Archie by Jughead(s)

Down and Dirty ... Another arch needed to be removed (there were 7 in the house when we bought it) and this one, on the stairs to the third floor, is really wearing out my patience.

Ahh ... foamy. Since I neglected to take a real before shot of the arch, here's a photo early in the process of replacing this arch. You can see about half of the curve of the arch with all that gloppy slathered on cool-whip-like spackle.

Arches here at the JS house were put in to replace the wood framed doorways that were original to the house. This one is no exception. Most of the arches were installed using a purchased metal framing kit, made up of three pieces of metal that, when fit together into the doorway, transformed beautiful wood framed openings, into "seductive, curvaceous, sirens, leaving all who look upon them wide-eyed and frightened that anything so horrific could be done to an old home. And yes, the original wood door frames were pitched out.

OK, that's just my opinion. Arches have their place, some are rennaissance-like in their scientific order, others romantically tudor or buxom-and-romanesque. These were weak ill-placed and out of proportion with the rest of the house. Somehow they make the ceilings lower and rooms smaller than their angular wooden counterparts. This one, on the stairway to the third floor, was a DIY nightmare.

Some Background

Each set of stairs in the house (there are 2 remaining of 3 original, not counting the basement) ascends up about half way, turns back on itself at a landing, then continues its ascent to the next floor. From the second to the third floor the landing also contains a door. Because of the slope of the roof and stairs, the door was not full height, causing the entrant to stoop a bit.

And Then ...

At some point, I think recently, the door was removed and a DIY arch "created," mimicing others in the house and, seemingly, to increase head room. Curiously, the head room was added by cutting out one of the support beams for the roof (stupid, stupid, stupid ...). The crafty person next wadded up some fiberglass window screen and, with the help of spray-foam insulation, filled the square corners of the doorway to create a sort-of-arched shape. Next, spray-foam insulation was heavily applied to further "shape" and "refine" the lob-sided arch, followed by a thick layer of ceiling texture stuff was wadded over that to "finish" the shape.

Imagine my surprise when I walked up the stairs the first time to start deconstructing the arch. I whacked the curved corners with a hammer, expecting it to crack open the plaster, only to have the hammer "sucked" into the spray-foam insulation. I just stood there, hammer stuck in the "plaster," wondering what the heck ... ?? ...

Another corner, some of the gloppy spackle removed so you can see the lovely spray foam insulation going on

foam insulation removed. now you can see the old door header, cut at an angle for that dang-blasted arch, painted white, in the lower third of the photo. below it is a scraped clean piece of the door jamb, immediately above the header stump is some lathe from the other side (this side of the wall is drywall.)

Yep that's right, it's not a power tool. Using a classic saw was the easiest, fastest, and most precise way to trim the old header flush with the wall so I can extend the jamb upwards.

Now, the funny thing (as if this whole thing isn't just a hilarious joy) about this doorway is that, while the person installing the other arches removed all original wood door trim and framing, this one left the trim and framing in place. Well, except the header, which was hacked out, I guess, because they didn't want to stoop to get into the third floor anymore. So the door opening was made-up of two sides of wood framing and trim, with a curved, rough-textured, windowscreen-and-foam-framed, arch top - UGH. (sad little side-note, there is another door on the third floor similar to this that has a funky panel hinged to the top of the door and if you aren't careful, it can slip and bash you in the head when you go through the door. I bet the same person did both.)

After hours of digging the tenacious spray-foam out, I found the old framing. As you can see in the following diagram, a header and two cripple studs should be above the door opening. Thos are what were cut out on this door frame. I put in a new header, situated a few inches higher than the original to gain some head room. There is no door so the slope of the roof can be ignored for door swing, which is why the door was short in the first place.

 

Arch gone. The header for the original door frame was cut back to square and the stumps can be seen immediately below the hollows int he wall on either side of this photo. The white, arched kind-of-shapes at the top of the wall are the remains of the 2 cripple studs that secured the header in place. Reusing the location of the original header wont work since we have furniture in the third floor that is bigger than that opening would be, so Ill need to build up the sides and increase the height of the header for the re-do.

Heres a very primary build up of a few inches to raise the header for the new doorway. The wood that you can see,where the 4 screws are visible, is actually 3 chunks of 2x4s: Two laid horizontally into the hollow of the wall, and a third vertically so the structure is stronger. This kind of structure was repeated on both sides and the new header is visible at the top of the photo.

Next Ill need to frame in the jambs, matching the existing jambs on the sides with some pieces cut to fit at the top, add some trim to both sides of the wall and fill in the missing wall (plaster/drywall) at the top. I'll post more once I get that stuff done.

Stay tuned ...

Well, Shut-The-Door !

Have you ever done something, working tirelessly, struggling every minute to make something happen just to see it done and ... well ... it's just not as amazing as you expected ?

Well, for me, this is one of those times ...

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty pleased with the way this virgin adventure turned out, but I kind of thought it would excite me more. It's immensely practical, sure, its will keep out some drafts in winter and allow gentle breezes in the summer. That's great stuff.

Add to that that I had no pattern, nor any idea what I was doing the whole time I built it. I was truly winging it on this one. I just knew what I wanted and worked backward ... the forward, HA.

So here are the photos. They pretty much tell the story.  Let me know if I did well.

Finished door in place from the outside. Still need to put in the knob and some locks.

from the inside.

Here's the beginning, well, after about 10 hours of aligning it to be square and glue-up and pegging the corners, no nails or screws used here.

Panel in the bottom of the door so I can put in the mail slot. I added the chamfers to give it a more period look.

The pine is shellacked and varnished. some of the antique metal hardware in place.

cool old "mail" slot. My mail people will not be happy to stoop so low to drop in the mail.

some groovy old screen door hinges, they have springs in them to "shut the door"

Sitting on the Porch, Watching the World Go By

First impressions can be legendary. I'm sure you remember the first impression you had of your spouse, or a new pet. The first impression of a home is all too often tied to the front yard and porch. It's so important that those awful DIY Cable TV shows created at least one entire series to teach you how to pretty-it-up in just an afternoon (see the part about the porch's tiled floor below ... grrr).

OK, lets start this whole thing off with a "good" first impression before picture of the front porch:

The porch about 6 months after moving into the house. The cheap 1990's wicker came with the house—We've replaced it piece by piece. The swing is original.

What's your first impression? Sure it feels inviting—it's a pleasant enough space. You can almost imagine yourself sitting in one of those great, wicker chairs, snuggled into the comfy cushions with a cup of hot coffee on a crisp fall day, or enjoying a summer breeze on the groovy swing with some lemonade. Even the palm adds to the "old-fashioned" charm of this porch.

But beware ... its like inspecting a used car: the paint's shiny and the upholstery smells pretty, and you can even imagine yourself driving on the highway listening to "Flock of Seagulls," but what's the engine like ? Did someone turn-back the odometer ? Is there a kid-puke stain hidden under the rug on the floorboard ?

Things happen over time

This is an officially old house; 100+ years old. Things happen to a house during its life, and in this case, almost every surface has been altered. If you dissect the photo above, the white "clapboards" on the walls are vinyl siding that was nailed on in the 1970's. The "trim" is all aluminum wrapped and holding in any drop of water that sneaks underneath. The floor, which I initially thought was kind of pretty, is really a mess of loose tiles hastily set on chipboard plunked overtop of the original tongue-and-groove, hard-pine floorboards. And the tile has 1+" grout lines that leak like crazy. Its a mess. It smells strongly of crappy cable TV DIY show "improvements".

You never know what is in the box until you tear off the wrapping.

Here's where it all gets messy. One day, without warning, Matthew disappears.

That's never good. It means he's up to something.

I heard banging and say to the dog. "Um, it's coming from the front porch, and ... oh crap ... what in god's name is he tearing apart out there?"

Matthew on one of his weekend "architectural-digs"

I love a discovery as much as the next guy and I have always wanted to see under the vinyl. But I am more cautious than him. I plan my destruction. I strongly adhere to the tenant that once its discovered, you can't just walk away. You have to be sure you have enough time, patience, know-how and cash to repair whatever mess you find. To his credit, though, if tearing off that vinyl and aluminum was his version of "panning for gold," well then, for a change of pace around this old house, this time he struck gold.

I spent a little more time on the trim around the front door to ensure it looked as good as possible. There were a lot of things screwed into that trim that left big holes, but in this area I was able to scrape and sand down to the clear original wood. Its beautiful. This is dad-confirmed old cedar and was always painted - there is no evidence of stain or oil finish. The original "lead white" paint if visible at the top and bottom of the door trim wood. By-the-way, the red door has to go. It's the original door with original hardware (not the deadbolt) but the glass has been replaced by a sheet of plywood. The plan is to strip the paint off the door, re-varnish it, and "upgrade" the hardware to something a little more Victorian, rather than this standard craftsman style, that what all the houses on the block seem to have.

Cool things found --- Questions answered

Every story has a highlight, or should, and this is the best part of this story. In one of my earlier posts I questioned the mysterious smooth, windowless wall in the living room where there is now a window. Tearing off the vinyl on the outside of the house revealed the answer. The "window" is absolutely not original. There never was a window on that wall. There were, however, a pair of doors that opened onto the porch—just like in the dining room. In fact, the dining room doors line up with the arch between the parlor and dining room, and the doors out onto the front porch. What a wonderful breeze they must have had in the house with all those doors opened. Not sure what we'll do about this discovery. See note about having the cash to fix what you find, above ... But WAY COOL thing to find out.

Look carefully along both left and right edges of this photo and you can see the lines in the wall from the replacement clapboards, after removing the french doors that were here. Interior baseboard repair matches the width exactly in this spot. Many houses in the neighborhood have french doors onto the front porch - in fact the house next door has 2 pair in addition to the main front door. There is no evidence about when or why this was done, but the clapboard replacements are the original-type, thick, cedar boards so I tend to think this was done early. The front porch was closed-in to use as a bed room for "Dittie," the grandmother, in 1952. I just don't thing they had access to the correct replacement clapboards, then, for replacement, and assume the doors were removed before they closed in the porch. From 1948-1952 the house was used as an upholstery shop and this alteration could have been done for that purpose. The craziest thing is that there is no evidence of a threshold for the doors. The floor is clear and smooth under the window.

Demolition education

Under all that vinyl the original 1.25 inch thick, cedar clapboards were in amazing shape on the house, itself. Sadly, most of the clapboards on the knee wall—the short wall that circles around the porch and the corner posts—were replaced at some point with 5/8 inch thick pine clapboards. The wood trim looked super, thought, even under five layers of paint (originally lead-white, the trim was subsequently painted ivory, peach, white, and mint green, in that order), and  the termite damage, which we knew we would find (mitigated 2 years ago), was not as bad as we anticipated.

Aluminum wrapping is nailed right into original wood. Vinyl is visible below ledge top.

Part of the vinyl and aluminum removed (vinyl still on the left - removed on the right side). The wood clapboards visible are replacements of the original, and not installed that well.

Evidence of clapboard replacement. The original clapboard's "shadow" is visible as a zig-zag on the corner board. The replacements did not hold up as well as the original cedar during the "wrapping," as is evidenced by the nail splits and cracks in the wood.

More discoveries included: Corner brackets of some kind were at the top of each "pillar" or "post", on the knee-wall there was a nice ogee molding under the top overhanging ledge, and just like the pencil notations made by so many of the craftsmen who built this house, originally, in 1906-08 (we find them on the back of drawers and window seats), the people who stuck the hideous vinyl on the house also made notations on the old painted wood. Additionally, the clapboards and shingles on the house, which were originally just stained deep brown, were not painted until sometime after 1960 (I have photos from 1959 showing the dark brown clapboards). The original stain was a deep orange-brow, and we found only one coat of white paint on the clapboards. We think there may be 2 coats of paint on the shingles on the second and third floors (none of the second floor exterior has been uncovered but they look to be dark green. I am waiting for the next time Matthew disappears - I might find him on the second floor tearing thins apart).

If you look carefully you can see the shadow of the old corner brackets and the two sets of three filled screw holes that attached it to the porch. These show up at the top of all the supports for the porch. We want to replace them with something comparable - well do that after tacking the exterior part of the porch next summer.

This photo shows the back of the house in 1958. Until at least 1960, when the owners who snapped this photo moved away, the house body was unpainted - note stained clapboards. The trim in this photo looks whiter than the original lead-white and is probably the fourth layer of paint put on the trim. Shortly after this photo was taken the whole house was painted white with mint green trim. About a decade later it was zip-locked in vinyl.

Craftsman notations, this one makes me laugh.

This is a really informative photo. Every board is original and you can see all the layers of trim color paint. The grey at the outer edge of the paint island is the original lead white. The house was originally just stained and left to weather, which held up really well till it was painted white in the 1960's. The ogee molding under the green ledge is an original feature that i plan to replicate elsewhere: this is the only place it is still intact. The clapboard immediately below the molding is an original cedar board (that's probably why they didn't remove the trim molding).

The first thing we did once all the vinyl and aluminum was gone was make repairs to the damage parts exposed. There were three clapboards that were missing on one of the corner supports. We used cut offs from a neighbors cedar fence to fix that (it looks perfect.) I scraped all the boards (that's really messy work) then filled the nail holes. Since the white paint on the house was oil-based, we primed everything with grey-tinted oil-based primer. The top coat of paint is Sherwin Williams Resilience Latex. It goes over oil-based primer nicely.

Fixing the termite damage was tedious. Thankfully, the only place where I needed to repair it was the ledge board on top of one knee wall. It would have been very involved to replace the wood, so I opted to just fill the limited damage. Getting filler into the termite tunnels was the toughest part. First, I injected a rotted wood stabilizer (it's a syrupy liquid that re-solidifies soft, fuzzy, rotted wood.) Then used a liquid nail type product to inject into the tunnels (it comes in a tube, like caulk) It holds its shape pretty well and solidifies nicely. It can take up to a week to cure and you have to put it on in layers. It did sand well, and did the job for much less than epoxy resin.

Termite damaged knee wall top ledge before. Note - the largest hole is something I created. The tunnels were just below the surface and I couldn't get into them, so I cut off the top thin layer of wood to expose it. Also, see all those tiny tunnels that look like scratches? Interestingly, they cross the grain of the wood - most of the tunnels were parallel with the grain.

Liquid nail-type product in place. I jammed the tip of the tube into the holes and filled as much as possible. then I used a plastic scraper to smooth it out a bit. Additional layers were needed to finish the repair.

just one more layer of fill to add and it will be ready for primer and paint.

The ceiling presented some trouble. The original was almost certainly bead-board, but I have zero proof of that since the ceiling was wholesale replaced. The ceiling that is up there now is, get ready ... really, really cheap, super duper cheap, plywood. Heck, it may be chipboard. I swear that last owners went to HD or Lowes and bought any low-end crap that was guaranteed to screw-up the house or last only 3 weeks. They didn't even spring for mid-range - low-end all the way. It's all crap. I'll save that rant for a whole entry. But replacing the ceiling with bead-board will cost more than $1000 and add time to our limited get-it-done-before-winter schedule. The most visible problem with the plywood ceiling was that the seams, where one sheet meets another, were warped and gaping and just a mess. So ... I pondered ... How can I make it look good super quickly and without spending any money on it so I can save my pennies for bead-board later on? What I came up with was a pseudo-beamed-type ceiling. Is it historic? probably not. Does it make it look pretty? Heck yeah. It's good for now and maybe one day well replace it with bead-board when I have enough pennies.

This is what we found: cheap ply wood on the ceiling trimmed around the perimeter with thin, cheap baseboard and pixie-sized quarter round. At least they added support blocks to the house wall to hold up the ceiling boards where there were no joists. The thin trim was incompatible with the new ceiling plan so it had to come down.

New boards nailed around the perimeter of the ceiling give a smooth flat edge against which to butt the new ceiling "beams," and it looks more appropriate than the previous whispy-thin trim pieces. If this originally was a bead-board ceiling, the perimiter would have been trimmed with a big beefy quarter round molding--about 1.25 inch radius. Neighboring houses use exactly that, but big quarter round is very difficult to find, today.

So far, the porch restoration was going well. We agreed that the floor can wait to be redone in the spring or summer. Who knows what kind of mess we'd find under that tile. Cold weather was approaching fast and we still had to paint everything.

Never ... NEVER ... turn your back

Maybe I was scraping the walls, or putting boards on the ceiling, or something, when I saw the worst thing imaginable, out of the corner of my eye ... Matthew, pulling up tiles from the floor. "I just want to see whats under them" he said. Of course I tried to stop him, but he was a machine. He yanked, he pulled, he never rested. I was nervous. I felt kind of sick-to-my-stomach. Within minutes the tiles in one corner of the porch were gone and ya know, there was a real porch floor underneath.

He spent the next 2 days ripping off the tiles. Thank god the condition of the old wooden floor is not that bad, really. There are new replacement boards that someone added (we saw them from below when we inspected the foundation.) Those are in the worst condition. They are thinner tongue and groove and soft pine, rather than the wide hard pine that the rest of the floor is. The floor was originally just oiled, not painted. There are 2 coats of paint on top of the oil finish; one green, the other gray. It's currently serviceable, but not attractive. The screws that held the chip board base to the floor were all rusted and are, for the most part, still in the floor. We trip on them occasionally. Matthew doesn't like to be outside in the cold, so I'm pretty sure he'll leave it alone till spring.

during ... crap crap crap ...

I have no idea what the yellow stuff is--it's not mold, at least. Here you can see the old, original boards (right, and wider) and the newer replacements (left, and narrower). Generally, the original boards are in far better shape than the new, which are pretty rotten. Guess that water got under the tile and could not escape and just rotted the cheap, new pine boards.

Back on track 

With the clapboards repaired and the nail holes filled; the ceiling put together and the termite damage filled in; the old oil paint primed so the new latex will stick; it's finally time to paint. One option I considered was striping the whole exterior and re-staining it back to the original finish. That was another grand idea that lasted 5 seconds before a flood of potential problems replaced the pride I'd feel in a restoration of that magnitude ... I'll paint.

• To clarify, this isn't just a porch restoration, its actually the front wall of the first floor of the house. The colors we paint will need to be used everywhere on the rest of the house.

You know I have to plan out everything. Since we moved here 4 years ago I have been planning the colors for the outside of the house. White houses are not my style. I prefer darker colors, or at least historic colors, which look the most appropriate on old houses.

Some houses at the turn-of-the-century were painted white. Most houses, though, were painted in fantastic earthy, rich, deep, vibrant, late-Victorian colors. Historic paint colors have pretty boring names such as red-brown, dark olive and shutter green. These are really just a description of the color, or are  based on where that color was commonly used (yup, most shutters at the turn of the century were painted deep green, regardless of the other colors used on the house.) There weren't a whole massive array of colors from which to choose at the turn of the century. Nearly all paint was newly mixed on site. Buying paint premixed at a store, like we do today, was a new idea that hadn't yet fully caught on. Since each batch of paint was mixed on site, the final color varied a bit according to the person mixing the color and the raw materials available. That means that the color everyone called "old gold" was a bunch of different golden brown colors, sometimes more gold, sometimes more green, sometimes more orange, depending on the raw materials and the person mixing the paint. It stinks there is very, very little, extant evidence for us to see exactly what these historic colors really looked like, since most have been painted over, or if not, they faded from the sun.

In a collectible book about late-Victorian exterior color by Roger Moss, several pages of actual paint chips are included in the back. These paint color chips are recreated from a paint sample chart that dates to the 1880's. Devoe Paints recreated the colors by using a spectrochromograph, a technology that permits a color, no mater how faded, to be recreated based on its chemical composition rather than observation. Thereby, the colors of an old faded paint sample chart have been recreated anew by reading the chemical make up of the chart's colors, and using that chemical equation to remix extinct colors.

Williamsburg's big mistake

When Historic Williamsburg was first "discovered," the architectural colors of the town were read by visual observation, without consideration of fading. The fine anthropologists restoring Williamsburg, in conjunction with various paint companies, released collections of Colonial Williamsburg paint colors. It was groundbreaking since this was the first American historic site to be discovered, and to have a collection of paint colors for American home owners sold to the public. In the 1970's, empowered by the upcoming bicentennial celebration, everyone started painting things with this paint. The most pervasive color was that insipid, soft, dull, grey "colonial blue." Recently, using spectrochromatography, Colonial Williamsburg had the colors re-evaluated. They discovered that the colors they earlier introduced to the world were all wrong. The colors used by the colonists were actually vibrant peacock blues, loud tangerine orange and shocking mustard yellow, not soft blue green, sickly peach and dull cream. check out the new issue of Old House Interiors for some samples of the "right" colors.

What I chose for the house, and I considered things like the surrounding landscape and other homes on the block, is a dark olive for the first floor (SW2224 Caper), medium olive for the second floor (SW2222) and amber for the third floor (SW 2817) with fawn trim (SW 2814 Rookwood Antique Gold). The window sashes are white vinyl (YUK), for now, but when we do upgrade to wood windows, I want the windows and sashes to be bronze green, which is an amazing black green.

 Finally, the after pictures - Ta Da!

The best part about the afters is the color change ... WOW. But keep in mind, this is now wood, not that crummy vinyl. The repairs are most important since they lend a few extra years to the house. Otherwise, these photos pretty much speak for themselves after reading the whole story above. You can see the first floor house body color (the second and third floors will be each different colors) and the house trim color. The floor is still messy, but we'll be better able to tackle that in the warmer weather (and torrential downpours) of springtime. The ceiling is looking better, though I continue to save my pennies for that bead board version.

These photos are all "after-during". I still have a little painting to do. Ill add photos of the after once spring arrives and I can really finish up the way I like.

BOY ... that red door is annoying - it will be stripped, stained and varnished and the full glass will be put back in (that's a thin sheet of plywood that the 3 windows are cut into ... its crap).

This photo shows both the color and "finish" the best. Some of the green clapboards were still wet when I snapped this. I hate the door, now and really cant wait to strip it.

same view as the very first picture at the top of this story. This is facing south. Yeah, it still looks like a construction site - thats because it IS ...

looking the other way (facing north)

Color looks really bad. But a good view of the completed front wall. In the middle you can clearly see the still wet paint at the top - That's coat number 2. Still need a few warm days to finish.

Shocking

Even though this was one of the first curiosities we found in the house–it hangs right in the middle of the second floor hallway so it's real hard to miss–it took me forever to discover what it means.

This is the original electric box for the house. Just like the fuse box of old, or the breaker box you use now, this was where electricity to outlets and fixtures in the house was controlled. Albeit, everything turned off all at once by flipping that cartoon-like electric handle, there, in the top-middle of the box (I swear I remember seeing Bugs Bunny flip one of those in the cartoons of my childhood.) One electric contractor said its still hot and confirmed that there is some active Knob & Tube in the house.

One of the mysteries about this box was what the pink label meant. OK, I knew it was an inspection sticker, but was there a story to it and what was that handwriting scrawled up the middle of the door?

With a lot of time and research I found out that the Ransdell's owned the house from 1948-1951. They ran an upholstery shop out of it at that time. Someone, presumably a child, wrote their name right through the middle of the door.

The date the house was built was declared a mystery because of a fire at the records office. Well, with some additional in depth research I discovered that the property the house sits on was compiled through several purchases from 1901-1906. A portion of the total property was sold to a neighbor in April 1908. Now, I suspect that that lot of land would not have been sold after the house was built since it moved the property line to only 7 feet from the house, but immediately before building began. Assuming that the Oct. 1908 date on the inspection sticker was added during the final stages of building (when then, like now, you would have had a utilities inspector check the electricians handiwork and sign off on it). I can surmise that the house was built between April and October, 1908.

Kind of a cool finding from the old electric box. Now if I can only figure out what it means every time the ghost opens the box (yeah, while I work from home, and am home totally alone, on numerous occasions, the box would be closed and latched, I'd go upstairs to work and upon coming back down the stairs, the door would be full open. Hasn't happened in a while, but still ....

Undoing the Ugly

You know how it is, you start to tear things apart and suddenly remember you never took the "before" photos. These are the best BEFORE photos I have.

a "marble-esque" plastic sink

two faux-chrome plastic sconces with creepy, blue-swirl shades

thick dripping strands of caulk slathered into cracks like a 7-year-old globbing icing onto a cake

a press-board sink cabinet so cheap it's not even worth calling it "pressed"

a sheet vinyl floor whose edges have curled and chipped, like an old woman's untrimmed toe-nails; yellowed by nicotine and stuffed with dust and crud around the edges

This was the powder room we inherited.

I know many of you faced this uglienss, too. We lived with it for as long as we could but knew that bleach can only do so much.

It was in 1952 that the Harris family ripped out the back stair case (on blustery, stormy nights I can still hear the stairs scream as they are dragged through the hall to awaiting garbage cans) and installed a half-bath for Mrs. Harris' mother, Diddie, a seamstress who was unable to climb the stairs to the second floor bathroom.

So you don't have to wait too long to see it ... Here's the AFTER ...

I debated, albeit for only 10 minutes, to reinstall the stairs and get rid of this room. 

The mirror is great. I left the medicine cabinet in place and simply added a new, square mirror and frame. Of course I saved the old early 1950's arched-top mirror. Ill find a place for it one day.

The plan was to install some kind of "vintage-y" bathroom: Something that would fit in with the more formal first floor space and not embarrass us in front of our guests. The house is, or will be, very colorful: A rich green dining room, vibrant terra cotta center hall, glowing gold and deep peacock blue parlor. It seemed that a gentle-colored bathroom would be a great respite. It also would be in keeping with the history of the house, since the turn-of-the-century, known as the "sanitary period" since cleaning was a high priority, promoted bathrooms that used white tile and porcelain and could easily be cleaned.

Just another view of the horrific sink. I bet it couldn't have cost more than $18.50 when new.

I chose two different pale grey paint colors for wall and trim, and planned to use painted Anaglypta wallpaper below a high dado rail, which would be a continuation of the windowsill about the rest of the room. White marble floors and sink, a white porcelain "Victorian-inspired" toilet that didn't require 8 gallons of water per flush, brushed nickel fixtures and antique oil lamps should round out the room.

Antique (about 1880-1900) nickel-plated rod holders. These were universally used for towels and curtains. I will use them for the toilet paper roll. Something to think about ... until nearly 1920 toilet paper was usually fashioned at home from old paper, such as newspaper or left overs from school.

Yes, that's the original 1952 baseboard sitting in a pile by the door. It will not be missed.

Armed with only a short pry bar, a hammer and a small paint scraper I attacked the room one morning. I don't even think I had had my morning coffee.

Removing the baseboard revealed the unfinished plaster board that was used to line the walls (the hole is through the plaster board.) This is an earlier version of drywall which actually was made of plaster. The edges would have been filled and smoothed with a thin layer, a skim coat if you will, of white finish plaster. The wood framing is original to the house. This is a view of an outside wall that would have been under the first part of the back stairs.

The baseboards were easy -- they were attached with short finishing nails. Reaching into the sink cabinet I turned off the water and disconnected the faucet hoses. I unscrewed the "p" trap and disconnected the drain assembly so I could remove the sink and cabinet.

I carefully ran the paint scraper all around the edges of the cabinet and sink back, feeling for nails, or glue, or screws, or anything that would need to be removed to pull out the cabinet.

Nothing ...

I looked at, and then jiggled, the cabinet and sink assembly ... let me correct that ... I EASILY jiggled the sink and cabinet ... and in the process lifted it right off the ground. Ahh, thanks to some less-than-handy PO's that did nothing to actually attach it ... good job guys ... I saved a few minutes of work.

I don't shock easily in this place, anymore. Most of the time when I uncover something I grit my teeth and stomp into the basement to get another tool or drive out to Lowes to get more stuff, to undo the stupidity of the PO's. But you just gotta love the groovy Marsha Brady rug I found under the sink cabinet. "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha."

Photo and close-up, above, of the carpeting found under the sink cabinet. There were 2 layers of flooring under this. The carpet did not extend into the rest of the room, and the cream-colored vinyl was only installed up to the edge of the sink cabinet. I also found out that this room had been 4 shades of blue, the original color was that mint green you can see above.

OK, sink out, baseboards out, toilet waiting for the plumber to remove. On to the floor.

Cement board going in to lay the tile. The black glue remnant is from what I suppose is the original linoleum floor tiles. The wood is just plywood layed over the basement ceiling joists.

I took a stab at it and it was not too hard. There was vinyl over vinyl over what I think was probably linoleum over wood. I don't think any of it dated to 1908 when the house was built. Maybe, I don't know. It looks old from the basement side, but remember, this was a staircase till 1952, so if this is original wood, it was more of a basement ceiling than a floor. No matter, we got marble tile to lay over it.

The toilet came out without incident and the tile floor went in fairly well. I didn't do either since I HATE plumbing and "someone" thinks I can't lay tile ... (grumble)

Sparkling white. The new honed marble floor makes the room look better, even if nothing else is ever done.

So let me pick up after the new toilet, a model I found completely unobjectionable while checking out new toilets at Lowes, went in.

That toilet from Lowes. I do love the antique-looking oval tank and the vintage flared foot under the bowl.

Static for almost 2 months, the bathroom awaits a sink, clad in cardboard and old towels to keep the floor from scratching while I worked.

I have a beautiful white marble sink top, circa 1880-1890. It's great. It just needs a bowl. It has a few stains, a great patina, beautiful finish, soft and aged, just the way I like it. In fact, the marble floor was special ordered to match the sink. I found a "old-timey" plumber to even repair the old faucets for it. I processed how to install this sink for months. I had the wall-hung brackets and a plan, BUT, the risk of someone leaning on the front edge of the wall-hung sink, which has no legs to support the free front edge, and it falling to the ground breaking plumbing, causing a broken hip, was all too great. So after some online research, I begrudgingly ordered the pedestal sink that matched the quite acceptable toilet from Lowes (special order, 4 week wait, no problem ...).

After 2 weeks I called to see how the order was going. They tracked the sink back to the warehouse in China. It was one of 23 sinks they had in stock and it was being shipped out that week. It should only be a week or so till we had it. One week short of the month estimate.

3 weeks later ... still no sink. We called a few times in between and were told the sink was on its way. Got a little angry and called some more: no sink. Got angrier still and called and, well, here's where it gets interesting. The manufacturer no longer makes the sink. It no longer makes the sink that the warehouse had 23 of a few weeks before and was shippign one to us the next day and .... No longer makes the sink still listed on several websites for sale.

Lowes offered us an alternative, as if they had choices ... choose any sink at the same price. Hmm ...

That sink was $119. American Standard makes a nearly matching sink, albeit, considerably larger, but nearly identical in design. (I tend to think the one we originally ordered was the low-end rip off of the American Standard). American Standard's sink is about $400. Really, what would YOU do?

mmmmm ... sink ... see that the oval top matches the toilet tank and they share the same flared foot. I LOVE THIS SINK.

When we picked up the sink we got a new faucet, American Standard brushed nickel and again, kind of vintage looking. It also repeated the shape of the sink's pedestal.

Again, the AFTER shot. The brass cup holder will be replated in nickel as soon as I save all my pennies.

Meanwhile, back in the bathroom ... I was busy hanging the Anaglypta, painting the walls, ceiling and wallpaper. I applied a wash of grey paint over the textured Anaglypta, which you need to paint since it's uncoated paper, and wiped it off so it stayed only in the recesses of the wallpaper.

Anaglypta paper hung and painted. It;s very forgiving if you have less than perfect wall surfaces. It must be painted, though, and offers alot of opportunity for decorative effect. Anaglypta has been in continuous production since the 1890's and was originally developed as a less expensive alternative to embossed leather and Lincrusta, a linoleum-like wall covering developed in the 1870's.

I also had to mill all the wood trim for the room since none of the trim in the house is still manufactured. Thank god dad sent out his old Porter Cable router. I came up with baseboard, dado cap and window and door trim that I found easy enough to make, but also complimented the other woodwork in the house. The baseboard was the trickiest, but it is similar to the original baseboard of the stairs in the house. I could not find, or afford ($200), a one-inch reverse-ogee router bit, which is what I needed to match the top of the original baseboard. I came up with something similar by overhanging a 1/2 inch round over bit so it rounded off the sharp top edge while it cut a groove just below. I may like it more than the original baseboards.

A turn-of-the-last-century cup and toothbrush holder I have had for years. It is brass and had been nickel plated. I also found it for sale in the 1897 Sears Catalog.

The light fixtures are old oil lamp brackets that I wired and hung on the electric boxes using custom drilled metal box cover plates. They were tough to hang since they are really heavy.

Antique (1880) Bradley and Hubbard cast iron oil lamps. The milk-glass shades are also period and I think original to the lamps. I stay up at night worrying that they will break. I ordered the electric "burners" from Antique Lamp Supply. I just wish they were nickel, or at least a silver-ish color.

Finally, the first floor half-bath looks like it belongs in the house. I am very pleased with its timeless design and lack of color (although I have already cleaned the white floor about a million times ...).