Introduction & inquiry

[1907mamaof3 (WavyGlass)]

Oh and yes, the kitchen cabinets are safe. The carpet and the damaged wallpaper and the hole in the ceiling are not

[CrestwoodCottage]

Welcome! Great house and that mod wallpaper in the bathroom is AWESOME! I love it!

[Gothichome]

Mamaof3, you have a very nice home on your hands, and an original inglenook. As for the floors, they look just fine for the mean time. I would just give them a go over with some wood floor refinish stuff or a good waxing to bring back their look, they certainly do not look like they need a heavy sanding. Oh the mod wallpaper, after my eyes refocused I noticed they have the same colour pallet just one is eye bending squares and other eye bending circles. Arts and Crafts era furniture is the way to go.

[Texas_Ranger]

Welcome! Great house and that mod wallpaper in the bathroom is AWESOME! I love it!

It's exactly what a friend of mine referred to as "drug paper" - you absolutely have to be stoned to choose something like this

[1907mamaof3 (WavyGlass)]

That's good to know about the floors! Less work before moving in The motivation to give the floors some love before we move in is that after we move in who knows when we'll get to the floors.

Inglenook - I had to google that. (I've had to google a lot of things recently). I'm enjoying learning about our new house!

The wallpaper was there 30 years ago when the seller moved in. Her friends always expressed distaste for it and she almost changed it but ran out of time before moving. I liked how the neighbor described the seller so I looked her up on Facebook and we chatted for a couple hours

[1907mamaof3 (WavyGlass)]

I googled arts and crafts furniture - I like it! A lot of it looks like what my husband and I have been looking at for the house. That's validating to me - we didn't have the terms for the style but we had the eye for it. Yay!

[heartwood]

WELCOME MAMA!!
i see a bit of prairie in your house but four square too...LOVE the wood and tile and cabinets and sink and stairs and, of course THE WINDOWS!!!

check out craig's list for barrister bookcases...you may find something you like...i too have a ton of books and bookcases...books are pieces of art to me....

glad you joined us...we're here to help and admire.....

...jade

[CS in Low Hud]

check out craig's list for barrister bookcases...you may find something you like...i too have a ton of books and bookcases...books are pieces of art to me....

Looks like a great place, and your plan of tackling those items before you move in makes sense. Once you set up the book shelves, you will never want to move them again to get at the floor!

We also have a ton of books, and extensive shelving throughout the house. It's a sickness!

My wife has moved to the world of eBooks, now, but I can't bring myself to do that. I like the paper - and we have a lot of it.

The very old / fragile books are kept in cabinets that have doors, but everything else is on open shelves. When the kids were little, we filled the lower shelves with books that might interest them. So if they pulled books out all over the floor, well, no harm done.

Heartwood suggests barrister book cases, and I agree - they are excellent for keeping the dust off of the contents and don't require lots of space to swing a door. We have always used ours expressly for the kids, but the doors do require some coordination to open, so when they were very small, this served to ensure that they could only get into the cabinet with an adult's help. We call it the Cabinet of Wonder... and while it does contain a few books, but mostly it's full of stuff. There is a shelf of rocks and minerals... a shelf of fossils... a shelf of human artifacts (arrowheads, Roman coins, bits of pottery etc)... a shelf of natural objects (antlers, shedded snakeskin, various bones etc)... and a shelf of bits found locally around the house or in the woods - old bottles, and that sort of thing. There are also a few interesting tools/ devices (a prism, a jewelers magnifying loop, a UV light for the minerals, etc). So the cabinet has always been perfect entertainment for a rainy afternoon! The collection has grown as the kids have grown (they are teenagers now) - they have added things that they have found.

I have no idea how we'll split it all up when they leave and start households of their own.

Anyway - you have a nice looking place!

Chris

[Neighmond]

Find someone in the area replacing windows and get the old wood storms from them. Heat gun and sand them or take the glass panes out and run them through the surface planer and they are usually pretty enough to stain and finish in wood, or just smooth them and paint them black or whatever colour, and they can be put on rolling door hardware to make bypass-type sliding bookcase doors that will look like the old time lab cabinets or book cases. There is usually wood enough around the sides to put a morticed push lock that can be used on the look-but-don't-touch cabinet. Old doors are a good source of decent wood for the front exposed parts, and make good room paneling. If you do it that way, you can almost line the room in shelves for modest financial outlay.

[Neighmond]

.....We call it the Cabinet of Wonder... and while it does contain a few books, but mostly it's full of stuff. There is a shelf of rocks and minerals... a shelf of fossils... a shelf of human artifacts (arrowheads, Roman coins, bits of pottery etc)... a shelf of natural objects (antlers, shedded snakeskin, various bones etc)... and a shelf of bits found locally around the house or in the woods - old bottles, and that sort of thing. There are also a few interesting tools/ devices (a prism, a jewelers magnifying loop, a UV light for the minerals, etc). So the cabinet has always been perfect entertainment for a rainy afternoon! The collection has grown as the kids have grown (they are teenagers now) - they have added things that they have found. .....

That is one of the neatest things I have heard all year! I wish I had kids so I could snitch it!