930 bungalow.

I’ve always loved beadboard. White bead board walls. But that wouldn’t look right with the white cabinets. And I didn’t want to commit the cabinets to a color I would grow tired of. I wanted a green kitchen. Depression green. Grandma’s kitchen green. But I knew I didn’t want green cabinets. So, I thought maybe we’d paint or do a green stain on the beadboard walls, something that will show the grain. Nobody else liked the idea. Well, I let the guys talk me out of it. I’m glad they did, I’m pretty pleased with the way it turned out, and I’m not married to any one color.
I’ve got a nice piece of crown to top the beadboard, and a plate rail runs the length of the kitchen. I decided I wanted to have the crown at the same level as the crown piece on the doorways would be. Nearly all the wood trim in the kitchen had to be replicated, the original, if it was ever there in the first place, was long gone. We used all pine for the kitchen, and it was stained much more red than the rest of the house. I like the more red tone to the wood.
The grey counter was chosen and ordered when I thought I was painting the beadboard walls green. I think it would look better now if I had chosen a green. Maybe someday. It is only laminate. I really wanted soapstone, but it just wasn’t in the budget.

My stepmother, Kathy, kindly thought of me when her own daughter was moving out of an apartment where she had her own practically new (one year) appliances to an apartment that already had them. And while almond wasn’t my first color choice, I’m so grateful to have them: they are far more energy efficient than the stuff left behind by the previous owners, plus they were free.