Say goodbye to the circus - a bungalow bathroom renovation

Big project. After contemplating it for several years, we finally found - or were given - the time to rehab our bathroom. It is a limited rehab in that we did not change out the floor tile and we kept the plumbing fixtures but we did change out all of the lighting, wallpaper, accessories and decor. 

To say that things were rough to begin with is an understatement. The bathroom was a sort of mish mosh of thigns that had been added over the years. The over-sized and low-hanging light fixture, the big cabinet over the toilet, and the weird wallpaper choice all made the room a bit full and made me feel claustrophobic. 

The layers of paint and chipping and delaminating plaster were particularly bad in this room and there was some bad cracking and mold on the ceiling that just couldn't be fixxed given the surface texture and years of poor upkeep. 

The fist big part of the project was to remove all of the wallpaper. We were very fortunate that this part was relatively easy. We perforated the surface and sprayed it with warm water and it pealed off without too much work. After getting the paper down, I washed down the walls several times to remove all of the glue. 

There was a significant amount of patching to do in this room before we could paint. The main walls had odd score marks. It looked like the PO's contractor cut the wallpaper in place, scoring all of the original plaster. The lower part of the walls are all original faux tile - a plaster scored to look like tile. 

Thee were some areas where the original finish of the faux tile was visible and it was an incredible finish - as fine as Venetian plaster. Unfrotunately it had been covered with several years of paint to the bestw e could do is to patch areas that had fallen off and then apply another layer of paint. 

 

For the fixtures and accessories and all of the new hardware, we chose a polished nickel finish. This way all of the new stuff matches and it has a classic look. Nothing in the room was original so we figured we could take some liberties with this and get what we like. Unfortunately, with COVID happening, getting orders in has been a bit difficult but we have everything now except a couple towel bars. 

The new ceiling fixture is nice and high but still has some character so the room feels much lighter and larger.  

The colors that we chose for the room are much cooler than what we have around the rest of the house. My wife and daughter chose them all. We used all Sherwin Williams paints and the lower color and trim is "Greek Villa", the ceiling is "Crisp Blue" and the walls are "Debonair". I'd like to say that I miss the circus that was our previous decor but I don't. This is such a welcomed change. 

We are particularly happy with our choice of fixtures over the refurbished medicine cabinet. It is the Davis Double sconce with the faceted turtle shade. It provides a good amount of light and is also very decorative - and doesn't hang down over the cabinet the way our old one did.  

For being almost 100 years old, we are happy with our medicine cabinet. We had to change out the hardware though. A Home Depot white pull and plastic magnet latch just didn't do it justice. New polished nickel hinges and thumb latch fit the look of the historic bathroom and coordinate well with the rest of the room.  

 As we add more details, I'll update with another post but the bathroom is being used again and we are happy with how it came out. 

The Dining Room Fixture and Tiffany Shades

When we first moved into the Tiny Bungalow, this was our dining room light fixture.

I didn't like it from the moment I laid eyes on it and it was one of the many glaring "errors" in the home.  The swooping arms, faux frosted candles and a brushed nickel finish that should have been outlawed back in the 1990's were all wrong for this house.  It has since found a home, appropriately, in my sister's ca. 1980 suburban ranch.  What I always liked and what always seemed right for the room was a fixture that hung low, like one of Stickley's "shower lights".  In most versions, the light fixtures hang from a series of chains, just above the surface of the table, lighting the table surface but not so much the room around it.  In traditional Craftsman homes, these artistic fixtures that provided concentrated pools of light, leaving many parts of the room in elusive shadow, was a defining characteristic. 

Our fixture is a variation on the shower light idea and was manufactured by Rejuvenation.  For years, it hung in the dining room, slightly off-kilter with the bubble wrap still protecting the base and finial.  It looked ridiculous but still better than the brushed nickel nightmare that was there before.  A key element of the fixture has also been missing until now.  In Stickley's version, the light shades were typically well crafted min-lanterns or hand blown art glass by a company like Tiffany or Steuben.  Ours had $2.59 frosted shades from the Home Depot.     

Several months ago, when I started contemplating the dining and living room renovations, I started looking for hand blown shades that would be more appropriate for the room.  Many of the light companies these for a small fortune.  When it came down to it, I wanted something that was artisan-made, preferably by a local artisan and something that I could afford.  Shelling out another $600.00 for shades was not in the cards.  I eventually came across Redington Glass Furnaces while looking online.  It was perfect.  Jay Redington's studio is a short drive north to Wisconsin and from the selection on his website, it seemed that he could do just about anything I wanted. 

I was very curious about how the shades were made and Jay was kind enough to let me come up and see his shop and see his work.  It was remarkable.  In an unassuming shed of a building, just outside a small town in Wisconsin, he creates all sorts of amazing things.  The shelves of art glass lamp shades would make anyone with an Arts & Crafts style home drool.  He also makes all sorts of tiles, vases and other household items.  He learned his trade by working at a local museum.  In addition to the objects he makes, he also is commissioned for restoration projects.  Notably, he recently manufactured the glass that was installed at the horizontal mortar joints in Frank Lloyd Wright's Park Inn Hotel in Mason City.    There are several videos online so you can see Jay in action.

The glass shades that we chose are the blue trumpet shades.  I finished installing the fixture yesterday and the final product looks great.  The glass is a favrile glass; an iridescent glass invented by Louis Comfort Tiffany.  Jay was great to deal with and if you are in the market for shades like these, I couldn't recommend is work more.   

As I mentioned earlier, the shades allow a bright concentrated light on the surface of the table but leave a lot of the rest of the room in shadow.  Items on the table look great but this has created a sort of dilemma for me.  I still want some ambient light in the rest of the room.  To accomplish this, hope to install crossbeam lights.  For now, we are using area lamps.

The shades are individual works of art so the color and shape have slight variation from light to light.  It creates the perfect centerpiece in the room.  Once I complete the painting above the picture rail, adding  additional glues and golds, I think it will be perfect. 

Light Issues Continued

I can't stop thinking about the lights for the dining room but am still being patient.  In the meantime, I have put together a fixture on Rejuvenation that I can live with.  I have to have another go around with them to see if it works but it seems okay.  I've gotten alot of great advice on this subject and it seems that I should hold out for smaller older fixtures that are less obtrusive.  The alternative of living with the dark corners and buying beautiful Van Erps to lighten those small spaces up is probably out of the question also.

I decided to consider the new fixture more seriously.  In order to get an idea of how it would look in the room, I decided to do a mock up.  It's not quite accurate but it does the trick.  The neck is a little long and it is kinda crooked but it conveys the idea.  Actually, I like the mock up so well, that I think I'll be making about a hundred of these for the ceiling for my next party.

I don't think it will look original to the home but that isn't too much of a concern.  My big concern is to get light in the space, to have it look cool, and to compliment the rest of the room.   

I am still concerned about how deep this canopy size is but I do like that it uses the same metal piece for the canopy that is used for the bottom finial on our main lighting fixture.  I think it won't look bad at all with the other fixtures in the room.  I also intend on using an old-looking exposed filament bulb so hopefully that will add to the interest of the fixture.

Then again, I still don't feel right about it all so for now, I will remain patient.  Once I start painting the mural, the lack of light in the room will surely overcome me.

The Living Room Light

It didn't turn out exactly like I thought but I am happy with it anyway.  I was able to purchase new light hooks, made of brass, from Antique Lamp Supply.  I opened up the existing chain link and wrapped it through the hole in the new hanger. 

The new hangers hold the light in place with screws, not with the (broken) springs like the last set of clips had.  It was a trick finding the right size (length) bolt but that wasn't too tough.  

The bowl was also initially pretty dirty.  It is a mix of a sort of milky and glass and where there was dirt on the frosted design, it looked pretty bad.  I guess cleaning frosted glass can be a tough.  A quick internet search yielded many folks that had similar problems.  One woman's cleaning story had he washing the thing in dish soap, bleach and all sorts of other things when she finally came upon Simple Green that took all the dirt off.  I was fortunate and started with the Simple Green and it worked magic.  The light shade came clean and looks pretty good.   

It really is the prefect style of fixture for the room.  It will be very different from the dining room that has mostly directional downlight.  A lot of the light goes up to the ceiling and I have it on a dimmer so it can be lowered to a nice soothing glow.  Time to enjoy the light and concentrate on the wood restoration and painting.

I just realized, I don't think I have any pictures of the old track lighting.  I think the only one I could find is one taken by my daughter when she was about three years old.  Maybe its just her photographic composition but I think I like the new fixture a lot more.



The saga of the living room light continues

The new light shade hooks arrived today.  They are not as decorative as the ones currently on the fixture but it looks like they will work and they still look nice.  More to come.

 

The saga of the living room light comes to an end

See, the light looks great.  It's perfect for the room and the mottled finish really doesn't bother me at all.

There's only one small problem.

 In order to hold the bowl shade in place, I have to use rubber bands.  My previous idea of using some wire doesn't work because the rim of the bowl gets in the way.

It's not that I don't think that the blue rubber rings that hold my broccoli together are aesthetically pleasing.  They just might not be the right thing for this particular room.   

I think I am going to have to chalk this one up to a learning experience and move on. 

So, where can I get an inexpensive fixture to hang my bowl from???

A light is just a light... ...or is it?

So I am trolling Craigslist the other day and knowing that I am taking on my plastering project and that I will need a new living room light, I was searching for antique fixtures.  I knew what I wanted: a Classical Revival style fixture to go with some of the transitional detailing in the house yet a globe simple enough to seem almost as if it were in the Arts & Crafts style.  To my surprise, I come across the above pic.

Now, I like old houses and taking on big projects but any projects with any level of intricacy are my Achilles' heal.  Since the price wasn't so high, I figured, "what the heck", and against my better judgement, I contacted the seller and drove a couple towns over and purchased it. 

I started by taking it apart and trying to clean it as best I could.  It did not come as clean as I wanted but I figure, I could live with it.  I hoped to learn more about the manufacturer so I began a Google Patent search looking for the fixture.  I had no luck but found a lot of other cool stuff.  So I went back to cleaning.   

After careful examination of one of the parts, I found a patent number and date.  The number didn't help at all with finding the item but the date worked wonders.  To my surprise, a patent was taken by H. A. Framburg in 1917 for an electric light fixture.  It is certainly not the item I purchased but I am sure they used this particular hook piece on several items.  What is coolest is that the hole that is in the middle of the anthemion form should have held another arm to a light globe that extended from the main light bowl.  I bet it was pretty cool. 

What is more interestingng is that I recognized the company name immediately.  Framburg is still around and the company has an interesting history. 

As I mentioned, I cleaned the item up a little but not as much as I had hoped.  I have been going back and forth in my mind to either abandon this project or embrace it and live with a VERY antique-looking fixture.  I decided to hang the bowl from the hooks and see what it looked like. 

I actually don't mind the mottled finish and think that it can still look good.  Except for one problem: I just realized that almost all of the hooks I have are broken.  There is a spring on each on that is supposed to clasp around the rim of the bowl and hold it into place.  Without the spring, the bowl easily falls off. 

So now I am at another impasse: try and learn how to manufacture my7 own springs or give up.  If anyone has any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.  Part of me wants to contact Framburg and see if they can help.  I bet they'd laugh at me.   I guess I need to sleep on it.

By the way, if you are the tinkering type and get into a project like this, a patent search is a pretty great thing.  I discovered all sorts of cool lights while doing this.  Below is a design for a light fob.  This would have been a decorative piece that would attach to receptor holes on the globe/bowl hook.  It might have come in handy for people that purchased this original Framburg fixture but didn't want the side arms. 

The multi-light notion seemed very popular: a bowl light to provide ambient lighting and then single bulbs pointing down within shades to provide task or directional lighting. 

Finally, my favorite: a light with an integral planter in the bowl.  I would love to see one of these in action.  If anyone ever finds a picture, please let me know.