upstairs bathroom choices...

IKEA Höllviken sink:

Discovering the oval shaped IKEA Höllviken sink was very exciting. The only options I could see to fit in the small 22" space were pedestal sinks or a custom made vanity. I personally don't really like pedestal sinks. A custom made vanity would not work for us - for budget reasons and time constraints. I would rather just utilize the small closet next to the bathroom for toiletries. The IKEA Höllviken is only $90.00! It can be mounted on a wall or to a base. Most importantly, it measures 22 1/2" across - wide enough for us to use and not get water everywhere and small enough to fit into our space. Since we will be floating it on the wall we can have a little overhang over the tub.

I just need to decide on a faucet.

I don't think anyone will appreciate its size more than our cat Toby, whose favorite pastime is drinking water from the bathroom sink:

Kohler Cimarron Comfort Height two-piece round-front toilet:

This toilet is one of the first things that we purchased for the bathroom. The previous toilet was cracked (and gross.) In its short life it's already been installed upstairs and moved downstairs while we're working on the bathroom. When it makes its final trip upstairs we'll put a shorter toilet in the "powder closet."

Daltile 4" X 8" subway tile in Desert Gray on the walls:

I really love this tile. I love the larger scale for this small bathroom - 4"X8".

2" Carrara marble mosaic tile in a Hexagon pattern for the floors:

Again - we bought this in a larger scale. I think the 2" size will compliment the proportions of the subway tile. We were entirely inspired by the lovely Anna of Doorsixteen's bathroom renovation. She used Carrara marble hex on her floor and the results were amazing.

LaToscana Ornellaia Single Control Pressure Balanced Tub and Shower Kit:

One thing I learned while trying to find bathroom fixtures is that if you know nothing about plumbing, talk to your plumber before you shop. A few wrong purchases later and we now have this shower set by Latoscana. We did not purchase it in the "oil rubbed bronze" finish shown here but rather chrome (I couldn't find a photo of it in chrome.) Bathroom fixtures are frustrating - we liked different items but to get the diverter/volume control of this set we had to buy the entire thing. The piece we wanted only came separate in "oil rubbed bronze."

Danze 4" Lamp Downpour Shower Head with Arm in Chrome:

Danze makes another shower head similar to this but the design is more modern. I liked it better but for the sake of matching the other fixtures and the tub I compromised with this. The smooth face with the pinhole shower sprays was a huge attraction.

LaToscana USCR430 - Chrome Tub Spout:

We are still debating on whether or not to buy this tub spout but I'm sure we'll give in and purchase it soon. The design is more elegant than the tub spout assigned to the set. I suppose I could always give the other tub spout (and shower head) to my Mom if she wants them or list them on Craigslist?

I'm going to turn into a zombie just in time for Halloween.

I'm still alive! We've lost almost all of our workers in my blogging absence. Stanley stopped showing up in typical contractor style (I'm guessing he has another job or two) and he was sending his people over to work without supervision. The problem with that is that his workers are clueless without someone telling them what to do every moment. Areas that were patched and ready to sand were primed and painted before being sanded. Regular sheetrock was going up on my upstairs bathroom ceiling instead of greenboard. All of this and we were PAYING them to mess up our house. Two weeks ago we said enough and good riddence. All of the major things except for the upstairs bathroom are pretty much finished anyway. We have a lot of finishing work and painting to do and of course the dining room molding repair (I'm dreading this the most.)

We have not interviewed any new replacements for the work left. We've just been doing it ourselves. I'm exhausted.

My Father has been putting our upstairs bathroom back together again - and doing an amazing job. He did a bathroom for my Aunt and for my Mother in the past but I didn't realize that he could skim coat! We're hoping that it will be almost entirely done over this coming weekend.

Fernando, my Sister, my Mother and I have all been working on getting the trim sanded, primed and painted. Here's the foyer trim freshly painted in Benjamin Moore's Winter Snow:

I'm dreading painting the ceilings and walls so we may have to hire someone to do that after the floors are done. I'm not very good with a roller and it's hard for me to get walls and ceilings coated evenly. In our last apartment, I painted our bedroom ceiling. It was so uneven and I never got around to covering everything and painting it again. I would lie in bed in the morning and stare at all of the mistakes.

You can see how gross some of our doors were (right, silly) and what they look like now (left) here:

That's our poor kitchen up there. It's definitely going to be the last room we finish. The new cabinets have been ready for weeks and we're going to just have them delivered soon and installed at a later date.
We finally had our little sink re-installed in the powder closet on Sunday. The new faucet is by Pegasus and is from the Halo series. It was only available in brushed nickel which was not my first choice - I usually prefer polished nickel or chrome. Since we don't have any other major things going in here to match to it, I'm sure the brushed finish will be fine. I do like it and it makes washing hands in this small sink easier because with the faucet so high, there is more space to move around. Unfortunately, we didn't plan anything for underneath the sink... so I'll have to figure something out to make it look a little nicer.

Speaking of plumbing, when we did our waterproofing project (now finished) we found a cracked waste pipe in our yard! Most of the ground happens to be clay and the clay was packed around the pipe covering the old crack and stopping it from leaking. As soon as the dirt was removed the yard was getting a little "wash" everytime we flushed. Luckily, we had an amazing plumber named Christopher fix it for us for a nominal fee. Christopher also fixed the pipes behind the wall in our upstairs bathroom and installed that little sink for us.

Here's a shot of the cracked pipe:

And here's Christopher in the hole fixing it:

How brave is he? That hole was underneath our mud room... cramped and scary.

We also had a vintage ball lamp installed in our vestibule. It's on a motion sensor - which makes it even more fun.

I do have a better photo somewhere... next time.

i'm digging for dryer

Let me introduce you to our new moat.

It's not completely finished yet... but not bad for one person and two days of digging. It's not all in madness, we're digging down so that we can waterproof our basement. It's not a really damp basement but we do get water accumulating in one area when there are big storms. That one area happens to be the exact spot where we want to put our future washer and dryer. We've already installed the hook-ups and the vintage sink that we just added a drainage pump to is right there, so we can't change the w/d location. When we had the roof and gutters fixed we thought it might fix the problem but twice since then we've had bad storms and about an inch of water in that corner.

This is all the handiwork of Keith. Keith was once a grave digger. More excitingly he used to work on a tugboat. I have an irrational love of tugboats. When you love tugboats, St. George, Staten Island is the place to be... I get to see them every day. ;)

Keith's been having problems with finding a place to store all of the fill. It's already piled up the length of our fence and now we have an enormous mountain in our yard. I swear - the yard really was clean - right before we started our very own Big Dig.

cue quincy jones

I can't tell you how much I wish I had an after shot for you here. This was pretty much the state of the front section of our backyard for the last two months.

We did hire a "clean-up" guy last week. He came the following day and removed a lot of metal. We really had a lot of metal. Someone had been hoarding it in the basement. Most importantly, he removed the stinky old stove that none of us could lift out to the curb. He even had a red pick-up truck ala Sanford and Son!

Alas, he too must have been scared away by the swarms of mosquitoes and the never-ending clean-up job. He never showed up again.

Fortunately, our amazing neighborhood gardener, Winston has saved us from our festering junk heap! Winston does work for our neighbor who has an almost identical house to us. I say almost identical because their house was not renovated in the 30's and because compared to ours, it looks like heaven. Manicured lawns and perfectly trimmed hedges with fresh exterior paint and I can only imagine inside! Ahh.
Winston does a lot of the houses in the neighborhood - he will come around when he thinks something needs trimmed and just work. He's a little hard to find - we begged our neighbor to send him over to us next time he saw him. Eventually, I would like to do the gardening myself. I love garden work. For now, I'm extremely overwhelmed with all of the weeds, vines, hedges that tower above me and did I mention the bamboo?! If you look to the left of the top photo in this post (above the pile of dried ivy) you'll see we have a bamboo forest taking over our yard. It extends way beyond the lattice and into the middle of the yard. If anyone needs bamboo for a project, let me know - you are more than welcome to take as much as you need.
We hired Winston to remove the roots of the ivy around the house since we are already getting re-sprouts here and there. He performed nothing short of a miracle yesterday in rounding up all of the garbage in the yard and sorting it into bags and bundling vines and wood. Now we can actually set it all out on the curb on garbage day. Not all at once, but at least it's very manageable now. We can see the stone patio now and even found a strange thing resembling a headstone sticking out of the ground! I highly doubt it's a headstone but I can't imagine what it could be. I'll need to shoot some pics and ask for opinions.

I do however have some recent photos highlighting the new lighting in our kitchen and dining room. Check them out:

No, nothing looks finished yet. But we're hoping that one day soon it will be!

I enjoy starting sentences with And. And no, the house has not killed us.

Yet. But if we don't get to move in soon...

Breaking News: the upstairs bathroom is gone.

Really it's not a loss... did you see it before?

Yes, a replay of the 12X12 white tiles, black grout, Pepto Bismol (or is it more Amoxicillin) pink, numerous towel and toilet paper bars (I think I counted 9 in here,) 2 medicine cabinets, exposed vent pipes and of course, lots of dirt and grime. And that's with a new sink and a new toilet! We realized that the plan we had to renovate the bathroom next year was a little well, stupid. It's our only bathroom apart from the closet in the dining room. How would we shower during renovations? And really, I couldn't imagine myself waking up in the winter months and getting ready for work in that space. Now matter how much we clean it - it's still gross (did I mention the spiders?) And it's not only just because there are a bunch of workmen and spiders using it all day. It's just not user friendly. I mean, the light fixture is on a pull chain! We decided to just do it now. And why not have another delay? We're apparently never going to get to move in.

After making that decision and telling our workmen, we came "home" the next day to find the bathroom almost completely gone. Actually, most of it is being stored in the bedroom (formerly of the huge cracks in the walls.)

I know - nasty! But look at those walls! No more cracks! :)

And if that photo doesn't make you sick just check this one out of the bathroom (with old toilet) while the plumbers were working on it:

Now for the positive aspects:

We're going to do a little bit of recessed lighting in here - just like downstairs in the dining room and kitchen. I don't want a fixture because with the curtain rod I think I'll feel like things are always just attacking my head. Besides the spiders.

I want the new lights to work on a switch so I don't have to use the hall light (and wake up Fernando) or fumble in complete darkness around the shower curtain area to turn them on. And hello - spiders?

The walls have these ever so slight spaces between the beams that you can see here.

They are only about 1 1/2" deep. We're going to use some panel foam for insulation in these spaces. We'll also leave one open along the edge of the tub and built it out over the edge of the tub for a small shelf. At least I think we can do that - I haven't run it by Stanley yet. I'm hoping this will work since there's not much space at the edge of the tub for shampoo and soap. The Deco era tub is staying - we heart it very much.

And this tin ceiling is coming down.

And before anyone screams "BUT WHHHYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!" please realize that this ceiling, contrary to popular belief, IS NOT original to the house. It was someone's cheap and easy fix for the damaged plaster ceiling underneath. We're going to re-plaster the ceiling. And box in the icky vent pipe.

I can't even think about what we're going to use in here. I know that we will eventually replace the pedestal sink with a vanity but this we really are going to try to wait until next year for. Tile wise, I'd like a Carrara marble subway tile on the walls in here. It's a bit of a dilema to plan out though. I see it on the tub wall but since there is a window and a door at opposite ends of the room I don't want a subway tile there. I think it will look strange around the perimeter of the door and window frames. Also, I can't see it covering the boxed in pipe at the corner because I think with all of the cuts that would have to be made to fit over it, it won't really look like subway tile in the end. For the floor, I would like to do a mosaic but I'm not sure if we should pick marble or ceramic tile. So the details are still being worked out. One of these days I'm hoping I'll have a chance to focus and make some decisions!

let there be light and walls and tile

We have walls in the kitchen again! The new plaster is drying and we've had some new spotlights put in (and the fridge was sold.) There was a little miscommunication and now we have a light that isn't centered above the arch but we're just going to have them take it out altogether. We did have a light wired right into that little passageway so I don't think we'll miss it. There will be 3 new halogen spotlights on each side of the room, the center fixture and a little one between the dining room door and pantry.

As you can see the poor doorbell got plastered into the wrong spot. Hopefully, he will be centered back up above the arch soon.

We also had a couple of spotlights installed in the dining room to highlight whatever we end up putting above the fireplace. We had another installed on the wall to the left between the two windows, also to highlight future art. On the opposite wall to the fireplace we had two sconces wired, one on either side of the window.

In powder "closet" news - the tile has arrived! We're very happy with it. It was hard for me to order something like this online since I wasn't able to feel them or see them in person. This time I really got lucky. I couldn't resist laying them out on the floor (even though the room is still quite gross) and as you can see it's not going to take much to cover it. That's a whopping 4 square feet there!

I've been looking around for a nice wallpaper to use in here and Fernando has been freaking me out with the idea of Men splashing urine on the walls. The room is SO small and the walls are so close to the toilet. He's insisting I need a washable wallpaper or tiles on the wall and I've just decided that this will be a Ladies (or Men who pee like Women) only room.

And with that here's a taste of what I'm imagining for in here:

I guess I could have just scanned a sample since these pics are not a very good representation but I didn't. So, you have to imagine that there is lots of black and a bit of grey and silver and the hummingbirds are coral and turquoise. I may change my mind (or come to my senses and buy something vinyl) tomorrow but this is definitely what I like today.

glimpses of the past

I stumbled across these photos and they reminded me of how far we've come since the vines came down. This is the previous view from all of the windows.





I also came across this photo from the library that Fernando had taken a few weeks ago. It's our house sometime post the 1934 renovation... probably in the 40's. I want to get a copy of the photo but I haven't gotten around to ordering it. They will only let you make a photocopy and their photocopier must be overloaded with toner. All you can see is black in the print. So he took a photo of the microfiche screen.


I can just make out a nice iron fence around the property where we now have a hedge. There is also a tall tree in the front where we currently have a large bush. You can also see the old bluestone sidewalk that was replaced a few years ago by the city because the last owner didn't maintain it. We still have a bluestone path that leads up the side of the house and the window sills are also bluestone.

this charming house

I've had some requests for more photos... so here are some older ones that I never had a chance to post. I've been using Fernando's camera and he's been downloading them onto his computer so I usually have to wait for him to send them to me. I think I'll try just downloading them onto mine in the future - as soon as I get rid of the spyware that's been plaguing me for the last week!
Here are some nice details and things we inherited with the house...

Art Deco wooden doorknobs - I love these and they are on most of the doors. The former owner claims to have a box of them that he says he'll bring by... we're still waiting.


The living and dining room fireplaces have matching log holders. If you look closely you can see that they're dragons! Or sea serpents? Or Nessie?! I've never seen anything like them before and wonder if whoever put them there found it humorous because the house is in St. George?


There are two of these glass hang bars in two of the closets upstairs. They don't photograph very well.


The first owner of our house was a writer for a NY newspaper. We haven't been able to determine which one yet. He's seems to have been a little eccentric and one of the installations we found around the house were the attic stair risers plastered with uplifting headlines!


There's even one up on the ceiling at the top.


Our doorbell hangs above the arch in the kitchen and sounds exactly like the old school bells you'd hear between classes. It's a keeper.


I have no idea if this Art Deco mirror was originally used in our house. We found it in the attic before we had our estate sale. I love the Flash Gordon-esque lightening bolt etched on the front and think it might be nice in the miniature bathroom downstairs.


Here's a view of the lattice on our front porch and the glass vestibule. There are oval cutouts up top to let in more light.


This is our very own Busybody. Well, it's some kind of homemade version of it anyway... looks like someone attached an old car side view mirror to the bottom! It has a view of the vestibule from the living room.


You know the old owner was eccentric when you find the "Postal creed" stuck to the top of the mailbox... neatly hammered out with the help of a label maker. This is actually an old Richmond Farms milk box.