The Historic District

An so it has begun. I have been promising that I would start this project for several years. Discoveries in adjacent rooms have added complication to the plans as I discovered the original floor layout and missing built-in. I have already sourced and installed the built-in, but reconfiguring the floor layout back to original is going to require that I pull the kitchen apart and move the stove and a bunch of the cabinets in order to remove a dividing wall between the kitchen and original pantry and also close up a non original doorway between the kitchen and dining room. This is not gonna be quick!

Here are some before pictures:

This is the realtor shot from when we bought the place.


And here we are looking the other way, when I was tearing out what used to be the bathroom (hence the plastic). Notice the new bathroom now on the right


What I was to discover was that the bathroom (left), appeared to have originally been a pantry area, open to the kitchen (off to the left of this picture) and was in fact the original entrance to the dining room from the kitchen. I also discovered that between those two bathroom doors had once sat a built in cupboard. Similar arrangements in town are not fancy, just a panelled door, the same as the other interior doors covering a set of shelves.





This set a whole train of thoughts in motion. I had planned a simple renovation of the pantry area. For it to be a simple recreation of a victorian pantry with shelves an cupboards, but the knowledge that it should provide the main passage between the kitchen and dining room, coupled with this being how the victorian farmhouse at Billings farm museum was laid out, was too much to resist. Pantry project went on hold.

Here is the current door between the Kitchen and dining room, it never looked right. Some of the framing is old (perhaps re-purposed) but its awkward location, poor joinery and different sized trim, retrospectively gave the game away that this was not original. I also later figured that the cookstove must have originally been where this door is, and perhaps in the dining room there may have been a parlor stove here too. All this coupled with the fact that the relatively small room already has three doors and three very large windows, means this door has to go.



But of course, that means a reconfiguration of the kitchen!

So fast forward a couple of years or so I managed to find this beauty



Later than the house, and more fancy than would likely have been there, but exactly the same size as the interior doors. Made of poplar, and apparently hand made in popular the salvage guy said he thought it was 1920s. There were two of them, I picked the best and brought it home where it sat in the half finished pantry for a year or so.

Finally a few weeks ago, I got it installed!

More to come, soon...

Great looking cabinet Mick, overly fancy or not it looks great in place.

Thanks! I am planning on giving the room an 1890s makeover anyway, with more fancy millwork etc. I figure some different hardware will help add a couple of decades or so to its perceived age. Current plan is to strip it and refinish in garnet shellac, same with the panelled doors. I am thinking the rest of the millwork, although it will be mostly new, will be painted.

Gaaa! That is so cool! I would have bought both of them, put other one in an upstairs hallway or bedroom.
Casey

/\ /\ What he said!!

Looks great!

Casey wrote:Gaaa! That is so cool! I would have bought both of them, put other one in an upstairs hallway or bedroom.
Casey

Ohhh I wanted to sooooo bad, but could not think of a single other place to put it. I think the other is still at the salvage place to this day

Wow!!! That looks great...no matter what time period it came from. Those leaded glass doors are beautiful!

The "brother" would look amazing in the corner of my dining room!

Very interesting discoveries & a very attractive built-in!