Enclosed back porch, Before and After
When we purchased our bungalow it was covered in asbestos siding.
Our enclosed back porch covered in asbestos siding. 2003
The asbestos siding was in such poor condition that we decided to take our chances and remove it.
What we found underneath was a poorly constructed porch enclosure. 2004
Underneath the asbestos we found a poorly constructed, rotting enclosure. The enclosure was built with scrap wood and odds and ends.
Siding made from found odds and ends. The window juts out 10″ from the wall.
We were unsure what to do and didn’t want to put a lot of money into this little back porch. I considered covering over the whole mess with siding and dealing with it at a later date. I was lucky enough to receive some sage advice from a more experienced house restorer, “Covering over this would be like trying to fix a skull fracture with a band aid!”
There is nothing ‘master’ about our bedroom. Master bedroom just sounds nicer then Our Bedroom. The room is on the small side.
We painted the walls prior to moving in. It was a quick fix. The walls have been covered in wallpaper and painted over several times. The walls need to be stripped and the plaster repaired. Although, I have fallen in love with the color scheme and intend to keep it.
All the woodwork in the room, except for the windows, was originally painted a muted gold color. The windows were sealed with a clear varnish, no stain. The plaster walls were a blue gray color and the ceiling was a light tan. Over the years the woodwork has been painted several different colors, including pink.
I started to strip the paint and peel off the wallpaper in the dormer last winter to discover what was underneath all that paint.
Taken from our bed.
Taken from the second bedroom/office looking into the bathroom. The door on the opposite side of the room leads to the back hallway. The smaller door is for a built-in linen closet.
The floor was covered in vinyl tiles and old linoleum. The linoleum appeared to date around 1920-1930s and must have been glued down with some old fashioned version of superglue because it was horrible to get up. The floor was black around the toilet and tub due to some serious water damage, so I stained the floor a dark walnut color for now.
Closer view of the linen closet door. It might be difficult to tell but the plaster wall to the right of the linen closet is scored to resemble subway tile. Notice the big crack in the ceiling above the linen closet. There are huge cracks all along the ceiling.
The walls were painted none too carefully before we purchased the house. The paint has peeled off in the past few years. It appears that the plaster color was originally left natural, the woodwork was painted a muted gold color (I often see it referred to as ‘wheat’ in modern paint samples), and the ceiling was a vibrant green color. The second bedroom/office walls were painted the same green color as the bathroom ceiling.
The bathtub and wall tiles appear to date from the late 1940s – early 1950s. We assume there was originally a clawfoot tub. The daughter of our home’s second owner told us that the house did not originally have a shower. Her family added a shower downstairs off the back porch. That area had been gutted when we bought the house. We now use it for our washer and dryer.
Our idea was to add a clawfoot tub with a shower attachement, but It has been pointed out that it might be difficult to get a clawfoot tub shower enclosure/curtain rod to fit into the available space because of the slanted ceiling. I’m not sure what we will end up doing?
Our duplex apartment from the 1930’s had a bath tub and a seperate shower stall which I loved, but no room for something like that in our 6ft x 12ft space.
We are fairly certain the bathroom originally had a high-tank toilet based on the holes in the floor. I found the outline of a wall hung sink. The pedestal sink in the photo is from our old duplex apartment and dates from the 1930s. The property manager was throwing the sink out so we grabbed it.
The strange thing is how high the medicine cabinet is placed. When I look in the mirror I can only see my eyes and I’m average height. I wonder how tall the original owners were?
Photo taken looking into the second bedroom/office.
One of my favorite things about the bathroom is the woodwork. The mint green register grate matches the others in the house, and was salvaged from Liz’s Antique Hardware located on Le Brea Ave. It needs to be stripped.
Looking into the living room from the den. The rug under the coffee table is only temporary until we can afford to get something nicer.
Looking towards the den from the living room.
Taken from the dining room, looking into the living room.
Taken from the den at a slightly different angle.
We have been asked ever so nicely to post some updated photos of our house. By special request here are some recent photos of our dining room.
Looking into our dining room from the kitchen.
Our built-in china cabinet.
Looking into the living room.
Looking into the dining room from our living room.
Another shot of our dining room taken from the living room. That is a rare glimpse of David’s cat, Milo. We call him the gray ghost because we can go for days without seeing him but find tufts of his gray fur left behind on our furniture.
On the right side of the picture, directly above the cat, you can see some sample paint colors we are testing out for the little hallway between the dining room and the kitchen. Yes, I’m at it again.
Here’s Heather hard at work trying to design our kitchen.
The problem is that this is our current kitchen…
and this is what we want.
I have begun planning, or trying to plan, the best way to restore our kitchen. It’s a little tricky for several reasons. We have 3 doors leading into the kitchen on 3 different walls, 2 large built-in cupboards, and really no easy or inexpensive way to expand the space due to bathrooms, a stairway, plumbing and heat runs to the second story behind every wall.
On the south facing sink wall, a tile backsplash, counter and under the counter cupboards were added some time in our home’s past. They block part of the original built-in cupboards on the east and west walls.
I want to rip out the tile and MDF cupboards and plan on restoring the original built-in cupboards and having new doors made for them. The current doors are cheap MDF replacements of the originals.
I would like to have smaller cupboards on either side of a new sink to house the two modern conveniences that I am not willing to live without; a dishwasher and the microwave. I am thinking of something like this without the over the counter cupboards. I really like the dark slate or soapstone counters and sink.
The fridge is visible from both the den and back porch, not the most attractive view. I have considered insetting a 24″ deep fridge into a wall to keep it from sticking out into the kitchen so awkwardly. The problem is a stairway on the other side of the fridge wall prevents us from insetting the fridge in its current location. Moving and insetting the fridge next to a built-in cupboard is an option but would leave us with a displaced stove. I have seen people build cupboards around their refrigerators but there isn’t enough room due to the already tight space between the refrigerator and stove.
The stove is overlapping part of the doorframe.
I am most unhappy with a large drainpipe next to the stove that has an unattractive box built around it. The original plaster wall was cut when updates needed to be made to the pipe.
There is also an equally ugly box on the ceiling hiding two water pipes. The water pipes can easily be moved inside the ceiling, so that is not a big deal.
I guess it is a big deal to move the drainage pipe next to the stove because of the way the house was built, heat runs, electric wiring and other reasons that I don’t entirely understand. If we extend the plaster wall back to the way it was originally, the wall will be butting up with the edge of the stove. I could tile the walls around the stove to make them easier to clean, but the main problem is the space feels claustrophobic. I have had 2 different plumbers look into moving the drain pipe and that pipe will be very, very expensive (thousands of dollars) to move. I consider this the biggest problem in need of a good solution.
Our kitchen woodwork was originally painted. We are considering restoring and staining all the woodwork in the kitchen to match the other rooms downstairs. I wonder if that would look too dark?
So, I’m feeling a little bit at a loss and locked into our existing layout. We could remove one of the original built-in cupboards to solve some of these space issues but that really isn’t an option I’m considering. I want to keep those cupboards and I love all the storage space they provide. Is that unreasonable?
All suggestions and ideas are welcome.
Update:
Here is a link to a diagram of the kitchen.
Built-in china cabinet before and after with Lulu.
The dining room was the first room completed in our house. This was before we started writing about our “adventures” in home restoration on the web. So, you don’t get to read all the gory details about how we almost killed each other selecting a paint color for the walls or how I caught the wainscoting on fire.
Dining room before restoration and after.
The woodwork was covered in about 18 layers of paint. We got to relive each decade as we stripped the paint away. There was a groovy 1970’s phase with purple woodwork and hot pink walls.
In the before photo, I had started to strip the paint from the wainscoting. You can see just how dark the original mission finish was.
I had originally intended to paint the dining room a deep burnt red color. We went through 9 different shades of red trying to find the “right” one. After the first 2 paint jobs, David “loved” everything no matter how awful it looked.
Before and After
In the end we settled on this warm golden color, Shelburne Buff from Benjamin Moore’s Historical Collection. Several people have tried this color after seeing our walls and been dissatisfied because the color wasn’t gold enough.
Dining Room After
When a wall is painted a dark color like red, it will need to be primed before a new color is applied or else the dark color will bleed through. Lots of people out there probably already know this, we didn’t. The red undercoat has altered our color. Our walls are not a true Shelburne Buff. But, we are very happy with the color, whatever it is.
Dining room After. The light is from Restoration Hardware. We have since purchased an antique fixture off of eBay, but have not installed it yet.
After. Our box beam ceilings and Lulu, just because she is a ham.
Jeannie and I paint my home office
These are the very first photos of us working on the house. They were taken the week before we moved in. We were trying to get the house clean enough to live in. I have this goofy “I can’t believe I’m a home owner” grin on my face!
David stripping the fireplace
Our restoration SWAT team included Jeannie, a long time family friend, who flew in from Indiana for a week. She was amazing. She cooked meals, spackled like a pro, painted, sanded, spent more time with me at Home Depot than either of us probably care to remember and she even helped peel up old linoleum from the bathroom floor!
Living Room
David’s brother Chris flew in from Utah for the weekend to help us paint and whatever else we asked him to do. He said it it was “fun” but he has’t come back to visit since. We think he is waiting until the house is finished.
Looking into the den from the living room
Our friend Jeff also dropped by for a few hours to help paint. I think he went on a McDonalds run or two for us. We lived on McDonalds the first 3 weeks we had the house – especially after Jeannie left.
Looking into the den from the living room
Extra large register vent in the floor between the living room and dining room
Dining room’s built-in china cabinet
Dining room, box beam ceiling
Den
Den floor
Kitchen
Kitchen counter was built right up to the pantry cabinet door. Obviously, the door to the cabinet can’t be opened.
We found a phone jack every 3-5 feet, running all around the upstairs bedrooms. Wonder what all those phones were used for?
