Guest Room/Second Bedroom
By far the "party piece" of the whole house, and what stuck with me originally, was the kid's room at the top of the stairs to the second floor. Have a look in the door. Go ahead.
Not easily seen from t
his view is the midnight blue sky color painted on the ceiling. Nor can you see the roughly 75 pairs of wires sticking through the ceiling. This was to be a very cool starry-night-sky with twinkly lights. If it had been finished, I would have considered keeping it. However, it was unfinished, and had to go. The stars made of concrete and stuck to the wall and opalescent pink woodwork are merely icing on the cake, no?The other gem is the behind-the-door blackboard paint. As much as I wanted to leave notes in Elliott's room that would mess with his head, this had to go as well. Notice also that the door to the bedroom is complete rubbish. It will be replaced eventually. It is much improved since these photos, thank goodness.
Nothing Says Welcoming Like a Purple Entry Hall
It's true. Licensed Scienticians and Researchers have conducted extensive tests and come to one conclusion: purple entry halls make people feel welcome. The best part of this room was that if you ran your hands down the wall on the right (with the large door to the living room), your hands would be purple. The drywall hadn't been properly primed, so the paint came off like chalk on your hands.In the spirit of balance - how about that fan? It is totally a sexy fan, and is allowed to hang there to this day. Feel free to comment on the classy curtains in the next room - they will receive no dedicated criticism beyond this.
Dining Room: Kind of a Pain
This one caught me by surprise. Although originall
y deemed "inoffensive" and "workable" on my first walk-through of the house, this one ended up being a big motivator for change. Important to note here: the window trim is partially stripped. It would take nearly a week to complete that job, but they remain unfinished and thankfully covered by curtains.The transom window was swinging freely, which went completely unnoticed by me on the first walkthrough. The hardware has arrived to solve this issue, and is awaiting installation. The other item I'd ask you to note here is the coloration of the walls. In a stroke of brilliance, they had thought ahead to paint them pea-soup green,
allowing pea-soup based foodfights to proceed without regard for collateral damage to walls.Actually, I didn't mind this color that much, but it made a dark room fairly darker, and was ripe for a repaint. The dining room light fixture also bears a passing mention - very under-scale and out of character with the house. It was replaced in short order. Lastly, note the Harry Potter nook for under-stairs storage. Haven't quite figured out the best way to "finish" that nook to make it less obvious. Very handy to have, but a bit unsightly.
All the Charm of a Prison Bathroom, At Home!
Another enigma: the powder room off of the dining room. In theory, a very cool bathroom space - under the stairs gives it an angled roof, and the walls were finished in a sort of concrete/stucco textured wall. The single 40W bulb with blue paper shade dangled dangerously low to illuminate the room enough for you to realize there was no way you'd be able to see anything.Upside on this room? The floor. Those are a variety of glass pebbles as kind of a mosaic-floor. Feels fun on sock feet, and was definitely a keeper. The toilet is unremarkable, and looks like a toilet. This was obviously a big disappointment given the other eccentricities of the house, but was a nice relief on the budget.
And Now for the Main Event
The whole genesis for this blog is now my focus: the third floor. This is a really large space, covering the front 2/3rds of the house. It has interesting sloping ceiling/walls, and the highest ceiling points are a very livable 8' height. There was the roughed-in bathroom you see to the right, and plaster walls with hardwood floors. Although not quite polished enough to move into as a bedroom, it was a reasonable guest-housing space with a futon, and made a decent office space for Elliott.
However, when Summer came and it was clear that a window A/C would take up one of the three small windows up here, and then Winter showed us that fingerless gloves would be a good office Christmas present for Elliott, climate control up here became a priority. In addition, the sloping ceilings were barely compatible with this bathroom design. Everything is built up on a 2x6" riser to allow plumbing to run under this deck, and the bathtub was positioned under a slope that would give any bather serious bad posture. Use of the sink required nothing short of acrobatics and a neck brace. This space needed to be rethought and reconstructed.
So, as they say on Top Gear - "How hard can it be?" An attempt to answer that question is the first major project that I've done on my house. I plan to chronicle the project and its changes to the space until I catch up to where I am now, nearly 10.5 months into the project.
This is a long post
I'm legally obligated to say "stay tuned to my blog!" at this point, but sincerely hope you will, and welcome all criticisms and comments. Once I'm caught up, I'll plan to post design ideas for critique and sharing, photos in progress, thoughts on how to proceed, and so on.
Between all the house posts, I may include tales from my life, although these will usually be in the form of excuses for not meeting aggressive projections for how work would proceed!
