We feel incredibly lucky and very grateful that we found this gem of a house and now call it home. It’s quite a bit larger than what we need at the moment, but it is everything we were looking for in a home. This blog is titled Ceramic & Oak as a nod to the features of this house that are original and here to stay. We have future plans for the house, and will update you as we go along shaping them into reality. We also want to dig into the history of this house, so we will post our findings on that here as well.

First Floor

Welcome to our home. Some of the main reasons we fell in love with our house are in these photos of the first floor.

Our front door, sidelites and transom are all original with leaded glass. It’s a wide door at 37-1/2”, which was a blessing when we were moving in. When we saw photos of the staircase on the listing for our house, we knew we were interested (it was the second or third photo). We did a double take and realized that this house has a split staircase. One was likely used as a butler’s stair that you could close off with the door, but we don’t know for sure.

The mantels and tile on the fireplaces throughout the house are original to the best of our knowledge, but the fireplaces themselves are not functional. The right-hand side of the living room fireplace was built out for HVAC at some point, and someone added baseboard that very closely matches the original. The off-centered look bothered us, so we asked a friend to come and build out the left-hand side to match and allow the fireplace to be centered once more.

Between the living room and the dining room are the original pocket doors, and get this, they still roll with ease because someone was a good steward of old buildings and gave them the love they deserve. Our dining room is honestly my favorite room in the entire house. When we saw the listing photos of this room, we had to pick our jaws up off the floor. We couldn’t believe that all this quarter sawn oak paneling was still here 100+ years later, but there it was, and now we get to enjoy it every day. We have a double plate rail at the top of the paneling, which goes all the way around the room. The fireplace in this room is one of the reasons we want to dig into the history of the house. The intricate carvings must have meant something to the original owner, so we want to figure out what history can tell us about the person who built the house, or had it built. The tile on this fireplace is my favorite in the house for two reasons; one of which is that my birthstone is emerald and this tile is all tones of emerald and the second is that I am a big nerd and this tile reminds me of the tile in the Ministry of Magic.

Continuing along in this room, there is a built-in bench with china cabinets and drawers. The small square windows above the china cabinets are original, while the larger window, like many others in the house, was replaced at some point. They did a decent job of matching the tone of the wood, so we’re not unhappy with the replacement windows and are glad we won’t be needing to replace them anytime soon. We’re excited to host in this space, and Hanley is excited to keep an eye on the local squirrel population from the bench.

The kitchen is another room that was renovated shortly before we moved in, and is another room we are eventually planning to renovate. We would like to replace the flooring in the kitchen at some point, as it does not match the character of the house. We’re also struggling with the open shelf and upper cabinets. I’m 5’-6” and can only reach to the second shelf in the cabinet because they’re so high up. In a big kitchen, open shelves can be a nice touch for display, but in small compact kitchens like ours I would have rather had a typical cabinet setup in lieu of something that was trendy. One strange part of the sale of the house was that the refrigerator was not included, so you will see a different fridge in update posts. We are considering doing minor modifications to the kitchen such as painting the cabinets as a phase 1 approach until we can do a larger renovation, but more on that later.

Second Floor

We have five rooms on the second floor. The first room pictured is our guest room. We love these big windows and the original mantel, tile and fireplace covers. None of the fireplaces on this floor are functional, either, but we’re alright with that because we have curious pups. Around this fireplace, you can see there is no baseboard, which is a project on my list. The two volumes on either side of the mantel were built out for HVAC runs at some point, but the baseboard in other parts of the house that comes very close to matching the original was never installed here. Instead, we have some lonely quarter round.

The next room you will see is Nick’s bike room, with the same lack of trim issue in the corner. Nick has two hobbies; photography and cycling. He races criteriums (crits) and also does road races. He’s on the bike trainer most mornings by 6am, so it was in the best interest of our relationship that he have a dedicated space for his workouts, his bikes and his gear. Both Nick and my dad can tell you some stories about trying to wake me up in the morning - I can be quite a bear.

Next you will see our guest bathroom, which is another space remodeled just before we bought the house. We found out that whomever remodeled this space literally plastered over what looks like it could have been original tile on all the walls. Someday we may tackle this space, but it’s not super high on the priority list at the moment.

The last spaces you will see are our master bedroom and bathroom (well, a glimpse of it anyway). We have one big project in this room, which is to expand the closet space by taking up the whole guest bedroom closet. While we realize that officially we won’t be able to count the guest bedroom as a bedroom (you need a window and a closet), we could add one back if we ever decided to sell. We’re going to figure out another solution for guest clothes storage to make sure we have accommodations for hanging clothes- we will likely use our valet night stand in there. We don’t have much storage space in the house, so we’re willing to sacrifice a bit to get some efficient storage where it counts.

We have a couple other projects we want to tackle in our room. One will be a simple project - we want to stain the mantel so it matches the other woodwork throughout the house instead of having this red tone. The next project is a bit complicated. This next statement may be controversial to some, but I loathe this barn door every day of my life. The veneer on this thing is horrendous, not to mention it does not fit the house at all. Wyatt may have also broken the bottom track glide - I want to think he’s helping me build a case, but in all honesty he’s just adorably clumsy. I’m going to have to be patient and wait this one out because there’s no viable quick solution other than not having a door on the bathroom. I love a pocket door, but we can’t install one in this application because our HVAC supply is in the would-be footprint. We will eventually renovate this bathroom as well, but again it is low on the priority list at the moment. Baby steps and small projects will come first.

third Floor

From the landing to the third floor, we have four rooms. Luckily, the carpet is all brand new up here. This larger room that faces the front of the house is a guest room with a small ensuite bathroom (not pictured). It’s also where Nick’s desk and photography gear has settled in. We love these four windows that look out over the street. We’ve seen some great sunsets through them, and in the autumn the neighbor’s trees are a beautiful, brilliant red.

The second room pictured is my office. There was some water damage to the plaster while the house was listed for sale (hence the fan aimed at the wall in the first photo), but the seller replaced the flashing around the chimneys and all is well.

The third room is our laundry room. We’re grateful the seller made the choice to move the laundry to the third floor because the basement has low ceilings and ductwork. It’s hard for Nick to stand up down there because he’s 6’-0”, let alone my Dad who has to hunch over because he’s 6’-4”. The men who delivered our washer and dryer likely were not as thankful that our laundry was on the top floor, but they maneuvered up there with the machines like champs.

You may have noticed all the trim on this floor is painted white…. well so are all the doors. And wait, there’s more! The door hardware was also painted white (cue face palm), so this floor is one on our list to tackle when we’re ready.