Category Archives: Renovating

For Want Of A Hinge (Part 2)

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Given my failure to find any of the hinges that we were looking for at Addison’s, the next stop in my quest was in Waterloo. The Timeless Material Company is another organization specializing in reclaiming materials from older buildings (everything from office buildings to factories to churches) and houses. Situated in a restored barn from the 1840s, they have multiple levels featuring everything from reclaimed flooring (massive amounts, at a surprisingly reasonable per-square-foot costs) to doors, windows, pews and staircases.

The Timeless Material Company in Waterloo. Salvage for sale.

We had first visited the Timeless Material Company with Gene, when we were on the lookout for a potential bathroom vanity. While they didn’t have any candidates at the time, I had filed them away for future possible uses as we proceeded with the renovations. Stock continues to evolve based upon what comes in. A sister company is involved in on-going demolition products, and what can be recovered is either refurbished or sold ‘as is’.

More types of recovered doors than you can possibly imagine. And the hardware to match (sort of).

Having visited twice, I have to say that it is surprisingly impressive what it is possible to salvage. They have the sign from the old ‘Seagram’s Museum’ (one of the first places that I shopped for alcohol in my mis-spent youth), as well as rocks (boulders, really), beams and floorboards. You can get a weathered, 20″ wide piece of lumber in surprisingly good condition (something that, once again, you won’t find at your local hardware store). Although that single piece of wood will also put a surprisingly hefty whole in your wallet. As an example, I saw single boards that were priced at $120. When someone is specifically looking for a wide board as a specific architectural feature, however, I am sure that there are more than a few people that will happily pay the price.

Gorgeous church windows. And boards of a width that you won’t find today. At prices you won’t believe.

The Timeless Material Company also sells hardware, I’m pleased to report (although a surprising amount of it remains attached to salvaged doors). Antique doorknobs, latch sets, mortise locks and the like are all available, although in less selection than Addison’s. This is also an area that they do less work in terms of refurbishment. Much of the hardware is sold ‘as is’, and a good deal of it is going to need a fair bit of sweat equity to bring up to scratch.

From awesome archways to vintage windows, and everything in between.

Sadly, though, there were no hinges of the period that I was looking for. They again had a vast area of tarnished, rusted and well-painted hinges of various eras, but ‘era’ in this context could be defined as ‘seventies’, ‘eighties’ and ‘nineties’ — all firmly in the twentieth century.

They did helpfully suggest a place in Cobourg that specializes in hardware, and is certainly somewhere that I will have to check out. But sadly, I left the Timeless Material Company empty handed, with no material and only an investment of time to show for it.

For Want Of A Hinge (Part 1)

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One of the fundamental truths of renovating a very old house is that you never know what you are going to find. Normally, that means that you are going to discover things that you wish you hadn’t (and that will ultimately wind up being far more expensive than you wanted to know). In this case, however, gutting the bathroom resulted in a very pleasant surprise.

It turns out that all of the doors on the upper floor of the original house are original, and are hung on their original hinges. Said hinges have since been painted over many, many times now, of course, but they are – once numerous layers of paint are finally removed – absolutely beautiful. Keelan took the set from the bathroom door to see what he could do with them. After torching them, scrubbing them, brushing them and repainting them, they turned into something pretty spectacular.

I didn’t even know they made hinges like this. Now I need to figure out where I can buy them.

Of course a discovery like this leads to the inevitable comment, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could get more of these for the doors downstairs?” So, truth be told, even the positive surprises can wind up getting expensive. The question to be asked in all of this, however, is where one needs to go in order to find such hinges. Certainly they’re not something that you’re going to find in stock in your neighbourhood Home Depot.

There was some question even then about what kind of hinges they were, and whether or not they were in fact antique. The back of the hinges were stamped ‘3 1/2″ x 3 1/2″‘, which even today is a pretty standard size in the way of hinges. The offset pattern for the screws looks pretty similar to modern hinges. And one had to ask the question of whether, back in the late 1800s, they were as organized as all that as to be making standard size hinges, and then taking the time to make impressions in the back specifying just what size they were.

And so, we had a mystery on our hands. One I took it upon myself to attempt to solve as best that I could. Given that there were four doors in the downstairs of the old house (to the basement, to the front hallway, to Dianne’s den and to a new door on my den), the objective was to find four new sets of hinges to match the ones in the rest of the house. And really, how hard could that be?

The first stop in this particular odyssey was Addison’s. For anyone who has renovated anything in Toronto, they will know that Addison’s is the one-stop go-to place for reclaimed hardware of just about any size, shape and colour. It has also been profiled in just about every issue of Toronto Life’s annual “Where To Get Good Stuff Cheap,” for those who are slightly less tuned in. Just off of Sorauren in Toronto’s west end, Addison’s started off as a plumbing company run by Jim Addison, who started off in plumbing and heating in his native Scotland more than 50 years ago.

The entryway to Addison’s. Spectacular, bewildering and awesome in equal measure.

Today, Addison’s is still in the plumbing and heating business – with a three floor warehouse full to the brim of plumbing, electrical, hardware and heating products. They salvage what can be salvaged from houses that are being gutted, renovated or torn down, and sell the results to those who are gutting, renovating or tearing down their houses. If you have a hot water radiator that needs replacing, these are the people to see – they refurbish and restore old ones, as well as selling all the hardware necessary to keep them running.

Radiators are an Addison’s specialty. If you still heat with water, you need these guys.

Addison’s also has an absolutely ridiculous number of plumbing fixtures of every shape, size, purpose, colour and condition imaginable. It is truly spectacular, and organized mostly by category – so there is a reasonable chance of finding what you are looking for, located in proximity to all of the other examples of what you are looking for.

Plumbing fixtures of every size, shape, style, era and usability.

One of the things that they did have, to my surprise and absolute delight, was porcelain door knobs. Apart from replacing the hinges in the lower doors of the house, we are also wanting to replace the door knobs, which are an eclectic mix from several periods, none of which are actually from when the house was built. Briefly distracted, I was able to assemble three full sets of door knobs (at least, I was able to assemble the knobs, if not any of the other hardware I needed). Not knowing what was required in terms of latch sets (and recognizing the bewildering array of latches actually available) I wisely (in my opinion) left that decision for another day.

Door knobs! They have door knobs! Porcelain ones, and many more besides.

After a delightful exploration of a spectacular, if bewildering, array of stuff, we left with our knobs, but sadly not with our hinges. Stock depends upon what is coming out of houses that are being gutted, and most of the hinges they had were slightly worn and tarnished versions of what you would get from your local hardware store. The search would have to continue.

Of Lighting Dangly And Respectable

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As we already noted when buying the rest of the lights for the house, the direction that we were going to take was eluding us. Not only were we not seeing any fixtures that worked for us, but we did not even have a clear picture of what we wanted. Not an auspicious place to being the quest for something that was going to stand out pretty substantially in one of the more important rooms of our house (for what’s more important than food, one might ask? Well, there is that, but the bedroom already has its lights, so we’re good there).

Given that we were sorely lacking in inspiration, we decided that there was nothing for it but to go out and get some. Cartwright Avenue in Toronto is home to a spectacular number of lighting stores (not all of which are, to be clear, spectacular — but there are a very large number of them). Right around the corner from Of Things Past, it’s a pretty handy street to scope out if you want to understand the diversity of what is out there in terms of possible lighting fixtures.

And so, one early December day, Dianne and I set out to explore the landscape and find what inspiration we might. To be sure, there were many, many directions that we could have pursued. We quite early along found one fashioned from antlers, for example. Perfect for the modern hunter (and a sure sell south of the border, no doubt).

The NRA firmly defends your right to use this light fixture.

One store was clearly catering to those seeking to channel their inner Louis XIV, with every light in the place fashioned from crystal. Really, one hasn’t seen bling quite like this in, well… a very long time. And with vajazzling no longer trending, hopefully that is the way things shall remain.

This is what a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ looks like when done with lighting.

There were a couple of fixtures that started to frame a direction for us, however. We were wanting to stay within the traditions of the house, for starters. The dining room is part of the original farmhouse, and one of the most attractive rooms within it. There is beautiful, dark-wood wainscotting on all four walls, a built in china cabinet and a gorgeous plaster ceiling (somewhat marred by what was a pretty hideous chandelier). As the main room for entertaining, it needs to have a certain presence. For a chandelier, then, we wanted something that would stand out and provide good ambient light, but that wouldn’t overwhelm the room.

Alright. We’re getting somewhere, here. Not perfect, but better.

One of the early possibilities was a fixture comprised of ornate armatures finished in an antiqued bronze, with each arm topped by an opaque, antique-finished sconce. It didn’t stand out as an absolute winner, but it was the first piece that we had seen that was at least moving in the right direction.

Nice, but big. Overwhelmingly big. And yes, size matters.

The fixtures got larger and more imposing from there, although they continued to evolve style-wise in a relatively appropriate direction. One light in particular stood out at the very last store on the street as being promising. Perhaps a little too promising, however, as with 15 sconces and a span of more than 39″ it would have been pretty imposing even in a dining room on the scale we were working with.

Small. Far too small. Size still matters. But it apparently can get bigger.

We did find one other piece that would have been workable, even preferable, except that it was – at three sconces – far too small. And that’s when we finally asked the question: “Do these come in any other sizes?” As a matter of fact, they do. Many, many other sizes. You can get six-sconce, nine-sconce, twelve-sconce and an absolutely mammoth, 51″ tall and 49″ wide fifteen-sconce version of the same fixture. The latter would have completely overwhelmed not only the room, but the dining room table as well. But finally we had something that looked like it could work.

From here, our journey took us in a slightly different direction. The previous year, when we were outfitting the condo, I had spotted a store in downtown Toronto specializing in antique lighting fixtures. As we were outfitting a pretty modern condo, we didn’t even bother going in. With a 19th century farmhouse on our hands, however, the requirements were now much different. It was time to pay a call to Turn of the Century Lighting.

While some of the stores on Cartwright Ave had been essays in tacky, the experience of walking into Turn of the Century Lighting was overwhelming. Everywhere you looked, there were beautiful, antique (or at least antique-looking) lighting fixtures of every shape, size and application. In fact, the store specializes in stocking both actual antiques and also reproductions that they make on site. Not only were there viable candidates in the store, but they could quite literally build us a custom fixture to our specifications.

Beautiful, decorative features. Absolutely love the detail in the bowl.

There were several lighting fixtures that we were taken with. Many of these had nothing to do with what we were looking for, in fact, and was leading in to the (very expensive) territory of replacing already serviceable fixtures with newer (well, older) equally serviceable (but really, really gorgeous) fixtures. A slippery slope, that one. Reluctantly wrenching ourselves back to some semblance of sanity, we left with a rough quote of what a custom fixture might require and a need to do some serious pondering.

There are totally serviceable fixtures I want to get rid of so I can buy this light.

Ponder we did. Working to build a custom-spec lighting fixture was very tempting, but likely to completely blow the budget. Going with a larger version (but not the fifteen-sconce version!) of the chandelier we had liked was tempting, and much more cost effective. Particularly cost effective when I was able to source one on-line for less than $700, taxes and shipping included. Custom and period was nice, but at the price differential, not THAT nice.

Sconces? Don’t get me started on sconces. Our Visa card can’t afford sconces like this.

And so, at long last, we have a chandelier for the dining room. But I’d still love to find a home for some of the sconces we saw at Turn of the Century Lighting.

We Have a Window!

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For the past few weeks, we have had a very large hole in the wall of our future kitchen. The masons did their work, creating the space for a large picture window where previously there had only been stone and mortar. And polyurethane insulation. Which, surprisingly, was actually stronger than the mortar, and was doing an excellent job of keeping the wall together even when the masons had other plans.

As fall turned to winter, however, the wisdom of a large and gaping hole became increasingly questionable. Yes, there was a sheet of wood keeping the weather out. And yes, we had duct-taped the gaps (for we are nothing if not enterprising, and duct tape is nothing if not useful). But the outside has been getting colder, and as a result so has the inside.

So we were excited to learn on our last visit that the window had been completed. And delivered. And was to be installed the next day.

Our new kitchen window, delivered and waiting to be installed.

During renovations, rooms do funny things. They get bigger. And then they get smaller. The hole in the wall looked a lot smaller than the nine-feet-wide that it was supposed to be. But the window leaning against the wall in the great room looked a whole lot bigger when examined up-close-and-personally.

Still a little rough around the edges. Installation was a challenge.

The actual installation was apparently a little bit of a challenge. Normally, you pop the window into a ready made frame, wedge in a couple of shims to make it level, drive in a few screws to keep it in place and spray-foam around the edges. In this case, however, the window was going into a stone wall that is more than a foot thick. This required some more framing, some delicate balancing and some innovative thinking on Gene’s part to get everything to go together and stay put.

The view from outside. It looks like it has always been there.

But stay put the window did. Everything is bolted firmly in place. We now have a window in our kitchen. A very, very big window. A window that, now that it is installed, looks for all the world like it belongs. And that is a very good thing indeed.

Knob and Tube and Angst No More…

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As noted earlier in the process of buying Boo Manor, we had a slight issue regarding the presence of knob-and-tube wiring in the house. Not a lot, mind you, and not in any way a safety hazard, but our insurers chose not to see things the same way.

While the wiring for the kitchen was being done, however, we got a welcome surprise: the knob and tube in the dining room is no more. In its place is shiny new wiring, to its own dedicated circuit. And a lot of small holes in our ceiling.

I certainly understand why the knob-and-tube wiring still remained. While the rest of the house was completely rewired during an earlier renovation, including complete replacement of the panel, the dining room represents a bit of a challenge logistically. Three of its four walls were originally exterior; behind the plaster-and-lathe, there is rock. Thick rock. There is no elegant way to get into the walls (elegant, in the context, being code for ‘non-destructive’).

A tell-tale trail of holes where the knob-and-tube used to be.

The ceiling in the dining room, however, has gotten to the point in its life where it needs to be resurfaced. And the chandelier needs to be taken out back and put out of its misery. Both of these facts create an opportunity – if you are going to be refinishing the ceiling, then no one is going to notice a couple of temporary holes along the way.

The end result is that the scary exterior light is no more, and there is new, modern wiring to an actual, modern junction box above the exterior door. There is also now proper wiring to the ceiling fixture in the dining room. And, just because we could, we also have a switched exterior outlet that can be used for Christmas lights. Boo Manor is now 100% knob-and-tube free. But we’ve still switched insurance companies.

Doing a ‘Mike Holmes’ to Boo Manor

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We’ve all seen it. That moment in a Mike Holmes just after he says that he, “really, really doesn’t want to go ripping things apart unless he absolutely has to.” Right before he rips everything apart, generally criticizing the previous contractor along the way.

In the case of Boo Manor, Gene’s son Keelan is our own little Mike Holmes. He and a friend have been busily gutting the various bits of the house that are in the process of being renovated: the kitchen, the guest bathroom and the soon-to-be-wine cellar.

First sign of renovations: the waste disposal bin shows up.

Destruction started with the arrival of a waste disposal bin at the property. After that, it didn’t take long for the drywall to start flying. Those bits that could be reused (the kitchen appliances, cabinets and claw foot bathtub) had already found new homes courtesy of Kijiji (and Keelan’s impressive negotiating skills). Out of the bathroom came the rest of the fixtures, including a hideous 70’s vintage plywood vanity, and a surprising array of different eras of flooring and wallboard. What was left was the bare essence of a room, and an awfully uneven floor. While the overall structure of Boo Manor is surprisingly sound, apparently not all previous renovations have been done to the same exacting standards.

The bathroom, down to the bare walls.

The kitchen floor met largely the same fate. Interestingly, floors seem to have been laid on top of previous floors. A relatively hideous (but apparently fashionable at the time) linoleum peeled back to reveal an equally hideous green tile. It was all coming out.

First there was linoleum. Then there was tile.

Finally, the drywall from the wine cellar needed to be removed anywhere there wasn’t already insulation in place. Building wine cellars is an interesting challenge. In most houses, the goal is a warm house insulated from a cold exterior. This is accomplished by insulation, with vapour barrier between the drywall and insulation to prevent moisture from condensation. For a wine cellar, the process works in reverse: you want a cold room inside of a warm house. Warm walls get lined with vapour barrier, then insulation, and then the wallboard for the interior of the cellar. Or, alternatively, spray-foam the heck out of it the interior and enjoy insulation and vapour barrier combined in one smooshie product.

Out comes the drywall. In goes the insulation.

Removing the drywall, however, also revealed the presence of some previous tenants. Namely, six mice that seemingly engaged in some form of suicide pact and fell into one of the wall cavities. Inevitably, a house this old is going to reveal some surprises. A few of which will unlikely be unexpected pests.

One other unexpected pest that has been discovered is a squirrel that has taken up residence in the eaves above the kitchen. At this point, we have no idea how it is getting in. But there is a hole somewhere, and it is large enough to allow not just squirrel, but also some pretty sizeable walnuts, judging from the detritus that the squirrel has left in its wake. And, given the quantity of walnut remains that the electricians have discovered as they’ve been laying cable for the kitchen lights, this has been going on for a while now. It is a wily squirrel, however; Gene has been trying to set a trap for it, using peanuts as bait. After three attempts, all Gene has to show for it is a small pile of spent peanut shells.

And, beneath it all, there is actually a sub-floor.

All in all, though, Gene and his team have been making awesome progress. The result is that the rooms we are renovating have now been gutted, the mice have been removed and the squirrel is still enjoying a free run of the eaves. From here, the work of rebuilding can commence.

Of Bathrooms And Vanity

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How hard can it be to buy a bathroom vanity? Really? I mean, they make enough of them. Surely we should be able to find one that works for us for the guest bathroom. After all, it’s not even a bathroom we’ll use on a regular basis.

On our previous plumbing expedition, we found pretty much everything we needed for the house — sinks, showers, faucets and spouts — in one simple trip. Except a vanity. We saw one that we thought would work, but the colour sample had gone missing. And we saw several more that would definitively not work given our mental picture of what we wanted the bathroom to look like. We were looking for an old-world, funky bathroom feel, similar to what we had seen in bathrooms of hotel rooms in Paris. Marble, old fashioned knobs and beautiful vanities (often repurposed from other pieces of furniture), combined to form beautiful, functional and unique bathroom spaces.

A modern bathroom vanity. That looks a whole lot like a dining room sideboard.

Sadly, a lot of the vanities we saw looked like sideboards. They were wooden cabinets, with wooden finishes, that looked more appropriate in dining rooms if they didn’t come equipped with sinks. We wanted something a little more unique, a little more colourful and a little more off-the-beaten path. We had enough budget to work with on this particular piece that it could be new construction, but it needed to meet the design spec (as loose as that was) of what we were looking for. So we designed the bathroom around what we wanted, choosing flooring, wainscotting, shower, toilet and fixtures, recognizing that we still needed a vanity to bring it all together.

One very real consideration was actually finding an antique sideboard, refinishing it, re-surfacing it with a stone top and a sink, and calling it done. With this in mind, we began to stop at pretty much every antique store we came across (and in our neck of the woods, there are an awful lot of them) to look for possible vanity candidates.

A dining room sideboard. That could be pressed into use as a bathroom vanity.

One of the first stops, within Toronto, was Of Things Past, a consignment furniture store. We were referred to it by a relative, and had previously found some great lamps for our condo when we first moved to the city. At the time, we had also noticed some amazing furniture pieces that would have been awesome for our future (as yet unpurchased) home, and had resolved to come back when we actually had a home to furnish. The challenge with any store like this is that the stock changes over regularly; you have to keep checking in to see what is there. The result is some of the pieces that we adored last time were gone, and what we were looking for wasn’t really there. One piece that might have worked as a sideboard was actually a full-on china cabinet, with an upper storage cabinet as well; putting it into service would have meant throwing away the top piece in order to get the bottom cabinet. The overall piece was too long for the space we needed, however; we would have to keep looking.

A few days later saw us travelling from Guelph to the house in order to do some measuring. Out of curiosity, I set the GPS to avoid highways in order to see what kind of route it would recommend that didn’t involve the 401. While this initially took us through the heart of Cambridge, after that it guided us to some lovely country roads that led directly to where Drumbo Road (another name for our street) begins. It also took us past Southworks in Cambridge, a unique mall that includes a massive antique market and another consignment furniture store. Trolling through the antique market, we found a great deal of interesting stuff, but no candidate sideboards. The consignment store, however, was another matter.

Now we’re talking. A little too long, sadly, but otherwise awesome.

Next Time Around, like Of Things Past, takes furniture and resells it – meaning that there stock turns over quite quickly. A browse through their offerings found many more gorgeous pieces of furniture, but only one possible candidate for a bathroom vanity. As candidates go, however, there was a lot that was promising. It was a beautiful and sturdy piece that had a good deal of storage, even given that the centre drawers would have to be replaced with plumbing fixtures. And the multi-level top surface was not only unique, but also offered more surface area for guests to put toiletries that would not be imperilled by sinks. Sadly, the cabinet proved to be too long – continuing our trip and completing our measurements revealed that it was a good 8 inches longer than we would ideally like. The search would have to continue.

We finally wound up at an antique market near Dundas, almost entirely by accident. We had been driving around with a sample cabinet board in the trunk for weeks, and had finally decided to return it. From there, we were going to Dundas to do some Christmas shopping. On our way to Dundas we drove past a giant antique shop. One u-turn later, and we were in their driveway to check out their wares. These included a life-sized Elvis (white-suit-era), a Fender electric guitar, several beds, some disturbingly tacky Italianate cabinetry and one very real candidate for a vanity.

And then we found this. Perfect size, bump-out for a sink, and the price is right.

Sizing the cabinet up and down (and measuring it just to be sure) we decided it was a very real candidate. Given that the store was having a sale, and was also open to negotiation, we decided to pursue the matter further. $400 later, the cabinet was being loaded into the back of the SUV as we continued on with our Christmas shopping. We now have a vanity. It will need some work and refinishing, and we still need to find a linen tower that will complement it, but it’s a very good start. Take out a couple of drawers, add a marble-looking stone counter top and a vessel sink, and we have the basis of a bathroom. Even better, we might actually wind up under budget on this particular item. Which would be a good thing, because we seem to be over budget on a few other choices that we’ve made so far. Some balance would be very good.

Whining About Wine

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Boo Manor will have a wine room. This is pretty much a given with any of our houses, of course. In our last house in Edmonton, we went through two different rooms before we were done. We started with a smaller room, built into the north-west corner, that was only controlled by being built into a concrete corner of an underground room in a city in a cold climate. In other words, the temperature varied considerably, which wine doesn’t necessarily like. And our collection grew enough that we eventually started shoving cases in, shutting the door, and pretending that we were organized.

This led us to turning our storage room into our wine room, our wine room into our storage room, and using the storage room as the exhaust point for an actual climate control system. In doing so, we learned a lot about the dynamics of controlling temperature in wine rooms, and how climate control systems work (and don’t work). This subsequently led to us excavating a six-inch duct in our newly poured foundation, and hooking up an exhaust system from the climate control unit to the outside (as all we had done prior to that was turn the ‘storage’ room into a sauna, while cooling the wines not at all).

Building Boo Manor, therefore, we are determined to do it right. This involves finding an appropriate control system to incorporate into a basement that won’t support our previous system, and finding shelving that will work for our new collection. Prior to this, we’ve used Gorm shelving from Ikea, which used to come with shelves that were specifically designed to hold wine bottles. Our previous cellar, which held close to 1,000 bottles, cost all of $400 for the shelving. Now, you need to buy normal Gorm shelves at $5 a pop, and then spend an additional $3.50 on a metal rack that goes on top of the shelf. While this will still get you there from here, it’s starting to drive the costs up considerably.

At the same time, custom-built wine cellars generally scale into the thousands-of-dollars, and I have no interest in going there. I am far less fussed about what my wine cellar looks like than the wine going in it, and if I’m going to spend a few thousand dollars then it’s going to be on wine, not on the shelving. This means that it is necessary to look at some different options, and cost out what makes sense.

I had already selected a vendor for the cooling unit, Rosehill Wine Cellars of Toronto. They had provided the previous cooling unit when we were in Edmonton, and now that we are in Ontario they even count as a local vendor. They also stock any number of other bits of paraphernalia for the wine connoisseur, from wine glasses and decanters (definitely overpriced) to shelving (which ranges from the spectacularly expensive to the surprisingly-not-bad). While talking to them about our plans for a new cooling unit for Boo Manor’s cellar, Dianne noticed that their display racking was configured to hold 700+ bottles in what still constituted a reasonably priced arrangement. And so we think we have found a solution.

The great thing about the shelving in question in that it is infinitely configurable. It is designed to hold normal bottles, small bottles and slightly-larger-than-normal burgundy and champagne bottles (which otherwise defiantly refuse to be stored in any reasonable quantity). Even better, it more efficiently uses space than the Ikea shelving that we have used in the past, meaning that we can get the numbers of bottles we have previously stored into a much smaller space, and (given that our cellar is larger) ultimately have the capacity for a much, much larger number of bottles down the road (which is also no bad thing).

What remains now is to measure and plot, and to figure out a configuration that will work for now and provide expansion possibilities into the future. This also means that Ikea has lost one of its last footholds into our house. After the wine shelving, there is only Billy bookshelves left. And they had better not stop making those. If they do, there will be hell to pay.

Sinks, and Faucets, and Lighting, oh my…

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After yesterday’s shopping blitz of granite, flooring and tile, the focus of today was on plumbing and lighting. The finishing touches to build upon the fundamentals of the previous day, as it were. For these, we ventured a little further east (or, more to the point, not quite as far west) to Kitchener, Dianne’s old stomping grounds.

The first stop was at the plumbing shop, to pick both kitchen and bathroom fixtures. After yesterday’s total oversight in picking granite for the bathroom, we weren’t going to make the same mistake twice. We would be selecting bathroom options as well. In fact, this is where we started. Although for reasons that remain baffling to me, however, I neglected to take any pictures. But rest assured that we have managed to select some awesome choices.

The bathroom is going to have an old world, very traditional feel to it – hence the marble tile options that we began with yesterday. On the drive out to Kitchener, Dianne and I built on this idea – the concept is a traditional bathroom vanity, of the sort that might have started out life as a sideboard or cabinet. It could be a new vanity, or could even be a refinished antique. Top with a marble undercount sink, and paint a funky rich colour (a deep, antique blue, perhaps) and call it done. Which leads to some pretty traditional taps and faucets as well. Fortunately, Grohe makes a pretty decent line of traditional-looking faucets that will work pretty awesomely in both the sink and the bathtub. Extend those throughout, and we still need to find a vanity and an appropriate slab of granite, but the essentials are in place.

As far as the kitchen goes, decisions were equally straightforward. Dianne saw and immediately fell in love with a white, porcelain fireclay farmhouse sink. Despite looking at a number of other potential sinks, ranging from stainless steel to cast iron, she was not to be swayed. Add a traditional-looking faucet, and we pretty much had a kitchen finalized. And so, plumbing dispatched in relative short order, it was on to lighting.

Lights are, no doubt, going to be a different story. We have several fixtures to buy, in some instances for rooms that we haven’t done a lot of planning and design for. We need pendant lights for the kitchen, sconces for the bathroom, a new chandelier for the dining room and also a light for what will become my den (it used to be the formal parlour of the house, and has a horrid 1970’s style bedroom flying saucer light in it currently.

We started at Urban Lights in Kitchener, a cool little store in a strip mall on the east end of Victoria avenue. Much of their selection is fairly modern and contemporary, so there was an initial question of how much we were going to find for the house. For most of the house, we are looking for more traditional pieces – or at least pieces with a traditional feel.

We started with the pendant lights for the kitchen. Urban Lights has a line of low voltage pendants that come in a wide variety of colours and shapes, from Wilmette Lighting. They take the traditional idea of a low voltage bendy track and ramp it up several notches in terms of style and flexibility. We considered a variety of shapes and styles, but didn’t quite get the right colour or the right style, until Gene discovered an awesome Victorian-style pendant in a corner (called, coincidentally enough, a Mini Victorian Pendant). These will hang either side of the range hood over the island, providing task lighting while cooking.

For the kitchen – a nice, classy Victorian pendant

For the bathroom, we wanted something simple in a sconce, that would again provide a traditional feel that would accent the marble tile and chrome taps that we had already selected. While we looked at some more ornate sconces, including some in an antique finish, and others with much busier designs. We finally selected a plain, simple sconce in a chrome-like nickel finish that match wonderfully with the options we have already picked up.

For the bathroom – a simple, clean, bright sconce

My den was more of a challenge. My design spec, in all humorousness, was ‘dangly but manly’ (take that as you will). I wanted something chandelier-like and with some substance, but that wasn’t frou-frou. Urban Lights definitely had some options, including some Restoration Hardware-ish lights that wouldn’t look out of place in the lair of a super hero who spent way too much time watching Home & Garden TV. Truth be told, however, these were a little too imposing for what I was hoping to find.

Designed to appeal to those with a taste for the industrial steampunk look…

What I did find, though, was a beautiful hanging light in a bronze finish. It has beautiful, old-looking dimpled glass and a nice clean finish that, paired with an Edison bulb, looks spectacular. And not too out of place with the plans for the rest of the den.

The ultimate choice – manly and dangly, but respectable

One store later, and we have kitchen pendants, bath sconces and a manly-but-dangly light for the den. What still remains is the chandelier for the dining room. Nothing really stood out for us today, but we were dealing with a smaller collection, we haven’t really developed a clear picture of what we want, and we have time on our side. So that will be a project for a different day.

In two days, though, we have picked the majority of the pieces that we need – granite for the kitchen, flooring and tile throughout, lighting for most of the rooms and plumbing for all of the rooms. What remains is granite for the bathroom, an appropriately funky vanity and a chandelier for the dining room. Which simply means we have to go shopping again.

We Were Floored (Tiled, Too…)

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Having decided on the granite for the kitchen this morning, this afternoon it was about flooring and tiles. After a lovely lunch at the Katana Kafe (not responsible for the naming, but it is a wholly funky little restaurant right on the edge of London airport; the window looks out on the apron and both runways) we headed to Woodstock.

In our last house, we had tile in the kitchen (and therefore also the dining room, hallway and back entrance, it being all open concept). While easy to clean and durable, it is awfully hard and unforgiving (on wine glasses, as well as on feet). This time around, Dianne was proposing hardwood in the kitchen. While that might sound at first blush unusual (I know I did a double take), apparently it is more and more common to see hardwood throughout the house, including the kitchen. It is warmer, more forgiving and for the most part just as easy to maintain.

In Boo Manor, we already have a great deal of hardwood. In fact, at last count, we have at least five different shades and styles of wood, and that’s just on the main floor. The dining room alone has wood of three different colours – from red to brown – and the great room and new addition has clear maple throughout. So part of the challenge was finding yet another wood floor colour and style that would be appropriate, not clash and tie together maple at one end of the kitchen with century-old oak at the other. How hard can that be?

We found our floor just lying underfoot. Literally.

As it turned out, it wasn’t hard at all. In fact, the answer was lying under our feet the minute we walked into the flooring store. And I mean that quite literally. There was a sampling of an engineered hardwood that was absolutely perfect – wide slabs, oak and hand-scraped for a natural, old-wood feel. The boards are beautiful, showing up grain and knots, with undulations where they have been ‘shaped’. But, because they are engineered, they are virtually impermeable to scratches, moisture and damage – which is pretty much exactly what you want in a kitchen. Or in a basement, for that matter. Because we liked the wood so much, we’re using it there too. So five minutes in, we’ve selected the majority of our flooring. Like I said, keep up.

Of course, there is still tiling for the kitchen and flooring for the guest bathroom, which we are also tackling during this project. For the kitchen, we wanted something that would be traditional, clean and appropriate to an 1800s farmhouse kitchen. What we found, relatively quickly, was a really nice subway tile that had some beautiful accent tiles – a plain pencil tile, as well as a more ornate pencil tile. While originally drawn to the white version, holding the tile up to the sample of Bora Bora that we had said that the grey tiles were the way to go – the detailing on the ornate pencil tile matches the green of the Bora Bora granite perfectly, and the grey is a nice, clean accent.

Tiles for the kitchen. A simple subway tile, and a lovely accent.

From there, it was a quick move to paint colours, along with a change to cabinet colours. One of the nice things about custom cabinets is that you can order them in quite literally any colour you want. And so we are going with a light grey-green upper, and a slightly darker grey-green on the lower cabinets and on the island, that perfectly pick up the colour of the granite and the tile backsplash. This means that, a half-day in, we’ve pretty much got a kitchen design. Pretty good work, if you ask me.

Take one Bora Bora granite sample. Add Benjamin Moore swatch book. Mix liberally.

That led us to the bathroom. This led us to our first realization – which is that we never quite got around to picking a granite for the guest bathroom. We were so focussed on the kitchen that the idea of choosing stone for the bathroom slipped our collective minds. Not to be deterred, we decided to start with tiles and see where we went from there. Again, we were looking for something traditional and classic. Gene found a gorgeous hexagonal marble tile, that also had a matching subway tile and pencil and chair rail features. While we had originally considered it as an option for the kitchen, it quickly became our go-to choice for the bathroom.

Tile for the guest bathroom. Traditional hexagon floor, and awesome wainscotting options!

The design should be beautifully classic. The hexagonal tile will be the floor. We are also going to do tile wainscotting up the wall – the pencil tile will be at counter height, with subway tile below that. Above the pencil tile will be one more row of subway tile for a backsplash, topped by the chair rail. Beautifully traditional and European; inspired by some of the bathrooms that Dianne and I have adored while staying in Paris. Now we need to find a nice, clean piece of marble or granite to go with it – which will mean another visit to Alberto once he finds us our Bora Bora.

All in all, a good day. We found our granite for the kitchen, chose our flooring for most of the renovation, and found tile for the kitchen and bathroom. We returned to Boo Manor to check out our samples up close and in person, and by five-o-clock were dropping Gene off at his house. And joining him and Jenni for a welcome glass of wine or two to celebrate a day of decisiveness – while anticipating our choices for the next day.