Pre-demolition

The house's previous owner contacted us about giving us back the fireplace mantel that originally went with the house. I'm not entirely sure why it was removed from the fireplace or the house, but I'm glad they kept it and are giving it back to us. In the email, he also included some pictures of what the house looked like pre-demolition.

Here's the fireplace mantel and surround in question:

We have since taken the mottled green-and-brown tiles off. We'll eventually re-tile it with something more attractive.

A view into the room with the fireplace. That wall was removed in demolition (we have the doors), and the children were not included with the house. The bathroom chandelier hung in that room.

In the former dining room, looking toward the back door and former kitchen. The curio and the wall have been demolished. I'm not sure what that large wooden thing on the right is, but we don't have it. This room is where our enormous kitchen will go.

The old kitchen. Check out that linoleum! The sink is nowhere to be found. I think this will probably become a mudroom.

It will certainly be a while before we get to any of this stuff downstairs, but I thought it was interesting to see what condition the house was in when the previous owner bought it to renovate. Everybody always asks us if we still have the woodwork. Unfortunately not! A few of the windows still had their original casements, but there were virtually no baseboards or crown moulding or anything like that. Now that we have pictures of what they looked like, we can recreate them if we want to be historically accurate.

Bathroom furniture

Tom's patience with my "look at every piece of furniture ever made before making a decision" strategy finally ran out. We rummaged around at a few of the local antique stores and found something we both agreed on, and for a pretty reasonable price. It was hiding in a dark corner in the basement, behind a rack of excellent 1980s pleather pants (I don't know, don't ask me).

We think the marble inset in the top will complement our tile nicely. Also, the curvy front will hopefully help to soften the hard visual lines of the two pedestal sinks. We like the fact that it is up on four legs, which seems like an excellent idea in a bathroom.

We haven't actually bought it yet, but we'll be going back tomorrow to nab it. It's listed at $160, but, being my mother's daughter, I'll see if I can haggle a little bit. I think Tom is a little embarrassed about that strategy, but what have we got to lose, really? The worst they can say is no, and then we pay full price anyway. I'll take pictures of it tomorrow in its new home and post them shortly thereafter.

Progress

It feels like we got a lot accomplished on our last major workday in the house. We got the shower framed:

We moved the walls in a bit to accommodate a bigger tub, but it's still a honking huge shower. Putting the door on the diagonal really opened up the room.

We're still not totally happy with the stability of the frame (if you push on the end of it, there's a bit of movement around the top) since it doesn't go all the way to the ceiling, but it should stiffen once we put the backer board up. And if that still doesn't work, we can connect the two walls across the top of the door without any problems.

We also bought two pedestal sinks and a toilet. We tentatively placed the sinks so we could figure out how big the piece of furniture that will go between it can be, and where our plumbing needs to go.


Now that we've got the general idea, I can start pounding the pavement for deals. The toilet is just a toilet, and will be hidden behind a half-wall that will also frame in our 42" wide Jacuzzi bathtub.

A chandelier would've looked better with a clawfoot tub, but I can't complain that Tom wanted a jetted tub instead.

We also hung the chandelier from a screw in the joist to figure out the best place to hang it. I want it centered over the window and bathtub, which is also centered in the overall room. Paul suggested we center it between the sinks, which is the center of the room from the shower to the outside wall. My reasoning is that the light is for the overall room and is not task lighting for the sinks (if anything, it is task lighting for the tub). Also, the walls of the shower do not reach all the way to the ceiling. The chandelier will indeed be closer to the shower than the outside wall, but I think it will help it read as one room (rather than separate shower room, separate sink room). Maybe I'm putting too much thought into it. I found some nice-looking ceiling medallions online for less than $20, so that might be another extra touch around the chandelier.

Tom and I are headed to South Bend this weekend and won't be able to work on the house, but there are a few things I'll do this week in the afternoon. (Sorry, this list is more so I don't forget what I'm supposed to be doing).
1. Build dam for shower threshold.
2. Insulate exterior walls.
3. Frame tub surround.
4. Buy tile (done).
5. Order tub (since local Lowe's doesn't have it in stock. There goes my negotiation option. "Can you order this tub for me? And, by the way, I want to pay you $150 less than list price.") for delivery
6. Order drywall for delivery.
7. Order greenboard (wet location drywall) for delivery.
8. Buy additional cement backer board for shower walls for delivery.

To the batroom, Robin

We've shifted our focus for a while from the bedroom to the bathroom. The first step was putting down the underlayment for the tile, sheets of concrete board. That step is almost complete:

The 2x8s on the floor are the approximate locations of the shower wall enclosure. It's about a 4'x6' shower. The hole in the floor near the top of the photo is where the toilet goes. The tub goes under the window on the left.

We still have to finish the seams. It's very similar to finishing drywall seams - it just uses thinset mortar instead of drywall mud.

We've already picked out our tile and the pattern in which it will be laid. It's a porcelain tile, which is a form of ceramic, but it has a bit of a texture on the surface to simulate natural stone. Every tile is textured differently and has a little bit of color variation, too, which enhances the effect. Here's a close-up of the slight pitting effect on the surface:

You can also see the tumbled edge, which furthers its resemblance to natural stone.

We decided that we like this windmill pattern, but I can't decide if I like it square or diagonal.

Square

And in case you don't want to tilt your head at a 45 degree angle:

Diagonal

Tom doesn't care one way or the other. Installing it square would make it easier to include a perimeter border, but I'm not entirely confident the walls are perfectly perpendicular. Diagonal installation is often done in that sort of situation. It's easier for the eye to account for a discrepancy in the walls being a little out of square if the floor is laid diagonally. Lord knows I used that trick in my hand-drafted projects for school - I don't think anything I drew was ever perfectly square.

I'm still not entirely convinced I won't wish we'd used 1" square or hexagonal tiles, but I can't see spending $9-11 more per square foot of the stuff. I keep telling myself it's a whole lot fewer grout lines to have to clean with a toothbrush.

Also, before we lay this tile, I need to decide whether or not I'll splurge on the radiant-heat floors. I can get a system to fit in our bathroom for about $150. I really hate cold tile, especially in the bathroom where I'm likely to be barefoot. But, it's $150 I could save and spend on a lifetime supply of warm, fuzzy bathroom slippers. Thoughts?

Unfitted

Until recently I was unaware that my general distaste for upper kitchen cabinets is part of a concept called the unfitted kitchen. Basically, the idea is to opt for furniture or furniture-like cabinets. Open shelving often replaces wall cabinets. Free-standing cabinetry lets them become part of the architecture and design rather than a stuck-on, applied afterthought. In my research, I realized that most of the pictures I'd gathered had very few if any upper cabinets, but almost always had an old hutch or armoire. It may sound strange, but it looks good and seems to be functional, too. It just so happens that as big as my kitchen is (ok, so it's enormous - about 350 square feet), there's not a lot of space for wall cabinets anyway.

I can't wait to hear what snarky comments the weekend help has to offer about this concept.

And also, I'm thinking this will work in the bathroom, too. Here's a picture I found before I knew about the "unfitted" thing:

I'm not going to dish out the cash for console sinks, but there are some really nice pedestal sink options that are quite affordable. And I'm almost positive that I can find a beautiful dresser at a junk shop in town for much less than it would cost to buy new cabinets. If my taste in dressers ever changes, a freestanding piece like this is much easier to replace than standard cabinets. We'll have about 4 free feet to work with between sinks if we go this route, so I'm sure to have a few options.

Or am I just talking crazy?

Fancy schmancy

I don't think I ever mentioned the beautiful (although dirty) chandelier that was left with the house. I'm not sure exactly where it was installed originally, but I do know I'd like to use it again in the house if possible. Here's a (really bad) picture of it. Like I said, it's really dirty, and I was trying to hold it with one hand and take a picture with the other.

The obvious spot for it is the dining room, but I don't know yet if we'll have a formal dining room or not. What about the master bathroom? Code prohibits a chandelier hanging directly over a bathtub without a minimum of 8' of clearance, but just beyond the rim of the bathtub is alright. And of course it would add a romantic touch to the master bedroom, but I had planned on a ceiling fan there instead. Any thoughts?

PS. I plan on cleaning and rewiring the chandelier soon-ish, so I'll be sure to put up some more pictures after she gets a bath.

Hole in the wall

Actually, it's a hole in the ceiling. Last weekend we framed out the opening for our eventual spiral staircase into the attic room.

I love that you'll be able to see the staircase through the front windows, especially coming from the west (left in the picture). Opening up that spot in the ceiling also lets each area "borrow" light from the other.

This week, I'll be finishing the insulation in the master bedroom and hanging the recessed lights. With that done, we'll be just about ready for drywall. That will be a happy day.