Truth is I was afraid to post “Before” pictures of the living room because it was so hideous. “It’s a dead end,” was all that Bill could say about it. It’s true that it is smaller than our previous living room but I told Bill that as soon as we opened up the connection between the living room and the kitchen and dining room it would feel totally different. He was unsure as to whether he would like it up until the time we moved in. “I can’t see it,” he kept saying. I carried on because I could see it and I knew that there was a beautiful and cozy room that just needed to be uncovered.

Here’s the “before.”

Here’s the during:

And here’s the almost-After. We’re expecting curtain rods this week, which we’re very excited about. Readers who have visited our home before will wonder where that long sofa came from. Craigslist would be the answer. I decided that the living room is not big and we needed the maximum number of seats possible. Also, the Stickley sofa we had at our Arts and Crafts house just wasn’t the right dimensions. The L-shaped sofa configuration we had would not work in a more narrow room.

New sofas are Super-Sized with large rolled arms and such that make the furniture just too heavy for older homes, which typically have smaller rooms. So I went on a search on Craigslist for an old sofa that I thought would work in a 1930s Tudor home. I wanted dark wood and I wanted something that would look neat all the time. Life is too short to poof pillows and I didn’t want a sloppy looking living room.

So we found this sofa that was $100 or so on Craigslist. It was scuffed up and covered in tattered upholstery but I loved the carved wood sides and the little finials on the arms. It was unlike any piece of furniture I had ever owned but it was the perfect length and width, was trim and had springs in the cushions and a tufted back so I knew that it would look neat even the morning after a movie marathon or, more likely, Saturday morning cartoons.

Bill and I worked on the wood with steel wool and mineral spirits, touched up the scuffs and put new paste wax on it. What a transformation! A neighbor up the street from our old house does upholstery so we ordered a linen/rayon fabric that we thought would look neutral but interesting. We love it.

You may also notice the chair on the right. Also a Craigslist purchase that we will recover in new foam with a fun linen print.

In the earlier pictures, you’ll notice that the fireplace surround and mantle used to be white. At one point I told Casey to paint it to match the trim on the windows and he wisely told me that he thought it should be a different color. I thought about it for a moment and considered the idea of a darker fireplace, which to my mind would look more Tudor.”What about black?” I thought. Bill looked skeptical but agreed that it was only paint.

I started Googling black fireplaces in light rooms to see how other people had dealt with it. One blogger for House Beautiful noted that the key was that it needed to be black MATTE paint, not semi-gloss. I confess that I had no idea how or why matte would look better but I figured that they spend a lot more time thinking about interior design than I do and that I’d be smart to at least try their approach. Besides, they said that “nothing is sexier than a black fireplace.” “I can think of a few things,” I thought but there were so many bloggers showing so many pictures that I thought it was worth trying.

Once I opened the can of paint, though, I was a little nervous. It looked so, well, so black. It was hard to imagine how it would look but once I got a foot or so done, I was glad that I had taken the leap of faith. Bill stood there watching as I painted and I ignored Sophie’s complaints that it would be “gloomy.” She still doesn’t like it but that’s why 10-year-olds are interior designers. A few hours with Brasso and steel wool and the brass looks cleaned up and fresh. We really are going to live in this room.

The kitchen is the center of our family life. We cook a lot and we cook and eat almost every meal of the week at home. We didn’t want or need a large kitchen but we wanted one that was efficient (not too many steps between the stove-sink-refrigerator triangle) but that also had good circulation. We didn’t need or want a $10,000 stove or a fancy frig but we did want fixtures and finishes that would hold up to heavy use. I will confess that I really enjoy beautiful little details so I wanted the things that we use the most to be the nicest. The art isn’t up yet. We still haven’t gotten the drawer and cabinet hardware, figured out the backsplash, or a number of other details but I received a number of emails from people restless to see pictures so I thought that I’d gradually start taking and posting them.

It’s snowing today so there isn’t a ton of natural light but the kitchen still feels bright to me. We had a real design dilemma when we were trying to decide on the whole feel of the kitchen. It’s a 1930 Tudor. 1930 would suggest a painted cabinet kitchen while a Tudor would suggest a kitchen with dark wood. We really didn’t want it to be dark but there’s a handsomeness to dark wood when you see it in the context of the old hardware on the doors and the beautiful masonry on the exterior of the house. We ended up going for wood, which I was surprised to learn is the same price as painted cabinetry. We expected to get granite countertops but the patterning was a little too much for us visually. We wanted a calmer feel particularly since the countertops are visible from almost every angle on the first floor so we chose Silestone quartz which are the toughest material around and don’t require sealing the way granite does.

The old kitchen was a dead end. There was a kitchen and a breakfast room adjacent. The large east-facing windows were partially obscured by a soffit.

With the exception of a few can lights in the kitchen (not a fan of can lights) we used light fixtures that are historic reproductions of fixtures that would have been in production when our house was built. The fixture over the dining table was a pool table light. Over the peninsula, we just clustered three small pendants in an oil-rubbed bronze finish to play off the dark wood of the cabinets.

I also went against the norm in the placement of the table. Almost every dining room I’ve ever been in has the table in the center of the room. I thought about when I go to a restaurant. I never want the table in the center of the room. I always want the table next to the window, which in this case overlooks the garden.

I wanted natural light and I wanted a view, even if it’s an urban view — at least they are beautiful homes I’m looking at! We knew that we wanted to have a door to the garden there so we asked the architect to design a staircase that winds all the way around the deck so we could get out of having a handrail within the viewshed, which would block the view. The stairs also offer additional outdoor seating for summer gatherings. By the way, the table was the one Bill’s family used growing up. Bill is uncertain if his father actually made it or had it fabricated but it’s a simple slab of oak rubbed with Danish Oil Finish so it withstands being wiped down with a sponge regularly.

The pantry and places for dishes were also a critical element. Neither Sophie nor I were unable to reach half of the dishes at our kitchen in our last house because the cabinets were just too high. We were interested in open shelves for our dishes and pantry because each of those things turns over rapidly in our house.

We shop several times a week and most all of our dishes end up in the dishwasher every 24 hrs so there wasn’t going to be a concern about our everyday dishes getting dusty. Things like tortilla chip bags, cereal boxes and the like that most people have no problem with I find dreary. It’s just visual clutter to me somehow. I just don’t like most packaging and I have found through experience that we waste less food when we can see what we have. Neither Bill nor I need for everything to be matchy-matchy but we did want things to look unified.

We had already been storing kitchen staples in glass jars and I had a vast supply of canning jars leftover from previous years of canning. So we decided to have all food that we could de-cant to jars be visible. Canned cat food, peanut butter and such remains under the counter behind doors. Everything else from tortilla chips to oatmeal to dried cranberries to chocolate chips is in jars. This pantry is one of our favorite details in the house. It works beautifully and we waste less food because it’s easier to see what we have.

Across from the pantry will be a window seat. The woodworker comes Monday to get measurements so he can start building it.

Photos of the chaos tomorrow but we’re in and extremely relieved. The place looks like a palace!

When I came back from the house this morning I told Bill that I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. It’s not the turmoil and chaos of the moving, it’s just very hard for me to see so many people working so hard to create such a beautiful home for us. I know that we’re paying them and I know that they are grateful for the work but when you see the focus and craftsmanship and thought that’s clearly on their faces it’s overwhelming.

We think that this is their secret weapon.

The cabinets went in on Christmas Eve.

We were delighted that they decided to have their Christmas Party in our kitchen. The Polish spiked eggnog was flowing and Bill treated them to shots of the Calvados that his sister makes on her farm in France.

All of these cars and more belong to the workers at our house.

This is Stan. The foreman who is always proud of his work and takes great pride the details. I will really miss seeing him each day when construction is complete. He worked on our current house and we’ve know him for many years.

We’ll have quartz countertops in the kitchen. We agonized over the countertops. Quartz is pricey but we both wanted a calm but durable kitchen because we cook three meals a day at home and it will be visible from almost every room on the first floor.

The electrician is the most senior in the group but always has a ready smile. He’s installing wall washing lights in our office that will allow us to position the lighting to avoid glare on our computers but also to illuminate sketches on the wall below. We’ve learned over the years that cheap tile can look expensive if you use it well but sometimes you have to go for a high-quality light fixture if you can’t find an affordable one that will do the same job. Many of the light fixtures we’ve selected are period reproduction fixtures like this one from Rejuvenation.com which specializes in historic lighting and hardware. This fixture is an industrial lighting fixture from the 1920s that will work really well in our office. We’ll have 3 of them for layout around the room. we are so excited about having a bright sunny office after 13 years in a basement office with a single window and without good insulation.

There are 10 workers at the house daily and buying them a round of Chicago pizza and saying heartfelt thanks every time we’re there just doesn’t seem like enough. We made a quilt for Casey when he did our studio renovation 7 years ago. I’ve given him over 20 referrals but still i feel a HUGE sense of debt to all of those workers. It’s just too much sometimes.

Bill shares my sense of humility at all that they have done for us as he surveys the new studio space before we moved in last Thursday.

Sophie used the dolly to “deliver” things from one end of the studio to the other.

I ordered a face cord of firewood today (this is just some of it, the rest was being stacked) because I told Bill that I have no problem spending New Year’s Eve unpacking but we’ve gotta have a crackling fire to make it festive.

The movers come Friday. Yoga breaths everyone…

 

The walls have been taped and primed, the bathrooms tiled and the trim is flying.

The laundry room is tiled.

Our bedroom is coming to life and my sweet little window finally gets the trim it deserves.

The Tween Palace is almost ready.

From the guest room looking toward the dining room, kitchen and living room.

From the living room looking toward the dining room and hall. At the end of the hall on the left will be our new office, the international HQ of Modern Quilt Studio come January 1, 2012 and on the right is the guest room.

The living room looking toward the window seat in the kitchen.

Our not-so-big-yet-cozy living room.

Sophie’s secret nook. She asked to have a secluded space for her desk so she can do homework without distractions. Her desk will go in the nook and we’ll hang a curtain from the inside. I’m so jealous of this space. When she goes to college I plan to become a nook squatter.

From our room down the hall, past the little sitting area, the stairwell and bathroom to Sophie’s room.

The stairwell. It was 50 degrees here today so the workers were enjoying a bit of fresh air. The newel posts and spindles go in later in the week.

Classic white subway tile in the family bath with a separate walk-in shower. The floor is tiled in small hexagonal white tiles of the era. Greg, the tile guy isn’t thrown by the quirky roof lines.

There’s a temporary heater in what will be the kitchen.

Sophie is excited about the hide-and-seek possibilities beyond the access panels that lead to spaces under the roof like this. I see suitcases, myself.

Our current house officially belongs to its new owners and we are now a one-house family. The floors get sanded on Thursday and the kitchen cabinets arrive on the 20th. I ordered a whopping 44 light fixtures yesterday and felt as though I deserved a ticker tape parade for my completing the decision marathon.

We’ve struggled with what to do about the studio flooring in the basement. No one recommends hardwood in the basement because of potential mold growth. Ceramic tile is a good option but hard of the feet and cold in the winter. We ended up finding a no- VOC engineered floor that is intended for installation in the basement. I went to look at it at one dealer and he recommended that I purchase a couple of extra boxes. When I asked him if I really needed two extra boxes he responded in what has to be the worst sales pitch in history: “Stuff happens. A washing machine overflows, the dishwasher leaks, one customer had a murder at his house. Blood everywhere, had to replace 5 boards.” I stood there stunned that this was this guy’s sales pitch: buy extra flooring in case your beautiful new house becomes a crime scene. I told him that I would buy the extra flooring but that if there were a murder at my house that flooring would be the last of my concerns. I gave someone else my business, afraid that I had stumbled onto Tony Soprano’s flooring guy.

In happier news, we move the studio on the 22nd so we won’t have any flooring dust to contend with. The household moves on the 30th. Our mover, who only operates in Oak Park says that he does a lot of moves within the village. People move across the street or down the block so our move should be a piece of cake.

It’s a first home for the owners of our old house so Sophie and I plan to leave behind a little Happy 1st House surprise for them and especially their 3-yr old. They also have a 6-month old. We’re going to leave behind a Happy 1st House! cake, a bottle of wine and some drinks for the kids along with some balloons and such so their son will know that a new home is always something to celebrate.