Come Into Our Living Room

When we made plans for the Stafford County Historical Society to come here to tour the house and garden last month, I knew that we had a lot of work to do to prepare.  I called it "spring cleaning under duress".  When the weather was favorable, I worked outside in the garden.  When it was rainy, I cleaned and staged the main level of our house.  

I have to share what we did with our living room, because it turned out so well.  This is the room that tried to bring our whole-house renovation to a halt ten years ago, because the challenges in there were above and beyond what my energy and our budget could handle at the time.  My husband and I made the conscious choice to leave the room in its demolished state and to concentrate our efforts on the rest of the house.  For a while, we used the room as a storage area and we could barely squeeze through there.  Last year, we cleared out the extra stuff (found storage space for what we needed, donated/trashed the rest) and set things up so we could actually live in the space.  For the home tour, we went a bit farther and I LOVE the result.

Last time you saw this view of the living room, it looked like this ... functional, but stark.

The first new thing that we notice is the stack of trunks.  These used to be stored in the attic of our garage, because I hadn't figured out a place to put them.  (I tell people that I need a 12-step program for my trunk addiction.  I have a LOT of them.)

Imagine the conversation as I asked my husband, "Would it be weird to stack trunks on this wall?"

"I don't think so", he replied.

"The stack is gonna be seven feet tall"

"Oh."

(In case you're wondering, all of the trunks are empty right now.  I'm hoping to resist the urge to store things that I probably don't need and keep them empty)

On the other wall, I moved the jelly cupboard from the office and hung a painting above it.

The painting is a portrait of me, painted last year by a dear friend of ours.  It's HUGE, it fits perfectly, like it was made for this spot and I love it.

I cozied up the fireplace wall by leaning a vintage painting above the mantle (which still isn't attached to the wall), and filling the fireplace with electric candles.

At this point in the photo shoot, Alice came in to see if there was anything that I needed her to do.  "Just sit there and look adorable, Alice."  The trunk that she's sitting on is an antique six-board chest, with its original paint, that I picked up cheap at an estate sale.  What can I say ... I have trouble resisting a good trunk.

Modern stuff is tucked onto the other wall, where it's behind you and not visible as you enter the room.  TV is something that we really enjoy, but I don't like for it to be the first thing that I see in a room.  The sound bar sits on a shelf above the TV, with one of my husband's paintings above it.

With an eclectic mix of worn Oriental rugs, quilts, and antique furniture in its primitive state, this room showed very well on tour day ... and it's really comfortable to live in.

Sunday Snapshot: An Indoor Winter Scene

When it's cold outside, our cats can often be found napping on radiators.  Dorothy is the only one who will sleep on a naked radiator, like you see below.  I usually keep a small oriental rug on each of the radiators, to make their 'sauna' more comfortable.  

Dorothy was perfectly comfortable ... I don't see how.  I guess it's a cat thing.

Off topic:  This is the radiator in the living room, the room where we removed the plaster ceiling over Christmas.  The paint samples show my attempts to choose a paint color.  The final choice (as of now) is the small darker one ... Greyhound, by Benjamin Moore.  Bluish, greenish grey, and I think it's perfect!

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Sunday Snapshots are posts devoted to moments in time that represent glimpses into everyday life in Hartwood, or wherever else I happen to be at the time. 

Deconstructing the Living Room Ceiling

My husband wanted a project to work on (and hopefully finish) while he was off work for two weeks over Christmas.  He decided that this would be the perfect time for him to deconstruct our living room ceiling.

We decided a long time ago that it would be better to remove the ceiling in our living room, instead of trying to repair it.  It had extensive water damage, and large portions of the plaster had separated from the lath.  When our plasterer remedied a similar situation in our guest bedroom, he used screws and plaster washers to resecure the detached plaster, then he taped and skimmed over his repair and made it disappear.  The living room ceiling had an additional complication which made it less of a candidate for the plaster washer repair.  Over the years, debris had collected in the space between the large sections of loose plaster and the lath where it was formerly attached, which prevented us from reestablishing a good connection using the screws.  

It took a long time for me to get comfortable with this.  Throughout our renovation of this house, I have done whatever I can to preserve original elements.  I respect the history here, and I want to keep as much of it as possible.  In order to move forward with the work in the living room, I had to grit my teeth and admit that this ceiling, though largely original, had to go.

First, we had to remove everything from the room ... and we stashed stuff wherever we could throughout the house. 

Rug, console, and a pile of trunks in our foyer.

Sofa, Maggie's favorite wing chair, and disassembled recliner in the dining room.

Once the room was empty, we laid paper to protect the floor.

This paper was previously used during ceiling repairs upstairs ... reuse and recycle!

Plaster removal itself was done carefully ... using a 5-in-one tool and a hammer to chip off manageable pieces, which were dropped into buckets.  I'm no fan of sledgehammer demolition, because it creates a huge mess, causes unnecessary destruction, and would most certainly damage the floor as the heavy debris falls.

See the bit of brown horsehair in the one chunk of plaster?

Slow, steady progress.  

The strip of something that you see on the wall below the ceiling is a wallpaper border that had been hidden behind crown molding.  The crown molding also hid a strip of wallpaper on the ceiling.  The wallpaper is not an 1840s original, but it does look old.  This room has been updated a number of times, most notably in the 1930s, and the wallpaper may have been installed during that remodel.

The ceiling paper has a slight sheen.

From a distance, it looks vaguely like an all-over floral ...

... though I can't make out a true pattern to it.

Plaster removal took 2-1/2 days.  Plaster is heavy, and working overhead like this is very tiring.

There was an insane amount of sand and brick dust in the ceiling above the fireplace.

Plaster ... all gone.

Originally, we planned to leave the lath in place and drywall over it.  With the plaster gone, we could see that the lath wasn't even enough for us to do this ... and there was a LOT of stuff in some of the joist spaces above it.  Just like with the plaster, the lath had to come down ... carefully.

It was really exciting to reveal the original ceiling joists.  The ones that appear to be short are extensions of the the joists of the adjacent foyer.

Once the lath was down, we sifted through the debris on the floor as we swept it up, to make sure that there weren't any hidden treasures.  What did we find?

A vintage rat nest ...

... which contained lots of fabric scraps ... none of which was modern, thank goodness.

Two rat mummies.

Walnuts, a corn cob, mud dauber nests, and some leaves from the Post Oak tree beside the house.

Pieces of glass, some newspaper shards, and a few old nails.

Three of the pieces of glass fit together, and they appear to be part of a pressed glass footed compote.

We pulled the nails out of each piece of lath, sorted them by size, and bundled them for easier storage.  I hope to give it to someone who has a need for 19th century sawn lath.

I am always in awe of the craftsmanship of the framework of this house!

There are cross beams beside the chimney, which support fireplaces on the upper floor.

The cross beams are connected to the floor joists with pegged mortise-and-tenon joints.

With the plaster and lath removed, and the mess cleaned up, this part of the living room renovation is finished. 

It will be a while till we work in this room anymore.  We have to rerun the wires for the recessed lights, add new wire and a switch for a chandelier, decide what to do with the bookcase space, etc., etc., etc.  In true old-house tunnel-vision fashion, we put the furniture back into the room and we will use it as is ... till we get the energy, motivation, and inspiration to keep working to make it beautiful again.

Essential Old-House Equipment

People who live in older homes immediately understand the significance of having these two items on hand when one is rearranging the furniture.

The floors in this old place of ours are anything but level.  In 160+ years since it was built, stuff has settled.  All it takes to deal with this is a quick check with the level, and a shim or two to set things to rights.

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I mention this because I have been on a tear since late last week.  I am fed up with the clutter and crap that has accumulated in our living room, and I am determined to do something about it.  I have rearranged some furniture, sorted through piles and boxes, and have already made two trips to the charity store.  Lots more is still left to do, but I can see progress ... and progress fuels motivation.  We will see how long this spell lasts.  

Cabbage Rose Fabric and Another Future Project

More snow falling today.  Looks like about three-or-so new inches.  It's beginning to taper off as I'm typing this, so I doubt there will be any more accumulation.  Still can't work on stuff outside ... as a result, my brain keeps scheming new projects, even though I have plenty of current, in-progress stuff to keep me occupied.

I put one of those schemes to rest a few minutes ago.  Years ago, I bought a huge roll of gorgeous cabbage rose fabric, with no particular use for it in mind ... had to have it because I loved it and I knew I would kick myself for all eternity if I didn't buy it.  I don't remember exactly what the price was, but I do remember that it was low enough to barely be a consideration in the decision process.

The selvage on the fabric says, "Cyrus Clark Co., Inc. 'Warrington' MCMXCIX"

Months ago (maybe longer than that), I was in the sewing room working on something else,  and I spotted the roll of fabric leaning against the wall.  I said to myself, "Self, this fabric would be awesome as drapes for the living room!"

That's as far as the idea went until this morning.  I carried the fabric downstairs to the dining room, which is our room with the longest open space when I push the dining table over to the side, and rolled the fabric out to see how much of it is on the roll.

Maggie was helping.

I am excited to tell you that there is more than enough fabric to make the four panels necessary for living room drapes!  I stopped rolling and measuring when I counted16 yards, and I hadn't reached the end of the roll.  That's plenty.

Just like the process I described about decisions for our front porch railing, now that I know I have enough material for this project, I can put this idea to bed until it's time to actually do something about it.  Frees up brain space to dream about other stuff.

Craigslist Chandelier

A few months ago, I showed you what we are facing when it comes time to finish the renovation of our living room.  The main obstacle in this has been wavering back and forth as we have tried to decide whether to attempt to save the cracked, sagging plaster ceiling in there or pull it down and put up a new one.  The 2011 earthquake did enough additional damage to the ceiling that we now are sure that pulling it down is the best and safest thing to do.

Removing the plaster will give us the opportunity to upgrade the lighting in that room.  We installed recessed lights in the ceiling years ago (I say "we", but it was my father-in-law who did it) ... and I plan to add a chandelier, to provide the perfect accent.

From time to time, I would search "crystal chandelier" on Craigslist to see what popped up.  I had a very distinct image in my imagination of what I wanted, and I finally found it last week!

The ad said that this chandelier was removed as part of the renovation of a house in downtown Fredericksburg.  He estimated that it had been installed during the home's last renovation, in the 1930s or 40s.  Makes sense, because of the style of wiring and the lack of any sort of markings on it.

1930 is about the time when OUR living room was given an update.  I know that the baseboards and window and door casings were replaced then, and I suspect that that's when the bookcase was built beside the fireplace.

In my search for the perfect chandelier, I was looking for one that didn't look like a dining room chandelier.  This one perfectly fits that description.  It's twenty-four inches in diameter, twenty-eight inches long, and every part of it is in perfect condition ... it's just totally filthy.

Having this chandelier on hand means that we no longer have to wonder about what we are going to do in the living room.  This project isn't going to get done any time soon, mind you ... we have other things that are much more pressing that require our time and budget.  Until the living room renovation rises to the top of the list, at least I have the comfort of knowing that the chandelier for that room is safely stored away until it's time to put it into place.

(photos in this post are from the Craigslist ad)