Y'all, can we talk? Before you decide to take on a fixer upper, make sure you have 1) vision and 2) someone that can understand and implement that vision. Bill and I discovered we excelled in that type of teamwork when we were up-cycling for our antique booth. When we first walked through Penny... to say she was "rough" would be an understatement... she was like a poor little girl who was given layers and layers of a bigger sisters hand me downs that never fit her....but we immediately felt the peace we could have with her.... she felt like home. We both saw her potential and decided to make her be the beauty she was supposed to be.
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| Pinterest Idea |
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| Before Living Room |
Don't get me wrong now... I actually liked some of the concepts the previous owner had... it was the execution of those concepts that had us both scratching our heads. The paneling in the living room wasn't horrid, it was just too dark for that small room and the 80's waterbed headboard on top of the fireplace just screamed Marge Simpson's hair-do. I thought the fireplace was lost in that room. It needed to be a focal point instead. We removed the bad hair-do and the fake bricks then sat back and waited for the answer to what to do to come to us.
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| Living Room Today |
Between junking at Antiques Unlimited, my favorite antique store in San Carlos, California , and Pinterest an idea started to formulate. Through Facebook Marketplace we found a mantle similar to the one in Penny's master bedroom. The original idea was to remove the mirror in the mantle and have Bill frame out one of the two German carved door panels I'd brought home from one of many shopping sprees with my mother... Let's just say the guy at Antiques Unlimited instantly lights up when we walk in. We rarely walk out empty handed. But I digress... When we started working on this project Bill was brainstorming how to frame the panel, and I walked up to the mantle and asked if we couldn't just attach the panel to the mirror and treat the mirror as matting. One of the few times these past two years where I made his life easier... Except he doesn't make it easier on himself... he didn't just clean the mantle up... he took it apart, sanded, stained and put it back together even stronger than it was before. While he did that, I took the antique English and French transfer-ware tiles mom bought for Penny and tiled around the hearth (Bill gets credit for the floor of the hearth tiles)... The final look with the antique sconces I purchased from an antique store in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is so much better than the Marge-esque 80's look before.
Which lead us to what to do with the master bedroom and the other German panel... I loved this original mantle, which is why we went looking for the other. This baby technically only needed a cleaning.... but Bill, being the perfectionist he is, again, took it apart, sanded, stained and made it stronger. What was left of the antique transfer-ware tiles I used on this hearth too... keeping the flow consistent in this small house. Today, the final mantle was put in place.
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| Bedroom After |
The master bathroom originally was a bedroom with a small white mantle. Neighbors have told us they didn't know that there was a fireplace in this room because a bed was placed against the mantle as a headboard. It wasn't substantial enough to attempt to keep for the house. We found another mantle on Facebook Marketplace. Bill took it apart, cut out the excess wood to give it better curves, then gave it a grey wash. The hearth was covered by me with tiles I found at Habitat Restore for $20 a box of 10. All in all, these fireplaces look so much better than they did two years ago when Penny became ours.
The next step for the three fireplaces is to put a trim around the hearth floor. When we have some money again (Phase III) we'll start adding inserts to these fireplaces so we can use them. Currently they are only ornamental. We were quoted $10-15k per fireplace to fix the flues... Inserts can be done for a third of the price. When we get to Phase III we'll decide whether we want wood, electric or gas inserts. There are pros and cons for all three.
Now one last thought before I end this blog... you might have noticed the painting of San Francisco above the living room mantle. I found this beauty in Aptos, California, on another junking trip with my mother. I removed the ugly brass frame and haven't had it re-framed for the five plus years I've owned it. Bill is going to make a frame for it out of the scraps of wood we have from Penny's remodel. It'll look like a transom over the fireplace. I was staring at the space above the master bedroom fireplace today and decided that we need to honor Bill's Richmond, Virginia roots... We need an old print or painting of Richmond to go above this fireplace.... Richmond family... if you've got an answer to this, please let us know... otherwise I see us coming up soon after the old house sells to see if we can find the perfect piece.
Y'all, can we talk? Before you decide to take on a fixer upper, make sure you have 1) vision and 2) someone that can understand and implement that vision. Bill and I discovered we excelled in that type of teamwork when we were up-cycling for our antique booth. When we first walked through Penny... to say she was "rough" would be an understatement... she was like a poor little girl who was given layers and layers of a bigger sisters hand me downs that never fit her....but we immediately felt the peace we could have with her.... she felt like home. We both saw her potential and decided to make her be the beauty she was supposed to be.
Between junking at Antiques Unlimited, my favorite antique store in San Carlos, California , and Pinterest an idea started to formulate. Through Facebook Marketplace we found a mantle similar to the one in Penny's master bedroom. The original idea was to remove the mirror in the mantle and have Bill frame out one of the two German carved door panels I'd brought home from one of many shopping sprees with my mother... Let's just say the guy at Antiques Unlimited instantly lights up when we walk in. We rarely walk out empty handed. But I digress... When we started working on this project Bill was brainstorming how to frame the panel, and I walked up to the mantle and asked if we couldn't just attach the panel to the mirror and treat the mirror as matting. One of the few times these past two years where I made his life easier... Except he doesn't make it easier on himself... he didn't just clean the mantle up... he took it apart, sanded, stained and put it back together even stronger than it was before. While he did that, I took the antique English and French transfer-ware tiles mom bought for Penny and tiled around the hearth (Bill gets credit for the floor of the hearth tiles)... The final look with the antique sconces I purchased from an antique store in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is so much better than the Marge-esque 80's look before.
Which lead us to what to do with the master bedroom and the other German panel... I loved this original mantle, which is why we went looking for the other. This baby technically only needed a cleaning.... but Bill, being the perfectionist he is, again, took it apart, sanded, stained and made it stronger. What was left of the antique transfer-ware tiles I used on this hearth too... keeping the flow consistent in this small house. Today, the final mantle was put in place.
The master bathroom originally was a bedroom with a small white mantle. Neighbors have told us they didn't know that there was a fireplace in this room because a bed was placed against the mantle as a headboard. It wasn't substantial enough to attempt to keep for the house. We found another mantle on Facebook Marketplace. Bill took it apart, cut out the excess wood to give it better curves, then gave it a grey wash. The hearth was covered by me with tiles I found at Habitat Restore for $20 a box of 10. All in all, these fireplaces look so much better than they did two years ago when Penny became ours.
The next step for the three fireplaces is to put a trim around the hearth floor. When we have some money again (Phase III) we'll start adding inserts to these fireplaces so we can use them. Currently they are only ornamental. We were quoted $10-15k per fireplace to fix the flues... Inserts can be done for a third of the price. When we get to Phase III we'll decide whether we want wood, electric or gas inserts. There are pros and cons for all three.
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