The Historic District

After watching Mad Men on TV, I laughed at how my living room would have looked great on that TV show. The sad thing is that someone thought this remodel in the 1950's was a tasteful act. Almost all of the oak was removed, built ins around the fireplace stripped, fireplace mantle destroyed, and just about every element of the room was ruined. I had found the windows around the fireplace to be boarded up from the outside but thankfully left in place. The one perk of a hack remodel job I guess. Among the photos you can see that some major patch work was needed for the flooring as the gravity furnace ducts were stripped at some point in exchange for a "new" forced air furnace. The room is not totally period, but I am doing what I can do with what I have and lets face the fact that nothing is free. The oak it's self was no cheap task. I am still on the fence as to what I want to install as a mantle and I am waiting to find some leaded glass doors and build new built ins around them. The fun never ends!

Living Room Photos

Damn that was a horrible remodel. Every time I see the work of an interior designer in an old house I just want to puke. Sorry.

How wide does that mantel have to be? Ebay has Arts and Crafts mantels, but that surround look huge. May be very hard to find something. Lots of architectural salvage sites have mantels as well, but I don't see Arts & Crafts styled ones too often.

This one's nice but it's only 60" wide ... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Mission ... 4cf98efeaf

It was an awful remodel. I shook my head with every inch that I started to uncover. This mantle would need to be a bit large measuring to a nice 64" wide. I may have to build something on my own. My library has a great section on old homes that features some catalogs of homes built around the same time my own home was built. I may look to these books for some ideas.

I built a set of bookcases on either side of a zero clearance fireplace I installed which was flush with the interior wall. My Mantle extended from wall to wall & served the top of the bookcases as well as the fireplace mantle. It was about 3 inches thick in appearance & tied everything together. It looked quite a bit like an Arts & Crafts built-in & was very goo looking & useful. Leaded glass doors would be very nice too.