Am I Blue? Not Anymore! A Blue Monday Metamorphosis

It's another Metamorphosis Monday, and a Blue Monday as well. I've combined these two into one, with a metamorphosis tale that moves from the blues, to . . . well, seeing red!

Visit Smiling Sally for more Blue Mondays, and

Between Naps On The Porch for more magical Monday Metamorphoses.

Thank you, Sally and Susan, for being such gracious hostesses!

*********************************************

I love flowers in clay pots.
I love brick walls.
I love blue skies.

But, sadly, I didn't love them painted on these walls. This was our powder room, when we bought That Old House nearly a year ago:

This little half bath is at the end of our "butler's pantry," (the rather grand name we give to the passageway between our kitchen and dining room, which we hope to restore someday). There is a walk-in pantry on the other side of that pocket door.

I felt guilty, wanting to repaint this room,
because clearly a lot of time
and effort went into creating it.
But, I got over it:

Goodbye to the blues!

We painted the powder room to match the dining room, Tucson Red, #1300, from Benjamin Moore, with the beadboard wainscoting and woodwork in Moore's Atrium White for some relief from the intense red in such a small space.
A crystal sconce that matches the dining room fixture replaced an undersized brass-plated one. The vanity and sink are serviceable and in good condition, so while I'm not crazy about them, they will stay for now. We replaced a worn faucet with a simple, classic polished nickel one. I love polished nickel; it has the look of old silver to me. My Dad thinks I am nuts. He is a very practical fellow, and told me, "Nickel tarnishes!"

Yes, Dad... that's the whole point! :-)

There is a window over the sink, so I needed a mirror on the opposite wall, and was looking for an old fashioned sort like my grandmothers had in their homes. It needed to be fairly large, and (of course) cheap.

I found it at Home Depot, of all places:

It was only about $30. It's beveled, and there is an
etched-glass floral border around it -- just like I remember.

You never know where that just-right article may come from, do you? I'd spent months looking for the right mirror (sometimes finding the right mirrors for other rooms but not this one!) and there it was, waiting for me, just 6 miles away at the big box store!

Still to be done: curtains!
I'm thinking a nice chintz, or maybe a red & white toile; what do you think?

Next post: Color! And my panic at choosing it
and using it, when I had to choose and use a LOT!

If It Weren't For The Hand-Washing. . .

. . . I'd use old silver plate flatware all the time.

But sadly, I am lazy, so it comes out for Thanksgiving, state occasions, dinner parties, and when I just want a bit of shine on the table. I have bits and pieces of many patterns, but I have a favorite, and . . .
..it is my show and tell for "Show and Tell Friday," hosted by Kelli at There Is No Place Like Home. Visit her there for links to more Show and Tell Friday blog posts.

I found my favorite flatware on Ebay when I was looking for bargains in elaborate sterling (which I never found!).
It's the "Georgian" pattern by Community, introduced in 1912.

All the knives are the Old French Blade style, with wide silver plated blades, not stainless blades.

I have read that flatware manufacturers switched to stainless some time around the First World War. A shame. The silver blades are razor sharp and wonderful to use! They slice through that Thanksgiving turkey like nobody's business.

I have service for about a ba-jillion, although I am still looking for unusual pieces --iced tea spoons, shrimp forks.

The silver boxes don't always look so messy. Well, OK, often they do. I didn't tidy up for your visit. When you see the "butler's pantry" picture, below, you will know for sure I didn't tidy up!

(At Thanksgiving this year, our first in this house, I couldn't find the smaller of the two silver boxes. It turned up near Christmas in a box marked "Winter Coats." Go figure. "A Gathering of Family and Strangers..." is the Thanksgiving post.)

Lots of old silverware has lovely old monograms. Most of ours are marked with "L," the first letter of our last name.Others have an "H" -- my husband's initial, or a "C" which is mine.
A few random little cream soup spoons have "D" on them. The only one in the family with a "D" initial is our dog, Dion. I love those gigantic tablespoons. Check out their size next to the 9-inch knives!

I like using those huge spoons for soup. It's flashback time; you are 5 years old and sitting at the grownups' table. Sometimes it's good to feel small.

Here is where the silver lives, in what will eventually be restored as the butler's pantry. Right now it's an extraordinarily fugly passageway between my kitchen and dining room with a powder room on the other side of that door at one end.See? I told you I didn't tidy up.

Someday, fingers crossed, I will be able to show "after" pictures, with glass-front wall cupboards, a mahogany counter with a small nickel bar sink, a built-in beverage center . . . yeah. Well, at least I can paint it and do something to make it look less like a scullery.

Any suggestions for a mini-makeover? (Other than storing the recycling bin in another place!)

Weekend plans! My mirror hangers arrived in the mail yesterday, which means we will attempt to hang our big mirrors (read about them HERE )without incident.

Or at least without a lot of incident. Wish us luck! We don't want to bring on 7 years of bad luck if we can help it.

Love ... on Wordless Wednesday

Welcome to Wordless Wednesday, hosted by Dixie at http://frenchlique.blogspot.com/

My parents, 5 years ago, on their 60th Anniversary. . .. . . and then just last spring, my father visiting my mom at a rehab facility. She has Alzheimer's and he has Parkinson's, and they can no longer live together. He visits every day.
That is LOVE.

My other blog post today is about the old knobs -- doorknobs, bedknobs, even a knob on a window lock -- in That Old House. Please visit!

Bedknobs and Broomsticks. No, Actually . . . Bedknobs and Doorknobs!

In That Old House, I find magic in something as simple as the doorknobs, all of them worn smooth from the touches of so many, many hands.

The doors mostly have black or white porcelain in the "newer" part of the house, built in the 1880s, and the original iron rimlocks work pretty well, although we don't lock them; no keys!


This closet door is in the yellow guest room. I'm not sure what the knob is made of. Brass? Some sort of metal, but I can't tell what. Where's a magnet when you need one? The back of the knob is a simple brass lever.

In the ca. 1830s section, the doorknobs are a beautiful tortoiseshell-look design, of some sort of porcelain or glass -- deeply swirled -- and the black iron rimlocks are larger on these older doors:


This one, above, is on the door at the foot of our attic stairs. Such a beautiful doorknob -- it is like sculpture -- and it seems wasted on the seldom-used attic stairs. I guess 176 years ago, these knobs were commonplace.

Years ago, someone got tired of the common tortiseshell knobs, and replaced them with spiffier numbers on the door into the pink guest room. On the hall side, an old porcelain rose-painted knob, the design on its edges worn nearly off by decades of hands. On the other side of this door, a lovely, simple glass knob.

A small brass knob at the top of the cellar stairs is worn and dented by long years of use. (We haven't painted here yet. Don't look!)
The cellar door is cleverly made; if you open it fully, it will also latch across the back of the center hall. An early means of energy conservation. No one lived "greener" lives than people long ago.

More knobs... here's a tiny white one, on an old window lock upstairs in the pink guest room. Can you see that the window glass is fun-house wavy? No, guess not, espescially with the screen in the way.


And about those bedknobs . . . this bed is in the yellow guest room. It's low post and hand turned. Each of the posts is very slightly different in size from its peers. We have had this bed for 30 years, since we lived in Pittsburgh and were lucky enough to know some fine antiques dealers.

This bedknob is harder to photograph. Too tall. It's a rice-carved 4-poster in the pink guest room. It's perhaps 30 years old, and was one of my recent Craigslist bargains. It's got enough age to look interesting, but it's not at all an antique. It would look gorgeous painted old white, but I don't have the nerve to do that.

So now you know we have guest rooms. And for our guests, a door bell, on the front porch next to the door:

Now that is a real door bell. I love how someone added washers under the screws. There must have been a whole lot of door-bell-ringing once upon a time, to loosen them!

If you visit, ring loudly and often. . . . and here's the door we'll open for you, with its old brass doorknob. At least, I think it is brass. Where is that magnet?

A Tale of Three Bargains for Three or More Tuesday!

It is Three Or More Tuesday, hosted by Tam at The Gypsy's Corner. Visit her here:

The Gypsy's Corner: Three Or More on a new day and a Surprise!!!


This is my tale of acquiring three things I am proud to have found at what I think are rock-bottom prices. Including free.

This house is larger than our last. What was enough furniture for our sweet brick Craftsman was not enough for That Old House! We needed furniture, and it's lucky we like things old.

So first goal -- a breakfront. A big breakfront, to hold china and stemware and all sorts of stuff. I searched Ebay and Craigslist until I found two I liked.

The Ebay item had an opening bid of 800-dollars. Ouch. I liked it, but I don't like anything that much! Lucky for me, it didn't sell. It didn't sell on its next go-round either. Nor the next. Finally, I bid when it reached an opening of $200.00. And that's what we paid:


My husband and a friend from work, Andy, picked it up at its East Side Manhattan location, and brought it to That Old House.

I won't describe how hard it was for them to get it down our old stone steps and into the house, because mostly I had my eyes closed and pretty much only heard some cussing and occasional yelps of pain.

It's by Saginaw Furniture, and it's big and it's pine, unusual because most breakfronts of its style and manufacture are mahogany. I think the pine goes well with the old floors in the dining room. That middle drawer folds down into a butler's desk, with little cubbies and things. The butler didn't come with it.

Another breakfront, smaller, and mahogany, beckoned from Craigslist:


It was the last item being sold in an estate sale, and there were no takers. I communicated -- a lot -- with the nephew handling the sale. I couldn't pay the $400 he was asking, it was more than my self-imposed limit. And after all, I already had a breakfront, and two is one too many.

But we chatted, and I told him about our old house, and he finally said, "No one else wants this, and my aunt loved it. You take it. I know you will give it a good home." I protested, as I felt very awkward about this -- it had never been my intent to get it for free.

However, he was ready to call the junkman, and the piece would end up in a landfull. So, we took it.

I need to work on placing items on the shelves and on top -- it's all rather haphazard now -- but it's a sweet, compact piece. It likes living in our parlor, I think. And we have indeed given it a good home! It, too, has a butler's desk hidden behind that middle drawer. We have two breakfronts with butler's desks, and a butler's pantry now. All we need is the butler. Ummm... yeah.

The third treasure is another Craigslist discovery. I saw an ad for a needlepoint chair from a seller in a posh neighborhood nearby. I went, I saw, I loved, and I offered less than the asking price. I got it: $100.




















It's in excellent vintage condition, lovely crisp carved frame, pristine needlepoint, and it is solid and sturdy and clean. The colors set the palette for the guest room.

I visit in that corner of this guest room nearly every morning, before going downstairs... just sit in the lovely old blue chair and spend a few moments, thinking. It's a peaceful room.

I'd already painted the walls Benjamin Moore's Cornsilk, a lovely soft yellow, but the blue and peachy-rose of the chair gave me my accent colors. Serendipity.

And the picture, above, was taken Sunday at a Judy Collins concert. See the little "Annie" at the upper right hand corner? That's my daughter! She is part of a singing group at Ramapo College -- CantaNova -- and they sang back-up for Judy Collins at her two New Jersey concerts. Sorry, that's not three of anything for this Tuesday, but it's one big Mama brag. Ms. Collins was amazing, and so was CantaNova (of course!).

Master Bedroom Metamorphosis, Part One

(I am participating in Metamorphosis Monday with this post, even though it was written on Saturday! (Is that cheating?) Thanks to Cindy at Applestone Cottage for her encouragement! You can find other Monday Metamorphosis stories at
BETWEEN NAPS ON THE PORCH: Welcome to the Fourth Metamorphosis Monday! Many thanks to Susan for hosting!)
************************************
When you buy an old house, you usually buy a whole load of ... shall we say "unique" decorating? Take our Master Bedroom ("Please!" as Henny Youngman used to say).

Below, "before" and "after" pictures:The stripey wallpaper in this bedroom made me dizzy, and since we'd chosen this room to be the master, that was not A Good Thing. I felt as if I were going to tip over when I looked at it. It was really the oddest effect. The vertigo-inducing stripes had to go.
Built-ins are lovely, but this one (above) was an exception. It was built across a door into a walk-in closet. To get to the closet, you had to go out into the hallway. Go figure.

A hundred years ago, that closet probably had a different function. It is large enough that it could have been a sewing room, a nursery, even a box room. (Houses should still have box rooms; how lovely to have a room piled with boxes, for which you needn't apologize!)
Work in progress. The painters have stripped off the wallpaper, bless their hearts, and I no longer get dizzy when I enter the room. However, removing the paper reveals some fairly funky areas of old plaster.

Again, painters to the rescue. They work on the walls -- a lot -- and then cover them in a tinted-to-match oil primer, and then, it's more work, and plaster repair. Gapping moldings are caulked, and the old, odd built-in cupboard is removed. We find out we can't use the old door as it won't fit properly in the opening, so there is no door on the closet. It is an old house; we are not surprised.
Interesting effect, no?
Ah, the light at the end of the tunnel (below). Benjamin Moore's Palladian Blue (HC-144) covers walls, which have been restored but not made perfect; we don't want our walls looking new! Like us, they wear their years with pride. (Or so I tell myself.)
This room is directly above the dining room that's featured in previous blog posts; same triple windows, same bay.
Oh my, those windows are dirty! Oops. Look instead at the lovely blue walls and crisp white woodwork.
And there we have it, the metamorphosis of the master bedroom at That Old House, Part One. I have to start sewing for this room, too. I bought a wonderful Greef/Schumacher cotton and can't wait to make the curtains, and I think perhaps a dust ruffle for the bed.

For home dec fabrics, I heartily recommend www.fabricguru.com for their amazing selection, cheap shipping, and really really good prices. I love a bargain! I paid less than $4.00 a yard for the Greef cotton, a teeny fraction of its original price, and it is first quality.

Speaking of bargains, I found a rice carved mahogany 4-poster on Craigslist. Very cheap. I need a step stool to climb into it. I do love to recycle!