A New Old House

[Old house lady]

Congratulations and welcome Willa! Your home is lovely - can't wait to see the new colors I hope you only find good surprises while you're working on her.

[eclecticcottage]

I LOVE that window! I've never seen a "pocket window" before, how neat. And the floors are beautiful. I love the wider plank style floors (vs the skinny strip oak style).

I forgot to mention, I am in WNY. I have some old storms with wavy glass in them, if you need a couple to use for repairs to the bb gun damaged panes (if you have someone that can cut it). I don't know how far you are (Ontario being kind of large) but I thought I would offer if needed, if you have a way to pick them up. I plan to sell them eventually but at the moment haven't had time to even consider it. They are from a house that is newer than yours, but at least it wouldn't be brand new glass with all the old wavy stuff!

[Eperot]

Just the fact that there is a clawfoot tub doesn't mean it is original to the house. For instance, my house was built in 1874 and at that time only the very finest of houses had indoor plumbing, and usually in more urban settings. Not sure about Canada but in rural USA plumbing didn't really come until the 1930's. My house had it's "original" clawfoot tub when i bought it, casting date 1925. So that's a pretty good indicator of when the bathroom was first built. You might consider looking under the tub for a casting date and compare that to your houses build date, assuming you know it.

[Lily left the valley]

Lily, there is no way that the bad plaster is anyone's intentional folly. I can see where drywall has been badly patched in, maybe when they updated the electrical ? Also loads of mesh tape pattern, cracks, holes, gouges, dings, lumps, textured smears and some paint flaking away around the perimeter of the kitchen ceiling due to calcimine paint below.

The realtor had a heavy hand trying to style it rustic Parisian but the sad plaster is authentically decrepit. The previous owner spent a great deal of time painting all of the rooms, including all of the trim in contrasting colors. It seems very odd to me that none of the most easy to fix cracks and holes were filled ? The mysteries of these houses.

*nods* I don't which is worse, actually falling apart, or fake falling apart? I guess it depends on the deepest layers.

It could be that they skipped seemingly simple corrections/fixes because of time/money/brain-isn't-wired-that-way.

Looking forward to your progress as time allows.

[Texas_Ranger]

One guy told me that using shellac was probably against the law, due to the VOC's.

Seriously? I don't think alcohol can be considered a VOC.

You might get a nice buzz trying to shellac an entire floor though

[Kashka-Kat]

You know - I kinda like some of those color combinations, precisely because they are somewhat unusual and reminiscent of old early 1900s colors. Esp. liked the yellow and gray kitchen and the green bedroom. I used to spend a lot of time on THS gardenweb - thenit was taken over by Houzz - and now its just dulls-ville. Literally just about every frikkin post has some gray or greige wall with white painted trim... ughhhh! Anyway I hope you keep some of the "colorfulness," although I can see why you might want to work on limiting the no of colors for better visual cohesiveness & less of a hodgepodge effect....and choose some that more closely relate to ea other.

[Mick_VT]

One guy told me that using shellac was probably against the law, due to the VOC's.

Seriously? I don't think alcohol can be considered a VOC.

You might get a nice buzz trying to shellac an entire floor though

Turn the gas off ... and no smoking!

[Willa]

Eperot: I'm in a smallish city that was progressive for its time. I looked for info about when sewers were installed, and while I found out that some early ones were made from white oak, which survived in use until the 1980's (!) I couldn't seem to find info about the city infra-structure to confirm or deny widespread indoor plumbing in the late 1890's ? None of the sinks or toilets are original, so no clues there. There are some fine mansion type homes but these are a fair distance away. I'm sure those places had the latest in plumbing when they were built ?

eclecticcottage: I've only seen a pocket window in a fancy large victorian home before, so this modest little one was quite a surprise. Thanks for your offer of the spare window but unless you are headed this way for other reasons it might be a 3 hour trip or more or so each way. There is a salvage place here, so I'll see what I can scavenge locally. There's a ton of very wavy glass in the uppers in the windows, so if I have to make do with modern flat glass in the transoms upstairs that is minor. The best wavy glass window makes the power line outside look like a cartoon of electrocution, it is so zig-zaggy.

TexasRanger: The floor guy who told me that had that old house hating vibe. He didn't know about any other floor finishes besides polyurethane, and did not seem to have any interest in learning. I sent him some photos of floors I liked, which were imperfect old floors finished with shellac or tung oil varnish, but I didn't tell him that. He was all "those floors are all poly and your floors won't look like that". He gave me a high quote so I think he didn't want to do these floors. Despite sending him a couple of links about shellac he obviously did not read them. Not someone I could work with.

The house had no heat while we were shellacking in mid to late October, due to the decrepit furnace that no furnace guys would even light. Thankfully it was unusually warm, so we opened all the doors and used lots of incandescent bulbs for extra warmth. I had never used shellac before but found it easy to work with as it was so thin and quick drying. It relies on evaporation v.s. heat curing. The fumes weren't too bad, but I warned my helper who was a smoker to be careful when lighting a cigarette outside.

Kashka-Kat: I am with you about the tyranny of boring beige and grey neutrals plus white trim. I like colors, and colored rooms, but these combos are hit and miss. The yield sign yellow is used in the main floor powder room, and the stairwell, but it just feels wrong everywhere. If it had been cut about 50% with a light beige to make a more subdued shade of butternut yellow that could have been pleasant and unusual with the grey, and worked with the rest of the palette in the house. This yellow is almost like straight tumeric powder.

I found the missing pic I didn't post. This green room is on the main floor. It is the room with the L-shaped closet under the stairs, that I wondered may have been the original bathroom location ? Though a full bath opening into the dining room is also odd ? The realtor really subdued the colors. The green in this room is a 1940's kelly green that is very specific, and slightly different from the green bedroom color. There are three strange wooden sconce type things (only two are shown) that look kind of like giant needles. I suspect they might be covering up holes from wiring as they are a strange decor choice ? Everyone I showed the listing photos to commented on the Indian head sculpture, and they all found that to be in questionable taste. My friend has Cree family and she could only shake her head at this staging accessory.

The other pic shows the green room location in relation to the dining room. This seems like an even odder location for a full bath ?

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[Gothichome]

Willa, those sconce mountings looks realy Art Deco, I wonder if it a vestige of a 1930s update.

[Willa]

The last owner updated with new light fixtures from Home Depot, most of which are sort of antique styled at least. The living room has no overhead light fixture or sconces. The odd green room might not have had overhead lighting but may have had sconces, though ? The strange deco needle things look new though - the wood is crisp and not dented and there aren't many layers of paint. It is a mystery.