Hermann house renovation

I am 68 years old and for the first time in my life, I bought a headboard for my bed. I never had a bed with a headboard and a footboard that was purchased, although we did make one for our city house but it was not a good effort.

This bed buying saga has been going on for weeks. The thing I really really want is antique, living on the East Coast, and in need of rebuilding. There’s so too many reasons not to buy it.


There are modern versions but all the modern beds are queen size. I do not want a queen size bed in my small bedroom. I currently have a double bed there and it’s perfect and anything bigger will fit but I lose necessary space.


So I was looking at vintage items But a surprising number of beds and headboards manufactured over the past 40 years are still queen-size. I did finally find a headboard that was acceptable —not great, but acceptable.

My bedroom aesthetic is Victorian faux bamboo but since I don’t see much of that around I’m settling for burnt bamboo.

there is a bedroom set out there in the world manufactured just a few years ago that would be perfect, so I’m telling DH that if one of those comes up for sale on the Used market I’m buying it. But I’ve been perusing eBay for months and have not seen the exact right thing.

My current plan is to do a chinoiserie treatment on the walls but I haven’t figured out exactly how to accomplish that.

I've never had--at least in my memory--a bed without a head and foot board. My next bed will be a stout iron twin sized model, in black or antique bronze, with some art or design elements.

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Originally Posted by JaneV2.0

I've never had--at least in my memory--a bed without a head and foot board. My next bed will be a stout iron twin sized model, in black or antique bronze, with some art or design elements.

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Lady, you with your headboard and footboard are a pretty damn fancy person!

One of the complicating factors in my hunt for a bed is that I’m putting it up against the window. I don’t HAVE to do that, there is plenty of room to flip it and put it at the other end of the room against a wall with no window, but I like this placement because the ceiling is sloped over the bed and it’s like crawling into a cave to go to sleep. It’s very cozy.

So, my new headboard is an open weave of bamboo type material that does not block the light from the window.

Shopping shopping shopping for this is mentally exhausting, ha ha! A first world problem.


Now I’m shopping for pretty things for my bathroom. Currently looking at antique cup holders and an antique French soap holder that screws into the wall.

My bed now is a pretty fancy iron number, but too big. It's butted up against a slanted ceiling and next to a large window.

Do send progress pix!

I have always had a headboard. When I moved into my condo I got a new sleep number queen size bed and a beautiful tall upholstery headboard. My bed at the top can be raised so when I get sick I can breathe since I have asthma. I absolutely love it and was worth every penny.

Only since a few years ago have I ever had a bed I bought. All the others were given to me. So some had headboards (my great-aunt's tiger maple four-poster twin beds, and my grandmother-in-law's full bed) and the others were just mattresses on a cheap frame that we inherited somehow . I know I can't have much royalty in my blood because unlike the princess and the pea, I am not that particular about my beds, unless the mattresses are too worn and lumpy or too firm. When I read in bed, I just pile pillows against the wall.

Here's a headboard for you...

Attachment 5004

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Originally Posted by JaneV2.0

Here's a headboard for you...

Attachment 5004

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If thought I could afford that bed, I would turn it around getting it away from the window and change my entire bedroom decor. I love art nouveau and that is stunning!

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

If thought I could afford that bad, I would turn it around getting it away from the window and change my entire bedroom decor. I love art nouveau and that is stunning!

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I was ready to organize a heist until I realized the Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art was in Denver, and not in the next town over from me. Oh well. :~)

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Originally Posted by JaneV2.0

I was ready to organize a heist until I realized the Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art was in Denver, and not in the next town over from me. Oh well. :~)

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That bed is worth a jail stint so bring on the heist.

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

That bed is worth a jail stint so bring on the heist.

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:devil:

Time for an update. Progress is steady but slow. DH, old retired guy, works only 6 hours a day on our house. Bless him tho for doing it.

This week he finished our new sunroom, new addition to this house. We have a mini split for that room so I’m curious to know how it will keep up in extreme weather.

The first picture is the room when he started on it. Our contractor did the rough work up to drywall. DH is doing all the finishing work throughout the house. The second picture is the finished room today.

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Attachment 5083

WOW!!!!

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Originally Posted by Tybee

WOW!!!!

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it is a pretty room. We keep many plants in it. It is super handy that our east facing deck has a door to this room, so we just have to drag all plants out to the deck in the summertime. Not far at all.

I am worried about keeping these pretty floors dry, I don’t want a plant watering accident staining them.

That room is beautiful! What views!

I hear you about the floors. Can. you get a couple of those mats that have lips on them? May not be beautiful, but it might help mitigate wet floors.

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Originally Posted by catherine

That room is beautiful! What views!

I hear you about the floors. Can. you get a couple of those mats that have lips on them? May not be beautiful, but it might help mitigate wet floors.

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Big mats with lips, good idea. I will keep that in mind. Also, I will have to keep moving the big plants and furniture around because this floor reacts to coverings and sunlight. We had a paint tarp on it for months, and I can see the line where the tarp was.

Well--Okay---looks like it might be completed, someday. Good Job. But, when are you going to show us the workshop? Is there also a lirrrarray full of Books, too? That's what I'm interested in. Also, I have for sale some authentic, pre-owned lirrrrabrarry light fixtures, that had been replaced during a redecorating at the locall lirarrarry, here. They would be perfect for your Chateau. Yup. Might I also suggest a 6'-high, wrought-iron fence, completely surrounding your lot, to deter trespassers? Hope that helps you some.

What a beautiful room, IL. Would love to see a picture when plants and furnishings are in place.

How about keeping the plants on dollies? The space between the bottom of the dolly and the floor prevents sharp lines from the sunlight and you could also move them around. The dollies might have waterproof bottoms.
Another project for DH?

Beautiful sunroom, IL!

Love the room and the view!!!

DH finished the last pieces of kitchen installation last week: backsplash tile, crown molding, and dishwasher panel.

Finished kitchen here. The backsplash has a blue cast, but it is green. Green marble.

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Next up: finish the laundry room and linen closet area outside of the main bathroom downstairs.Tile floor has already been completed. We are currently doing laundry in the basement so it will be nice to have first floor laundry facility.

Beautiful kitchen! The colors are gorgeous--although I have to imagine the backsplash in green--it definitely comes off as blue-grey.

The 1st floor laundry sounds great! We have a stackable unit on our "first" (and only) floor, and it's so much better than it used to be having to go down to the dark, depressing unfinished basement to do laundry. In fact, my DIL (the one living in our house) transformed my former home office right off the kitchen to a first floor laundry room. At first I thought that was a bad use of first floor real estate--more and more people want designated home offices--but she's a) a clean freak and b) has two young boys, so it has actually been great for her.

I love seeing your progress reports! It's been quite the journey. When did you buy the house? 3 years ago?

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Originally Posted by catherine

Beautiful kitchen! The colors are gorgeous--although I have to imagine the backsplash in green--it definitely comes off as blue-grey.

The 1st floor laundry sounds great! We have a stackable unit on our "first" (and only) floor, and it's so much better than it used to be having to go down to the dark, depressing unfinished basement to do laundry. In fact, my DIL (the one living in our house) transformed my former home office right off the kitchen to a first floor laundry room. At first I thought that was a bad use of first floor real estate--more and more people want designated home offices--but she's a) a clean freak and b) has two young boys, so it has actually been great for her.

I love seeing your progress reports! It's been quite the journey. When did you buy the house? 3 years ago?

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I was looking through old posts on this website and I think you guys bought your house about the same time as we did. We made an offer December 2017 and we closed March 2018. At the time, we bought it as a weekend house but in the back of my mind, I knew it was big enough to become our permanent house if we wanted to do that.

We enjoyed a few few years of doing absolutely nothing to the house. It was such a old creaky thing, yet entirely livable, so we spent all of our time working on the 1 acre yard. Cleaning, cleaning, making beds.

in our city house, recently sold, the new people are turning our breakfast nook into a laundry room.Basement laundry service is so passe!

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

I was looking through old posts on this website and I think you guys bought your house about the same time as we did. We made an offer December 2017 and we closed March 2018. At the time, we bought it as a weekend house but in the back of my mind, I knew it was big enough to become our permanent house if we wanted to do that.

We enjoyed a few few years of doing absolutely nothing to the house. It was such a old creaky thing, yet entirely livable, so we spent all of our time working on the 1 acre yard. Cleaning, cleaning, making beds.

in our city house, recently sold, the new people are turning our breakfast nook into a laundry room.Basement laundry service is so passe!

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Wow, time flies! Yes, we saw our home on September 17, 2017, made an offer in November, and closed January 9, 2018, so you and I made our big home and life changes at the same time. We only toggled between VT and NJ for a year before realizing we could happily live up here full time.

Very handsome kitchen!

That’s gorgeous IL! My condo doesn’t have laundry because it’s built in 1978 with a laundry room. However, they allow people to install apartment size washers and dryers. The dryer vents into a small bucket of water. I already installed the dryer in my office/guest bedroom and having a plumber come this week to give me an estimate to install the washer.

They hook it up to the plumbing under the bathroom sink. My bathroom is so small that they will have to hook it up at the end of the hallway. Then they can run the lines right through the wall to the sink. I am very excited about having my own laundry again after 2 years.

I love that red stove Iris! Such a fun pop of color to spice up the room. Much more exciting than the black and stainless stove we have in our kitchen.

Spooky Facebook eavesdropping crap.

Look what keeps popping up on my feed....

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I didn't know it was the Romance Capital of Missouri!

Very nice. Good to have a handy hubby!

My new decor inspiration is an Instagram account that perfectly captures the aesthetic for our Hermann house. She shows things I want, things I already have, or things I have shopped for but rejected due to functional reasons. It is perfect for me.

That Insta account is: our1925home

My other decorating guru is Laurel Bern, love her work and her blog. There was a period of about 18 months where nearly every week she touched on some aspect of interior design I was working on. I also listen to YouTuber Garrett LeChic, a nice young interior designer who designs in a traditional style.

Garrett, on the other hand, lives in some sort of modern California house that never looks interesting at all but his furnishings are nice if a little bit too…18th century wannabe for me. But I like to hear him talk about current decorating trends and problems.

I looked up that instagram account, and I agree--I would be very comfortable in that setting.

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Originally Posted by catherine

I looked up that instagram account, and I agree--I would be very comfortable in that setting.

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Laurel has a kick-ass condo in a Boston brownstone. She is gearing up to make mega changes to her kitchen, staircase, and lower level. Her ceilings are around 14” and she has stunning plaster work in her 1bedroom unit.

I am going balls-out on my helluva kick-ass backyard cottage. I got more VERY exquisite file cabinets, salvaged from a public defenders' office. Yup. So you kids will dirty your drawers when you see how awesome and amay-zeen it is. Sure will.

Attachment 5396I have finally selected the dishes we will use in Hermann. It took two years. I am a dinnerware aficionado, and I have to be careful not to collect too much stuff. Years ago, I gave away several sets of dishes.


I knew I wanted something with a 1940s vibe. Fiestaware was always a possibility. I really would’ve loved some Clarice Cliff inspired cottage scene dishes, but they are very hard to find and are super expensive, and then I didn’t feel that I should actually use them hard like in the microwave and in the dishwasher.


Then I came across this pattern that everyone of a certain age has seen and I decided Oh yeah, this is it! These inspire a Cottage feel, they’re easy to get, they’re not very expensive. So I buy bits and pieces on eBay.


The pattern is Franciscan Ivy.

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

Attachment 5396I have finally selected the dishes we will use in Hermann. It took two years. I am a dinnerware aficionado, and I have to be careful not to collect too much stuff. Years ago, I gave away several sets of dishes.


I knew I wanted something with a 1940s vibe. Fiestaware was always a possibility. I really would’ve loved some Clarice Cliff inspired cottage scene dishes, but they are very hard to find and are super expensive, and then I didn’t feel that I should actually use them hard like in the microwave and in the dishwasher.


Then I came across this pattern that everyone of a certain age has seen and I decided Oh yeah, this is it! These inspire a Cottage feel, they’re easy to get, they’re not very expensive. So I buy bits and pieces on eBay.


The pattern is Franciscan Ivy.

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Very nice... I can see the table set with [my] emerald green table cloth, and maybe unbleached muslin napkins. They almost look hand-painted, which I love.

Another decision made!

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Originally Posted by catherine

Very nice... I can see the table set with [my] emerald green table cloth, and maybe unbleached muslin napkins. They almost look hand-painted, which I love.

Another decision made!

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Supposedly this pattern IS hand painted, but that doesn’t have much meaning to me. It just means someone sat at a factory table and slapped paint on a predetermined stamped pattern.

This pattern started in the 1940s and was made through the 1970s, and they do vary somewhat. I have purchased dinner plates from several sources, and depending on what decade it was made, they vary a bit in size and shape, but just a bit.

I like buying dishes this way. I don’t have to buy mugs or coffee cups. Who uses coffee cups anymore anyway?

I also like that I can go back in time to purchase vintage shaped bowls. I hate the modern bowls that you get with modern dinnerware sets. Also, that particular kind of ceramic dinnerware seems to retain heat from the microwave oven, but this old style Franciscan ware does not.

I think these are probably full of lead, but at my advanced age I don’t think it much matters. I’m not sure I would feed small children on these plates though.

Speaking of dinnerware, DH and I have used a checkerboard Fishs Eddy pattern for years. We bought the set on a visit to NYC--we passed by the shop at their downtown Broadway location and just purchased the set on impulse. We haven't used it since we've been up here, but we just recently brought up back up from NJ, and we decided to donate our cheap second-hand dishes and go back to using our beloved Fishs Eddy. Problem was we had broken 3 of the plates over the years. I was happy to live with 6, but we only had 5. What if you have two couples over?? That pattern has long been discontinued.

I searched Replacements, EBay, and nothing turned up--finally I found an Etsy seller who had one plate. It was $60 plus $10 shipping, but I had to buy it to complete a set of 6. 8 would be better, but we can only seat 6 at our table, so what's the point of buying more?

$70 was an extravagant purchase for one plate, but we made the choice to use our Fishs Eddy pattern, so we had to pay it.

ETA: adding the Fishs Eddy web address. Some of you know how much I love whimsy, and Fishs Eddy has it in spades. https://fishseddynyc.com

Cause she made me look up those fishes eddy plates! I assume you have the black ones. I see they also come in red. I like them.