The 515 Day Bathroom Remodel—Art Deco Accents

The Art Deco style originated in Paris before World War I, but didn’t make it to our shores until the 1920’s through the 1930’s.  It was the ultimate in the modern aesthetic and was the symbol of luxury and fine craftsmanship.  While Art Deco was predominantly used for office buildings, most notably the Empire State Building and Chrysler Buildings, our Los Angeles Union Station is a fine example of the style.

Residential homes sported furniture pieces and small kitchen appliances, but by the end of the 1930’s and the advent of World War II, the Art Deco style was dimming. 

In our 1938 home, the bathtub, and the front door handle set were distinctive of the Art Deco style.  Our house was built in the Modern Traditional style, interior corners are rounded, but the exterior is fairly plain without any curves, geometric details adorn the front porch.

As a prelude to entering our primary bathroom, I moved a 1933 Sunset Cover poster that we framed about 50 years ago.  I always loved the print, and it finally had a proper place.  

My fixture choices were directed by the simple but elegant style of the 1930’s.  We decided on black finishes and white tiles to coordinate with the dark soapstone countertop and slate floor.  Our splash of expense was on the rhomboid shaped marble for the niches, which reflect the geometry of the era.  I wanted to keep it simple, and let the small details define the room.

The chandelier has a definite Empire State Building look to it, and casts a beautiful pattern on the ceiling, which is painted a different color than the rest of the room.  

The small live edge shelf that is under the huge mirror, circa 1908, from my aunt and uncle’s house just off the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles, holds all I need.  The brackets are reminiscent of the curved and stacked style of buildings of that design.

As I have mentioned, the tub was the driving force for the bathroom design.  It is resembles the shape of many trains of the era.

The stencil in the toilet room was also inspired by one of the many geometric designs favored in the day.  It resembles a stylized sunrise or elaborate headdress from one of the flashy Broadway Shows.

The X pattern inlay on the cabinet drawers was a nod to the rhomboid shapes in the bath niches.  I left the center panel blank to keep it simple, but wanted the cabinets to have a little extra design interest.

Black and white colors were used in the 1930’s as they complimented the many bright to subdued colors used.  Colors ran from bright turquoise and pink and lots of teal, black and white featured everywhere.  Metallic’s were very popular, you saw them in wall coverings and inlays as well as furniture accents.

The Art Deco era was a fun and creative time.  It was bracketed by the sinuous botanicals from the Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts style that brought in more geometrics.  You can see elements of all these shapes in the Art Deco designs.

All of these little touches add just the right amount of interest to an otherwise plain bathroom.  And, the engineer did all the installations, which were tedious at times, but worth the effort.

The 515 Day Bathroom Remodel-Slate Flooring

Flooring—“the final frontier”, or so to speak.  When designing a room floors are always considered, but often people figure they’ll think about it more specifically as they get closer to installation time.  They will know roughly what kind of surface they want, i.e. carpet, tile, stone, hardwood, or vinyl.  An unfortunate truth is that by the time they get to choosing flooring, they’ve spent most of their budget on other things, and flooring is last.  Also, unfortunately, flooring is expensive. 

I had decided on slate years ago, when our daughter asked what I thought she should replace her kitchen flooring, which was alternating black and white vinyl squares.  A great look, but not practical with dogs tracking in mud and dirt from the yard.  She could have extended her hardwood into the space, but black slate was more durable—dogs, again.  

By using slate in our bathroom, it would not only be attractive and durable, it would help anchor the room and balance it with the soapstone countertop.  I was sick and tired of the light tile floor we’d been living with and it seemed dirty most of the time.  The slate only needs a quick sweep or light vacuum to keep it looking clean between washings.

If you’ve been reading about this 515 day remodel, you know how long we’ve had to live with the floor in bits and pieces. From the beginning, a two foot square hole cut into the floor to allow access under the house for plumbing.  A carefully cut piece of plywood was screwed in place until it was necessary to go under and then only a couple of screws had to be removed for access and replaced again.

The tile came up in stages and each time it was a little more unpleasant to look at and walk on, but it was only temporary.  I repeated this many, many times during the 515 days.  The first tile to come up was around the old vanity so that the new vanity could be placed on the new subfloor.  I must say, the backer board over the subfloor was lovely, it felt finished, or at least clean and level.

As we progressed through all the stages of this remodel, tile came up as needed.  Once the shower was demolished, that area needed backer board before we could continue.  The toilet room needed to be completely finished before the toilet could be installed.  It was nice to imagine how the entire floor would look with just that small room finished.

Onward to the rest of the floor, now the rest of the tile could come up and finally the hole in the floor could be permanently be closed up and nice, clean backer board was laid down.  We could see the light at the end of this long, long tunnel.

The engineer did spend a lot of time figuring out where the grout lines would fall in relation to the vanity’s opening and relative to the door to the bathroom.  This may not seem important, but believe me, you would notice it if it wasn’t lined up properly.  Not to mention having lots of small pieces to “fit” in to finish the floor.

After the floor was fully installed, we felt like we could dance in the room, so spacious, and level!  There were some tricky area’s to deal with.  As mentioned earlier, the tub has an Art Deco design.  The base has a small curve on either end with a panel in the center.  Fortunately, the original linoleum had been carefully cut and made a perfect pattern to cut the slate.  Not that cutting the pattern in slate was easy, but at least it didn’t have to be done by chiseling it by hand on the floor, but carefully cut on the tile saw while standing.

Of all the elements in the bathroom the slate flooring may be my favorite.

Next time:  Art Deco Details

The 515 Day Bathroom Remodel-Preparing Toilet Room and Stenciling

As I look through the photo library, I see that I’ve gotten a bit out of order in my timeline— how quickly one forgets.

We were painting the cabinets in September of 2021, on my birthday.  To those who know me well, know that it was just what I wanted to do.  The tiling took place after we painted the cabinets, which was in  October.  The demolition of the old shower took place in November, and oh what a mess that was; glad I was traveling.

The demolition of the shower took much longer than you might expect from watching HGTV, as the engineer uses a bit more finesse.  A pry bar instead of a sledgehammer, so not to create cracks in the walls outside of the bathroom.  Then there was the plumbing to remove and cap off.

It was December before all the walls were closed up with new drywall and we called our finish craftsman to tape and mud the walls.  Time was closing in on us, as the holidays were rapidly approaching and we had family coming from back east to stay.  In order for the mud to dry between sanding and a new layer of mud being applied, it was two weeks.

Finally, I could paint the toilet room and the walls of the main part of the bathroom.  We looked less “unfinished” by Christmas, but the toilet was still in the main part of the bathroom and the floors were still not tiled, but more of the old tile was in place and in other places it was taken up and the backboard for the tile was partly in place.  This left a very uneven floor, some old tile, some with backboard and some down to the original subfloor from 1938.  The floors would have to wait until January when we could get the plumber to come and move the toilet and cut the very old cast iron pipe under the house.

By January, and we needed to get the toilet room finished before the toilet could be moved.  This meant the slate floor in the toilet room had to be laid, and baseboards installed.  Stenciling at this point was the only thing left to do before the toilet moved.

Stenciling took longer than expected, mostly because of our aging eyesight and the subtle difference in color between the wall color and stencil color.  Lovely from a design aspect, but miserable on our eyesight.  Not to mention two of us, oldsters in a relatively small space.  Good thing we’ve had 50+ years to perfect our working style, such as it is.

The room was finally finished, from baseboards to crown moldings, paint and stenciling.  Now we wait for the plumber.  It was near the end of January and I was so ready for that toilet to be out of the middle of the bathroom.

At this point I was certain the moving of the toilet would be my favorite thing, after all, this was the reason for the remodel in the first place.  But, come to find out, it was being able to get the left set of drawers in place that was the most exciting.  I had purchased dividers for all the stuff that would fill six, full extension drawers.  I did have to scout all over the house for where I had put a lot of the stuff for the drawers, the stuff you don’t need on a daily basis.  But finally, I could organize the drawers, it was a dream come true.  Having the toilet out of the main part of the bathroom was great.

Next:  Slate Flooring

The 515 Day Bathroom Remodel-Tile and Stone

Finally some pretty stuff.  The tile had been stored in the tub initially and now it was time for it to be applied to the walls, oh happy day.

However, first there were again many measurements to be made, while the vanity was in place and with the help of son-in-law and a helpful neighbor friend the ninety pound trough sink could be set in place so the stone counter could be set.  Plumbing in the wall had been completed for the two faucets and we had a fully functioning sink again.  We were only without a sink in this bathroom for two days.

The stone fabricator had picked up the soapstone slab, which we had stored for a couple of years in the garage after the kitchen counters had been finished, to be cut to fit the sink opening.  Once the stone masons came and got the slab cut and returned to set and caulk it, we could plan for the tile.

Measurements from the surface of the stone, allowing for grout lines, began and the engineer put a ledger board around the walls to ensure that the tile lines would be consistent all the way around the two adjacent walls encompassing the tub.

We decided the wall that held the sink and two windows would be fully tiled since one of the windows was partially over the tub.  We had taken both the windows out so they could be restored to proper working order.  Which meant they had to be stripped of eighty plus years of paint and the lift systems had to be replaced to function again.  

Once the windows were restored, I was concerned about having a wood window frame inside the shower area, which previously had only been a tub.  I came up with the idea that we could frame out the windows with marble chair rail and a marble window sill.  The niches were all marble and framed out similarly, so why not add the chair rail to the windows.

Naturally, this addition had to be considered before the backer board was installed, so the tile walls would be flush to the chair rail. 

A word about the niches.  We had decided that since the tub and shower were in one place, we would need a niche for the tub as well as for the shower.  The engineer designed a vertical niche to accompany the bottles of shampoo, body wash, etc., and a horizontal niche for the occasional tub soak.  To complete the experience he added a teak shelf that could be placed across the tub to hold a cup of tea or wine, and the niche would be an ideal spot for a scented candle.

The stone for the niches was selected long ago.  I had found a beautiful marble rhomboid shaped tile, while it was a bit of a splurge, it was a relatively small area.  The chair rail framed out the niches as well as the windows.  However, the window framing was a late decision and we needed more. As luck would have it we found just enough to finish the project, as the chair rail was discontinued.

It turned out that the chair rail had to be epoxied to the walls, which turned out to be a multi-day project.  Now that the niches and windows were installed the tile on the walls could begin.  The engineer started from just above the tub at counter height and went up and onto the adjacent wall before finishing below the ledger board.

At this point, we were feeling like we could see the light at the end of the tunnel and we were just under a year into this project, and only had two walls finished.  Albeit those two walls were heavy with plumbing and electrical stuff, and all that tile.  Those two walls held three of the four essential  components of a full bathroom.

Next:  Preparing the toilet room and stenciling

The 515 Bathroom Remodel-Cabinets

All remodels require many steps and, the different trades involved are separately working on their particular specialty, just waiting for their turn to do the installation.  This is where and why our bathroom remodel took the 515 days to complete.  There was only one very handy, engineer husband doing virtually all the work.  That is, he was demolition guy, plumber, cabinet maker, tile and stone mason, electrician, flooring installer, along with ordering all the parts for every one of the above tasks.  My engineer wears many hats.

One of the engineer’s favorite mediums to work in is wood.  I offered that we could have the cabinet maker I’ve used before make the vanity and linen cabinet for the bathroom, but he wanted to make them himself.  There was one caveat with the vanity cabinet.  I wanted a decorative detail applied to the drawers; again, offered a couple of different ways he could achieve the look I wanted.  One, was to apply a simple, thin molding to the outside of the drawers.  Two, we could paint the detail on the drawers, or three, he could inlay them with a thin ebony trim.  Naturally, he chose the latter, it was a new challenge for him, and he began researching materials.  Adding the trim would turn out to be one of the last things done once the bathroom was totally functional, since it required more exacting patience and skill.  He had made the drawer fronts so they could be removed to perform this task.

The first cabinets he worked on was the linen, drawers and laundry cabinet.  These three spaces all functioned independently, but had to occupy one space.  As you will recall from the previous post, the shower wall had to be created with the linen cabinet as a support wall.

We had decided on a simple flat faced, inset cabinet style.  This is a more precise style of cabinet to build, so it took more time.  Not to mention having to drive some distance to obtain the needed materials, remember this is in the time of Covid, with limited stock and access.

To maximize storage, the cabinet was built to the ceiling and several shelves were planned to accommodate towels, supplies and various and sundry bathroom items.

The laundry pull-out was a design the engineer devised to suit our needs.  He found a large wheeled laundry basket and built the pull out bin to be one that the wheels could just roll off the platform and onto the floor without having to lift the heavy basket.

Once the cabinets were built, they could be installed and the shower plumbing could be finished.  There is an access panel inside the linen cabinet to get to the plumbing should that be necessary.

The engineer then began working on the vanity cabinets, since he had purchased all the wood needed for both the linen area and vanity.  There was much measuring and figuring as he wanted to allow for the largest drawers and full extension.  This was the result of living with cheap, ineffective drawers on one half of the vanity and practically non-usable drawers on the other half.  

The inlay is one of the most noticeable details of the entire remodel.  The engineer built a jig for his router to be just deep enough so that the ebony wood would be flush with the surface of the drawer face.  The effect is dramatic.

I was so excited to be able to get those drawers organized.  I am not a fan of having a lot of things on the counter and with a huge trough sink, there isn’t much counter space to begin with.  At this point the bathroom was beginning to feel much more finished.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself, the tile couldn’t be started until the sink counter was set.

Next:  Tile and stone

The 515 Day Bathroom Remodel-Plumbing

Now that we are on the other side of the 515 day bathroom remodel, it is a bit easier to see the journey.  

Keeping in mind our primary goal was to move the toilet into the shower space and give us floor space and better function with the vanity.  It was tempting to just tear out the old shower and move the toilet and work on the rest at some point.  Fortunately, reason took over and planning the actual plumbing needs was the next order of business

We needed to remove the linen cabinet first, so that the plumbing for the tub/shower could go in behind the cabinet. My handy, engineer hubby tore out the linen cabinet and tub wall to the studs to begin his own schematic for the plumbing in the walls.

The bulk of the plumbing would go between the shower wall and linen cabinet, but, additional pipes were run in the wall adjacent to the end of the tub wall..  This was messy and difficult to remove because  the cement was so thick.  Removal and clean up took time.  

Once the walls were totally open, the pipe positioning could be thought out and installed.  First of all, framing of the end of the tub wall, where the linen cabinet had been, needed to be built to support the new pipes.  Fortunately, we had selected the fixtures for the shower assembly and we had them on hand.  Knowing the exact dimensions of all these fixtures was key to making them work in the space allowed.   

The finished space between the shower wall surface and the inside wall of linen cabinet, is three and three quarters of an inch wide.  That means the internal space in shower wall is even less, so the actual pipe placement kit critical.  We also replaced all of the plumbing at the tub fill end and took this opportunity to raise the valve positions which make reaching the valve handles much easier. 

Additionally, the two niches we had planned needed to be framed and positioned to avoid plumbing as well.  As a designer, I appreciate that form must follow function, but it’s hard not to want to rush this phase and get to the “pretty stuff”.

At this point, we are living like “campers”, with open to the stud walls and old tar paper exposed.  We were pretty excited to be able to close up the walls with insulation and fiber board, and feel like we were on our way to a finished project.  But, we still had window wall completely open to the studs, so we focused on the almost finished part to keep sane, and be able to move forward.  

While I’d like this to be the end of the “endless” plumbing, it was far from over.  Our son flew from the east coast to spend a week helping his dad with some under the house copper pipe cutting, connecting and pressure testing.  This exercise would bring the sink plumbing to the ready for the placement of the two foot by four foot trough sink.  With all the under the house piping complete to this point, it would make it easier for the plumber who would come and cut the cast iron waste pipe and connect the toilet in its new location.  But that exercise is still months away.

As I mentioned this bathroom was fully functional during 90% of the remodel.  As the picture shows, my husband cut a two foot square in the floor for easy access to the plumbing under the house.  It was tight as the floor joists are actually only eighteen inches apart, but it was far easier for the guys to scrunch their shoulders to wedge themselves through the opening, than it was to crawl about 50 feet on stomachs and elbows from the exterior access.  We were delighted to see the original 1938 linoleum, complete with gold metallic flecks.  Classy indeed.

Next time:  Cabinet Making

The 515 Day Bathroom Remodel

A bathroom remodel isn’t for the faint of heart to begin with, and as a DIY remodel, even less so.  This will be the first in a series of posts about our process. 

The Plan was formulated nearly as soon as we laid eyes on the house, before we purchased the 1938 traditional.  Kitchens and baths sell houses, every real estate agent will tell you, well, that is one reason this house didn’t sell.  While it was livable, there was room for improvement with function.  Both bathrooms in the house required toilets to move, you can read about the hall bathroom on my Blog Post dated 6-21-18 (http://www.designsrefined.net/blog) for aesthetics and function.

Moving the toilet to the stall shower cavity was the main reason to do this remodel.  Putting a shower in the tub was much discussed, since we were not getting younger, and stepping over the tub might prove difficult in the future, but we have the hall bath shower just around the corner.

Originally, this house was a two bedroom and one bath model.  The main bathroom, had been remodeled sometime in the 1960s.  When we bought the house, the room was attractive enough for a sale, and functional enough to use, but no one liked the toilet placement, which felt as though it was sitting in the middle of the room.

The vanity was a new addition in the 1960s, to allow for double sinks.  However, the drawers on the left side were so shallow as to be practically useless, deeper drawers would not open because of the toilet placement.

Once we had removed the old vanity, our suspicions were confirmed, there had been only a pedestal sink, with a wall inset heater and a toilet on the adjacent wall.  Once we moved the toilet, we knew that it was in its original placement.

The remodel in the 1960s opened what had been a closet or storage cabinet, and made into a stall shower.  This shower had been “updated” probably in the 1990s, along with the floor tiles, while functional, it was dated. 

Once we had decided on a new, better functioning layout and the finishes we wanted, we began our journey.  My very handy engineer husband loves working with all kinds of materials, wood being his favorite, electricity is pretty high on the list, plumbing falls much lower, but tile is a fun puzzle for him.

Getting supplies was a challenge in the New World Order of Covid; we couldn’t just go and buy it in the early days, and as the project progressed materials became scarce.  More challenges were the need for surgeries, and not to mention holidays that came and went and came and went again.  We aged and it was beginning to show and slow us.

But, perseverance prevailed and we saw the light at the end of the tunnel.  One of the key factors in this long process was my husband kept the bathroom nearly fully functional at all times.  

Next Post:  Getting a new plumbing system for a shower in the tub.

Stenciled Patio Rug

After about six years, we finally got around to painting a rug on my daughter’s Saltillo tile patio.  We used a previously painted stencil, with plenty of paint on it, so we knew the lines would be less defined, but that was fine with us, we wanted a more authentic “hand painted” look—and we got it. The house was built in 1931, so the rustic look of hand painted tiles was in keeping with the era.  

The first thing we did was use a large cardboard box opened up so we could make a color template.  We considered the cardboard color the base color that would be the Saltillo tile color, added white for the first stencil outline color.  We then each took a different stencil and freehand painted different color combinations, which was fun, but soon realized how time consuming it would be to do such a large area, while squatting on low stools to stencil the patio.  We decided to limit our color choices to three, however, in the end decided that adding the yellow accent would not be too difficult, and would add some relief.

The process was not complicated, but lengthy since we wanted a large rug and had 11” tiles, 77 to be exact.  We began by power washing the tiles, then sealing them.  Next we used white primer paint and stenciled each tile by hand, lifting it and washing and drying it each time.  This was probably the most time consuming part, and probably wasn’t necessary.

The next day we began with our first color, using two slightly different blue hues for more interest, we skipped a tile after each application of the first blue, we called “blue tape blue” since it matched perfectly the the tape we used to protect the white underneath we wanted to keep.  By this time, we tried just dry wiping the blue off the back of each stencil application, saving time.   The next day was a bit hotter and we didn’t quite finish, the paint was drying too quickly and getting sticky, but finished it the next morning.  The second blue, we called “Smurf Blue”, was a nice relief to the first blue.  Same backbreaking process and after a couple of days of this, we were both feeling it.  

Once the second blue was applied, we had a little regret that the Blue Tape Blue color would have been better had it been a little more on the navy blue side, but it’s still a nice contrast.  Now, we have color number one, the Saltillo tiles natural color, the white, two blues and we bought a bright yellow, we call Rubber Ducky, adding a little accent, which we applied by hand using small brushes.  This went quite quickly, much to our aching backs relief.

Once the paint was dry, my daughter added several coats of sealer, over the next couple of days.  The sealer gave the area rug a little sheen, not too much, just enough to give it some depth.

We added the furniture to our finished project and agreed the colors were good choices.  If the cushions for the furniture had been blue instead of terra cotta, leaving the stenciling white only, would have been fine.  But, there is a lot of terra cotta on the patio— the Saltillo tiles, cushions and several pots, so the added colors help make it a more interesting rug.

It will be a long time before I tackle a similar project, but it was worth it.

Little Table

Several years ago, my daughter and I found this little table at an estate sale. She bought it and used it as an outdoor plant stand for several years and then passed it on to me. It was pretty weathered when we first acquired it and by the time it came to me, it was quite rickety and barely able to stand.

Handy Hubby to the rescue. Once it was made secure with a few screws and plenty of glue, I let it sit for sometime, before deciding to paint it.

Spraying it all black after priming the table gave me time to think about what to finally do with it. Bright colors and patterns seemed to be the answer. Starting with the legs, they each got the same treatment of color and patterns to lessen the chaos of the project.

I decided to paint the top a black and white checkerboard. The top was the most damaged, so the pattern is far from perfect, but it is still recognizable.

The bottom shelf was the last design idea. Since the legs were so quirky and the top was a checkerboard, I figured it was heading to Alice’s Garden in the end, therefore a rose and the four suits of cards would be perfect.

In the story of Alice in Wonderland, the Queen shouts, “Off with their head’s” when she sees the cards painting the roses red; they were supposed to have planted red roses, but planted white instead. The cards discovered their mistake and were hastily trying to rectify the situation before the Queen found out. That is the “hidden message” with the partially painted red rose on the bottom shelf.

Antique Sewing Machine Revival

Table compete, just waiting for chairs

A friend had an antique sewing machine in a lovely oak cabinet she was looking to dispose of, unless I had any ideas for another use for it.  My friend had been using it as a side table, mostly as an interesting conversation piece.

I named a half dozen things she could do with it within a couple of minutes and she was intrigued with the idea that it could be made into a dining room table, since she was considering leaving her current dining table and chairs when she sold the house. 

I explained that the ornate iron frame can be separated from the decorative oak box and sewing machine.  She was hoping to have a round glass table top cut to fit the iron base.  Knowing that the standard height for a dining table was 30” and the frame was only about 28”; an extension would need to be built or casters could be added to the legs for the additional height.  Who could do this, she wondered, well, “the engineer” of course.

We collected the heavy— very heavy and awkward sewing cabinet and brought it to the “workshop”.  The engineer was delighted with the new puzzle.  Thinking we had found all the screws, we’d be surprised to have to search yet again for the reason the box would not separate from the frame.  

Finally, with the two pieces separated, we went into discussions about how to build the frame.  My very handy husband, wanted to buy new wood, but being a practical sort of person, I wanted to use what we had, in scrap, it would only be painted anyway.  Oddly enough my husband had just cut up the pallet on which, the ceiling wood (Office Remodel Phase 1) had been delivered, and put into the trash.  Ugh!  I had suspected that part of the frame of the pallet was made of a very good hard wood; a friend thought it might be maple and I think he was right.  I thought about all the different types of maple and think it is most likely,“ribbon maple”.  A beautiful wood.  There was only a very little of it having been used as the ribs of the pallet, but as luck would have it, just enough to make a beautiful frame for the iron legs and extension for the table top.

Painting complete, including a little gold leaf on the lettering at the base identifying the machine; all that was left was a round glass table top, my friend was delighted with the outcome.

A little gold leaf

The beautiful oak box was mine to do as I wished.  I decided I did want to add it to the office as a permanent place for my light table.  Now, however it has no legs!  My dear friend and fellow designer Dawn, in Virginia suggested hanging it on the wall.  I had thought of that, but there was a window where it needed to go, not a solid wall.  Again, luck was on my side, it was just wide enough to clear the window and be fastened to the wall.

Nice fit!

The engineer was able to find some iron brackets to hold the weight of the oak box and cast iron sewing machine inside.  In addition he used a piece of left over walnut to strengthen the bracket and support the box.

Two antique sewing cabinets in use.

The Antique Sewing Machine has served many masters, since it was built at the turn of the twentieth century, and now in the twenty first century, retirement is still in the future for this well built piece of history.  It is perfect for my light table and the placement is ideal.

Office Update: Part 2 Flooring

The floor.  Now that is a special problem unto itself.  Originally the room we call my office was an outdoor patio.  It was probably enclosed in the 60’s and done fairly well, except for the wiring, I mentioned in Part 1.  The skylights were a wonderful addition as well as a beautiful large window, looking out onto a small private patio.  The problem was the fountain that had been installed in the floor under the large window; a questionable addition at best.  UGH.  Wiring, again, and plumbing, not to mention the recess in the tile floor.

When we had tenants, the fountain had to be covered for safety reasons.  When we moved in, I wanted the raised tile covered curb knocked down, so the floor would be somewhat flat, giving me more useable floor space.  I put a large area rug over the floor and moved in.  All fine, until we were ready to deal with that room, and all of its various elements.

Well, as the Walrus said, The Time Had Come, to talk of many things: not shoes and ships and sealing wax—- primarily, that floor.  Having been in the flooring business for many years, I knew what would work and what wouldn’t and, what I wanted verses what would work.  I had thought of several options, but many of my brilliant ideas were more money and work than I wanted to deal with.  

First things first, that fountain had to be filled in.  It took several hundred pounds of gravel, brick, cement and finished off with a smooth concrete surface.  Having been an outside room, and sitting on a cement slab, it would be unwise to continue the solid hardwood floors that exist in the rest of the house.  An engineered floor would be ideal, except that today’s engineered floors are all much wider and more “modern” than what we currently have.  I wanted to continue the look of the narrow strip flooring, but did not want to use solid flooring (unwise on a slab foundation) and have to stain and finish it to match.  Laminate floors, don’t offer the more narrow boards either.  Luxury Vinyl Tiles, nope, what it boils down to is I am out of fashion!  Too traditional.  Nothing new here, move on.

In the final analysis I chose to cover the now flat tiled floor with two 8X11 area rugs.  I decided on indoor/outdoor rugs made of polypropylene, certainly not my first fiber choice, but under certain conditions, it is best.  I had a beautiful wool rug that faded terribly from skylight exposure and somehow a moth infestation.  I’m guessing it was moths, but fortunately they stayed with this one rug, and none of the other wool rugs.  Polypropylene is a manmade fiber that does not fade and insects are not interested in it; although our cat might enjoy it for sharpening her claws!  The rugs all but cover the entire floor and add a bright and interesting pattern.  While the rugs are not necessarily a permanent solution, they are a happy solution for now, and much less expensive than flooring I did not love.  But I do love the room now.  Problem solved. 

Office Update: Part 1

Looking for the silver lining this past spring of 2020, and our stay at home orders, my office is getting a much needed ceiling repair, clean up and general update.  While we had tenants here, we had a leak in one of the skylights in what is now my office.  Fortunately nothing the tenants owned was damaged and it resulted in an unsightly paint blister that I’ve lived with for more than five years.

The paint blister was quite large, unsightly, but livable and low on the repair list…until Covid-19 quarantined those of us of a certain age.  We had managed to stay petty busy up until April, with the re-upholstery on the Model A, but when that finished, we were looking at our project list.  The complete gutting of our main bathroom was simply out of the question at this time.

  So, why not tackle the ceiling in my office?  Seemed reasonable, we had planned on using a pre-finished plank intended for ceilings and already had samples.  Like all projects, on the surface it seemed simple enough, at least to me.  The engineer, however saw the problems that needed to be addressed before the “pretty” part of the project.  Like, getting firing strips up to make the ceiling plane, or level if you will.  He found variations up to an inch and a half.  Then there was the ever present electrical issues we have had to deal with in each room as we worked room by room.

The electrical problems never ceased to amaze, with hot wires left in the ceilings improperly disconnected.  Other connections to other rooms making no sense at all.  But room by room, the engineer has made code corrections and wiring is all correct and safe; which takes t-i-m-e, about two weeks of time.  Not being able to just run up to the local hardware store, we were dependent on family or mail order to get supplies, which adds to the delays.  All in all, not too bad, since we have no where to go anyway and there is always something else to work on in during the waiting game.

Finally, all the panels were up and skylight wells were perfectly fitted and the ceiling has never looked better.  Well done.  But since, I’ve been out of my office for many weeks, I figured we might as well tackle the floor, since the room was pretty empty.  Flooring story will follow in next installment.

Some Garden Entertainment During Covid-19

With our current circumstances greatly altered, I thought I’d bring a tiny bit of entertainment to my neighborhood walkers, with and without little ones in tow. Many of the neighbors were setting Teddy Bears in their windows for the kids to see, but sans teddy bears in my house, I chose to have a garden rabbit make an appearance.

I started by posting a picture of the rabbit in a close up shot to make the Rabbit Hunt more fun for folks. The object was to find the rabbit each day, I didn’t post the address except for the street name. I soon had a fair amount of folks, very young, young and older kids some coming via parent taxi. The kids hanging out of car windows or popping out to take pictures, and adults stopping by to see where the rabbit was each day.

I must admit to having a favorite visitor, little Theo, who at three and a half would search for the rabbit and squeal with delight when he spotted it each day. His mother said that he’d find bunnies on our street, but she encouraged him to find the one that matched the picture posted each day on Next Door. I can not tell you how that lifted my spirits when I would see the little family stop by. On weekends, the father would be along, and he said that it’s a ritual now, Theo insists on finding the rabbit. I suggested they may have a little computer genius on their hands, one that was breaking into their email accounts.

Early on, I was at my dining table in the front window sewing masks every day for two weeks for my friends and family and would see folks stop by and search. It went a long way to warding off the boredom that was taking over.

Here are the daily pictures of the Rabbit Hunt, which began April 1, no fooling, and ended on April 15. I simply ran out of places to have the rabbit hide out.

But, stay tuned, a new adventure will soon appear.

This rabbit loves lavender!

A rainy day.

Looks like the Rabbit is sporting a fancy chapeau.

Happy Easter

The Rabbit bids all a fond farewell.

Kitchen Complete

Kitchen renovations are always about compromise.  We decided to keep somethings that were here when we took up residence, although they are not original to the 1938 design of the house.  While we made some big changes, none of the fixtures moved except the dishwasher.

When I last wrote, it was July and my handy husband was removing the old tile countertop and backsplash set in an inch of concrete and a stiff wire mesh.  It. Was. A. Mess.  Not to mention time consuming and hard on his shoulders.  You might think that once the tile was up the countertops could go down.  But, in the real world it does not work quite that easily.

There is electrical work to do to bring the formerly remodeled kitchen from, I’m guessing, the 1960s into the 21st century.  New electrical outlets, some with electronic charging capabilities.  Walls were opened for additional outlets to supply a coffee maker and coffee grinder, along with a spare or two for good measure.  All appliances get their own circuit which eliminates breakers kicking off in the middle of a task.

Once the electrical was compete, and that means pushing and pulling what seemed like thousands of wires through tiny openings, above ground and under the house, my husband moved onto building a new cabinet to contain the trash and recycling.  This cabinet would serve as a base to an additional two feet of new counter space.  My very handy husband built the cabinet to match the existing cabinetry that we chose to keep; while he was in the carpentry mood he made new doors for the cabinet under the sink as well.

Next came the plumbing, new faucet and high loop for the dishwasher drain line, and moving the garbage disposal drain pipe, that changed position for the new sink.  All of the above work took us through August.  Someone asked how retirement was coming along.  We answered, working every day and weekends, just like before, but on a fixed income!  All true, but not as bleak as it sounds.  These are projects “we” like to do, keeping in mind who is doing most of the labor, I’m the idea person, with a side of clean up and help where needed part.  The hero in this story is the engineer!

I was thrilled to have a new sink and faucet working before the countertop was set.  We purchased a soapstone slab and had a fabricator measure for us and get onto his schedule, while I painted the new cabinetry.  The slab was installed a week earlier than expected, but none too soon for us, we were ready.

We did take a little time for celebrating birthday’s and our anniversary, before the tiling of the backsplash began.  Now it is finished and we are so pleased.  I love that I have my trusty Hoosier Cabinet dedicated to baking and cereal storage only, a place for the coffee maker and more counter space than this kitchen has every had.  A bonus, is that “we” extended the floor under the sink to be flush with the existing cabinetry, giving us about three more inches in depth.  With this my handy husband built a pull out shelf to contain the under sink necessities, now easily accessible.  

I think my husband is going to move to working on the Model A again, to give his brain something else to think about, and different muscles to get sore.

Kitchen Renovation--An On Going Affair

Our kitchen renovation has been a work in progress for several years, well, ever since we actually moved in more than four years ago.  We knew six years ago when we purchased the house, the kitchen would need renovation, but I wanted to live in it awhile to make sure how it would best serve us.

Sadly, we started right off the bat with a big plumbing fix at the kitchen sink and new electrical panel, so nothing pretty was in sight for a long time.  The addition of my lovely range went a long way to making my life easier in the kitchen after trying to keep going with the “vintage” O’Keefe and Merritt range that was left in the house.

Once we got the range and dishwasher (a package deal), the peninsula was removed and farm table moved in, which gave me some counter space finally to work with.  

This was the kitchen when we bought the house.

More years passed and as other projects were completed, the kitchen countertops made it to the top of the list…finally.  But, nothing is as simple as ripping out the old and installing the new, like on TV.  There is still electrical stuff to deal with.

My husband likes to refer to some of the electrical work done in our 81 year old home, as Hillbilly Handyman work.  He has traced electrical work from the kitchen to outlets and lights all over the house; so he’s been sorting and separating all of that which takes t-i-m-e.  I am so grateful for his expertise and willingness to do this work that I do not spend time tapping my toes, waiting impatiently any longer— I was much younger then.

After the peninsula was removed and dishwasher moved.

As I look back on the old pictures of the evolution of this remodel I can appreciate all the baby steps we took to improve the kitchen a little at a time.  

Plumbing and some electrical, then wait.  Refinish cabinets, again wait.  Purchase range and dishwasher, yup, wait.  Take out peninsula and move dishwasher, bring in farm table, you get the picture— wait.  Removing the 1” thick cement and wire mesh and tile from backsplash took much longer than even my husband expected.  Trace electrical wires and separate, get them into new conduit, two weeks—there was a lot of pushing and pulling and finally separating into smaller bundles.  Connecting electrical wires from under the house to outlets etc. is now complete.

The goal will be to extend the counter top beyond where it currently ends at the dishwasher, to an additional two feet which will enable us to enclose the trash and recycling into a closed cabinet. 

Removing the backsplash for extension of counter tops.

Plumbing will be next, again nothing pretty quite yet, but the new faucet did arrive today and it is handsome!

The current state of affairs.

A New Look For Spring

Just needed a fresh new look, so I decided to paint the front door. Fresh. Polished the original Art Deco front door handset. Wow.

Simple Window Covering

Window coverings can be a big expense and, depending on where the window is located with reference to sun exposure and heat, an added consideration.  But, if none of the above are a consideration, simple and inexpensive options are available.

For instance, we have a pair of interior windows, odd yes, but more common than you might think.  If you have a home where a room was added to the exterior of an existing room and now encompasses what had been an outside window, you have a room within a room.  Perhaps the window should have been covered over with the new walls of the expanded room, but often that is not the case, when costs are considered.  Still not optimum.

In our case, the outside atrium was enclosed to be an inside atrium complete with a fountain, I will cover that in a few years, stay tuned.

Back to the issue at hand.  The room currently being worked on, is the TV room.  Originally it had been a formal dining room.  Sometime in the 1950’s-1960’s I imagine it was changed into a den, I am guessing here.  The large picture window that had looked out onto the atrium was removed and drywalled on the inside and stuccoed on the outside.  It is possible that the two side lights in the dining room were original to the house making the room quite light and bright; imagine a large picture window and two floor to almost ceiling side lights.  Once the picture window was walled in and the door that lead from the living space to the dining space was closed off, there was only one door into the room from a hallway, and only the two long side lights for outside light.  The windows were stationary, so no outside fresh air was available, but they had installed “modern air conditioning”.  This made for an ideal cozy den or TV room.

The problem I have with my downsized circumstances (so few complaints) is that I do not have a closet convenient for my vacuum cleaner.  I have a bi-fold screen that I can “hide” the vacuum behind in my office, but it is in front of one of the two windows in the TV room.  Not a lovely thing to look at from the TV room, not too bad from my office (the room that was created as an interior atrium).  

What to do?  At first, just to cover part of the window, I put up a pretty textured rice paper, but always intended to make something a bit more refined.  I decided a fixed panel would solve that problem.  I have used IKEA sliding panels in several other applications for years.  Naturally, those panels change styles, and I had to find a current one that was acceptable to me.  I found a simple white panel with an interesting thread pattern and cut it to fit the window, made a pocket on the top and bottom for a slender rod and had it attached to the frame side of my office window.

This is the same thing I did to partially cover the window in our back door and two bathrooms, where we wanted a little privacy, but not full coverage; allowing for more light in both cases, but obscuring the ability to view into either space. 

The IKEA sliding panels are great at hiding windows, doors or unattractive views.  I first used these panels in my daughter’s private practice office.  She had a private bathroom that she did not want visible.  The panels made for easy access, but was virtually invisible to anyone looking at the room.  This same set of sliding panels has been used in subsequent offices, once to divide a lobby from a storage room and currently, again to obscure a door to another part of the building.  

TV Room Renovation

The Engineer worked on a friend’s Cinema Room last year and it really got his juices flowing to dig into our meager little TV room.  We have had new speakers, fortunately still current and the same ones installed in the fancy Cinema Room, since before we moved nearly four years ago, just waiting to be installed.

Similar to what was original

Part of the delay, besides all the other projects that had priority, was wondering what was under all the dark blue paint.  We figured it was paneling, but not your 1960-70’s paneling, this stuff,  was something we had not been familiar—really wide and oddly spaced.  Well, now we know.  I am sure it was in Ozzie and Harriet’s den or Mr. Blanding’s Dream house, I will have to check on that.

Mystery solved, it is paneling, three quarters of an inch thick, and eleven and a half inches wide, and extremely hard wood.  We knew the hard part, because we had to drill pilot holes in the surface in order to hang pictures.  The reveal happened when my husband took off the crown molding at the ceiling and removed the door frame and jam.  We could see the plaster they used to “fill in” the groves of the paneling pattern.  

I laughed, that is exactly what I did when we bought a single wide trailer to live in while we built our home in the foothills.  All the walls were paneled, but with inexpensive  and thin 1970’s paneling.  To add some design and color to the two bedrooms, I used good old Plaster of Paris to level out the bevels of the paneling.  I added a chair rail and wallpapered above the chair rail and painted below, leaving the bevels for interest.

This discovery lead the engineer to rethink his previous plan of removing the paneling to simply adding quarter inch drywall over it.  Far less messy, less work, and the landfill will not burdened with the scrap wood.  A win-win, I think.

You can see from the photos that the wood expands and contracts with changing temperature, leaving vertical cracks at bevel lines.  Also, the wide depressions are from shrinkage of plaster after it dries.  These traits are what left us confused as to what was behind the paint.

You can just make out the vertical cracks in the paint between the panels.

Now the wiring begins, so there will not be much interesting stuff to report for several weeks, I am guessing.

Panel at the ceiling

Stay posted, I will send photos out as we move along with this project.

Kitchen Re-Fresh

Several weeks ago, I got a call from a client, asking for help with a kitchen; they were buying a “new” to them house, and could only afford to paint the kitchen cabinets for starters.  A real estate picture of the kitchen was sent showing the kitchen.  I could only see a glaring odd bank of cabinets hanging on the wall, “what were they thinking”, I wondered.  When I met my client at the house, I asked if she’d consider removing the odd bank of cabinets and we could replace them with open shelving; to sweeten the idea, I suggested she would then be able to display her favorite ceramics from Ireland.  Fortunately, she loved the idea and it was agreed that the cabinets could come down.  The odd bank of cabinets consisted of a pair of wall hung cabinets and one corner cabinet hung awkwardly over the peninsula.  This corner cabinet cut off a view of the backyard and closed off much needed light into an already the dark kitchen.

We decided on a two color combination for the cabinets and some hardware for a more updated look.  This would go a long way to brightening up the dark, dated kitchen with its brick ceramic countertops and nondescript floor tiles; both will change as the budget allows.

Once the cabinets were down I found four layers of wallpaper!  Fortunately, only behind one of the cabinets.  The top layer consisted of only a small tab of the former paper, the next layer appeared to be from 1970 in all its bright yellow and orange daisy, vinyl patterned glory.  Once that was stripped off, the next layer revealed was something from the 1950s I believe, cute for its time.  But wait, there was more; I stripped off each layer as carefully as possible to capture the history of this kitchen which was new in the 1940s.  The last layer was a paper that could have been from the 1930s, as patterns did not change as rapidly as they do today.  It was a sweet depiction of a victorian kitchen with an old wood burning stove, large farm table laden with baked goods including cupcakes, cookies, cake, bread and all the while the mother is mixing up more batter; a dog rested in a box near the stove, nursing her puppies.  A kitty sleeps nearby, and it appears that granny is sitting at the table (her spectacles are on the table near an open cookbook) but only her skirt is shown.  The paper is like a time capsule of early victorian life and it must have seemed like an appropriate walk down memory lane for the homeowner of the late 1940s.  

I took pictures of each paper as it was revealed and made prints so that they can be framed and put in the laundry room as a reminder of days gone by— a bit of history for the house.

Once the cabinets were painted and the hardware installed, the kitchen had a fresh feeling.  Patching and painting the wall where the cabinets had been was next, we liked the IKEA brackets, but not the shelves that fit the brackets, so we found a lumber yard that carried “full sized” boards, my handy husband planed them down to fit, and I stained and finished them.  

Once the shelves were installed the kitchen began to feel more updated and belonging to the current family.  While it is not my client’s ideal kitchen it is such an improvement over what it had been, it feels almost ideal—for the time being at least.

As time and budget allow, there are several ideas I have for the adjoining laundry and pantry rooms; all rooms are separated by walls with standard door openings.  The pantry room actually has three doors on each of three walls.  I know we can make this room much more efficient by closing off two of the doors, the family may consider non-non-essential.

Bathroom Gut Job

Several months ago, I shared the beginning of the hall bathroom “gut job”, where handy hubby tore the room apart to the studs.  Well, it’s finished and has been for sometime now.  I thought I would wait until we had gotten the doors painted in the office behind the bathroom to close out this project, but that may be awhile yet.

You may recall the toilet appeared to be sitting in my husband’s office, while convenient, hardly private.  The problem with this bathroom was always the placement of the toilet; right in the center of the door in the hallway that also framed the kitchen.  I am certain that no one wants to see that from a kitchen.

Moving the toilet to under the window where the vanity sat had always been the plan.  In the course of changing out the fixtures, it was apparent that the walls needed to be opened to move the plumbing and some wiring as well.  We did have several of those, HGTV moments, when walls are opened only to discover dangerous plumbing or wiring that could have resulted in floods or burning the house down.  

It was like an archeologist dig.  We discovered the small window that was in the bathroom had been more than twice as large when the house was built in 1938, in fact there had not been a hall bathroom, but most likely a laundry area off the back door.  To enclose the room, the window was cut down and installed poorly and out of plumb.  That was corrected and a new level, matching sill was made.  

The shower was expanded 4 inches, which makes a big difference in a small space.  New fixtures and a niche were added along with bright white subway tile; simple and no fuss in the tight quarters was the best choice.  

The standout in the bathroom would be the vintage pedestal sink, the decorative floor tile and pretty light fixture over the sink.  The sink was the splurge, but it was a great size and just so pretty, I could not imagine anything else in that alcove.  

To set the sink off, the floor was the next thing to catch the eye, it is a bold, black background with a white and taupe to gray snowflake like pattern.  This pattern would be much too busy for my taste, if it were not limited to a small space, below eye level.  You certainly notice it, but with the sink, mirror and light fixture, it is not overwhelming.  The shower floor is a black pebble stone.  I did not want it to have to compete with the flooring outside of the shower and did not want it to be white to draw attention to it; this way it visually expands the bathroom floor without being obvious.

You may also remember a post about the door that we installed on barn sliders, allowing more space in the tight quarters, no door swinging in to take up valuable space.  We even found a clever lock for the inside of the bathroom door.  The beveled glass insert in the original vintage door had to be obscured for privacy, and a piece of glass that I put an antique mirrored finish on it worked perfectly.  The inside however, was a piece of plywood to hold the glass in place.  I covered it with a piece of wrapping paper, that matched the color of the walls.

The room is small but adequate and we could not expand its footprint, making smart choices in the finishes was important.  If you can picture a room with four refrigerator boxes set on four walls with not much space in-between, you can imagine the approximate size of the space.  The shower is one box, the alcove where the sink is another, remember that is pushed into the office, the third box is the toilet space and the box left over is the floor space.  A tidy space but very functional.  I am not yet ready to tackle the master bath.