Fourteen Months Later....

I got a phone call from my mom after church this morning asking if she could stop by with some sections of baseboard for our living room.  (A mere fourteen months after the last post on this topic here.)  I had no idea my mom had been working on these and the unexpectedness of her surprise made it even more exciting to see the boards against the wall and marked to length.  As I explained in my earlier post, recreating the profile on the upper portion of the baseboards proved to be a challenge.  But I'm lucky enough to have a mother employed at a woodworking shop and in the end her boss recreated the profile by hand - and did an excellent job.  Side by side, the new baseboard is an almost perfect match to the original.  For local readers who need any custom woodwork I highly recommend Brad's Woodworks of Attica (and not just because my mom works there!)

Other projects are progressing as well.  The shed doors are resting in the shop, just waiting for a nice weather day to hang them.  I'm anxious to see the doors and their hardware on the shed.  (But not quite anxious enough to stand outside in late February weather to install them!)

And Cecilia's quilt top is all pieced.  I'm using a darning foot for the first time to quilt it.  It's definitely a learned skill, but I'm having fun with it and I'm pleased with the results to far.

 Lastly, I've been lax in introducing our new house cat.  

Meet Schwartz, the luckiest of Ethel's litter from last spring:

The kids think Schwartz has been a great addition to the family.  

Tiny the Cat is a bit less enthusiastic, though.  : )

In Better News

It's still raining outside and there's been much discussion regarding the stone bridge over the past week, but I'm going to devote this post to other (much less depressing) things that have been going on here at the Einsel House.

First - this arrived in the mail last week to brighten the end of February:

I knew my aunt was working on this (she let me pick the pattern) but I was still surprised when it came.  It's stunning - the stitches are all so delicate yet so perfect, and it came so beautifully framed.  Thank you Aunt R!  The sampler has found a home upstairs already, and hopefully by the next time you're in Ohio I'll have it surrounded by a collection of old family photos.  : )

Another piece of news here is that Charles and I ordered new living room furniture.  We had tentatively talked about new living room furniture for our 10th anniversary this summer but after spending a week quarantined in our living room - with the cheap Craiglist couch we picked up last summer - I suggested we celebrate a few months early. 

Appropriately I suppose for an anniversary gift, there was a large amount of compromise in choosing furniture.  In my mind I could see two wing chairs with a small round table between them against the east wall of the living room.  But Charles was picturing the antithesis of a wing chair - a "Papa Chair" as he called it; think of the largest poofiest recliner you can imagine.  (You get bonus points from my husband if the recliner you pictured has armrests that open to reveal beverage and remote control storage.)

In the end I gave in, our living room will not have any wing chairs.  But Charles conceded some too.  The chair we ordered is a conventional recliner, but it is one of the smaller recliners we found (and he will have to rely on an end table for that beverage and remote control storage).  The striped fabric below is what will be on Charles's "Papa Chair" and we will get two pillows for the sofa in the same fabric.

The paint card is for "Sweet Annie" which is the color of the living room walls and the paisley fabric is what I used to make the room's curtains.  I have extra curtain fabric to make a few additional pillows for the new sofa.  I don't have a picture of the fabric for the sofa, but it is called "Caramel" and that's a pretty apt description.  We have about five more weeks of waiting before our furniture is ready and I'm quite anxious.  I hope it looks as good in our living room as I think it will.

Another room in the EH that is already looking better is the kitchen.  In my last kitchen post I was not feeling so keen about the peach colored doors.  Remember this:

I'm now much happier with this:

That picture is of the back kitchen door, but the front kitchen door is now also sporting a "Flannel Coat" paint job.  I also replaced the tarnished and painted over brass hinges on each door with new oil-rubbed bronze hinges.  I like the new hinges so much that I may have to go ahead and change the door knobs as well.

And yes, I've been contemplating new paint colors for the kitchen walls, but at this point that's a job that's rather low on my priority list.  Much higher on my list of priorities is addressing some lingering issues caused by the recent flooding.  Fun stuff....

You're Gonna Wind Up Where You Started From

I’ve been pondering the east wall in our living room. This is the wall where we took out a closet added by the previous owners. (See the second half of this post from Nov. 2009.)  This is also the wall that originally had a window facing out on the former side porch. That window was closed in by the previous owners when they enclosed the porch to expand the bathroom. But we still have most (all?) of the walnut trim from the original window.  If you go back and read that post from Nov. 2009  notice that at the end I wrote we were "still trying to figure out what to do about baseboard".

Well, this is what the wall currently looks like:

Um, yeah, we're still trying to figure out what to do about baseboard.  Putting baseboard up sounds easy enough, but in reality it’s posing something of a problem. The pictures below are recycled from a post last April.  They show a before and an almost after of some baseboard on the south wall of the living room:

Notice that the paneled area under the window takes the place of the baseboard. Although we saved all of the baseboard we removed from the east wall, because that wall originally had a window (with a full paneled bottom) there is not enough of the original baseboard to now cover the entire length of the wall. Thus the problem.

Despite having access to two woodworking shops, it appears that successfully recreating the profile of the molding at the top of the current baseboard is going to be something of a challenge. And there’s also the problem of what wood to use for the new baseboard. I’m semi-confident that we can match the color of the EH’s existing wood but matching the old lumber's grain is a bit more difficult.

If we put back up the original baseboard I’m worried we will wind up with a piecemeal effect – two short sections of the original walnut and a third newer section (that, for the reasons explained above, I fear would stick out like curly fretwork in a Frank Lloyd Wright house). The other option is to recreate the entire length of baseboard in one piece of new wood – but we would still have to find a way to match the existing baseboard's color, grain and profile before I would be willing to do this.

Now, even though actual work on the house has basically been at a standstill for the last few months, the planning and plotting in my head never stops. And so, after six months of living with a baseboardless wall, I’ve come up with two other options for dealing with this dilemma.

The first possibility occurred to me a couple of months ago when I noticed the picture at right while flipping through This Old House magazine.

Hmmmm…Our wall had a window in it originally. And like I mentioned before, we still have most (all?) of the original trim from that window. What if we put back up the original window trim, bottom panel and all, and simply replace the actual ‘window’ part with a mirror? If we did, then the remaining original pieces of baseboard should be enough to complete the wall. Hmmmmm…….

After pondering this idea for a few months I’m still not sure if I like it or not. I do like the fact that it would put more of the beautiful original walnut back into the room. And it would create a focal point. But I worry that as a focal point it would draw attention to a feature that has obviously been altered from its original appearance. After all, even if we put the trim back up we can not recreate the depth of the original window. And would a single, solid mirror look misplaced next to three other 12-paned windows?

Then while browsing the houseblogs site I noticed this "Faux Fireplace" entry at Petworth Row House. And I thought, "Hmmmmm…..". Using the existing trim pieces from the former window, I suspect that we could make a mantel that would blend perfectly with the rest of the room. Couple that with an electric fireplace insert and we could really dress up that east wall. And with a fireplace eating up a good chunk of the wall space, the original remaining baseboard would be enough to finish the job. I’ve always felt that a fireplace is the one feature that seems to be ‘missing’ from the Einsel House. (And based on how often visitors ask, "So where is the fireplace?" it’s obvious that I’m not alone in my feelings on this matter.)

But, but, but…an electric fireplace insert?!?! Am I in my right mind? In the kitchen I wouldn’t think twice, that room has already been altered way beyond its original condition. But the living room still exudes vintage 1840’s charm. We might be able to create a mantel that would not spoil that authentic feel, but what about the rest of the fireplace? 

I admit, at first blush I was quite smitten with the thought of a mirror-window or of a faux fireplace, but in the end I suspect the best fit for this house will be recreating the original baseboard as best we can and nothing more.  The living room isn't lacking for drama - the remaining three windows and the front door provide plenty of that.  And we're striving for a renovation here, not a remodeling.  So, after a great deal of mental energy, I'm back where I started from.  Still trying to figure out what to do about baseboard. 

House Tour

After last weekend's open house, I thought it might be fun to do a house tour here on the blog as well.  These are candid shots, taken just after church on Sunday.  My apologies in advance for the glare in some of these.  The sunny weather was perfect for the open house, but not so perfect for taking indoor pictures.

First up - the kitchen.

Pictured below is the north end of the kitchen, where we had to lower the cathedral ceiling.  That warbrobe pictured in the last post is going to go in the corner of this room to corral the toys currently overwhelming those MDF shelves that I abhor. 

And the 'kitchen-y' end of the kitchen: 

Most people disagree with my plans to paint these cupboards.  But so far that hasn't convinced me to give up my plans - namely, adding crown molding, painting all cupboards (except the island) off white, and replacing the door hardware, counters (again except the island) and sink.

Moving on to the dining room:

That cupboard in the corner of the room was a jelly cupboard from my grandparents' basement.  In 1997 I stripped the old paint off as a 4-H project.  Last month I sanded down glossy poly finish and put it back under paint.  I love the punch of color it adds to the room.

Next up - the office:

The white chest of drawers between the bookcases was left by the previous owners.  Eventually I want to clean it up, repaint it and change the hardware. 

Yes, we have two computer monitors.  (Charles only consents to living in an old house so long as I consent to allowing his modern toys in said old house.) 

The stacked cabinet on the right side of the above picture is easily the most commented on piece of furniture in our house.  It's also the first piece of furniture I ever bought.  I was 15 years old when I stumbled across it at an antique store in Marietta, Ohio. My parents and I were killing time before I could sign in for the week long archeology camp I was registered for at Marietta College. A "lawyer’s cabinet" was what the shop owner called it, but the price tag hanging from one of the drawers ($750) was too steep for my parents.  We left to check out other shops, but I was too smitten by the lawyer's cabinet to let it go that easily.  Just as we headed back to the van so I could check in at the archealogy camp the solution occurred to me.  I could buy the cabinet.  Myself.  With my own money.  (At 15 this was a novel idea.)

But by the time this solution occurred to me there was not enough time left for me to return to the antique store.  So once I was settled in at Marietta College for the week my parents returned to the shop.  My dad had promised to do his best for me bargaining with the shop owner.  If he could get the price down to six hundred dollars they would buy the cabinet for me.  Cell phones were still a novelty in 1995, so it was a few days before I was able to call home.  Of course, the first thing I asked about was the lawyer's cabinet.  My mom was apologetic, but she told me the shop's owner would not budge at all on his price.  When they picked me up at the end of the week, she promised, I could go back to the shop and try bargaining with him myself.

So I spent the week playing in the dirt and traipsing around Indian mounds.  And at the end of the week my mom made the drive back down to Marietta to pick me up.  When I got in the van I noticed the signature cardboard envelope of a 24 hour photo development place sitting - perhaps too conspicuously - on the console between the front seats.  As mom had to know I would, I immediately opened the envelope and began flipping through the pictures inside.  Somehow she coaxed me out of the van as I looked through the stack of pictures.  She had her camera ready at her side.  And as soon as I got to the picture of the lawyer's cabinet that they told me they hadn't bought sitting in our living room, right between the computer and rocking chair, mom took this picture:

The receipt for the lawyer's cabinet is still tucked in the back of one of the index card drawers. 

Dad had talked the shop owner down to $575.

 

But, jumping back to the present, we're up to the Einsel living room:

(Sorry about the glare in those.) 

And yes, I realize that a clock needs to go on that shelf instead of a picture - an ogee clock to be precise - but I'll talk about that more in another post.

Heading on upstairs:

This circa 1860's child's bed was a perfect fit for the little nook at the top of the stairs.  It originally belonged to my great great grandmother's sister, who left it one of my grandmother's cousins, who left it to me.  The quilt on it is an heirloom from Charles' side of the family.  His paternal grandmother began the quilt in 1953, when she was expecting her fourth child.  Sadly, the pregnancy ended in toxemia (eclampsia).  Baby Joseph Allen lived only one day.  His mother held on for 13 days.  Later, Charles' great grandmother finished the quilt that her daughter-in-law had begun. 

Here's the view of the stairway from inside the back bedroom:

And Cecilia's view from her bed:

Neil's view is through the windows pictured here:

 

And Charles and my room last:

The place has come a long way in just one year.  Still, it feels a bit sparse.  I'm constantly plotting what to hang on the walls and what other pieces of furniture would be a good fit.  Based on my experience with our last house, I expect the finishing details will take me years.  I'd rather live with a blank wall indefinately, waiting for something that feels perfect, than to put up a picture that feels mehhhh just because I have it on hand. 

That's the tour - although it's much better in person.  : )

Back Inside

True to my word, here are those promised pictures of a lived-in Einsel House.

In the living room (with the daughter engrossed in "Annie")

To the dining room
(I swear this picture didn't seem crooked when I was taking it.)

And the office:

The chest of drawers in the middle was left by the previous owners. Eventually the plan is to refinish/repaint it and put on different hardware.

As you can see, the place is (at best) sparsely decorated, and the indoor lighting has been less than flattering in all my recent pictures. But things are coming together. I have a fully stocked kitchen, a functioning laundry room in the basement, and we even have one (but only one) door that actually has a doorknob back on it:

Back to the House

As promised, I'm moving back on topic. The masons were back at work on the springhouse yesterday, and I'll have another post on their progress coming soon.

In the house, my mom has been busy putting her carpentery skills to work. In the dining room, she put up baseboard and chair rail in the corner with the new boxed out duct work. Once I finish get it all shellaced, it will look like it has always been there. Mom has also put up various pieces of trim in the living room. The past couple of days she has spent back up in the back bedroom, building a small closet into the northwest corner of the room.

Charles has been busy with the play, but he did find time to haul off two more loads of scrap metal. So far Charles has made over $200 just cleaning scrap metal from the property.

My uncle J has also been back at the house. As we get each room painted, he follows along replacing outlets and switches. It makes such a huge difference to see clean plates go up over new outlets. Pictured below is a sample of my uncle's work. Two outlets in the living room were in boxes installed on the woodwork. J removed these sections of baseboard and cut holes to install new recessed boxes. He also had to carefully chip into the stone wall behind each outlet, making just enough room to allow for this change. He then put brown outlets and covers on each (we're using ivory in the rest of the house, but thought brown would work better since these are in the walnut baseboard.) The light colored rectangle in the floor is the site of the first outlet in this room, it was installed in the floor rather than the wall. We removed the outlet and my mom patched the floor. Right now the patch is still bare wood, hopefully it will blend in better when we put the next coat of finish on the floor.



As for me, I've been painting. I hope to finish the second coat on the office walls tonight. The color is called Spring Forward. It's something of a muted teal.


And I've been painting in the Book Nook as well. The purple here is called Kimberly (how appropriate!). The nook will get carpet and then small baseboards, but other than that it is basically finished.

Going Green

The choice of paint color for the living room has long been the topic of much discussion. With the fabric for the living room curtains in hand I picked Olympic's color Sweet Annie. That was months ago, so there's been plenty of time to gather reactions before the paint actually hit the wall. And the reaction was about 25% "That'll look great!" and about 75% "That's too dark!". I admit that I was wavering a fair amount, especially over the last couple of weeks, but in the end I stuck it out. So yesterday, I spent my 30th birthday introducing Sweet Annie to the Einsel House living room. I think they hit it off quite well.

Looking into the living room from the dining room:

And in the living room:

Charles had never tried to talk me into a different color. God bless the man, his immediate reaction when he got to the house with the kids after school was, "That doesn't look as bad as I thought it would." (I think that means he likes it.)

I'm quite pleased. The room doesn't feel too dark, and the green does an amazing job of pulling in the view of the creek through the windows. I'm quite eager to hang those curtains I made last fall, but as you can see in the picture above the woodwork in the room still needs more attention.

In closing, if you're someone who knows us IRL (in real life) then you know that all winter I gave yesterday as the date we hoped to be ready to move into the Einsel House. In case you missed it above, I turned 30 yesterday and moving into the house would have been a nice present. So we're looking forward - maybe Mother's Day (but I doubt it), or our anniversary, or July 4th, or some random weekend just before Charles and the kids go back to school. It's sure to be a glorious day when we bring that first truckload from the storage unit, but yesterday was a glorious day too, in its own quiet way. As we sat down on the bare kitchen subfloor to a supper of KFC and chocolate cake (with pink frosting and yellow roses) it struck me that the memory of this birthday will always stand out. A good day at the Einsel House has a way of reminding me of the many blessings I've been granted. So yeah, it was a good birthday. :)

Sanding Floors

Sorry for the lack of posts here. Last weekend we sanded the wood floors in the living room, dining room and office (former laundry room). Monday we all took a break from the house to recover. This was hands down the most physically exhausting work we have done at the house to date.

We spent most of last week preparing for sanding by pulling staples from the office floor. These suckers had heads barely 1/4 inch wide and legs (is that what they're called on staples?) over an inch long. Thankfully the office was the only room with staples.

Right at noon on Saturday we picked up the floor sander and edger. Here's my dad with the sander, just a few minutes after starting in the living room:

A very long 32 hours later that same floor looked like this:

And the office floor like this:

I actually never ran the sander or edger; Charles and my parents did all of the actual sanding. Charles tackled much of the edging each day, and thus had perhaps the most difficult job of the weekend. The edger was louder than the sander, and much more difficult on the back and arms because it required you to stoop or crouch the entire time you inched around each room.

As you can see in the picture with my dad above, the living room floor had been painted with some type of white primer. Even after the boards were sanded clean, narrow white lines remained between each board. I spent the weekend addressing this problem. Specifically, I spent both days on the living room floor picking out crud from between the floorboards with a dental pick:


I was back at the house after work today, but I think it will take me two more evenings after work this week before I have the entire living room floor picked clean. There are also a few places that would benefit from some attention with the random orbital sander.

So, that was our weekend. My mom was back at work on the book nook today, and I've been conducting various experiments on the back sides of some walnut trim to determine what route we'll use for finishing. My Uncle J has been very busy at the house as well. So there's lots of fodder for future blog posts whenever I find the time to write them!

Almost Finished

It's been more sanding at the Einsel House. Of course. But we are getting so close to being finished. When I left the house tonight there were only two walls left in the last room that still needed more attention. So, in anticipation of finally moving on to number next one (to borrow a phrase from my high school history teacher) here are a few more pictures taken while sanding.

First, a close-up of the bannister at the top of the stairs. I'm so thrilled at how that bottom board cleaned up.

Next, the living room, taken at some point last Saturday:

From last Sunday, an action shot of my mom working on the middle window from the above picture:

And I have to include a picture to give some idea of the dust:

Although the last picture may make this hard to believe, we do attempt to control the dust. We close or block every door to whatever room we are working in and then rig the set-up pictured below in a window, attempting to blow the dust out of the room. This does help some (although obviously not enough).

Enough about sanding. Moving to the back bedroom, below is a final progression picture of the studs from the south knee-wall. These pictures show the same stud in about November at left, December at center, and last weekend at right.

And finally, the current state of the dining room.

And with that I'm off to bed. Sleep is always a welcome thing after another evening spent sanding.