Electric Fireplace

About a year ago we were driving by an antique shop. I saw out front this very beautiful olive green mid-century something. I wasn't sure what it was but I liked the color. We decided to stop and check it out.  It turned out to be this awesome electric fireplace. We didn't have a great place to put it and make it a center piece on the wall but we do have a very chilly family room and guest room in our basement. There was a side wall available in our family room where we could put the fireplace. It helped us make the decision to buy this, knowing that it was something we actually need and would use. We had been using a space heater in the depths of winter when we wanted to sit downstairs in the family room. But, this fireplace looks a whole lot cuter! I'm pretty impressed with how real the fire looks for an electric fireplace. It also warms up our family room quite nicely. I love it!

A Knock On The Door

This morning at about 10am there was a knock at our front door. My husband has a horrible cold but I have this policy about not answering the door if I don't know who is on the other side. So, he got the job of answering. It ended up being the second owner of our house standing on the other side of the door! She wanted to know if she could come back later today with her family to see the house. This is the lady who happened to be very good friends with my mother's best friend and we have emailed about the house several times. I had not heard from her in quite some time. So, we set an appointment for 2pm when they returned.

At 2pm the owner showed up with her daughter, husband, granddaughter-in-law and grandson. It was so interesting to hear what they had to say about the house. They seemed to like the things we had done to it. I am going to type some of the things they told us about the house so that I don't forget. We started in the living room. She said when they moved in, the living room floor had just been carpeted with wool carpet for the sale of the house. We speculate this may have been the same carpet that was in the house when we moved in. She said the living room windows had white sheer panels when they lived there. We think they were the same ones on the windows when we moved in. They also told us they used the fireplace. We were told by the inspector that he thought there was no liner in the fireplace and we shouldn't use it until we know for sure. We haven't had it inspected by a chimney sweep yet but we suspect it does have a liner!

The kitchen was still terrazzo when they moved in but they covered it in linoleum. She thought the kitchen cabinets were white when they moved in and they had been painted due to damage. I was told that the cabinet that divides the living room and kitchen was moved further into the kitchen by them because they thought it went too far into the living room. She said the kitchen had a gourmet freezer/ fridge that was very large and had wood surrounding it. It was not very efficient and when it broke they couldn't find anyone to fix it so they replaced it. We think that was the original fridge for the house. She said it was very tall and flush with the kitchen cabinets. That is what I had speculated. The original owners had a laundry off the kitchen with a washer/ dryer all in one unit. That was removed and the laundry was added in the basement by these people.

The hallway leading to the family room.
The laundry room is on the left. The laundry
room and door leading into the family room
were not always here.

The pink and blueish/green carpet that was in the two smaller bedrooms when we moved in sounds like it was here when these people lived here. The pink was added by them. One bedroom has funny marks in the floor and ceiling right above and below each other. (I have been meaning to do a post about these to see if anyone knows what they are.) All I can think is that some kind of tension unit was in this spot. Maybe a lamp or a shelf. They said they don't remember having anything like this. I had suspected these were the owners who put the wallpaper in both of the bathrooms but they said they did not. The basement bathroom has tile on the floor that was also in the entry way. They said they don't remember this tile. They think the basement hallway and bathroom had carpet when they lived there.

This is the same floor covered in white splotches
at the "floor problems" link  below.

They used our guest room as a den which is also what I think the original owners used it for. The biggest surprise of their visit was learning about the rest of the basement. The rest of the basement had originally been a dog kennel. I know these people had removed the dog kennel. So, I assumed they had also refinished the basement and turned it into the laundry room and family room. But, they were not the ones who refinished the basement. They left it unfinished with a cement floor. What is now the laundry room and family room were all one big room. At one time the entire basement had a long hall that went from one end to a door that went outside. They said that hall was still there when they lived in the house. This was a very big surprise to us.

When you walk in the family room this divider is in front of you.
We assume it's there as support instead  of the original wall. You
can see the door to the carport past this divider.

I haven't included many pictures of the basement. That is where a large part of our floor problems happened. (Remember the story about the floors that got stained purple on accident?) I figure it is about time to post some photos of the basement. I'm sorry I didn't take them in the day when there was more light. We are just about moved in down there. For those of you wondering, our other house still has not sold!! So, we aren't completely moved into this house. We still have furniture at the other house. We do have an offer on the other house. It is supposed to close on June 24th. Hopefully everything will go through without any hitches. We are now in the process of moving the last of our furniture to the new house.

This is the divider from the opposite side.
The right side of this divider was where there
was a wall that ran the length of the family room
and created a hallway.

At our old house we had a lot of built in shelving in our family room. We were wondering how we were going to make up for all of that lost space. This past winter we got a shelving unit for the family room that comes in two pieces. They are supposed to be stacked on top of each other but we separated them. One unit is being used as an entertainment center. The other unit is being used as shelving for books. The unit was originally a beverage rack. I will have more photos soon of our guest bedroom. It has also been neglected in my photos. A new bedspread comes this week and we should be about done with that room. We finally had our front yard repaired after the new sewer line. So, be watching for more landscaping photos. We also have some new patio furniture.

It is our hope to paint the exterior of the house this summer. Choosing colors is not fun!! I wish someone could just tell me what will look great.

More to come soon!

This is the new storage unit we got in the winter. The piece on the left is actually supposed to stack on top of the piece
on the right. The top of the piece on the right is actually from our old house. My cousin built it to serve the same
purpose it serves now on top of a built in shelving unit where our TV sat. The two pieces on the right are not attached.

Where Do We Stand?

It has been a while since I have written a blog. I need to do a little update on where we stand right now. I haven't blogged because not a lot has happened since my last post. We have basically been trying to recover financially from the expense of all the work we did last winter. We also still have the financial obligations that come with still owning our old house. On top of those things I am feeling a bit poor due to the number of shoes I have purchased over the past year. For about a year now I have had very painful bursitis in both of my feet. (I think all of the cement floors in this house could be exacerbating the issue.) I have really struggled with finding comfortable shoes.  I would have much rather put the money I have spent on shoes into a new house project.

We were considering having the house painted this past summer. But, we did not get the roof damage I posted about here fixed until this past summer. We called in October of 2013 about getting the roof fixed and it took close to a year to finally get it repaired. The leak from the roof caused a lot of damage to the door frame of the storage shed in the carport. So, there was no point in painting until the roof was repaired. By the time the roof was fixed the weather wasn't very conducive to painting. The painting will most likely be next summer's project. We have no plans to make any drastic change to the color of the house. We just want to freshen it up.

We also have not had the yard and sidewalk repaired after putting in the new sewer line. We had to wait to let the ground settle. It has now settled and doesn't look quite as much like a giant mole went through our yard. Since the weather is cold this is most likely something that will be taken care of when the weather warms up. We would also like to eventually have some landscaping done to the yard. We are not planning to make any major changes but all of the bushes are very old (maybe even original). They have gotten very woody without having much green. We would like to freshen them up. There were also a few trees that were lost in the yard during large storms. There are some really key spots where trees are missing that we would like to have replaced. We also need to add some rock around the house to protect it from standing water.

Inside we still need to get a new dishwasher. Ours is really ugly and doesn't do the greatest job but it is limping along for now. Eventually we would like to get a stainless steel one to match the rest of the kitchen. We need to put new ceiling tiles in the family room (former dog kennel). The tiles that were there were sagging and didn't look very nice. Then when the toilet flooded last year some of the tiles got water damage. We also have yet to tackle the pink and blue bathroom. We finally have furniture in the guest bedroom. I will make a post about that later. Our family room is without a TV which is still at the other house. We need to eventually paint the laundry room. This isn't a pressing issue but when they stained the floor they got one large splash of stain on the laundry room wall which kind of annoys me. We also need to eventually get a new mailbox. Ours has an issue with collecting water. I will have to do a post about mailboxes at some point. I have found a cool one that I want.

As you can see there has not been a lot of action here so no new photos. Oh yes! I forgot to tell you that we got the door on the indoor kitchen grill repaired. It is now in great shape. Thank you to my wonderful cousin for taking care of that for us. I forgot to add the fireplace to our list of to dos. My husband would kill me if I forget to list it because I think it is at the top of his list! When we had the house inspected we were told they didn't think our fireplace was lined. Apparently not having a lined fireplace is extremely dangerous even though the fireplace has been used in the past. We need to have it inspected by an expert (along with the chimney to the kitchen grill) and then decide how we will proceed if it is not lined. There is a pretty good chance we will turn it into a gas fireplace.

It Arrived!!!

We can finally live in our living room again!! All of the walls have been stripped and stained. We put a very thin molding around the ceiling. You can't even really see it. It just makes it look finished and the edges look sharper. We had new vertical blinds put up last Friday. Our awesome guy who did the walls came back and put them up for free so we wouldn't mess up his work by accidentally drilling holes in the wrong spot. Now our walls will be protected from more sun damage. The kitties can also stick their heads through and look out whenever they want. I have decided there is a lot of green in the room. I love green but we need something else. I think I will eventually make some pillows that are a different color. Maybe I will blog about pillow ideas next. I still need to do a blog on the bathroom.

Today my piano came!!!! I have been so anxious to get it here and see how it looks in the room. But, we decided to hold off until the walls were done and new blinds were up as long as our old house hadn't sold. The mess from the construction would have been very bad for the piano. We have a few little things we would still like to do in this room but there is no rush. We will most likely eventually take the ceiling fan down. We think it detracts from the fire place. We will live through all of the seasons and see for sure if we can do without it. We are under the impression the fireplace is not lined. At some point we need to have a chimney sweep look at it. If it is not lined we will look into our options. We may possibly put in a gas fireplace. I read about unlined fireplaces. It sounds like they are a very bad thing. We have a pretty low open shelf that we are going to put against the window in the open space in front of the piano. We also have four more chairs for the table. We are waiting to move them back into the room because we still have some spots where stripper got on the floor that need to be scrubbed. If we are lucky we may even get our intercom system working again!!

Before

After

Would You Like An Update On Our Wood?

The very first time I looked at our house I walked in the living room and thought wow this is awesome! Too bad this wood is so pale and ugly. The living rooms walls are redwood paneled along with the stairwells, ceiling beams in the living room and kitchen and walls in the basement room that was once a den and will now be our guest bedroom. I don't know anything about wood but we have been told our walls are heart of redwood which is very, very expensive and we would probably never be able to afford them today. Unfortunately, they were a very pale blonde color. They were covered in some kind of blonde wash that we don't think is original to the house. Then the blonde has faded even more due to years and years of sun damage from a complete wall of windows. The stairwells, which really catch your eye because they are right next to the beautiful fireplace, were extremely worn from years and years of people running their hands and who knows what else (feet, dogs, kids, toys, suitcases etc.) up and down them. Some of the living room beams were almost white from the sun. You could point out every spot on the wall where a photo had been hanging due to the sun damage.

So, we decided we would have the walls refinished, re-stained etc. as soon as we could afford it and find someone to do it. We had a very difficult time finding someone and everyone we spoke with had a different idea about the best way to complete the job. Some people thought the walls should be sanded. Other people thought the walls should be stripped. And, of course, the most common solution was that we should just make it easier on ourselves and paint the walls. We were both so opposed to the idea of paint. Why in the world would you want to paint when you could have natural wood that would require virtually no upkeep. I'm finally just recovering from all the painting I did this summer. I don't want to paint more!!! When we were looking at houses I almost got to a point where I quit looking at the photos if I didn't see any wood paneling in the photos. I KNOW I am probably the only person in the world that feels this way. But, I just love the look of the natural wood. I finally got so frustrated I called a guy from my mom's home town who builds homes. He comes HIGHLY recommended. He is in high demand and known for his very reasonable prices.

I called him in hopes of getting a reference for someone who could refinish our wood. I never thought he would be interested in doing such a little job. I just hoped he wouldn't completely blow me off. He came and looked at our house in September and seemed to really like it. He told us he would the job himself (and several other smaller things we needed done) if we could wait until January when the weather was colder and he would need inside work. We agreed to happily wait. After the fiasco with our floors we were absolutely thrilled to find someone of such high quality to do the job. He stopped by last week and tested out several strippers on the wall in hopes of finding one that was not as toxic and would work well since it is the middle of winter (4 degrees this morning to be exact!) and opening a lot of windows is not practical. He then tested out some stain. In the photo below you can see the original wall color. It actually is more pale than in the photo. You can also see three strips where he tested stripper and stain. To the right is the stain color that we decided upon. You can see the drastic difference in the wall and the stain. Also at the right above the stain you can sort of see a faded square in the wood. It looks like there may have been a file cabinet or similar sized item there for a long time. There are spots like this all over the wood.

Test strips

 As January grew closer I was starting to second guess my thoughts on having the walls refinished. I was starting to get used to the blonde. I worried that maybe I was ruining the original style of the house that we were working so hard to maintain. I thought maybe we were going to waste our money. I was really to a point where I thought maybe I would be just fine with the wood if it didn't have so much sun damage and wear. He finally started the job on Wednesday and the downstairs bedroom (formally den) is basically done except trim and detail work. It looks AMAZING! The walls are finally a beautiful brown color. They have done such a professional job. We haven't had one complaint yet! This has been such a change after the floor people this summer. After the first day of work on the job it looked great but I still wondered if we were going to all this work for a change that wouldn't be that great. I asked the workers what they thought. They said all that mattered was what I thought because I had to live with it. I told them I knew that but they looked at so many houses that they know what looks good. Then they let it fly! They said it was a huge improvement. They said you couldn't even compare the before and after. Then they said it looked like someone had smeared mustard on the walls previously! After seeing the completed room today I think we are very happy with the results.

This is a completed wall in the guest bedroom. You can't completely see how it looks because there is nothing else in the room to compare it to in the way of color except the vent and the outlet. But, hopefully you can see that it looks much better!

The people doing the work are so good at what they do we feel like we need to get as much work out of them as we can afford because we will probably never have an opportunity like this again. They are going to put new stair treads on our steps that are finished to match the walls better. The work the people did on the stairs this summer was awful. They look orange now! As I said above, the stairs really catch your eye because they are next to the fireplace. We are looking forward to having stairs that actually look good! If we can afford it we also plan on having them do a few more things. Our kitchen cabinets are white. They will refinish those back to wood. They will refinish our bathroom cabinets that look orange because the varnish has yellowed over time. We will have transition strips added as you go into all of the bathrooms since the flooring people did not finish that this summer. Our basement door is having some major issues so that will be rectified. And, we are looking forward to putting a shower door in so that we no longer get water on our shower floor. I have always preferred shower doors over curtains and was very excited to find out the bathroom originally had one but it was removed. Before I knew that I felt like I was "ruining" the original bathroom if I added a door. I will try to post more updates as the work progresses.

Happy Holidays!!!

I have promised some people photos of the house decorated for Christmas. So, here I am. The Christmas mess is finally picked up so I thought I better strike while the iron is hot. We still have a wimpy little tree from when I lived in an apartment 15 years ago. Maybe next year we will have big one! I have lots of great aunts, grandmas and students who have supplied me with decorations over the years. At first my husband thought maybe we had too many. But, now he seems to be enjoying them. For several years my aunt gave me Christmas Village houses that light up for Christmas.  We have a perfect place for them now on the fireplace hearth. We have enjoyed sitting in the living room at night watching the lights reflect off of the shiny new floors! I have also enjoyed finding things to decorate the openings next to the fireplace. Right now we are unable to use the fireplace because it does not have a liner. We hope to eventually get that taken care of.

This year I got some exciting new Mid-Century themed books from my husband for Christmas. The first gift I got was actually a very high end Mid-Century magazine that looks like a book. I think it will be coming quarterly. I got another book about Charles Eames. We would like to eventually get a white Eames fiberglass chair in our "office". He also gave me a book about Danish Modern furniture and a book by Atomic Ranch magazine. I really like the Atomic Ranch book because it has a lot of houses that are similar in style to ours.

New books I received as Christmas presents

If you look carefully you will notice that the new books are sitting on our new end table! It arrived a couple of days ago by Greyhound shipping. I had no idea Greyhound has a shipping service until I found this table. When we bought our living room furniture there was a very low end table between the two couches that made them look like they were connected together and one piece of furniture. We really liked the way it looked but the table had a black laminate top. We really wanted a wooden table. So we have been looking ever since for table to fit in that spot. But, it had to be the EXACT size in order to fit! Finding a table that is exactly 30 inches square and 15 inches high turned out to be a challenge. There aren't many 15 inch high tables out there. When we finally found one on Ebay that seemed reasonably priced we had to jump. It turned out to be exactly what we wanted but it has a bit of a wobble and more wear than we expected. We should be able to fix the wobble and the wear is not particularly noticeable. I do feel that for the value of the table we paid too high of a price and the seller was misleading about the condition. But, we are otherwise happy with it.

Our new end table.

We also added a new lamp to the room just this evening. It is actually new from our attic!!! This lamp originally was given to me by my great aunt who died about 6 years ago. The lamp is probably at least 50 years old I would think. When I was given the lamp I didn't like the original shade so I got a more modern one and added some nice olive beads on a ribbon that hung around the bottom of edge of the lamp. When my husband moved in he HATED the lamp. So, the lamp ended up in the attic. It turns out he actually just hated the beads! I told him tonight I loved those beads. I was just going for a different look back then! So, tonight we went out and got a new lamp shade that was a bit more subdued. We are both pretty happy with the way the lamp looks now.

I told my husband that my Aunt Emma would be proud!

Right now the chair pictured below is the favorite place for the cats! They LOVE these snowman and are always trying to cuddle up to them. Right now we have to flip the furniture cushions up if we are not in the room so they don't think they can sit wherever they want. We really would prefer that our living room furniture does not become their favorite place to sit. So, if you come over to our house for an unexpected visit and our cushions are all flipped up, please don't think we are crazy!! And, if you decide to sit by the snowmen you will have a cat sitting with you also.

Happy New Year!!!!