New Bath Plans

In the area of the dark side, I'm going to be creating a new bathroom.  I did talk about this idea about a year ago and I've made some changes based on the feedback I was given.

Below is a floor plan of the entire downstairs of the house.

The area in question has been highlighted in yellow.  I'm taking 2-1/2 feet from the dining room and 2-1/2 feet from the kitchen to carve out this modest, full bathroom.

Below are the plans showing the prospective bathroom.

The bathroom is accessed from the hallway at the top of the basement stairs.  I've slightly enlarged this area into what I call the bathroom foyer.  The blue indicates the placement of the hidden window.  This is immediately below a window in the upstairs hallway and will help bring some much needed light into the end of the hallway.

In the previous plan, the bathroom door was off the dining room which several people took issue with.  I didn't love the idea myself and you all picked right up on it.  Moving the door to the hallway, required giving up a new closet.  We'll also take extra measures to soundproof the wall between the dining room and the bathroom.

Above is a closeup of the bathroom itself.  The tub extends into the kitchen space by 30 inches and will require a new support structure overhead.  In fact, there's quite a bit of structural work that will be done as part of this project.  New joists will be added under the bathroom area and a few posts are being added into the basement to correct and support some sagging.

The bathroom has no window unfortunately but the window that's covered up will be right outside so I'm considering taking out the panels in the door and adding some Florentine glass to obscure any view.  But, I don't know, it's just a thought right now.  Plenty of bathrooms don't have windows.  

Here is the elevation of the bathroom.  It's nothing fancy by any means but I hope to choose fixtures and materials that will give it a vintage-with-a-twist look. 

 Since the upstairs bath is off of the master bedroom, I thought it was important to get a tub in this bath downstairs for any guests that might want to tolerate staying with me.

Another purpose of creating this new bath in the middle of the house is to a create a much better kitchen.

As you can see by the floorplan of the kitchen, it's lined with windows and doors which make it hard to create a decent span of countertop. 

By creating a new bathroom in the center of the house, I'll be able to demo the PANTRY and BATH and expand the kitchen to the entire back wall of the kitchen.  The new tub takes up 2-1/2 feet by 5-1/2 of the old kitchen but removing the pantry and old bathroom  adds 4 feet by 12 feet to the new kitchen.  If my math is correct that's a net gain of about 32 square feet of kitchen

Here's a photo of that back kitchen wall.  The sliding doors go in the bathroom on the right and the pantry on the left. 

Here's the plan for the future kitchen.  When I showed the Sketchup Model of the kitchen last year, some of you freaked out on me.  I hope you have a little more trust in me at this stage of the game.  The floor plan is more for placement of appliances.

The blue, again, is a new window that will go in the kitchen.  I've gone back and forth between having only one window so the sink is centered on the window and this two-window plan so the windows are symmetrical on both sides of the room.  If I slide the sink down, I feel it's just too close to the fridge.  I'd rather have the extra light.

Notice the little square outside the new kitchen window?

That's this chimney.  It's gotta go.

This project will do all of the structural work for the new bathroom and isolate the space that will become the bathroom.  This will allow me to finish the dining room so you can see all four walls.  Okay, Randy?



Dark Side of the Room

A few weeks ago I was telling Janet of The Gardener's Cottage that she was my hero because everything  in her home always seemed to be in perfect order.  When I take pictures for my blog, I said, I have to move all the crap from one side of the room to the other.  Of course, it was a joke...kind of. 

Last week when I showed off the dining room bookcases for the first time, Randy from A.J. Barnes asked to see the other side of the room.

It's time to come clean.

*WARNING*  If you're weak of stomach, be ready to avert your eyes.

 

Here is the other side.  Welcome to The Dark Side of the Room.

You see, when I first moved into the house, I was confident there was a window hidden behind this wall.  A Greek Revival is all about symmetry and there was one place that didn't seem right to me.

See that window on the side of the house hidden behind the tree?  I thought there should be one right below it. 

There were a few closets where this window should have been.  To the left was a small closet that was accessed from the kitchen.  You can see the tile on the floor.  To the left was a larger coat closet.

Right before I moved in a few years ago, I ripped out the closets in search of my window.

Here is that window all boarded up.  That wasn't the only surprise.

On this wall, just at the left edge of the hole in the wall, you can (barely) see an angle in the wall where we discovered a second staircase once stood.  It was extremely steep and rose up through the floor landing just before the door to the master bedroom.  You can also see evidence of the lathe strips up between the joists (which are much more modern wood) showing that this was finished wall at one time.

In upper right-hand side of the above photo, you can see a joist that's smaller than the others.  It's actually cut at an angle and up above the ceiling we found a little header board covered in wallpaper.  

Here's that board.

Mr. and Mrs. Mastrullo's daughter, from whom I purchased the house, told me there had been a fire in the house before her father bought it and renovated it in 1940.

One end of the header showed some soot and we could smell the smoke when we opened up that area of the wall.

As genius as it was to suspect there was a hidden window, I was an idiot to start this project without a plan for what to do next.  I can't restore the window without a variance from the city.  Since I have other window changes for which I'll need approval, I'll do them all at once when I get to the kitchen.

Once the bookcases were done, I told Sam this other side of the room was going to drive me crazy now I got a call from Sam over the weekend telling me he's being held up waiting for some kitchen cabinets on another project he's working on and he wanted to know if I wanted to get started.

I've been living with this eyesore for over 2 1/2 years.  It usually becomes the dumping ground for tools, paint and other renovation materials.  It's time to bite the bullet and deal with it.

Next time I'll show you the plan for this area.

Happy Holiday

Today is Patriot's Day in Massachusetts.  To make a long story short, Patriot's Day is a holiday about running.  Paul Revere ran to Lexington and Concord to inform the Colonists that the British were coming.  The British Army ran behind him and started a little fight called the American Revolution.  As you can see, the news crews had also been tipped off and were waiting to photograph the scurmishes.  

And, wait, that's only part of the excitement.  This day also includes our own "running of the bulls," the Boston Marathon.  Marathon Day is the day that all the young folks run to the race route to get drunk and cheer the runners.  And all the old folks run the other way to avoid the noise and crowds.

I hope you have a wonderful Patriot's Day.  I've got to run.

Bookcase Preview

Thank you all for your suggestions about paint colors.  It seems that the majority thought a light warm gray would look nice.  I took it as a challenge that no one suggested a rich, dark color.  I've chosen to go very dramatic with Benjamin Moore Fairview Taupe, HC-85. 

I can almost hear the gasps.

My thinking was I would take the color scheme of the chairs and flip it.  A dark taupe background wth the shelves being the ivory piping.  I think the effect is elegant and moody (just like me) and makes the room feel very cozy.  The dark color is also a nice balance to the dark gray sofa that on the same wall of the adjacent living room.

There is a bigger plan that will bring in some accent colors but I like that I've kept it neutral.  This allows we to totally transform the room just by switching out some accessories.  I think the shelves would look gorgeous filled with blue and white Asian jars.  Something new to collect!




 

The shelves aren't even painted with the final coat but I can't resist the temptation to bring in a few things just to play a bit.  The painting is getting tiresome.

Most of my books are art books and cookbooks that are packed away.  It will be fun to see them again.

I'm really attracted the combination of wood, metal and white.  I know; not even a single book!  I love how strongly graphic the white objects are against the dark color.  And the metal pieces shine at night.

I could mess around with these arrangements for a long time.  And it will never be done...or perfect.  I love that. 

Study Construction Done

The construction portion of the dining room/study is done.  If it seemed like it went quickly, it's because the units were built in Sam's shop where they were sprayed with primer and then brought to the house,  Installation took two days.  

Sam made the frames slightly larger on the outside edges so they could be scribed to the walls.  This side has yet to be done.

The window casings were replaced with some of the trim that was left over from the living room windows.

And a crown molding was attached between the top of the bookcases and the ceiling.

Doing a project in an old house always includes the unexpected and it was the closet door that provided the headache on this one.  I never noticed it before but the door was attached to the casing because the door jamb wasn't deep enough to accommodate a normal door.   The door should be on the same plane as the wall, not the casing.

So the casings were ripped off, the entire jamb was removed (along with some plaster) and Sam made a new one in the shop to fit the door.  This required a little bit of plastering before the new casings and salvaged door were installed.

This door problem added $300 to the project but now it's done correctly.

I've been busy sanding the new plaster, caulking, spackling and priming all the new woodwork the past few days and testing out a few colors for the back of the bookshelves.

The green is Farrow & Ball's Arsenic.  It's a great color with a distinctively vintage feel but I don't think I want it in this room.  I'll consider it for one of the bathrooms...I think.   The other color is BM Whale Gray.   Don't like it either.  Too blue not warm enough.

So I've put the furniture back in place to contemplate the mood or feel I want the room to project.

The new-old door and casings are all primed and ready to be painted.  I'm also waiting for the new doorknob which will be bronze with a white porcelain knob.

Here's the trimmed edge of the seagrass rug.

And finally, here's the chaise pour le petit derriere.  I'm going to have a cushion made at some point but I kind of like having some plants here.

I'm really pleased with how this is looking so far.  I have a lot of work to do so I better get back to it.

Expectations (Again)

If you weren't following last summer, I was fantasizing relentlessly about how I was going to set up my future front porch.

And then I came home to find this....

I had looked at scores of Greek Revival porches and never really realized they were barely wide enough to put a chair on.

My expectations got in the way.

Well, that all worked out okay in the end.  

I love my skinny little porch.

And then just a week or two ago, I proclaimed I'd be installing some bookshelves and a window seat in between.

Well, ladies and gentleman of blogland, I bring you the latest design trend...

The window ledge!

The silver lining is I won't have a big pillow budget.

Cutting a (Seagrass) Rug

I'm sure you've been wondering what I'm going to do about the seagrass rug that goes all the way over the wall where my new bookcases and window seat are going to be built.  This is a rug I bought on ebay from Natural Home Rugs for about $250, including shipping.  They also do custom sizes but when I inquired about something custom in a slightly smaller size, the price was about $800. 

I'd love to be able to get a sweet little Persian number for the room but with two bathrooms and a kitchen ahead of me, it's not in the budget right now.  I don't want to spend anything I don't HAVE to right now so I thought I'd try cutting it down on my own.

Here's how it went: 

These particular rugs have a rubber backing that prevents the rug from slipping.  That probably doesn't make rugs from this maker the greenest option but it also helps protect the floor.  I remember having a coir rug from Conran's back in the day that really chewed up the hardwood floor in my apartment.  Oops.

The largest cabinet depth is going to be 18 inches so I decide I'll take the same amount off the rug.  I measured in 18 inches from the end and used my 4-foot level to connect my marks.

Once that was done, I used a box cutter to cut through the rubber backing.

By folding the rug along that cut, I could then cut through the fibers of the rug without cutting through into the rug itself.

I then put a bead of Gorilla glue along the newly cut edge and smooshed it in to prevent the edge from fraying.

Now we have to get the binding off.

Get out the handy dandy seam ripper and go to work.  There's no way I can sew the binding back on but I think glue will do the trick.

I replaced the binding over the cut edge and put a good dose of Gorilla glue on the rug as well as the back of the binding.  I'm sure hot glue would work just as well but I usually burn myself when I use it.

Press the binding down firmly just until the glue is starting to ooze out.

I used a board with some paint cans to keep weight on the edge for a few hours.

At the corner, the binding folds over and gets glued to the back. 

And voila!

If your rug has a mitered edge, you would have to sew a portion of the binding from the side edge to make it long enough to fold over on to the back.  Once the front is dry, glue the binding to the back of the rug.

And here's the new finished edge.  This back edge of the carpet won't get much traffic but even without it being sewn down, I think it's adhered well enough to stand up to traffic.