Get A Handle on It!

This is our upstairs bathroom. Too bad I can't find those "before" photos, because it was icky. Brown walls, brown " brick" linoleum, brown cupboards... anyway...this is it now.



Not exciting, but clean, bright and happy. Basically, we gave everything a fresh coat of paint. There is a new window, new pine floors, and a new toilet, sink and tub (with tile surround instead of flexible plastic!).


The little chair above came from the Sunday School room in the United Church in town:



We built a new plank door for the closet, which I really like:


We found the hinges we wanted, but the handle is here:

This house in our neighbourhood has sat empty since we moved here (so at least eleven years now). It is such a cute little house on a double lot, and with a neat little barn in the back. It makes me both sad and frustrated that the owners are just letting it deteriorate when it could be such a great little home. Around the corner to the left in the photo is a side entrance with the perfect handle for my closet door...


I want it, I want it, I want it.

"After" photos.

Almost one year later, I have some "after" photos of our t.v. room. If you scroll down to previous posts, you can compare with the "before" shots. I'm too lazy to re-insert them!

Here is the new window on the driveway side of the house. I can now watch the kids playing basketball, quickly see which car my husband took to work, and let the early morning sun into my house! Do ignore the orange Ikea bookshelf please - it is just there temporarily!


Here is the front window, and the door (!!!) into the front hallway. The door needs one more layer of stain yet before it will match the trim around it. The door trim and the baseboards in this room were not original; we salvaged them from a house in Brooklyn, brought them home and I spent the winter scraping paint.



Here is the door leading to the little back hall and kitchen. As you can see, I have a bit of white paint left on the bottom corner still to remove. I didn't realize that end of the board would be used, and now I'm learning how hard it is to scrape paint on a vertical surface down at ankle level! I'm finished staining and finishing this door, and I think it matches pretty well. In fact, I'm totally happy with these doors! I can't believe how wonderful it is to close the door on a loud stupid kid's t.v. show, or how convenient it is to keep the dog away when you are playing a game on the floor....


The mantle, is, of course, from Brooklyn too. I want to paint it white again, but am being threatened with torture by the person who began stripping it! Once we resolve this issue, we will pull the mantle forward, install the oak surround it came with, and fake an opening and inside surround. I am leaning towards putting one of those electric "yet looks like a real wood stove" in the opening. I can picture a beige or red one sitting there looking not too bad, and keeping me warm and cozy while I watch "Desperate Housewives" this winter!


This window is on the back wall of the house, facing the still-unfinished porch. We put this vertical window in to replace a really cheap horizontal 1970's window. Now all the windows in the room match, and everything just feels right. (Except the curtain rod looks wonky, and I really don't like that armchair in front of the window.......!)



A close-up of the base boards and floor. You can't imagine how happy these make me!




And for "Sadie Says" - Mum's cleaned up window hardware now installed on my original windows....grimy as they are!

Doors

I dragged my flu riddled body off the couch today and made the trip to Home Depot to buy two of these: I saw them in the flyer yesterday at half the price I'd seen them any where else...

I'm pretty excited. We've never had doors on the main floor. If someone is watching, for example, WWE very loudly; then we are ALL listening to WWE very loudly. To be able to shut a door on unwanted noise will be a wonderful thing.

One door will go here:


This is looking into the front hall at the closet (which also needs a door, but I'm hoping to find some unique bit of salvage in my shed that will work!...)

And one will go here:



This is looking into the kitchen and the little hall leading to the basement. In the above photos you can admire our newly sanded, filled, sanded, filled, sanded, verathaned, sanded, verathaned....original pine floors. Aren't they lovely? You can also admire bits of newly scraped, sanded and finished baseboard leaning here and there. These baseboards came from a house in Brooklyn, New York. When they are installed with their top bits, I'll post some photos. The mantlepiece also came from the Brooklyn house, and will be installed on this wall. There won't be a working fireplace but hopefully it will look like there once was...

Actually, we DO have one door on the main floor! The bathroom door! This powder room was added in the 1970's. To make room for it, they tore out the back staircase that led up to the master bedroom. Oh well, I have to admit this powder room has served us well! We bought the door at Habitat For Humanity in Ottawa, stripped it, and oiled it, and there it is.