My plan all along for this room has been to bring it to a standard above what it would have been in 1860. The interior decoration of the house when built was very utilitarian. Plain casings and baseboards, wide Hemlock floors, cheap mill grade pine four panel doors. In around 1900 a few updates were made to add a bit of modern flair.
- Scan-130810-0024 copy.jpg (111.29 KiB) Viewed 665 times
At this time the guy on the right of the picture above (one J Baxter Sargent) lived in the house. He made major landscaping adjustments to the front yard (leveling and lowering it by around four feet) and adding an entry porch to the front door) seen here:
- 1912 copy.jpg (295.41 KiB) Viewed 665 times
The porch is long gone (presumably taken out by snow in the early 40s), I found some evidence of it when I stripped and repainted the house. Including repairs which indicated that the removal was not deliberate and was quite forceful. What does remain in the house is the remodeled entry hall complete with its c1900 newel and bannister. There is also a hard maple floor in the dining room that may have been his handy work. This, along with the fact that the PO had removed around 95% of the original interior trim (replacing it with very cheap grade pine, poorly installed), lead me to the decision to continue Baxter Sargent's work and update the dining room to have modern elements from around 1900.
I am doing this in a loose fashion. I may use some hardware from before 1900. My rationale: this is rural Vermont, fashions did not always move quickly, and local hardware store would have more likely than not have had older stock on the shelves for some items. There is also the renowned Yankee frugality: reuse everything and get the "last squeak" from it. So older hardware may well have survived a remodel.
I am also ok with some newer items. It is no longer 1900, other things could have been added or changed over the years. My target look for the room once done will be somewhere vaguely around 1900 - 1915. Furniture may come from anywhere in a 50 year span but should work visually together. Anyway I am getting ahed of myself, at this point details have still to emerge / formulate in my mind.
One rule I do have is do no harm to remaining original details. This means the four panel doors stay, as do the window-sills, hard maple floor (even though it is in poor shape).