The house is a 1940s "Colonial Revival." The floor layout is absolutely
not Colonial, but the architect did their bit with window shutters, wide
plank oak floors, some wood paneling, and windows with historically
small panes, among other details. One south-facing window appears to
have been replaced and it is a single pane. Other than that, there's an
issue trying to do something with all those small panes. Also,
Sacramento summers are sunnier and hotter than those in San
Francisco--there were plenty of days over 100 degrees this past summer.
The former owner painted the house for sale, apparently following a
Sherwin & Williams historic color scheme (we saw it in their exterior
paint brochure and it's OK). But our contractors have told us the
exterior paint and the windows will really take a beating from the heat,
especially on the south sides.
Other than that, the house conforms to Arts & Crafts decor as well as to
anything else. In fact the living room fireplace (with onyx green tile)
is more Arts & Crafts than Colonial. And some former owner put up a lot
of nice brass door and window hardware, though it's mostly plated and
many of the doorknobs need replacing by now. I could wish away a couple
of folding plantation/shutter doors into the living room, but my husband
is taking up Arts & Crafts style woodworking and after he finishes my
built-in closets I hope he will replace those doors. There are two
bedroom-sized rectangular rooms next to my new sewing room that the
former owners used as closets. (They were both political lobbyists with
huge work wardrobes.) We took out the their open closet systems because
stuff stored there would fade too much, and are building in closed
closets with Arts & Crafts doors.
We decided not to put in any wallpaper after realizing how sunny all the
rooms are. The sewing room in our San Francisco house is on the ground
floor, with the windows below a kind of ledge where the upper floor
sticks out more. And I've always taken care to keep the shades down
and curtains drawn at all times when the room is not in use. That's
probably why the wallpaper there is unfaded.
One of our new neighbors used to manufacture Arts & Crafts style
furniture for Rejuvenation, but he sold his business to them some years
ago. Rejuvenation does send us their furniture catalogs and I'm not
impressed with their current furniture. (We are having a boodle of oak
furniture custom made by the Amish, especially bookcases, but their work
takes 12-14 weeks.) One of our other neighbors is a very experienced
cabinet maker and has been very friendly, so my husband can probably get
lots of advice on his woodworking.
The larger renovations are actually almost done (except for the closets
my husband will build), but there a lot of some small stuff like
refinishing some bathroom and pantry cabinets, which currently amply
demonstrate why we'll never want a cat. Also, my husband is doing a lot
of tasks like restoring more antique light fixtures we bought,
installing a some oak medicine cabinets we had made, putting up curtain
rods, etc. Considering we can't paint our SF house for sale till after
the rainy season, and we won't get our Amish furniture till the middle
to the end of February at least, we might as well actually live here and
fix up the Sacramento house till then.
Fran
Lavolta Press
www.lavoltapress.com
On 1/5/2016 1:00 PM, Christine Robb wrote:
On Mon, Jan 04, 2016 at 11:40:40AM -0800, Lavolta Press wrote:
When we bought our San Francisco house over 30 years ago, we papered my
sewing room in J. R. Burrows William Morris wallpaper, still in wonderful
condition and unfaded. I'm really hoping to sell to someone who sees the
wallpaper as an asset rather than something weird to just paint over. It
doesn't conform to the decoration I see in most houses for sale, which tends
to be beige, off-white, and modern. As for our antique light fixtures,
we're moving them all to the new house and putting up cheap replacements for
sale.
We've uncovered some paintings on our walls that were buried under
wallpaper, and cleaned some others that had always been exposed but
become a bit grimy over the years. So we hope for exactly the same
thing whenever we sell this house! And we'll be taking almost all our
lights with us too. Too bad we can't take the walls...
Great to hear that the wallpaper has stood up to the test of time.
I'd love to use some, someday.
The tablecloths actually look very good, although they are often heavier
than commercial lace curtains. At $30 or so per tablecloth instead of $250
or so per curtain, they're a deal. Being next to sunny windows, they'll rot
out and need to be replaced every few years. I've been dealing with that
forever in our San Francisco house.
We put window film in our south-facing windows to help with that.
Pros and cons, need to think it through thoroughly when considering
applying something permanent to original glass, and get a very good
quality film. Even so, things fade, so yeah, not worth putting
expensive curtains on sunny windows.
When we bought our San Francisco house, we got our hardware from a
Rejuvenation print catalog, but I find their website hard to navigate. We've
bought a lot of light switch plates and other hardware for our Sacramento
house from http://www.houseofantiquehardware.com/, our cabinet hardware
(kitchen, bathroom, and pantry doors) from http://www.rockler.com/ (if you
search on terms like "stickley" and "arts and crafts" there's a lovely
selection), and lots of antique door hardware and more antique light
fixtures from eBay. We buy antiques where we can find them, but it can be
hard to get certain things as antiques when you want them. And we got some
of our switch plates from this site:
http://jamesmattson.com/collections/switchplates-bungalow-rose
Thank you. I only had the first link (and apparently filed in my
bookmarks before I had the separate "hardware" section so have fixed
that); glad to have the others. (btw, Rejuvenation still has print
catalogues if you ask.)
Good luck with the move and renovations.
Christine
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