My Personal Tara

Part of the former WavyGlass.org site. Threads for member introductions and where members had threads devoted to their own houses for showing off their pride and joy!
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Gothichome
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Re: My Personal Tara

Post by Gothichome »

Southernlady, your really starting to settle in, that's great. The home is is starting to turn once again back into a home, and a very nice one at that. The settee, is really nice I think it may be even earlier than the 1880. May be 1850/60ish. There was a bit of a revival for period pieces during the 1930's. It may be as new as that, depends on construction.

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Neighmond
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Re: My Personal Tara

Post by Neighmond »

How does your old square piano sound? I always had to tune mine flat because it had a thin plate and I was worried I would wrecticate it.

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Don M
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Re: My Personal Tara

Post by Don M »

Your choice of colors & furnishings look wonderful.

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SouthernLady
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Re: My Personal Tara

Post by SouthernLady »

Thank y'all! It is exciting to see it start to feel like a home again. I have given some tours to friends, and they all say they feel like they are stepping back in time, which is what I was going for. ;-) I am looking for items to hang on the walls at this time, which brings me to the need for some advice: For very old plaster walls, should I install picture rails (which I prefer, but don't know if it's strong to hold pictures), or just install directly into the plaster/lathe?

GothicHome, now that you bring it up, I think you are right in that the sofa is older. I have original casters on my bedroom furniture from 1883, and those on the sofa seem much older. It's definitely not a revival piece. It has been reupholstered not long ago, and whoever did it did an excellent job!

Neighmond, my square hasn't been tuned in 15 years according to the previous owners. I am waiting for it to settle another month before I call in a friend of mine who is the only one in my part of the state that does quality restoration work on them. He's been in the piano business over 40 years. Other than the piano being out of tune, it sounds great! Of course, it doesn't sound like a Baldwin grand because they're really two different instruments... I guess it is somewhere in between a spinet and a grand. :) When I get it tuned, I will post a video of it being played. The original strings are remarkably still intact on the piano, so I will be holding my breath while Don tunes the thing. He did tell me that usually unless the plate is cracked (which unfortunately is usually the case due to years of being in varying environments), it should be able to withstand the pressure of a proper tuning. How old is your square, and what brand do you have? Sadly, my case was refinished and they failed to retain the name of the maker...

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Gothichome
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Re: My Personal Tara

Post by Gothichome »

Southernlady, you have a couple common options for appropriate picture mounting, rails and nails. Not ordinary nails but long nails usually with a thread or at least a ringing on the shaft. The rail most people here will know about. The nails (often called pins) maybe not so many. For the nail you would drill out a small whole through the plaster as not to spit the plaster and hammer or screw home the nail preferably into a stud. The nail has a threaded end for screwing on a fancy Rosette, finial or some sort of decorative button.
here is a picture I just copied from Google images.

http://image0-rubylane.s3.amazonaws.com ... 343.1L.jpg

There are many more, some fancier and some plainer.
Here is a link with your various period correct picture hanging arrangements.

http://swanpicturehangers.com/pinexample.htm

the same site will sell you new (repops) of both rail hangers and pin hangers. Have a browse over your morning tea. If nothing else you will have a better idea for what to look for on your next antiquing trip.

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Neighmond
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Re: My Personal Tara

Post by Neighmond »

Mine is an old Chickering, very plain rosewood cabinet with octagon legs, but it has a mother of pearl keyboard instead of ivory. My cousin has it now, and it definitely has its own sound to it.

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SouthernLady
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Re: My Personal Tara

Post by SouthernLady »

Guest bedroom with Pepto-Bismol-pink walls... :shock:

Image


So glad to get THAT out of the way!

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And the other side... The McCuston House was my Saturday night date last week. ;)

Image

I selected a color from Valspar's National Trust for Historic Preservation that would have been available during the period. I have also discovered that it seems all of the woodwork in this room has faux bois wood graining behind two coats of paint. I want to restore this, but can't find anyone who can tell me the best method to remove the two coats hiding it. I tried a hairdryer and paint scraper, which works fairly well removing the top coat of paint, which was applied less than two years ago. The layer directly on top of the faux bois is a major pain...

Any advice?

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Re: My Personal Tara

Post by Texas_Ranger »

Unfortunately not really! Anything harsher at least damages the faux bois.

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SouthernLady
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Re: My Personal Tara

Post by SouthernLady »

Well, shoot... :cry: Aren't you just the bluebird of positivity and happiness... ;)

Lord have mercy, I don't know if I will have a bigger nervous breakdown over taking great pains to use tweezers and a hairdryer or just stripping the original to the wood and trying to re-create it... Decisions, decisions... Starting to hate I threw away that prescription for Xanax a doctor gave me during my grueling last semester of college. Dang it.

Does anybody have a tutorial for faux bois? I remember seeing where someone did a nice job on their front porch door on here somewhere.

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Neighmond
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Re: My Personal Tara

Post by Neighmond »

Casey (Sombriel) did a whole room full of it as I recall, seems like maybe Sooth has done it, at least on clocks if not in his own house, perhaps they will weigh in.

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