Into the New Year
Work last year tapered off when winter arrived in the second week of November.
With the arrival of winter our original hopes for being in the house before year-end were gone.
The kitchen had so many problems, and fixing them took so long, that our schedule was completely out of the window.
In addition to the crumbling foundation and entire lack of foundation in some places, we found that the kitchen walls, which were constructed of 14′ floor-to-ceiling studs, had not been correctly supported when the builders had cut out windows and doors. This is what caused the domino sinking effect that ultimately led to the north east corner sinking by 13 inches.
The walls hadn’t been insulated, so it was futile to even try to heat the back of the house using a propane turbo heater. The heat seemed to disappear, and the air was SOOO dry!
… but still Frank worked on.
We’ve not been able to do any more painting or drywall mudding, because it’s been too cold. We’ve not been able to strip any more wall paper, again because it’s been too cold.
HOWEVER … the studio is well on the way to completion.
I’m actually thinking of using it for a reading/tea room rather than a studio because of how cozy it is.
With the chunky exposed beams, the lit wall boxes, and the cute pint-sized windows, it is very unique. I believe that it would be well suited to display a collection of comfortable old chairs around an oval coffee table … perhaps with some decorative fabric cascading down from the ceiling, hinting at the concept of wall tapestries … warm but yet subtle colours, I think, to offset the deep reddish chestnut of the beams.
Tiffany style lamps would probably work best because of their glow.
We believe that we’ve been able to secure some cherry panelling for the library, which will be framed with oak. As a result, the dark forest green that had been originally intended for the library will be used in the drawing room, and the pale green originally intended for the drawing room will most likely be used in the kitchen.
With the ‘threat’ of the drawing room now being a very dark room, we have acquired a set (one matching pair, and one stand-alone) of antique glass pendant table lamps that will add some glitz to the room.
I’m still trying to determine how best to display the smaller instruments, as most of them will tarnish if left exposed to oxygen. Perhaps a lit glass display case with a mirrored back might be the answer. Maybe something could be constructed to sit atop the external secondary speaker for the organ. Or maybe something could be made to mount on the wall above the fireplace.
Any ideas? Let me know if you do.
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 3:15 pm and is filed under House . You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
