We are building a creative, utilitarian life inside an old Victorian( built in 1898) in the historical "Ghosttown" district of Oakland, CA.
This blog chronicles our experiences renovating this magnificent antique home and how we learn new ways to build, plant, create and explore our creativity.
We'll share our tips and insights with you on how we rehabilitate, remake and refinish this old house so it will last another 100 years in style.
After finally arriving at a vision of the bathroom, we could now install a floor and paint the walls. Previous posts showed the original redwood wainscot hidden for decades behind old gypsum and tile-bord and we were able to clean it up and re-stain the wood. First we added a wood preservative compound to help rebind the wood fibers and then applied stain and sealer. Here are a few sneak pics of our bathroom remodel which is truly taking on a "less is more" approach. We mostly remove the junk previous owners had installed and revealed the original walls of the house. The old, ugly vinyl floor now freshly updated and this once dreary bathroom is now the happiest, brightest place in the house!
Finally my sister Sylvia and brother-in-law Bill came for a short visit to see our house and they brought very interesting gifts. One of my favorite is this dinner gong. During the 19th century, it was customary to have an aperitif in the drawing room before dinner. Ladies and gentlemen always wore formal dress for dinner, even if it was just an ordinary affair of five courses (soup, fish, meat, sweet and savoury courses). When the dinner gong was sounded, the ladies and gentlemen would rise and file into the dining room in a previously-arranged pattern of precedence. Each gentleman took the arm of the lady who would sit on his right, the host and honoured female guest entering first, the hostess and highest ranking gentleman last.
How the times have changed! What's fascinating to me about some antiques is how they have become obsolete yet retain a certain aesthetic that add interest in modern times. We think we have found useful ways of using these gifts that seem to fit the house well and yet don't add a feeling of clutter. Here is a Victorian hat stand, an ornate plate holder (holding the dish Andrea), and the very pretty, strange table is now a makeup vanity in the bedroom.
Thanks for wonderful gifts Bill and Sylvia and we'll see you soon!
Being an artist and filmmaker, it's easy for me to envision something in my head. I always thought everyone had that ability to think creatively and see a 'picture' in their head of something they want to make. Time and experience has shown that this is not true for most folks which is why one would find all sorts of catastrophic art, designs and builds simply because people couldn't see their final creations. Add to that the difficulty in communicating to others what you 'see' and you get a picture...a picture of problems.
Fortunately, creativity is in my family DNA. Picturing something is easy for us but many times it is better and smarter to actually build a model of what you want to create because you could overlook something in the final design. I use the HGTV Home and Garden Design program that lets you easily build a 3D model of any home, build and move walls, paint, add plumbing...anything that you could do to a real house without actually doing it just yet. In this demo clip, you can see the way I use this program and other programs like Photoshop to help me figure out exactly what I want to do to the house.
Now my sister Sylvia takes an old-school approach by using a Victorian Doll House to mix and match wallpaper, area rugs and furniture.
Whatever your approach to renovating or designing your home, it's a great relief to work out your idea in either of these ways as they will eliminate problems later and you can share them with others to get vital feedback. We actually liked my sister's very Victorian take on the parlor and will use it as a guide as we continue to remodel.
We are making progress on the bathroom. George did an amazing job building the frame to extend the bathroom. These are a few of the latest touches we've made:
Ceiling light in the new part:
A built-in shelf/cabinet
A stained-glass look on the window
I'm happy to report that we did most of the bathroom painting (w/faux glaze & sponge painting). After a number of paint samples, we decided on this color scheme: Whisper Yellow, Apple Crisp, & Mojave Sunset. (talk about transformation! Frankly, I love the way the Tuscan Yellow/Van Gogh Sunflower/Haystack color brings out the beautiful wood George restored.)
p.s. The Santa Rosa Plum Tree we planted it Winter is donning green leaves a couple flower buds :) And... George discovered a little rose bush which has just started budding!
Hello. I'm trying to come up with the right color scheme for 'sponge painting' the bathroom walls. George has them all prepped, spackled, and will finish the sanding soon. So far I know I should use a satin finish paint.
I'm trying get a nice combination with aqua & copper and experimented on a small board, but my first attempt of sample colors didn't produce the desired effect. It could simply be a shade adjustment, I'm not sure yet (at least you can buy small sample size cans for $3 so it's not a total waste).
We want the wall colors to enhance the beautiful wood-wainscoting and all the old-growth redwood trim that George has so diligently restored. Any color experts out there? Perhaps you might share some tips or suggestions.
I've been googling images for color ideas..... and found this helpful informational video for exactly what I'm planning to do:
This is a public Note To Self' for Andrea after purchasing a 'vanity dressing table' from Ikea. It was a decent piece of furniture but I learned that the color black/brown really means black which just didn't work in our room, and a few screws were missing from the package so I decided to take the whole, heavy item back the next day.
"Remember this video of George in the Ikea return room next time you even think about purchasing something from there, Andrea. It's just not worth it." I'm sure lots of people have good experiences at Ikea but I usually do not.
However, at 10:30 in the morning the was no line for frozen yogurt so we finally tried a $1.00 cone of vanilla nonfat frozen yogurt and it was good, even though George still does not look happy.
Interestingly enough, this return lead us to stopping at the Granite Expo on the way home where we found a perfect vanity & sink top for the bathroom! It's a beautiful rich 'mocha oak' color and was a very good price. More to follow on that.
Love the Parisian painted sign window - we are making one for our bathroom cabinet!
A seat like this would look nice in the 'parlor' and we liked this beautiful hanging oil lamp. Cie la vie. We only bought some Italian hand-painted small butterfly tiles (btw...tiles were hard to come by) and left with some good ideas. It's probably best to either know what you are looking for or have a lot of money.
The Girl Scouts were there and I think I had a uniform just like that back in the 70's.
