the home stretch

We've mostly finished rearranging the former library, now Rose's sewing/beading room (but generally known - for reasons made obvious in the photos below - as the "orange room"). Amusingly, it's sort of ended up as the repository for aging furniture (Rose has long-term plans to learn to refinish the wood): both the sewing machine table and the library table came from Rose's family, while the cabinet made from an old Victrola case was found at a rummage sale held by one of Rose's cousins, if I recall. The old futon's seen better days, but we probably don't need to buy two new sofa-beds when it's perfectly functional (and in fact, probably more comfortable than the new one mentioned a few posts ago).

We had to touch up the walls a bit...probably should have repainted entirely, as the paint doesn't match perfectly even though it's the same batch. Or maybe we just need to do a thorough cleaning!

The quilt in the top photo was made by Rose's sister Barb and was a wedding gift.





We also managed to add a few finishing touches in the upstairs addition: we mounted a large mirror in the walk-in closet:



And we found a place for a lamp we'd picked up from a friend's rummage sale when they moved to New York City: the lamp didn't work very well (it burned too hot), so I replaced the guts of it (with some clever improvisational adaptation of some parts and features) and now it works fine. Here's a dramatic shot, sans flash (with a stool in lieu of the I'm-too-lazy-to-get-it-from-the-downstairs-closet-tripod):



The last major thing we need to do in the main part of the house (basement rearrangement and editing is sorely needed!) is repaint the first floor bathroom ceiling. Our contractor on the remodeling job primed it for us, since the need for its repainting arose from some accidental damages they caused during the work, but since we no longer had the original paint and decided to change the color, really, that's more work than they reasonably could be asked to do under the circumstances. So priming it was the compromise.

We also want to repaint the walls on the first-floor back stairs and leading down to the basement...but that won't happen till spring. And lest this turn into an even duller, occasional document of various household tasks, I won't be detailing that work! Probably one more post for this, when the first floor bathroom's done...and that's about it.

the end is nigh!

No recent updates not for lack of work being done, but because there's been almost too much of it: the moment I go up to take a photo, the next day finds the next stage finished. Plus, between lots of work, leaving before it's full daylight and getting home after dark, and some friends as houseguests for the last week, I haven't had time to update.

Anycow: tile work is nearly complete, with the stone tiles sealed and grouted, with only a few minor details to be touched up. Painting is also nearly done, again with only a few minor touchups left to be done. The plumbers have returned, and they've nearly finished the hookups in our basement and plan to set up the toilet and sinks early next week.

Basically, what's left is the final plumbing and electrical work (including installation of lighting), final work on woodwork trim (including the installation of the handrail on the stairway), and refinishing and adding trim to the stairs themselves (that's nearly the last thing that'll be done. All that remains after that are a few minor details related to ways the job has impinged upon the rest of the house (there was a mishap involving our first-floor bathroom ceiling fan, which needed to be rerouted...and the hardware in our front-hall closet, removed due to using some of that space for HVAC runs installed in the back of the closet, to be reinstalled on the new back wall). There's also the bedroom door - that's a story in itself, which I'll relate once it's arrived and is in place - and the shower enclosure, which will in all likelihood be the very last item to be installed, even after we're otherwise moved in to the space.

So, photos:

The hardware in our new walk-in closet has been installed:



Shower hardware is in place:



And our accent paint is in place on the alcove at the front of the bedroom:



As you can probably see, there's still some detail and trimwork left to be done here (as I note above), but increasingly the room looks like it will when it's finished. Finished, but unfurnished: after all the contractor work is done, we have loads of new furniture to assemble and move into place...

exterior all but finished

With a few minor details, the exterior work is now complete. Here are several views of the house, beginning with a shot similar to earlier ones of the eyebrow dormer, now refinished and repainted, and then moving around the house to view the east side (old dormer and the new stairway dormer), the north side (back of the house), a shot of the west side of the house from the alley behind our house, another shot of the west side from the street in front of the house, and finally a shot of the front of the house.








If we were to do this over and with less limited funds, I think we'd make two changes: one, try to find a way to make the west side a little less blocky. That would be difficult: the blank wall that makes it bulky is a closet, and so a window would be a bad idea to articulate the surface, since it would let in light and UV which would fade our clothes. That "more funds" issue might have made it possible to make the dormer on the east side of the house continuous, which might have allowed us to tuck the closet in on that side, between the stairs and the bedroom...but I'm not sure that would have worked. (That plan still doesn't figure what to do with that dead wall on the west dormer, since that wall is either a closet wall as it is now or a bathroom wall...and we couldn't have windows on three walls of the bathroom and the doorway on the fourth: no place to put the sinks and mirrors.)

The other change might have been to have gone with a lighter, contrasting tan on the walls of the dormers (the soffits and window trim would remain the chocolate brown they are). Rose disagrees, but I think that might have lightened up the massing a bit (do remember: she's the architect, so I'm probably wrong...).

We will be painting the rest of the back exterior wall (on the north) with the same paint color: look closely and you can see that the new material surrounding the window is a slightly different shade from the rest.

Overall, though, we're happy with the exterior. But realistically, it's the interior we care about much more anyway. And as the last photo (from the front of the house) shows, from most angles the new construction is all but invisible anyway.

(Here's a sneak preview of the baseboard moulding, or some of it anyway:)

floors and tiles and paint and things

Lots of work getting done the last couple of days. On the exterior: the back window's rough frame-out is nearly done:



Inside: the first coat of paint is on the walls and ceiling:



The tile installer has put down the gypsum-board underlayment. In this shot you can also see a swatch of the accent color that will fill this wall below the ledge at the very top of this image, as well as the alcove in the bedroom. The actual color has more red to it - it's hard to get accurate color given the reliance in this photo on late-afternoon natural light or flash, which tends to wash out darker colors). You can also barely make out the tile we'll be using in the bathroom (more visible at the larger size):



And the flooring has begun to be put in place: