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Our House

Owning an old house is a labor of love. It's an ongoing project to keep it looking nice and in good condition. Our first major project was to paint but we've been constantly doing small things since. Below are photos of the rooms as they evolve.

Summer 2008

This is our window for spring/summer 2008.

During summer 2008, we moved things around a little bit (Frank's great idea!) to create a separate office space.

In summer 2008, no more office in the closet. I have no idea why, but sectioning off this space didn't shrink the space much and now it's a much nicer place to work.

Earlier in 2008 we finally got rid of the little shelves over the fireplace. Since a real mantle and surround was cost prohibitive as well as nearly impossible to find for the strange spacing, Frank and I worked together to come up with a interpretation of a traditional mantle.

A spilled smoothie was the last straw for our old rug. We got a matching slipcover for our worn but still functional sofa.

I didn't get a decent shot of the dining room before. The china cabinet is relatively new. A neccessity since the kitchen isn't big enough to hold everything. Can you see the kitty litter or the garbage cans? We finally got clever with hiding it. The easel is for our budding artist. The thing the turtle is on has buckets for all her supplies.

Of course the fluers are represented.

After ten years, our new bed. Dante approves. This is the Lesvik bed, which is based on 18th Century Swedish furniture. Yes, you can use IKEA in an historic house and have it look ok.

A little tweaking in the dormer.

Frank's car collection.

Some of my favorite things.

2007

The original front of our house.

During late spring 2007, we did a little window box landscaping, painted the door, added house numbers and a flag.

Our gargoyle.

The old door is on the left, the new on the right. The blue Frank picked out is historically appropriate. We also replaced the funky art with nice metal house numbers. We have nice marble steps.

Come on in!!

At this point I want to make a shout out to KILS primer. It works miracles.

This was the view when you first come in. We have a trinity-type house which has one room on each floor.

We opted for a gold color from the official Williamsburg palette with a light cream ceiling and trim. Now we don't have to use lights in the middle of the day.

This was the office nook. The photo on the right is in natural light, or lack there of. It was beyond dark.

This is still the most cluttered part of the house because it's hard to put a home office in a closet. I hope to have this space filled with a professionally built, built in storage solution. The color is a little off. The yellow is more like a No. 2 pencil than a lemon.

This is the living room looking towards the front door before.

And after.

This is the original front of the living room.

And after.

We replaced our old full size stereo with a small bookshelf model because the room is really small. Now we have room for a coffee table. The table was my mom's but she couldn't fit it into my step-dad's house so we adopted it.

We changed the dining room the least. We kept the original color but only painted to remove the stenciling. Please note that this is a free roaming turtle who only hangs out in the tank at night. This is the original.

After:

Before: cute winged rats stenciling.

After: so long rats. Hello lunch in NY.

This before picture defies description. I tried to be sarcastic last time and people thought I really liked the crayola upchuck that was going on in this room. Yes, that is an orb. We aren't alone.

I am aware that this might be boring. And I've sworn up and down that I would never own a white kitchen again but with light blue swirly countertops, which we weren't going to replace, staying neutral was a good option.

Another before. Notice sponging and cross-hatching painting techniques. Busy. busy. busy.

Voila!

This photo shows the width of the kitchen. I know having stuff on your fridge is messy but we have a pre-schooler's art to display and parental first aid notes. Please note that we have a small fridge. The room is about five feet wide.

Wall to wall to ceiling overkill. Piss-yellow as far as the eye could see. Beyond yuck!! I did like the very large sink.

Our new oasis! This actually ended up being the most involved and turned into a mini-remodel. We kept the medicine closet because I liked it and it's roomy. But we got a new lighting fixture, faucet, vanity and sink as well as the paint.

Zoe didn't need to feel like she was being baked in a pumpkin pie, a beautiful color but not for a little girl's room.

We let her pick out the color, a nice rich pink.

Her fireplace before. With everything the same color, you couldn't see the details.

And after... I wanted to bring some attention to the original mantle so we choose dark brown shade. One day I will strip all the paint from the original wood work.

This spiral staircase is as architectural feature that makes this a trinity-style house. The stairs are small and tricky to navigate. We've all fallen down them.

This is the master stair before photo. I think out of all the rooms, the master bedroom was the worst. The ceiling was the same yellow in the bathroom and the walls, cantalope. The energetic colors were not relaxing.

Much, much better. The ceilings are the same cream color that we used throughout the house. Having a vertical open plan is a challenge. We don't have any doors and the stairwells all lead into each floor. Having a consistant ceiling color is the way to go.

Another angel of the stairs

Ouch! Having the chest of drawers under the dormer meant a lot of head bumps in the morning. Notice orbs in the photos and not in the next. We hear odd noises too. Definitely haunted.

Our Expidit shelving is a perfect fit. We also invested in some nice boxes for our linen which keeps everything much more uniform looking and clean.

I had to sacrifice my bed but the new layout is much better. We're due for a new mattress so we're going to get a platform with storage from IKEA. I miss the canopy but this works out better. And it's much darker which is better for sleeping.

People have asked if we hit our heads on the ceiling. The answer is no. The ceiling's pitch is very high. However, we started sleeping with our heads on the other end so no head bumping at all.

This is what you used to see when you first came up the stairs. Note the blue orb in the center of the brick wall to the right of the mirror. However, not so many since we painted.

Now we have a dressing area under the skylight.

Originally we thought this was the only place for the bed. It dominated the small room.

Now we a open space for dressing and we can see out of our balcony from the bed.

And last but not least, I finally got a chance to bring a little NYC into our Philly home. I made these from dish towels from Fishs Eddy which include famous structures of the entire city.

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