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In
an old house
...first
you decide what to call a room,
...then you decide
how to make it live up to it's name. |
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Before the renovation |
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It
took me years to figure out how to use the first
room you enter from the front door. After 5 years
of walking through the room and never LIVING in
it, I made it the official "Parlor"
and took out a sizeable chunk for a much needed
walk in closet that measures 15' long by 5' wide.
That's big enough to hold my long dresser and
chest of drawers. Moving that big furniture out
of the bedroom makes the 12' x 14' dimensions feel a lot bigger. |
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 ......... |
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Before:
There
were two - 15' x 15' rooms with a chimney and
small closet in the middle (walled in). I took
a gamble on this one. There was a chimney on the
roof but I had no idea what I would find inside
behind the wall.. I lucked out. I found 2 chimneys
in excellent condition (and well made) and a rough
brick exterior. |
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After:
Walls come tumbling
down and
go up again
in a different place!
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These photos show the
window seat (the tops flips
up for storage) and coat closet/storage cupboards
one one side with the new closet wall across makes
a welcoming entry. The shelf area is my organizer
for all those things you carry and drop when you
walk into the house. The transome windows open
to the new closet, a device for capturing warm
air from the woodstove in winter. They also make
for a nice effect at night with a light on in
the closet. I have since put a desk in the room and turned this into a constantly used office and built out the window seat to serve as a bed if needed. I had a twin futon mattress. I liked the way it looked in its narrower version but it didn't get used by anybody but my cat. It was just too narrow to nap on.
The beaded board on the window seat built-in is the
old red heart pine board that came out of the
wall between the two front rooms. The beaded board
on the closet wall (above, right) is new wainscoting
laid horizontally to match the old boards. The
living area ceiling had to be sanded in one grueling
weekend. It looked like meringue before. (What
an awful job that was!!). Its a tough area to
photo though. I'll keep trying. See below for
what I've managed to shot so far in that area. |
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In
the photo above, you can see the office window in a nice extension from the living room
that was a never used porch with what
was probably the original front door. It got constant use until I outgrew it moved the office out to the front room...which got very little use. Now the room is used constantly. |
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This picture is a very bad evening shot of the living area. The chimney is on the left,
out of view in this shot. |
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Halloween
2005...the new hearthpad....
Advise
to those who have never installed tile....don't be discouraged if your first tile project includes black grout and pourous tile. Its a mess to deal with...non-pourous tile is much easier to work with. The stove is so well made with heat sheilds that the hearth pad actually stays cool no matter how hot the stove gets.
The photo
below shows the brick still unpainted. Because
of the curve I had decided to break the terra cotta
tile and do a mosaic in the curve. I couldn't break
the stuff into small pieces. IT'S HARD. So I bought
the little square tiles and went to the garden center
for decorative stone...and pulled out the little
flat ones. Voila!
That's the unpainted edge of the wood base that
you see in the photo below.
It finally got a black rope trim. Literally...black
rope. |
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