While I'm here, I thought I would just mention that I recently got a new computer. While this is absolutely WONDERFUL, and long overdue (my last one was from 2007 and could barely run Firefox anymore), it also means that I don't have any of my files organized, and I need to re-download and install several programs. So far I don't have any of my photo editing software installed yet, and I'm going back and forth between my old and new PC (the old one is temporarily set up in the kitchen). It's also the holidays, so I've been busy with a dinner party, buying gifts, and cleaning.
I will have a Christmas post (just a quick one), and several more Farmhouse posts. I also have more local houses to post about, and at least half a dozen clock related posts for my clock blog.
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Cornwall Homes - Updates From the Neighbourhood (Part 1)
I currently have about a dozen folders of photos to write about on the blog and I've been falling behind on the majority of them because they are either a jumble of mixed-up photos, or the renovations are only partially done on the homes in question. Some of the houses are well under way, while others have been dragging, or the owners ran out of money or patience on their projects (which I know is the case for one of these homes).
I thought I would start with updates on a very grand home that is just a few blocks away. This is the Rectory for St. Columban's Church.
I was walking by the house on my way home from the bank, and I noticed a recent "renovation" that had been done on the house. Apparently sometime not too long ago, they went and replaced all the lattice work on the wrap-around veranda. It looked OK at first glance, but something was nagging me about it and I knew that they went and changed something about it, and that it didn't "look right".
Here's the current (replaced) lattice work (which hasn't been painted yet):
The house is an extremely ornate Gothic building (and I'll bet that it once had a slate roof as well). This huge plain expanse of lattice just doesn't look good. When I got home and dug up some old photos, I immediately saw what was missing:
The lattice used to have large Tudor style strap "beams" running in a pattern across it. While this is a fairly small and simple detail, it made the lattice appear more "anchored" and it had the appearance of being load bearing. It's possible they might add this detail back in before painting, but I doubt it. :(
Unfortunately the sad news doesn't end there. The second bit of this post is regarding the loss of 3 mature trees at the other end of the block.
During the reconstruction of the sewers, water lines, road, and sidewalks on my street, I noticed several trees marked with an "X".
One of these (the farthest down) wasn't too large, but the other two were massive maples.
Unfortunately I never got better shots than the ones above. The trees were chopped down and gone before I knew it. I have NO IDEA why they were removed, since they did not appear to be in the way of the sidewalks or sewer lines.
This entire corner of the street now looks incredibly bare. The red/white house had the smaller tree while the two large ones stood on the property with the large Victorian (which is hacked-up into 4 or 5 apartments).
More soon!
I thought I would start with updates on a very grand home that is just a few blocks away. This is the Rectory for St. Columban's Church.
I was walking by the house on my way home from the bank, and I noticed a recent "renovation" that had been done on the house. Apparently sometime not too long ago, they went and replaced all the lattice work on the wrap-around veranda. It looked OK at first glance, but something was nagging me about it and I knew that they went and changed something about it, and that it didn't "look right".
Here's the current (replaced) lattice work (which hasn't been painted yet):
The house is an extremely ornate Gothic building (and I'll bet that it once had a slate roof as well). This huge plain expanse of lattice just doesn't look good. When I got home and dug up some old photos, I immediately saw what was missing:
The lattice used to have large Tudor style strap "beams" running in a pattern across it. While this is a fairly small and simple detail, it made the lattice appear more "anchored" and it had the appearance of being load bearing. It's possible they might add this detail back in before painting, but I doubt it. :(
Unfortunately the sad news doesn't end there. The second bit of this post is regarding the loss of 3 mature trees at the other end of the block.
During the reconstruction of the sewers, water lines, road, and sidewalks on my street, I noticed several trees marked with an "X".
One of these (the farthest down) wasn't too large, but the other two were massive maples.
Unfortunately I never got better shots than the ones above. The trees were chopped down and gone before I knew it. I have NO IDEA why they were removed, since they did not appear to be in the way of the sidewalks or sewer lines.
This entire corner of the street now looks incredibly bare. The red/white house had the smaller tree while the two large ones stood on the property with the large Victorian (which is hacked-up into 4 or 5 apartments).
More soon!
Saturday, August 24, 2013
News! Tons of Neat New Stuff
Alright, lots of interesting and exciting things to discuss today! I have over 75 new photos to share!
Upholstery News:
First, I started a new blog for all the upholstery. There's just too many interesting and beautiful pieces that we've been working on, and I don't want to flood my "old house blog" with all the upholstery photos, so that's all being moved to the new blog "Lefebvre's Upholstery". That blog will be updated frequently with some of the better/bigger projects we're working on (we don't bother to post, or even photograph, the more mundane items like vinyl boat seats and chair repairs). I hope all of you who find upholstery to be fascinating, or who just love to see some rather dramatic "before and After" photos will enjoy following that blog. You can find it here:
Lefebvre's Upholstery Blog
I currently have 54 new upholstery photos that will be posted shortly, plus the reposts of the ones I already showed on this blog. If there isn't anything up on the blog yet, just be patient with me, and check back tomorrow.
Foursquare News:
I bought some furniture!
Well, that's a bit of an understatement since I walked away with 14 pieces of furniture, consisting of an entire matched 12 piece dining room set in mahogany, plus two freebies: a leather top (mahogany) coffee table, and an upholstered (beaten-up and falling apart) Eastlake style Victorian chair.
I saw the set advertised locally through Kijiji, and it only had 4 small photos, with a 500$ asking price. I could see one of the chairs poking out from the edge of a photo, and the table with 8 chairs seemed worth the asking price on their own. The set also came with a glass-door china hutch, a large sideboard, and another cabinet.
I contacted the seller (who was conveniently 2 blocks away on 4th street - note: I'm on 5th), and made plans to have a look at the set on Thursday night. I was very excited when I saw it, and that's when the owner also offered me the coffee table and Victorian chair "free if you want them". He also said he could deliver it (SWEET!!!)
I wanted to post about it on Thursday night or Friday, but I didn't want to jinx anything and I waited until today.
I spent all morning and part of Friday cleaning up all the clutter and junk around the house and in the garage to make the place look half decent, and to clear some room. This morning I moved my old chairs to the basement, and dismantled the crappy old table I had.
Dining Room ready for the new arrivals!
The chairs (before taking them inside from the garage):
Ta-Dah!
Hutch:
I started to really look over the set, and I noticed quite a few nice details. One of the signs of a high-end set is that the back legs on the larger pieces (sideboard, hutch, etc) are carved/turned. Many of the more basic sets usually have plain back legs.
Next, the drawers. Wow. Not only are they well made, but this is the first time I've seen internal drawers that are made with 1/4 sawn White Oak. For those who don't know, quarter sawn lumber is when the wood is cut radially through the tree (think pie wedges). This means that the grain running through the board is running perpendicular to the board (stripes as opposed to curved lines when you look at the end of a board). This causes a lot of waste, but the wood is more stable, less likely to warp, and it's also the only way to see those beautiful "tiger stripes" that are present in all pieces of Oak. Regular "flat sawn" wood will have shallow curves in the wood grain, and they're more likely to cup/warp, but it's much cheaper and easier to do. Almost all the solid wood furniture you'll see today is flat sawn.
Then there's the dovetails. Most people know that dovetails are good, and a lot of older stuff will have them (machine cut or hand cut are equally good). These drawers not only have dovetails at the front...
But also at the back! This is something that you will RARELY see. NONE of my other antiques have this with the exception of my little mahogany night stand (which has just one drawer).
When I had first seen the set I thought it was all Walnut (which is very typical for this style of 1920s set) but when I looked at it in the light, I could see that it's mahogany. All of the legs and mouldings are solid mahogany, and the sides/tops are mahogany veneer.
With all these signs of quality, I was incredibly surprised to find that there were absolutely NO markings on the pieces except for pencilled numbers. Some of the chairs are numbered "9310" and the smaller cabinet is numbered "9312".
From what I can tell, it says "9312 Bottom" "Nov 5 1945" "RossKerr" and something along the lines of: "Like is nany Chuck" (?) These were the only markings I could find.
I had thought that the pink and gold-green fabric on the seats was original, but one of the torn ones proved otherwise.
The fabric is actually dark pinkish red, with the green added afterwards. In some of the excessively worn-out places, the bright pink shows through a lot. The green stripes almost look like ribbons. It's quite an interesting/nice fabric and it goes well with the set.
Here's that other piece. I don't have room for this one, so it will be used in another room.
Now, my final thoughts on the set: It's kind of big. I was surprised how much space the table takes up with the chairs. I will have to rearrange the pieces, because currently the sideboard is so deep on that side that I can't even open a drawer half way, or pull-out a chair properly. The table is off-centre from the room by 4" (because the window and light fixture are 4" off) so it might work better on the opposite side (since I'll gain that 4"). Worst case scenario is that I have to "get rid of" (move to another room) the sideboard. I don't really understand why it's so deep in the first place. It's about 21" deep, while the hutch is only 17" deep.
Then there's the freebies. The chair has definitely seen better days.
The fabrics don't even match, and the upholstery job on the seat is just terrible. Look at all the creases and bunching on the right corner, and on the back left side.
Pierre tells me that the greenish gold velvet isn't original because it's textured velvet.
Note the crack in the stretcher below. The whole chair is rickety and falling apart. The finish isn't the best either, but it has potential to be really nice. The casters have brass wheels.
The coffee table. This one I'm not too fussy about, but I love the cute little casters with the square tips. The table looks like solid mahogany (no veneers), and the top might be leather. It looks and feels like it's fake, but there's a deep gouge in it at one end, and it seems fuzzy, so it could be real leather.
Note broken corner moulding.
The finish on it is in horrible shape (both the wood, and the thick varnish coating over the leather).
That's it for now, but I also had some houses/buildings I'll be posting soon.
Upholstery News:
First, I started a new blog for all the upholstery. There's just too many interesting and beautiful pieces that we've been working on, and I don't want to flood my "old house blog" with all the upholstery photos, so that's all being moved to the new blog "Lefebvre's Upholstery". That blog will be updated frequently with some of the better/bigger projects we're working on (we don't bother to post, or even photograph, the more mundane items like vinyl boat seats and chair repairs). I hope all of you who find upholstery to be fascinating, or who just love to see some rather dramatic "before and After" photos will enjoy following that blog. You can find it here:
Lefebvre's Upholstery Blog
I currently have 54 new upholstery photos that will be posted shortly, plus the reposts of the ones I already showed on this blog. If there isn't anything up on the blog yet, just be patient with me, and check back tomorrow.
Foursquare News:
I bought some furniture!
Well, that's a bit of an understatement since I walked away with 14 pieces of furniture, consisting of an entire matched 12 piece dining room set in mahogany, plus two freebies: a leather top (mahogany) coffee table, and an upholstered (beaten-up and falling apart) Eastlake style Victorian chair.
I saw the set advertised locally through Kijiji, and it only had 4 small photos, with a 500$ asking price. I could see one of the chairs poking out from the edge of a photo, and the table with 8 chairs seemed worth the asking price on their own. The set also came with a glass-door china hutch, a large sideboard, and another cabinet.
I contacted the seller (who was conveniently 2 blocks away on 4th street - note: I'm on 5th), and made plans to have a look at the set on Thursday night. I was very excited when I saw it, and that's when the owner also offered me the coffee table and Victorian chair "free if you want them". He also said he could deliver it (SWEET!!!)
I wanted to post about it on Thursday night or Friday, but I didn't want to jinx anything and I waited until today.
I spent all morning and part of Friday cleaning up all the clutter and junk around the house and in the garage to make the place look half decent, and to clear some room. This morning I moved my old chairs to the basement, and dismantled the crappy old table I had.
Dining Room ready for the new arrivals!
The chairs (before taking them inside from the garage):
Ta-Dah!
Hutch:
I started to really look over the set, and I noticed quite a few nice details. One of the signs of a high-end set is that the back legs on the larger pieces (sideboard, hutch, etc) are carved/turned. Many of the more basic sets usually have plain back legs.
Next, the drawers. Wow. Not only are they well made, but this is the first time I've seen internal drawers that are made with 1/4 sawn White Oak. For those who don't know, quarter sawn lumber is when the wood is cut radially through the tree (think pie wedges). This means that the grain running through the board is running perpendicular to the board (stripes as opposed to curved lines when you look at the end of a board). This causes a lot of waste, but the wood is more stable, less likely to warp, and it's also the only way to see those beautiful "tiger stripes" that are present in all pieces of Oak. Regular "flat sawn" wood will have shallow curves in the wood grain, and they're more likely to cup/warp, but it's much cheaper and easier to do. Almost all the solid wood furniture you'll see today is flat sawn.
Then there's the dovetails. Most people know that dovetails are good, and a lot of older stuff will have them (machine cut or hand cut are equally good). These drawers not only have dovetails at the front...
But also at the back! This is something that you will RARELY see. NONE of my other antiques have this with the exception of my little mahogany night stand (which has just one drawer).
When I had first seen the set I thought it was all Walnut (which is very typical for this style of 1920s set) but when I looked at it in the light, I could see that it's mahogany. All of the legs and mouldings are solid mahogany, and the sides/tops are mahogany veneer.
With all these signs of quality, I was incredibly surprised to find that there were absolutely NO markings on the pieces except for pencilled numbers. Some of the chairs are numbered "9310" and the smaller cabinet is numbered "9312".
From what I can tell, it says "9312 Bottom" "Nov 5 1945" "RossKerr" and something along the lines of: "Like is nany Chuck" (?) These were the only markings I could find.
I had thought that the pink and gold-green fabric on the seats was original, but one of the torn ones proved otherwise.
The fabric is actually dark pinkish red, with the green added afterwards. In some of the excessively worn-out places, the bright pink shows through a lot. The green stripes almost look like ribbons. It's quite an interesting/nice fabric and it goes well with the set.
Here's that other piece. I don't have room for this one, so it will be used in another room.
Now, my final thoughts on the set: It's kind of big. I was surprised how much space the table takes up with the chairs. I will have to rearrange the pieces, because currently the sideboard is so deep on that side that I can't even open a drawer half way, or pull-out a chair properly. The table is off-centre from the room by 4" (because the window and light fixture are 4" off) so it might work better on the opposite side (since I'll gain that 4"). Worst case scenario is that I have to "get rid of" (move to another room) the sideboard. I don't really understand why it's so deep in the first place. It's about 21" deep, while the hutch is only 17" deep.
Then there's the freebies. The chair has definitely seen better days.
The fabrics don't even match, and the upholstery job on the seat is just terrible. Look at all the creases and bunching on the right corner, and on the back left side.
Pierre tells me that the greenish gold velvet isn't original because it's textured velvet.
Note the crack in the stretcher below. The whole chair is rickety and falling apart. The finish isn't the best either, but it has potential to be really nice. The casters have brass wheels.
The coffee table. This one I'm not too fussy about, but I love the cute little casters with the square tips. The table looks like solid mahogany (no veneers), and the top might be leather. It looks and feels like it's fake, but there's a deep gouge in it at one end, and it seems fuzzy, so it could be real leather.
Note broken corner moulding.
The finish on it is in horrible shape (both the wood, and the thick varnish coating over the leather).
That's it for now, but I also had some houses/buildings I'll be posting soon.
Monday, July 16, 2012
It's Late...
Ok this is just a quick heads-up that I'll be making an update post shortly (maybe tomorrow). I got a bunch more work done on the vanity last Friday, and a bit today, so I have photos coming soon. But for now, it's late and I'm headed to bed. I seem to have so little free time these days... I also worked a bit in the garage, since I want to build a large storage cabinet.
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