New mud room

Besides the kitchen I'm really excited about our mudroom. Here's a "BEFORE" picture just when we started construction. Our plans call for bumping out our entrance 6' for the mudroom. We also had the 2nd floor window centered over the door, changed the garage fascade to match the rest of the house and the 2nd pantry window moved to the doorway to the top of the garage (cannot see in the 2nd pic).

In process picture. Pillars are still needed to match the other porch pillars. We think it looks so much better.

More in process pics

Here are more pictures as of 1/30/10. The is the new kitchen addition. Wood floors are going in next week and cabinets the following week. We're moving along.

In the kitchen near the dining room looking towards the pantry entrance and half bath. French door to back patio.

West wall of dining room. The door was moved from the far right to the present position. When they took down the plaster there was a door frame just a few inches to the right of the present door. Our side table wouldn't fit between the door and the built in cabinet so we had them move it a few inches.

Dining room looking east. Doorway on left to kitchen. Not much done here except removed wall paper, widen doorway to kitchen a few inches and put in a transom above the doorway.

Picture taken from sitting room into dining room (and kitchen). The marble fireplace is painted. Another project for me - stripping the paint off of the fireplace.

Sitting room - mainly a staging area now.

Picture taken from the TV room thru the foyer (and hall closet) into sitting room. The main doorway entrance is to the right.

TV room looking into the foyer. This pic was taken standing by our old front door.

TV room taken from the foyer. This is our old front door. The stairs were removed last week. We think they MAY have been the original framed staircase and moved to this position. The staircase frame butting against the wall was painted. They would not have painted it unless it was exposed. This frame may have been the stairs that were originally in the foyer to the 2nd floor. (Or maybe it came from another house?) When converting into a 2 family they reused as much wood, doors, trim, etc. as possible.

We're also installing a gas fireplace insert. The metal tube in the fireplace is from the old heating system. The old heating system has been replaced with a forced hot air and vented outside thru a window in the basement. Also installed central air on the 1st floor. We now have 4 zones in the house.

The future billiard room.

This picture was taken from the 1st floor full bath. The door to the right leads into the foyer and the main entrance. The stairs will be our main stairway to the 2nd floor.

So in the TV room we removed some of the paint from the woodwork. I was hoping for mahogany or black walnut. John was hoping for junk wood. Well, it's pine, oak and other stuff. It's hard to see in these photos but there's 2 or 3 types of wood used on this paneling. It was never meant to be exposed. John's very happy - less work for us - we only have to paint it.

a close up

Here's the tile in the mudroom just layed - no grout yet.

Here's the ungrouted tile in the half bath 4 x 4.

Same tiles as half bath but 6 x 6 ungrouted tile in the 1st floor full bath. The tub will go against the far wall, the toilet next and a pedestal sink closest to the door.

In process pictures

I definitely need more in process pictures. Here's the kitchen with the new addition. A lot more light than I thought. The kitchen table with built in bench will go under the back windows and 1.5 windows on the right.


Kim and Jeremy taking the in-process tour and looking at the kitchen layout on the wall. Kim's due early March. This is the other side of the kitchen. The pipe in the wall will go but we're using it now for our gas stove on the 2nd floor kitchen. The 2 dishwashers and sink is on this wall. To the right thru the doorway is our "sandwich" area where we will make the kids lunch. Past that is our mudroom.

Our future dining room. The wire in the ceiling is for the future speakers. Past the window is a staging area for re-use: doors, trim, etc. It will be our future office.

The sitting room. Pink insulation is in the windows because the windows only have storms here. John and I are reglazing and painting those windows - about 22 6 over 6 windows!

Jeremy looking into Sean's room. Taking the stairs for the last time. Jeremy's head is in Sean's closet. The floor will be extended and we will have a hall linen closet and a walk in closet for Sean.

From the old stairs looking into our future TV room.

Let there be stairs!

First they had to take out the old hallway closet. This was holding up the stairs to the 3rd floor. Only 2 times (so far) the contractors have sworn during the renovations. This was one and the other was trying to get out 150+ year old pipes in the wall - in the latter they had to make extra holes in the 3rd floor to take them out.

The stairs to the 3rd floor were built for a storage attic in the 1910's. Those stairs would be used maybe twice a year. They were minimally built. We finished half the attic with a playroom and bath 5 years ago and use the stairs many times daily. The closet walls supported the stairs. With them gone Mike had to now improve the stair supports dramatically. Things came to a halt while ideas were thrown about and the architect called. I wanted to take a quick shower so they held up some support beams under the stairs and told me to jump the last stair. I was worried that we couldn't access the only bathroom on the 3rd floor and would had to stay at a hotel. They put in some more supports for the night. The next day Mike came up with a plan and they reinforced the stairs. I have been really impressed with Mike and safety. We have a sturctural engineer on this job and Mike provides even more support than suggested. Generally this house is built like a fortress and is not going anywhere.

They then broke threw our floor to install the new stairs this week. Here's Bruno working on it with Mike our contractor. They had to cut through a 10" x 10" main support beam. Now the dust has begun!

They clean up each night but this is the hallway between the living room and our bedroom and only working bathroom on the 3rd floor. We track dust everywhere.

living in a construction zone

We're trying to keep the dust down to a minimum - but it's difficult. Our wine bottles look like they have been aged in the cellar.

We do take the "dust covers" off at night so we can use the the living room.

The 1st morning the kids were trying to watch TV thru the plastic.

Our contractor moved one pantry window to where our door to the roof of the garage was located. That area (roof entrance) was removed so that the 1600 cfm stove vent had space on the side of the house. (Our grill is still on the roof - the contractor forgot to bring it down before the door went away. The will carry it down the ladder.) They also had to center the other pantry window on the street side. Our dryer is located in the kitchen with the water cooler and everything else on shelves in the pantry (moved to the kitchen table). Our washer was in the mess too. Our friends Mike and Liz spent the weekend with us in this disarray.

Here's the old window opening that will be a wall in the guest suite shower (phase II when we have more money).

The temporary wall in our hallway between Sean's room and the bathroom and the rest of the house. It was closed up for most of the time but today it came down. It helped keep dust to a reasonable minimum.

Our dining room. We move the sheets every day so we can eat here. You can't see the kitchen table - it's covered with "stuff".

The office in session. If it's really dusty everything's covered and I'm not on the computer.

old, old wallpaper

From October thru January a lot of very old wall paper has been exposed. I will try to approximate the age. One piece may be original. I've kept samples of it all and will frame them for one of our "house history walls."

The following is behind our closet over where the old central stairs should have been located. We estimate the closet was added in the 1910's when they converted to a 2 family so this wall paper is any time before then (my guess 1880's -1910's). It's made to look like marble stones and would have been in the stairwell/hallway on the 2nd floor (near the bedrooms).

close up

This was a really "find". With the architect's error of losing 16" we had to take out the plumbing chase in the bathrooms. The sewer lines were installed to our house in 1877. They would have made a chase for the plumbing and vent. (Our plumbing thinks that there was a chase even earlier because there appears to be older pipes than 1877 in the house. His thought is that there was a cistern in the attic and the servants ran up water for a gavity fed toilet.) Two layers of wall paper was behind the chase. So one may be original the 2nd put up 20+ years later. The top layer is the brown with copper foil like leaves on top. You can see it behind the pipes in the 1st photo and a close up in the 2nd.

This wall paper was found under the above paper. It has blueish green dots and lines with gray flowers and columns and light yellow background (maybe white that was aged).

In the biggest parlor this wallpaper was behind our stairs that were installed in the 1910's. This wall paper is probably from 1880's - 1910's.

This is a better close-up when our stairs to the 2nd floor were removed.
It's mainly browns and gray urns with flowers. On one wall (under the trim) someone put a border on it with brown, greenish gray, gray, and gold. The brown is textured like velvet. (sorry I don't have a photo of that).

This wallpaper was found in the "other" parlor. The doorway was widened probably in the 1910's - but it could have been widened earlier. Similar in style to the other parlor.

tile

We're moving along. The contractor will finish blown-in insulation today. The walls will be buttoned up next week. All the rough electrical and plumbing is finished. The heating system is running. In about 2 weeks Mike will tile the mudroom and half bath and the 2nd floor bath after that. We had to pick out tile this week - much harder than I thought - too many choices. Here are my pics so far. (will order them later today (Sat.))

Mudroom: Italian Edilcuoghi porcelain tile canyon musk. This pic shows it more brown than it is. It has a lot of tecture but not too rough on bare feet. It's suppose to be unbelivable hard and can take abuse. I really like it.
In the tile store and in the samples it has more grey. It is very slate looking. There is some undertones of green that was picked up with our granite. (The granite is typhoon bordeaux but not from my slab. The wood sample is from our nature oak floors which will be next to the tile. OK, not a great match with the wood but we like the tile). We're also thinking of having the tiles layed out in this pattern in the 6' x 12' mudroom. Second floor bathroom: Since the washer and dryer are located here next to 2 bedrooms I did not want hard tile on the floor. I picked out Armstrong vinyl groutable tile - Alterna in mesa stone light gray. It has texture and won't be slippery. I love it. It will also absorb the sound better instead of bouncing it.

We settled on home depot 8x10 white tile in a subway pattern with Briare Galapagos 1x1 blue-green tiles for the back wall and floor. (white tiles on the walls to the right and left and the ceiling in the shower) We were thinking of the HD glass tiles but like the ones above better and it was only $3 per square foot more. The below picture is with the HD glass tiles.

Here's a picture of the Galapagos tile but it doesn't do it justice.



The tile looks much better with a few of them - more depth and variation. It provides a great punch of color and surprise in this serene bathroom. Here's a view from the shower and also with the Armstrong flooring.



First floor half bath: It will have this vessel sink in it. It was hard to pick out a tile with this color sink. The medicine cabinet is natural maple and we think we will have a black granite top. Undecided on the sink cabinet but like this tile. It had much more variety in the store. The tile is by Gazzini - Montecito Echo in 4x4. We're going to run them a normal square pattern. It has some textures so it should not be too slippery plus all the grout lines with the 4x4 tiles. (we're not having the gold accents - just the normal tile)

I've never had tile let alone picked it out. It was harder than I thought - too many choices and I didn't have strong feelings. What do you think of our choices? Patterns? Any suggestions?

Here was a strong contender. I loved the middle one for the mudroom and the bottom for the half bath. The only thing I worried about is that the brochure showed too much orange in the middle sample - but that was not the issue in the store.


Here's another one I loved for the half bath but they didn't have it in the 6x6, 4x4 or 12 x 12 size in stock (only 18" x 18" or 2" x 2" for a 4' x 5' bath which I don't think would work). The store would have to order it from Italy (they're an importer of it) and it would take months. I keep telling myself that I think it was a bit too modern for the house. [the tile was reasonable but 5 of those little accents cost $40!]