New Year - Slow Start

Hello again everyone. Well, as the title says 'New Year - Slow Start'. It has been a while since my last post so I thought I should go ahead and do one.

I have not done a lot of work on the house since Christmas time, well not a lot that you would notice, just busy work. I will share more about this later.

First off, the following pics are for SWMBO. She was NOT happy when I posted the pics of the house with all the junk strewn all over the place. So, here are some updated pics of the same areas, just cleaned up. It's still the same junk, just organized a little better.

The dining room.

I guess I should fess up. SWMBO and I had such a withdrawal with not being able to decorate for Christmas we decided to have some family over for New Years Eve.

Basically, it forced us to 'clean up'.

Here is another view of the dining room.

Through the doorway you can see the door leading to the utility porch.

You can also see one of the tapestries SWMBO owns. It actually came out of the room we stayed in on our wedding night. The pink stuff below that is a sample of our wedding decorations. Her mother found them in her house and brought them over.

The chest of drawers, those are sitting on, is an auction buy that’s in the middle of being restored.

Here is the ugly wood burner that came from West Germany sometime in the 70s. There use to be a very ornate pot-bellied stove here with a twin on the other side of the wall in the dining room.

One of the stoves is now in a museum and the other has been restored and is a person’s new house here in town.

We are planning on ripping this thing out and replacing it with a fireplace.

More on that later.

Just another view of the living room.

Hard to believe we could clean the mess up isn't it.

We can't wait to get rid of the rest of the junk sometime this spring.

A better view of the columnar entrance to the living room.

The foyer.

See the splotches on the walls? The dark patches of cream and the pale green are the original walls. The lighter patches (as well as where the wallpaper is) are areas where the walls were patched for various reasons.

Once again you can see the termite damage on the floor in front of the stairs. There is also some slight dame to the stair runner under the 3rd & 4th steps of the second string.

Here is a view I have not shown in the past (at least I don't think I have).

It is from the first landing looking up to the ceiling over the second one. The whole is where a light fixture will go.

Notice the walls. They are the originals with some patching done in the 50s.

The other picture is from the second landing looking down onto the first.

Here you can clearly see the patching that was done as well as the original fresco coloring of the walls. We do kind of like those colors. Perhaps we will repaint in those colors?!

One last thing. The wall the mirror is on - we have no idea what's keeping it up. From what we can tell, termites have eaten away all the lathing behind the plaster. It was a real trick wiring the light switch you can see.




This last picture is looking straight up to the stairwell ceiling from the first landing. It's almost 20' up. This will be fun to paint or do something with.

Don't Mind the Mess

Recently, a cyber friend, from Missouri, and I found out we have something in common. We both have houses that are virtually identical. So, through several e-mails we have been comparing the two homes.

Two of the main differences between the two homes are architectural features that his house has and we want on ours. The bay windows in his house extend all the way up into the second story and his wrap-around porch has an ornate pediment over the front entrance.

Anyway, I snapped a few pics to send to him. They are of rooms on the ground floor. Sorry about the quality, I'm using my phone camera. As soon as I can I will get better pics and post those.




This is our front door. Nothing too special about it.

However, I am really dreading the work that needs to be done on this room.

First off, the part of the floor, right in front of the stairs, has been eaten away by termites. It is just as bad as the damage in the back door.

The termites also ate the woodwork that the right hand window sets on. Not sure how that will be fixed.

Also, notice the big patch of white plaster on the wall where the stairway starts? That is not original. We do not know when the work was done, but a gent in town believes the plaster was put there in the 50s. He was in high school at the time and helped hang the wall paper and he remembers it.

Anyway, it is there to replace the original plaster that was destroyed when termites ate away the lathe that holds the plaster. We do know the wall will probably have to be replaced. As you can see, most of the wallpaper has been removed.

Now you can see the north side of the foyer where the stairs go up to the second floor.

See the wallpaper that's still on the wall?

For some reason we can not get it to come off so we are thinking that there might be some plaster damage behind it also.

If you look right up at the top of the stairs you can barely see the bottom of the mid-landing window. We are hoping to put a stained-glass element there.

While your looking; keep the triangular part of the wall, which the stairs are on top of, in mind when you look at the following picture.

Okay, let's get the triangular wall taken care of first.

Remember the problem with the termites eating the lathe?

Same problem here.

We try not to use the plug-in receptacle you can see because when we unplug something that part of the wall wants to come out also.

The picture also shows the first of three landings in the stairwell. It isn't noticeable in this picture, but the window is made up of leaded, diamond panes.

You can also see more of the termite damage on the floor.

This picture also shows how the walls were originally painted. The bottom half of the wall is a greenish color while the top is a parchment color. We were fortunate in being able to remove all the wallpaper out of the stairwell with no problems.

In this picture you can see one of three matching chandeliers.

This one is the smallest of the bunch.

The double sconces in the stairwell, as those in the kitchen, match these.

You can also see what's left of the wallpaper that was applied to the ceiling. Originally it was painted to match the walls.

A little word about the original paint application. It is a fresco style, i.e. the paint was applied while the paint was still somewhat wet. This allowed the paint to absorb into the plaster. This is also the same type of technique the Ancient Romans used in their homes.

This is the last major pic of the foyer.

It shows the coat closet as well as the detail of the wallpaper.

Okay, now keep in mind that we are in the middle of renovating this place so PLEASE don't mind the mess!!!

This pic is looking into the living room from the foyer.

Here you can see the right hand column and base.

You can also see one of the other chandeliers.

Here is the left column.

Living room bay and more crap.

We have decided that most of this stuff is going 'bye-bye'.

In fact, most of what you are seeing is already boxed up for a garage sale!!

Here is the doorway that leads into the dinning room from the living room.

You can't see them, but there are French doors attached, there just opened into the dinning room.




This doorway actually had pocket doors.

Not sure why they were removed, but all the hardware is still in the walls.

We think they were removed in order to make room for the central heating.

You can also see part of the chandelier close-up.

This is the last shot I will bore you with tonight (I think - LOL).

The windows match the one above the first landing in the stairwell.

You can also see the third chandelier as well as one of Annette's tapestries.

'SWMBO' collects antique tapestries and we are planing on using those to decorate this room once finished. Un-seen in the pic, but on the wall to the left, hangs her largest tapestry. It is about 3'x5' and comes from Belgium. That one, plus a large, gilded Edwardian mirror is to be the focal points for this room.

Do you see how grey the floor looks? Even with protective plastic covering the doorways the dust is everywhere - especially the floors!!