My glorious return to blogging is looking good – two posts in the same week! Aside from house work, my work work has been out of control lately. Good thing we’re finally hiring more help. I’m waaaay behind on my laundry.
So, a lot of blogging catch-up to do. Last time I documented any house progress, we were still holed up in the attic. At that point, we were just happy to get the holes in our basement (mostly) sealed up with real windows. Alas, we don’t spend much time in the musty moldy basement, so we thought we’d work on more habitable parts of the house.
Our goal had always been to move into a second-floor bedroom. We’ve always suspected that the front bedroom – immediately at the top of the stairs – was probably the master bedroom. Or, perhaps more accurately, the gentleman’s bedroom. The stained glass above the picture window seems a little girly (see the blog header above), but I don’t suppose Victorian design sense and gender paradigms were the same as they are now. Besides, it’s connected to the office by a small pocket door. Sounds circa 1899 manly to me.
The last remaining factor preventing us from moving down there were the floors. The hardwood itself (fir, actually, for you purists) was in decent shape, but it hadn’t been treated well over the past few years. The last owner of the house had work crews tromping around in muddy work boots, and they didn’t have time to clean up after themselves before their boss went to jail. After the foreclosure, real estate agents likewise showed the house to clients in wet, snowy shoes. By the time we moved in, the finish on the floors was a mild disaster.
Our contractor buffed and re-oiled them, which is good enough for a now. It took a couple of weeks before he got around to everything, but at least we could move some furniture around in the meantime.
This is a lousy photo of our new master bedroom as we moved furniture in. Not exciting. Here, let’s look at the finished product:
A little better. The demon cat in the middle of the bed certainly helps.
But we had one last thing to do before we could officially move out of the attic: the bathroom.
Unexpected Victorian 