Our New Old House

American Bungalow Magazine

http://www.achome.co.uk/index.php

The Arts and Crafts Movement (1910s-1930s) will be our inspiration for decorating the house.

http://www.oldhouses.com/styleguide/arts-and-crafts-houses.htm

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/dc_styles_arts_crafts/article/0,1793,HGTV_3508_2703489,00.html

• Neutral wall colors that accentuate the warm woodwork (brighter in the living room, slightly warmer and darker in the dining room)
• Use of stained glass and colored decorative tiles for ornamentation (tiffany style lamps, prairie style light fixtures, Maybe instead of replacing fireplace mantle, I can stain it a richer color and glue tiles along the front.) For some reason this house doesn’t strike me as suitable for stained glass windows, except as interior decoration like the cabinet doors.

http://www.artsparx.com/bungalowstyle.asp

From the fun and frivolity of shower curtains and wallpaper sheep I must change the topic to long lost built-in cabinets that have disappeared.

Excuse me while I vent for a moment: MY HOUSE USED TO HAVE BUILT-IN CABINETS AND A BUFFET AND WHY DID SOMEBODY TEAR THEM OUT? WHY? WHY?!!!

My grandmother spent all last week scraping wallpaper in the living room and dining room and she uncovered evidence of what I long suspected must have been there: a built-in buffet in the dining room and a wooden frame on the doorway between the living room and dining room. Here are the pictures of what she uncovered:

Now I’m going to ask you to use your imagination for a moment. Imagine that this picture doesn’t have all my random stuff cluttering up. Imagine that the woodwork is a beautiful rich dark walnut or cherry. And now imagine that there’s a lovely gorgeous buffet graciously spread out below the window, with a wall sconce on either side of the window, and leaded glass on the front doors! Can you see it? I can, and it breaks my heart.

Did it bring a tear to your eye and a lump to your throat? It did mine. *sniff* Somebody hold me.

Now on to the tragedy that was once a warm, natural transition between rooms and is now just… a hole. Look closely at the edges of the wall separating the living room from the dining room and you’ll see the faint outline of what used to be woodwork, ripped savagely apart for the sake of… well I don’t know what.

What the heck is wrong with people? I mean seriously. Why take down perfectly good woodwork? What’s the point? I have resorted to inventing a crazy story to make myself give these people the benefit of the doubt, telling myself that based on the layers of wallpaper and when they date from that the built in buffet had been gone a very long time; perhaps someone sold them to feed their family during the Depression. I don’t know. When I can figure out who the people were who owned the house before Mrs. Riley, I may find more answers. But for now, I’m stuck staring at the walls that bear the ghosts of cabinets past.

Less drama in my next post, I promise!

I’ve been thinking about whether to try tackling laying ceramic/porcelain tile in the bathroom myself.  I’ve never done it before so I’m taking into consideration the likelihood that I’d screw something up while trying to save money by doing it myself.  This is one of those things that seems less easy to correct if it’s screwed up the first time.  I will be asking a flooring professional to give me an estimate and recommendations about the process.  Meanwhile, I’ve been reading up on what I’ve seen in home improvement shows and watching how-to videos like the ones on RemodelingMySpace.com:

http://www.remodelingmyspace.com/how-to-videos/flooring-videos/how-to-install-or-lay-a-ceramic-tile-floor-video.htm

 We have a few more pressing projects to tackle first, but it’s definitely a nagging question in the back of my mind in the meantime.

I know you just can’t get enough of my crazy wallpaper posts, so here’s another one coming to you from my hallway and bathroom!

I uncovered wallpaper in the hallway that I haven’t seen anywhere else in the house. It seems to be the very first wallpaper ever put up since it’s the bottom layer. It has white doily circles surrounded by a red trim, what appears to be white colored cherries or apples, and a red trimmed bird, all on a light gray background.

This most intriguing wallpaper showed up in the bathroom. Apparently, our bathroom was once papered in – get this – BLACK wallpaper with dayglow neon colors in very random looking images! Thing is, I’d expect this of the mid to late sixties. But this wallpaper has to be at least from the forties, maybe even older. Does anybody know of trends involving black wallpaper from some past decade?

I would love to learn more about wallpaper trends of the past, so if anyone can recommend a good book or website I can read, do please pass it along to me.

Thanks for indulging me!

Brandon’s back from San Antonio! And not a minute too soon. I was desperate to have a tall person around to help me hang this shower curtain rod!

Somebody asked me what kind I got, so here’s the box. The brand is Zenith, and it’s a shower curtain rod that’s got a maximum length of 66 inches. That’s big enough to enclose our whole clawfoot tub.

We took it out of the box…

Began assembly…

Gave ourselves antlers…

Mounted it to the wall (Too low in this picture. We ended up moving it up about 9 inches.)

Mounted it to the ceiling…

And voila! We have a shower curtain rod!

Brandon also fixed the light while we had the ladder in the bathroom. The electricians put the bowl on wrong, but I forgave them because they were sexy. Brandon’s sexier because he not only looks good, but he also got the light on correctly. Brandon FTW.

That’s one big thing off my list!