Hello all! I hope you're having a great week during this "almost" Spring season. We had several inches of snow last weekend—and dogwoods are beginning to open their buds today. And while the seasons are a-changing outside, we are making more old house changes inside! It might help you to have a little background so you can see the method to our madness. In the '80s—two owners back—our sunroom (which I'm told they called a "breezeway" and used as an office) plus a 3-car garage addition were added to the back of our small-town Victorian. Then, 20 years later, the next owners enclosed two bays of the garage and turned it into a family room. On the other side of this door is the ... Keep Reading...
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HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN THIS WAY? Looking for diamonds in the rough
The chair sat splay-legged like a pre-adolescent girl who forgot her manners—but I thought it was beautiful. Well, potentially beautiful. The pantry tucked away in the uninhabitable house sported burst canned goods and years of grime—but I envisioned it freshly cleaned, painted, and filled with dishes. Was I delusional? The vintage bedspread in its original box was so filthy no one else would place a bid—but in my mind, it was already pure white and laid across my guest room bed. I snatched it up for $25. res·to·ra·tion noun \ˌres-tə-ˈrā-shən\ : the act or process of returning something to its original condition by repairing it, cleaning it, etc. : the act ... Keep Reading...
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The PUSH and PULL of renovating an old house
Recently I had the pleasure of sharing our old house with a group of interior design students. One of the things we discussed is that when renovating an old house like ours, it's all about choices and tradeoffs. Unfortunately, since we had no option but to live in our house while renovating, one of the tradeoffs is that we make great progress, clean up the construction dust, take a deep breath for a short time—and then start the next messy project. We trade order for chaos—over and Over and OVER again. Some days it's exhausting. But then things start to come together, and (for a short while) it's exhilarating again. We catch a glimpse of THE END and like what we see! There's been a whole lot of that ... Keep Reading...
