Let the painting begin.

The house was painted - from my research on Victorian decor - in true period colors. The den was painted a deep, plum and then the dining room was painted a shiny, metallic (ugh.) green. The master bedroom is a deep purple/brown with a (get this) green painted ceiling. Then, the other bedroom (the son's bedroom) was painted sage green with (get this, again) shiny, glittering, GOLD ceiling. Ouch. The entire pallete was an eyesore, and with being only 1050 sq feet, made the humble abode look a little too small.

Since Glenn and I tend to decorate in neutral, earthy tones, we have chosen two colors to help freshen, brighten, and expand the rooms. Thank goodness the ceilings are super high (we are thinking somewhere between 10-12'). That adds great height to the rooms and makes the entire house seem so much bigger than, well, our first apartment.

Here are our colors:


Saturday afternoon, April 18.

Crawl Space

For being built in 1896, our home's crawl space is in pretty good condition. And, to boot, it is home to the original cast iron, pot belly, warm, grumbling boiler. In the rear of the crawl space, there is a collection of old coals that were shoveled in by the owners. Very cool. The boiler was converted from coal to gas in the early/mid 1900s.

The best part of the boiler/radiator system is the collection of bronze, etched radiators. They have been painted white, which I like, but we discussed stripping them down to the original metal.

Although we plan to continue to use the radiators when we install a more energy-efficient boiler, we plan to keep the original boiler in the crawl space as a historic element to the home.

Here's a cool close up pic of the clinker door - the resevior that collected the used coals. When this little area was filled up, the homeowner would then open the clinker door and clean out the debris.