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Reflections by Sal

~ expressions capturing special moments in time

Reflections by Sal

Monthly Archives: October 2011

Our restoration adventures – Part 10

27 Thursday Oct 2011

Posted by sallykramer in Renovations

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Tags

curtains, grandfather clock, living room remodel, refinishing hardwood floor, renovations

Well, we finally made it, the living room was the last room to restore. We had kept this room for last to “live in” while renovating all the other rooms. When we first moved in, I had painted the walls a soft green (just to get rid of the beige walls topped with 2′ of orange!).

When we got around to finishing this room, I decided to paint the walls in a beautiful soft brown color (reminds me of a chocolate milkshake), with a lighter shade on the ceiling. Our first step was to sand and refinish the floors which had SEVEN different layers of paint.

Next, I put in a brick and mortar hearth for our gas fireplace, using the bricks I saved that were in the parlor. The bricks were a brighter shade of red than I wanted in the room, so Steve found out that we could put a coat of Thompson’s Water Seal over the bricks, and then I lightly painted a milky white over that to tone down the brightness of the bricks.

Before painting the walls and ceiling, Steve and his brother David put new sheetrock up on the ceiling. Then we painted the walls and ceiling.

In each room of the house, I have tried to create a unique ceiling effect with different techniques. For our living room, I found a Victorian design wallpaper border that had the perfect shades of browns to go with the ceiling and wall colors. With this wallpaper border and two different styles of molding, we created a very Victorian style ceiling treatment. We first put a large crown molding up around the room. Next we put the wallpaper border on the ceiling next to the crown molding and then finished the inside edge of the wallpaper border with a smaller molding. It gives such great interest to the ceiling. We also installed a ceiling medallion around the center ceiling fan.

I made Victorian style swags and jabots for the windows. I told Steve the name of these window treatments and he now takes great pride in mentioning the “swags and jabots” to visitors whenever he can.  I just recently installed rolling shades on the bottom half of all the windows to give us privacy in the evenings.

While attending a home show in the Fall one year, I fell in love with a beautiful keyhole style Grandfather clock. After much consideration, I decided the clock just HAD to become part of our home. After researching the clock style, I found out that the year the clock was first created was the same year of our house, 1887, so it was meant to be!

Our previous coffee table was too large for this room and I just couldn’t find another one I liked, so Steve took the old table apart and kept just the legs and made a new solid wood top and apron with a drawer and I added carved embellishments and stained it to match the stain on the legs.

This is a very comfortable room – it isn’t a large room, but I managed to arrange the furniture to take advantage of the space and still allow all the pieces we wanted in the room. We have a beautiful antique secretary that fit very nicely angled in one corner of the room between the window walls, and we put our large entertainment center on the one solid wall of the room which worked out perfectly with the placement of the couch and love seat, and our little Izzi dog has the ottoman as her “chair”.

It was so great to finish this room, it was the last of the interior rooms and soooo nice to have every room finished and not full of tools, sheetrock, paint cans, etc. Shortly after we finished the living room, we had an open house to celebrate and even had stay-overs who set up their tents in our front yard that night and we had a big farmhouse breakfast for everyone in the morning.

Our next projects would be building a back porch and putting a new (back to original) roof over our kitchen porch.

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Our restoration adventures – Part 9

24 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by sallykramer in Renovations

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

bathroom remodel, renovations, tiling

Our master bath project was probably the most intense (other than our kitchen project). This area was originally a bedroom, but was later divided into two rooms, one being a small bathroom and the other being a sort of kitchenette with sink/counter space and a refrigerator. We totally gutted this space, taking out the dividing wall to create one large space for our master bath.

The design/layout of the room was dictated by the existing plumbing, so we could keep the plumbing changes to a minimum. It took quite some time before we found the best design, keeping the plumbing in mind. It was one of those “ah ha” moments when I finally found a design in a magazine that was very similar to where we needed to place our jacuzzi tub, shower, toilet, etc. Steve and I went over this design at length and decided this was it, this was exactly the layout that would work, and it would allow a very spacious and luxurious room besides.

One of the first purchases we made for this room was our jacuzzi tub. Even though it would be months before the room would be finished, Steve installed the jacuzzi in a temporary location and we were SO glad we did. We used it to relieve a lot of aches and pains from our renovations in the coming months. Even though we had to kind of work around it, it was a life saver.

Taking out the dividing wall was the best part of the demo of this space. We opened up the window and threw everything out and down onto the patio, and of course every throw had to be joined with a big yell. It was so much fun to do this, I’m almost (“almost” I said) sad we don’t have more renovations to do on the house.

Once again, our son-in-law came to our rescue and helped us redo the electric in this room and we started in on the structure around the jacuzzi, got the wallboard up for the shower and put in the shower floor. We angled the jacuzzi in one corner of the room, with the shower at one end of the tub. We made a step going around the jacuzzi and shower. Once the structure was complete for the jacuzzi, it was set in place and we started preparing the shower, 3/4 up the walls around the jacuzzi, and the step of the shower/jacuzzi for tiling.

The colors I chose for this room are grays and lavenders which make for a cool, calming space. I chose a light gray tile with a hint of lavender in the design, and a very soft lavender for the walls. The tile I chose for the step around the shower/jacuzzi and the floor of the shower is a darker mosaic tile for contrast to the lighter tiles used in the other areas. All the trim and cabinetry in this room is the winter white that was used in the kitchen and my room. I found a beautiful Victorian anaglypta wallpaper that I put up as wainscoting on three walls of the room.

I took a week off work to do all the tiling. However, this tiling project was so huge that one week was not enough – it ended up going several days beyond. Steve did all the tilecutting and grout mixing. However, we had the tile cutter down on the front porch and every time he cut a tile, he had to go up and down the stairs. This definitely ended up being a jacuzzi night for Steve. Once the tiling was done on the jacuzzi/shower areas, tiling the floor was the next step, but first we needed to put down a new plywood subfloor to create a more stable surface for the tile. After the tile was in and grouted, the next step was putting up the anaglypta wainscoting, which I painted the winter white. Next, Steve put in the molding along the top edge of the wainscoting, created two square pillars near the jacuzzi/shower on either side of the room and put up Victorian fretwork at the ceiling between the two pillars. He built the wood face of the jacuzzi with doors as part of the design that open to allow access to the plumbing for repairs. He also built the sink cabinet and medicine cabinet.

My dressing table was a gift from our son for my birthday one year. I painted it the same winter white as other features in the room and did a lace paint treatment to the table surface that I had seen on HGTV. I laid a piece of lace over the table surface and taped it down so it would lay flat. I chose a spray paint in a medium beige color and sprayed that over the lace. It creates such a beautiful elegant effect and was so easy to do. Because of where we placed the toilet in the room, I felt it would be nice to add some type of folding screen for privacy which would add another design element to the room. I created a folding screen out of plywood and edged it with the iron-on edging to hide the ply. I had some of the anaglypta wallpaper left over, so I attached it to both sides of the screen and then painted it all the winter white and embellished it with strands of beads.

 I made the window valance out of fabric I had saved for years for “something someday” that was part of my grandmother’s pettycoat of her wedding dress. My daughter Kym and I made the stained glass that is in the bottom pane of the window. I found a design online and adjusted it a little to conform to the size of our window. Kym and I had taken a stained glass class a few months earlier, so we were excited about doing such a big project together. This window has become the focal point of the room and creates beautiful colored patterns in the room on sunny days.

I designed storage cabinets for Steve to build in the closet space for linens, etc. and chose to hang beads in the doorway to add another fun element in the space. The ceiling in this closet was really bad with large globs of sheetrock mud here and there. I chipped off the biggest globs and then took more mud/plaster and applied it to the ceiling with a sponge. It made the “globs” disappear and created an interesting texture too. We kept the wood flooring in this closet space and I painted it a light gray to blend with the tile in the rest of the room.

We are so pleased with this room and how we were able to design the room to fit everything in that we needed and still leaving it feeling spacious and relaxing.

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Beautiful Fall colors . . .

19 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by sallykramer in Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

travel

Last Sunday – Steve, Izzi and I decided to take our traditional Fall drive to check out the Fall colors along the McKenzie Pass, east of Eugene.  It was a gorgeous sunny day, just perfect for the drive.  The reds were not out in full color yet, but the golds and yellows were worth the trip.  Along the way, we have to stop at the Christmas Treasures gift shop and this always gives Steve a good chance for a quick nap while I’m shopping.  Another stop we make along the way is Scott Lake, which has a great view of the Three Sisters mountains.  This stop also gave Izzi a chance to get out and investigate the area and take in all the smells.  On the way back from Sisters, we decided to take a different route and came back on Highway 20 to Corvallis.  This was a great choice, the traffic was not as heavy and the scenery was just breathtaking.  Here are some of the photos I took along the way ~

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