“…the sulphurous rasp of another struck match,
and foxglove, goldenrod and chicory,
the dry flowers of late summer…” –Greg Rappleye, from “A Path Between Houses”
The first morning. Would you like to come in for a visit?
The light was so intense that morning. The house just glowed. Of course, it was 90 degrees by noon…
The woodwork in the living and dining room is one of my favorite parts of the house. The stain is very unusual, with grey-green streaks in it. I also like the contrast with the oak floors — here they look deceptively well-preserved. They are actually pretty raw, and will need refinishing, or at least some sort of interim love.
The dining room is octagonal, with this bay at one end & a built-in hutch flanked by two doorways (kitchen & living room) at the other end, and two longer sides in the middle. As I was taking this photograph, I was itching to get my hands on that ceiling fan. I detest ceiling fans in all but the most industrial settings. They are also a menace to jmags, who, recall, is 6’4″.
Plus, swags! Eek!
Here you can see a bit more of the finish I was talking about.
Entering the kitchen from the dining room, you encounter this: our Frigidaire Flair. Oven above, with a pullout-drawer stove. Crazy! This is an example of something I usually gravitate towards in fashion — I call it the future of the past. It’s the sleek, slightly swank, slightly goofy modernism that reveals how the future was supposed to be. The real future, by which I mean now, isn’t nearly so cool. Sadly.
Obviously I am writing this post (cough) several weeks after we actually got the keys, so I’ve done some cooking with the Flair, and found it to be a pleasure all around. Or it was a pleasure after I determined the oven cooks hot by 25 degrees. It’s true the future of the past has suffered some in the past few decades, and the Flair is no exception. One burner is out, and the clock/timer needs to be repaired. But these are trifling matters. I mean, do you have a tender-matic or a heat-minder on your stove?
Note, too, the drop down cookbook holder.
The color of the kitchen is almost exactly the color of the Kitchenaid jmags gave me for Christmas. I think this is a very auspicious sign. I love this color. It’s actually more intensely blue-green than it looks here, but you get the idea. The light in this room is also so nice — I mean, three windows in the kitchen? Crazy.
The louvered-style window over the kitchen sink appears elsewhere on the first floor, and they all work with a very satisfying heavy rotation. Luckily we also have storm windows, because as cool as they are, I can’t imagine these windows do a lot to keep the elements out.
I do hate the floor. Cheap sheet vinyl with seams coming up. I guess that’s a good thing, because we probably couldn’t justify tearing it out anytime soon if it wasn’t causing a problem. I can’t wait to see what’s underneath.
zia’s room. Here you really see the granny quality of the house. There’s something charming about the wallpaper, but it is going to go. This room feels very stale — it was clear when we walked through the house, and especially in this room, that the furniture had been in exactly the same spot for at least a decade. You can see the vague outline where the bed was on the floor.
At the other end of the hall, what is destined to be a real office for jmags. This room is also extremely dingy and was pretty well packed. It had been an office then, too, but I think what jmags has in mind will be somewhat more austere.
Between the two bedrooms (or rather, office & bedroom) is the one bathroom of the house. I realize for many this would have been what is referred to as a “deal-breaker.” But jmags & I have lived in many apartments with much smaller bathrooms, and I’ve never, as an adult, lived anywhere with more than one bathroom. So it will do. The good news is the window is fairly large and the bathtub has a great back-angle for lounging (those old capacious tubs can really vary in this regard). Other than that, well, it’s not moldy. Or at least, not very moldy. That’s a plus.
This is the original toilet, who knows about the pink seat.
Horrible tile. But look at the doorknobs!
Truly ugly, but yet — there’s a laundry chute that goes down to the basement next to the washer. This I am a sucker for.
That pretty well covers the main floor. Not a huge footprint; just under 1000 sf. This wouldn’t have been at all large enough for us, but luckily there is both an up and a downstairs with all kinds of usable space. So, upstairs!
The house has gone through two rounds of remodels. The most recent of these was during the early ’90s, when the kitchen & bathroom floor and counters were redone, and the bathroom tiling was redone. Luckily nothing more extensive was done, because none of this work was especially well done. And all of it is ugly. Now, back in the ’50s, someone decided to do some fairly serious remodeling. Up until then the house had been left as it stood when it was built in 1930. This earlier remodel is when the kitchen cabinets & louvered windows were put in, along with the accordion doors (oh, yes, you’ll see them), and the exterior doors. Whoever did this work had a keen eye for detail, and they used good materials, other than the aluminum windows. But then it was the ’50s. They also decided to finish the attic and enlarge the windows at either end. And, who knows exactly why, they decided to finish the attic entirely in plywood. With a high-gloss sealer.
We decided this would be our bedroom. It’s like sleeping in a boat.
A boat that needs some love, certainly. But a boat. You know, like the Pequod.
So that’s the upstairs. Shall we head down to the basement?
This corner is destined to be my studio, after a good scrubbing and some paint. There’s a drain in the floor nearby & plenty of storage, and the utility sink for the laundry area is also close. A studio. Heaven.
An unexpected charm to the laundry area (other than not requiring quarters to run the machines) is that it features all of the original cabinets from the kitchen, including the pull-down ironing board.
There’s also a half-finished room that we hope to totally finish to be a guest (and maybe film-watching) room. As of now, it is very ugly.
The lapse in posts should clue you in to the fact that I’ve been very busy painting and sewing and hammering and drilling, and then there’s that whole HGTV business. So now you at least have a sense of the before. The after(s) are on their way.
It’s been almost a month, a very intense month, and now things are settling down a bit. I’m back at work (students in two days) and zia goes back the week following. The paint trays have been put away for the time being, and I’m actually doing some real cooking again (the return to reasonable temps has helped). I’ve taken several baths, enjoyed a multitude of coffee, and we’ve had houseguests. What I mean to say is that we are living real life here, and I love it. I love my house, even sans the two cats in the yard.
