Cozy, luminous & joyful Victorian
Our first design dilemma was an old chimney in the middle of the living room. There was really nowhere to put a big circle of musicians in a way everyone could see each other. We found a brilliant remodeler, Terry West, who removed the old chimney and installed a new gas fireplace under the stairs. Fl!p found a reproduction cast-iron mantle, and Terry found a way to build the niche over the fireplace for the big old family picture frame. It was supposed to have a mirror in it, but mid-project Fl!p found a 1919 photo of her grandmother with perfect proportions and had it blown up to fit.
We had the front gate built from scratch by a local artisan. Zeke said if he could have anything, he'd like a Celtic knot. Duncan said he had just gotten a book of such knots because he'd been thinking of trying one! The cat chasing the squirrel across the top turned out to be prophetic. The red paint in the first picture is more accurate.
Wood floors and trim with warm white walls and high ceilings form a peaceful backdrop for one-of-a-kind antiques. Overstuffed couches draped with vintage rugs cuddle in front of a stunning cast iron fireplace. South facing windows bring clear warm light by day and stained glass & mica lamps light up the night. A photo of my grandmother hangs in the arched niche over the mantelpiece. Musical instruments fill the walls & corners and their strings ring during frequent music parties.
We're having two new windows built and installed for my colored glassware. We've replaced this little window with a big 4'x5' set of casements, pushed out a foot and filled with shelves, with a second sliding window on the inside so dishes stay clean of kitchen "schmutz." There will be room for all the glassware to spread out to show off its lovely shapes. The current window holds only about half of the colored glass I have accumulated. As an added advantage, the glassware functions like stained glass to maintain privacy while still letting me look between dishes to see what's happening on the street.
I searched for years for this sink, and then more years for the old brass faucet that now adorns it (this shot has an earlier faucet). I love that there's no place in the built-in drainboard & back-splash for that nasty black slime to accumulate. To make the dish drying rack right above the sink, I used a piece of narrow closet shelving and trimmed the top rail off the back of it so plates stand up well. Everything drips dry and all I have to do is wipe down the drainboards when I'm done.
We finally found the cast iron sink halfway to Portland Oregon. We had to unload the whole van to load the sink as the bottom layer. It never would have worked to put it on top of the harp & guitars! This faucet showed up several years later in another small-town antique mall. The soap dish came later still. But they came together perfectly with a lot of help from skillful friends and family.
We upgraded to this 1938 gas stove from a smaller, older model. This one has a thermostat! The 1915 Hoosier Cabinet beside it is a Magic Box, with a pull-out enamel prep surface and a collection of sliding, rolling and pop-up racks, shelves and sugar & flour sifters. Both stove and cabinet are right under a big skylight. My sorting mantra for things I keep is "actively used, deeply cherished, or preferably both." I've been cooking with those copper pots and preparing meals on the Kitchen Queen for over 40 years.
I particularly love integrating items from different eras as if the best stuff has been retained all along. 1938 stove, 1915 Hoosier Cabinet, and then the 1880s Black Forest tchotke hanging proudly on on 2011 stainless & glass range hood. What you can't see is the 2005 stainless Danish refrigerator, designed by the same company that did the classic Bang & Olafsen turntable back in the 1970s. The best stuff gets kept...and keeps working! To get the full impact on this one, click on the photo.
This 100+ year old fence was salvaged from old brownstones in NYC. Almost every panel is slightly different, but it takes a sharp eye to notice. We had it restored by local artisans and it's ready to go for another 100 years. This shot was immediately after installation. Now it's twined with clematis & honeysuckle & fronted with ferns, primrose, iris & crocosmia, depending on the season.
This window features the Twangoleum, built in Port Townsend & Seattle in the 1890s. I wonder what future residents of our house will make of it. I've put together something of a scrapbook that will be able to stay with the house for the next folks. On the other hand, we intend to go out of this place "feet first!"
Here's the master bedroom, or at least the master bed, a sweet old walnut Eastlake design. There's a matching dresser & mirror, and they all came around Cape Horn on a sailing ship and then traveled by mule train to Boise Idaho in the 1860s, into my mother's family home. That headboard is one of the first visual memories I have of this world. We found the bedding on Saltspring Island BC in Canada. Artisan Lou Ellis, of Coco Loco, does crumple dying. The yellow dragged me across the farmers market into her booth. I have a room full of sunshine even during Puget Sound's long grey winters. The bed-curtains enchant me. They create a room within a room and a feeling of privacy without being heavy.
This is a Before photo of the kitchen from inside, where all the incoming light came from the skylight over the stove & Hoosier cabinet. We've now torn out the little frosted vinyl south & west windows (stuffed with bright colored glassware in this picture) and replaced them with big wood ones. The washer & dryer have been booted out of this excellent bright new corner, to be replaced with lovely, deeply padded benches for lounging around a small table for four. Soon there will be room for all my glassware on shelves across the new windows.
Here's the Before picture for my new kitchen windows, looking from the street at the kitchen addition which was built in the 1920s or 1930s, when indoor plumbing was new-fangled. People may not have been sure it wasn't just a passing fad. The design & workmanship were nowhere near as nice as the rest of the house. Windows were tiny and the rooms took no advantage of the fact that the addition faces East, South & West. I've dreamed of bigger windows all the years we've lived here. And finally, this summer, here they come!
Voila! The big salvaged windows, with Janet the painter triumphantly beside them. For me, it evokes the stern of a clipper ship, sailing away. This definitely doubled the magic quotient of our house from the street! The west window projects a foot and a half, and in addition to glass shelves across the bay, will also have sliding glass panels as an inside wall to keep the kitchen schmutz off my glassware. I'll post interior photos when we're finished. I've got evergreen deer ferns to plant underneath.
Inspired by a neighbor's house, I looked for ornamental corbels online and found these. They are a big part of the Ship Transom look. The windows were salvaged, restored, a treated with a UV film to keep my glassware from becoming brittle. Inside will be clear fir which will darken and brighten over time.
Pedestal table with thick live-edge slab top. The pedestal is old cast iron. The top was created in 1974. So now I have something cool from the 1970s in my time-traveling kitchen. Trim is nearly finished on the windows. A little glassware is already sneaking in from time to time and the benches and table slide back at night when Terry is done for the day.
Lights are in!!! And the inner glass doors have arrived as well. While we wait for the shades to be finished and installed (next week maybe) I moved in a bit of glassware. It's MUCH warmer with the inner layer of laminated glass! Kudos to Anne & her team at Lyndale glass and to Terry West for great construction and engineering work. I love the halogen light shining on the colored glass at night. My camera doesn't do it justice. Note the spiffy antique walnut trim on the window tops. We're almost done with this project. Shades for summertime heat management, and then glass shelves. What a journey!
The shelves in the south kitchen window went in Friday, and started getting some glassware placed in between the inner and outer windows. Now I have to decide if I want shelves in the west window as well. I want room for my glassware! One decision at a time, as this project unfolds. The glassware went in, and came right back out for Passover Seder the next night. Washed, dried, and back on the shelves. And then today, back off while my brother worked on halogen lighting from above for nighttime illumination. Thank you Joe!
New addition looks like an ancient sailing vessel. I'm happy with the "anchor chain" rain chain, and the stern light lantern.
Off the other side of the kitchen, the second bedroom has been turned into a guest bedroom and library. A foot board was moved to the side of the bed, creating a daybed look. A carpet in the home's signature red and green colors is draped over the bedding, and white sheers flank either side. Carved furniture "bits" from eBay, and Anacortes, Washington thrift stores finally found their purpose when used as a decorative "canopy" at the head of the bed, and above the window frame. A sari picked up by Breskin on eBay acts as a beautifully detailed headboard.
A bathroom off the kitchen had its sink removed to make the room more handicapped-accessible. The solution was the installation of a marine sink mounted in the shower. "You turn the shower faucet and the water comes into the sink. When you're done, you tip the sink up and the water goes down the hose and the drain. Pretty simple," says Breskin.
Refurbished interior of Kitchen Queen
I love the carved wall pocket over the stove. It was made as a tourist tschotke in the Black Forest in the mid to late 1800s, and given as a gift by my friend Lucille towards the end of her life. She told me that none of her kids wanted it but she was sure I would! She was sure right! I have been searching for several years for small scale brass chicken wire to replace the wall-pocket part with something see-through. Then I'll be able to put my old wooden spoons in it!
Steep stairs are made safer by a sizeable, sturdy banister, and stair treads with grip.
This is just silly! The pie safe came into our marriage with Zeke. I think he got it at Pottery Barn or some such.
The desk belonged to Hoskin's grandfather.
The little pine commode came from a second hand store about 40 years ago. I've been told it's from Arabia.
I love the curtains around the bed. It feels like a playhouse. The pillow, if you can see it up close, is a wonder. It was created by Galen Davis of Isle Au Haut, Maine.
We replaced the side rails on my old family bed with longer ones, then laid plywood over the top, extending over the sides a bit. This let us use Zeke's excellent queen mattress on my old double bed.
You can see the matching dresser & mirror through the curtains. One of my joys is running my hand along the beveled edge of the marble top as I'm heading back to my own side of the bed in the middle of the night. It both guides me, and I can feel the slightly uneven, hand planed surface rippling under my fingers.
Terry West, our artisan contractor, built the fireplace space out of thin air. I wanted a niche for the frame above it, and another to the side so I could push the curtain back in the summer, and draw it over the stairs in winter to hold the heat downstairs.
Zeke, me & Mom! And the guitar custom built for to fit my hands and body by George Thomas (GeorgeThomasGuitars.com) with wood given by my big brother, and with donations as a gift from my whole neighborhood. It sounds great and I remember what a gift it is every note I play.
There was a chimney in the center of this room when we first moved in. It meant we could only use half the room at a time for music parties. We finally bit the bullet and did the big remodel so we could use the whole place.
It was fun realizing we could store the currently unused headboard behind the electric piano.
You can see the curtain that holds the heat downstairs in winter, and the photo of mother's mother over the fireplace. We had a mirror in the frame, and it reflected too much glare. I went searching for artwork to put in it, and realized that photo had perfect proportions even though it was very small. Quicksilver Photographic in town blew it up for me, and Blue Horse Gallery matted and framed it.
I spent years searching for just the right sconces to install over the fireplace. When Terry built it, I had him put in the switch and wiring so all we had to do was drill a hole in the sheetrock and the wire was there waiting (safely taped off). I got to refinish the sconces to match the fireplace. I talked with the guy who made the fireplace, and ordered a little can of the same finish from my local hardware store - Hardware Sales. It's an amazing place!
The front door opens into a long front foyer. The desk came from an antique shop near Syracuse during the year I spent there.
John Blethen created the entry bench by attaching two lion's claws legs from one of those round oak tables, found in a second-hand store years before, to a simple board structure. Hooks and baskets hold bags, coats and shoes. "We have the best neighbors in the world," says Breskin. "I love being here in the midst of them." According to the "best neighborhood volunteer" plaques mounted in the home's front foyer, the neighbors love it, too.
Whimsical creatures peek out from the artful planter array on the front steps, hinting at the touches of whimsy to be found inside.
Our front gate was built by Duncan McLane, who has Colonial Metal Works on nearby Lummi Island.
Our friends Don Trosset & Mary Corcoran helped us figure out house numbers that are easy to find and easy to read, and then fixed them up just right!
I love the cat chasing the squirrel across the top of the arbor.
Musician's Whimsy in Bellingham
"Gumbo Lights" - squeaky toys mounted on icicle lights - hang in the front windows year round. I accumulated the toys over quite a few years, with some as gifts from friends and family. Archee McPhee carries a great selection.
I twined white lights, grape lights and various silk leaf garlands to light the stairs at night.
Lighted floral garland runs up the stairs as a night-light.
View from inside the living room to the front porch office, complete with gumbo lights.
The brass gramophone speaker horn lamp was actually built out of a reproduction horn. No actual gramophones were harmed in the creation of this pendant light. In the background is a very old French oak buffet top repurposed as a half-testor for our guest bed.
An antique lightning rod (with a new red glass ball) and two crows, one of whom is clearly talking trash! That's the garage roof.
Moss Hart, our resident living sculpture, was created by Oliver Strong, who now lives in England and mostly works in metal.
It turns out that in the wild, antler sheds are the source of calcium for squirrels. So the squirrels ate his first set! I tried getting a set of aluminum ones instead, but they never looked quite right. I was grumbling about it to friends, and one day Tracy Spring & TR Richie showed up on bicycles with antlers strapped to their handlebars as a gift! My neighbor Justin is a welder, and he came over and replaced Moss's antlers.
Moss Hart requires fairly constant rebuilding because the squirrels love him to pieces, literally, burrowing and gnawing and dashing about him as their very own squirrel fun ride.
Brilliant colors, classic form & a warm welcome to a sweet old house built by a local mill worker in 1905. The rich red & green colors make it easy to give directions! The yellow Japanese maple by the front door is a Sangu Gaku. The bark is brilliant red in winter.
Q