Despite my lack of postings I have been busy on the house.

Yesterday was a perfect day.  To start, I picked up a large box filled with building materials I had been waiting for.  Those contents shaped my plans for the day.

Having received the flooring trim for the dining room, I laid the floor entirely.

detail of dining room floor

dining room floor in black walnut with trim

Then I moved on to tiling the kitchen walls.  I had a hard time deciding on the kitchen walls.  My Brownstone had wallpaper & wainscot.  But after watching a few period dramas (I get much inspiration from these) I chose a white tile with black diamond corners.  It it a flooring tile, but fits perfectly for a wall treatment.  For the area behind the stove I used an embossed brick paper, which I intend to scuff & blacken.  To finish the kitchen, I glued my new plate rack above the door to the butler’s pantry.

Dumb waiter coming along

tiling the kitchen walls

progression in the butler's pantry

Then I moved on to putting up wainscot in the entry & main hall.  This was tricky: I had to cut the stairs into the wainscot because of its thickness. I also reinforced the floor & wall under the stair to support the overall structure.   In the end it will require some subtle filling to smooth it all out.

Finally, I secured my drawing room landing: there are 2 steps up from the entry hall to a landing where a bay window is.  I plan on placing a secretary there with 2 great pillars I purchased from Sue Cook.  The landing has 2 steps back down into the drawing room.  I decided to also lay black walnut floor on the landing top, but intend to paint the stairs & vertical sides to match the trim in the drawing room.

It was a good day’s work!

I admit to a severe lack of initiative this weekend.  But today I shook off my cloak of lazy & go to business.  First, it was taxes (just to warm up).  Then once the Irish breakfast was kicking in, I got to work on the house.  Time flew by.  I wallpapered the entry hall, changed my mind on the library & dining room, printed more wallpaper, enclosed the dumbwaiter, built the drawing room landing, made more stairs, added railing to my 2nd storey stairway & I don’t remember what else.

My big disappointment was that my bells arrived & are clearly not adequate for the job: some don’t even ring & those that do can only be heard by dogs.  Luckily I have enough work to finish on the 1st storey to give me time to figure out a solution to the servant bell conundrum.

Good news:  my 12th scale artichoke rocks.

Pictures are coming…..

Gothic dining room

I have much to catch up on.  I’ve been busy working on multiple projects.

I’ve recovered some furniture with silks to go with my drawing room & have many more pieces ahead.  I’m waiting until I decide the wallpapers before choosing the fabrics to match.

recovered drawing room sofa

I made a prototype for my servant’s bells (very Frankenstein, I think): but I can’t tell until I get the real bells whether this is workable or not.  Because the bells are so light, there is not enough weight to produce a fall & consequently a ring.  So I’m using magnets to pull the bell back into place, so the bell pull can be used from another room.  I hope it works in the end.

servant bell prototype

I’m having second thoughts about my library wallpaper: it is William Morris & I love the pattern & colour, but it just somehow seems a bit blah.

I am now ready to start choosing the trim colours for the rooms: door & window casings to be painted.  And floors still need polyurethane.  The dining room floor is waiting for trim to arrive before I can lay it out. That will be the last room on the 1st floor.

I am very pleased to have figured out my secret room in the library: again I used magnet to keep the door secure, so only a small amount of pressure is needed to open it. When closed, it just appears to be wainscoting.

hidden passage