With as much demolition and construction as we’ve done since moving here four years ago, we haven’t had much time (or money!) for furniture shopping. Thus, many of our rooms are fairly empty. So when my mother-in-law announced that she was planning to downsize and asked if there was anything at her place we might be interested in, I didn’t hesitate to ask about her wicker furniture.

Family folklore has it that when Julio’s great-grandparents bought their summer cottage in 1920, the previous owners left behind a five piece set of wicker furniture.  This same wicker suite has been passed down through several generations. In fact, our daughters will be the fifth generation of kids to claim the petite rocking chair as their own. Unfortunately, back in the the 1970s, the third generation painted everything shamrock green.  (Pleased to meet you - I’m Paddy O’Furniture!  Sorry - couldn’t resist!)

1920 wicker wearing 1970s paint

Julio couldn’t understand my interest, mostly because he had a hard time seeing past the bright green paint.  But I knew it would be a lovely addition to our home.  First of all, it’s roughly the same age as our house, and I really loved the idea of having something of the same vintage.  Secondly, the scale is absolutely perfect.  While our house is roomy by bungalow standards, most modern furniture is too large to fit comfortably in our living room, but this wicker set fits as if it was made for the room. Lastly, I’ve always loved the interior photographs I’ve seen of Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman Farms, in part because of the unexpected juxtaposition of curvy wicker chairs and settees against Stickley’s masculine, rectilinear wooden furniture.  Beautiful!

Of course, Stickely’s wicker was natural wicker, and our recent acquisition was bright green.  Since you can’t easily strip wicker, we decided to go with a deep espresso colored paint that seemed at home with our dark tables and woodwork.  Next on out list will be finding an upholsterer who can recover the cushions in something more bungalow-appropriate, but for the time being I suppose I will have to live with the existing cushions.  Eventually I would also love to add a small tabouret table next to the large rocker, and an area rug to serve as a room anchor (Oak Park Home and Hardware has a few drool-worthy contenders) but since we need a few slightly more important items before we can purchase a rug (new roof, anyone?) the rug won’t be joining the family any time soon.

And so, without further ado, here are some snaps I took of our recently painted family heirlooms. (Julio, who is quite particular about photography asked me to specify that I took these photos, so that if you find them less than technically flawless, you won’t blame him!)

Living room as viewed from the front entry

Wicker furniture - close-up view

Living room - alternate view

We can never resist entering a contest (a few of you may remember our infamous Blair Witch/Home Depot video) so when we read that Houseblogs.net was sponsoring a sweepstakes in partnership with True Value we, of course, had to enter.

We’ve done so many DIY projects here at Bungalow Insanity, it’s hard to choose a favorite, but one which stands out among many is our kitchen remodel. Basically, we designed the entire kitchen around four $10 salvaged windows. Continue Reading »

A year ago today marked my the end of my fifth week of “house arrest” (otherwise known as bed rest.)

Chloe, the older of our two daughters, was born prematurely and spent roughly six weeks in the hospital. So last May, when baby number two threatened to make an appearance two months ahead of schedule, I was advised to stay off my feet for SIX LONG WEEKS.

Being confined to bed rest in your third trimester is excruciating. Not in terms of physical discomfort (although there is a bit of that.) Rather, it’s the psychological distress that’s unbearable. Not only are you steeped in worry over your unborn child, but you’re locked in this perverse battle of wanting - or perhaps more accurately, NEEDING - to give in to the all-consuming “nesting instinct,” yet you know that your baby’s health depends on ignoring that desire/need. Ultimately, you end up glued to the couch for a month and a half, obsessing about everything that isn’t getting done. Continue Reading »

In case you didn’t notice, we added a new page at the top, “BEFORE/AFTER,” which gives a quick highlight of the projects we’ve completed (or nearly completed, to be more truthful).

Our house has a 2nd stairwell to the upstairs, which we think is pretty unusual in a house of this size (approx 2000′ sq. ft., not including the basement). However, it was long ago sealed up to create enough floor space for an additional bedroom in the upstairs. We have also opted to keep the extra square footage, because we need two bedrooms upstairs and like being able to use the stairway as an extra closet. We are seriously closet-deficient in this house, so we take anything we can get!

This stairway is also the only available and feasible location for running our new plumbing for the future 1/2 bath upstairs. We’ll be running the supply and drain lines over on the right hand side of the stairwell. The bottom two treads have been removed and the holes cut into the basement, but we haven’t taken an pictures yet. These “before” pictures will have to do for now. We’ll add more soon if we have time to work on it tomorrow…

While gutting the main room upstairs, we unearthed this very strange light fixture. It had 24 little bulbs arranged in a rectangle. It had been plastered over at some point, so we never knew that it was there. And, needless to say given our other experiences in the house, it was still connected to live wires. Before this point, we had already given up on the houses’ wiring and had made the decision to rewire the whole thing. While it took a lot of time, rewiring was one of the best decisions we made during this project.

If anyone has ever seen a fixture like this or knows anything about it, we’d be interested in hearing from you. Thanks.

As is sometimes found in old houses, we had a sink that was shared between two upstairs bedroom.  We removed it, because we planned to build a 1/2 bath, it was in an odd place and the pipes ran right through our downstairs hallway.

Taking it out was a messy job, because the drain pipe had rusted so badly that it had completely sealed itself at the bottom.  Julio had to drill a series of holes in pipe and try to catch the disgusting water (if it could still be classified as such) in a bucket.  That’s easier said than done when a liquid is shooting out in a high powered stream, so most of it ended up on him.  We still have the sink but haven’t decided what to do with it.  While we love the style, the separate hot/cold faucets are the worst feature of old sinks.

A shot of the header that framed the dropped ceiling area in the back of our kitchen. Once we demo’d the kitchen, we discovered that the nook area used to be a back porch that was pulled into the kitchen in the 60’s. Since we wanted a ceiling taller than 7′, we opened the area up to give full ceiling height through the entire kitchen.

This is how our kitchen looked when we bought the house. Didn’t go to well with the 1911 house, although it definitely had its own brand of charm…

The football field size cover over our back patio.  It is a fantastic thing to have in a rainy climate!