Secret Passageway

I would have loved one of these when I was a kid! One of the bedrooms upstairs has a couple large walk-in closets, one of which backs up to attic space in the eves of the house. We cut a hole in the back of one of the closets (as pictured) and will make some kind of discreet door. The cool thing is that, at the other end of the "secret passage" is another existing door that leads into the closet of another bedroom.

Of course, between the kids telling their friends about their "secret" passage, and me blabbing about it on the blog, it's not so "secret" anymore!

Actually, we do have one more secret passage in the house. I didn't know it was there until I began renovations. As I was sanding some built-ins, I noticed some odd markings in the surface where something had rubbed on occasion. I started looking things over and sure enough there was a hidden door that pivoted at that spot. It revealed a what I believe was an old abandoned dumb-waiter shaft. I'll post some pics of this sometime. Fun, huh!

The most colorful wall in the house!

I take these shots for future reference. With my luck, I know I'll be tearing into them again someday to fix something! Got to looking at this upstairs bath pic and realized it's quite a colorful wall. I think I used every color in my crayon box!

Points of interest:
- The black streaks running down the lathe is from huge attic fire in October of 1916. We know this because a couple of the painters who came in to repaint the repairs signed their names and left this note on an attic wall.
- The black box to the left is for an in-wall heater to help take the chill off after a winter shower. Am going to put it on a timer so that it doesn't accidentally get left on. Thought about infloor heater under tile, but just don't have the energy to investigate ONE MORE THING!

Kinda tight in here. No more!

We moved from a house with just a few hundred square feet into this 7000 square foot behemoth. Even though we now have room to roam, we find ourselves all congregating in the smallest room of the house. I guess there's comfort in familiarity and coziness.

By the way, the above photo is our youngest daughter checking out the interior improvements of her older sister's American Girl doll's camping tent.

Very Expensive Icicles

After thousands of dollars spent on insulation, I still have ICICLES! It is so disheartening. A guy tries to do his best. I researched and interviewed until I was blue... failure! I could've bought a lot of heat tape for the amount of money I've got into insulation in this place (or taken a nice cruise to a warm "ice-free" place).



One of the culprits is that, in place, the Icynene spray foam appears to have shrunk some and pulled away from the roofing & framing - which is not good. The other issue is that they scrape the icynene away from the bottom of the rafters so that drywall can be attached. In my opinion, this wicks the heat up to the roof surface and melts the snow. I just bought a few hundred more dollars of polystyrene foam board and will attach it in these areas to try to insulate these rafter faces. Will see what happens.

I also had they icenyne added to an exterior wall of an upstairs bathroom in attempt to keep it a little toastier.

I didn't insulate any walls in the house in that most every wall is covered in huge windows -- OVER 80 OF THEM -- in this place. I figured what little wall space there was would not benefit from insulation in that most of the house is covered in glass.

Not Quite As Gothic

After thinking about it, I figured I should show you the fixtures that were used in place of the original chandalier in the last post. Part of me feels like I should have used the original fixture, but it was just too midevial for our taste.

As long as I save the original, do you think it's an OK compromise?

Here's a couple pics of the ceiling light & wall sconces.

Antique Road Show Comes to Town

The Antique Road Show is coming to town, so I hauled this old light out. I thought I'd email them a photo and see if it's worth hauling in. Probably not. It's fun to dream. Hey - - it's my birthday today - - I'm allowed to dream today!

It originally hung in our dining room, but PO had stashed it in the basement. I know I should have hung it back in its spot but it sooooo gothic/medieval looking... kind of spooky. It is non-ferrous, so it's maybe plated brass or copper. Another reason I didn't hang it, is that weighs almost 70 pounds! I just didn't have the energy to beef up the anchoring utility box when I was redoing the dining room ceiling. Another, another reason was that I would have had to rewire it, which seemed a little daunting at the time... kind of like ship building in a bottle.

I also have 4 wall sconces that match it. They were originally plumbed for gas but converted later to electric. Still have the pipes leading into the back of each of them. Our house was built in 1909, so electricity was not completely reliable. Consequently, the house was built with a smattering of gas fixtures as a backup to the electric.

I emailed an antique lighting dealer a while back and they said the style was "Tudor Revival" and that this particular style was known as a "theatre light." He offered me $500. I don't think I could sell it, in that it was original to the house. Of course, multiple zeros after that 5 could persuade me I suppose.

This dealer told me there was not much of a market for this style light, what do you think? Would you hang it in your house?

Butler's Pantry

This is the butler's pantry, which you pass through to get from the kitchen to the dining room. The copper sink is original. The PO had a chrome Delta 1970's special here. We replaced it with this copper one you see here.

All the cabinets were completely stripped of the original paint inside & out. The window in front of the sink seems to be original. It looks into the enclosed sun porch. I don't know what the purpose of the exterior window is, but it matches other originals in the house. Maybe they kept the sunporch windows open at times... which would explain the 2 floor drains in the tile floor of this room.

Anyway... we're happy with the way the pantry came out. Originally, the large wall of cupboards had sliding doors. Inside were slots where, we're assuming, they stored the leaves of the dining room table. This pantry offers great storage. There's even a hidden panel to the left of the sink. The door slides up into the wall using pullies and counter weights. Inside are narrow shelves.

The butler or house staff that evidently use to reside here were called with an electronic devise that plugged into the floor in the middle of the dining room (under the table). A portion of the basement appears to have been plastered and finished to accommodate house staff. The house staff has been greatly diminished over the years... down to 0! At least we have the pantry available if we ever win the lotto and hire a butler some day!