A tiny but terrific WC- Foxcroft Farm Before and After

While we worked on the front entry, Youngest and I also attacked the 1/2 bath in the front hall. 

It seemed like the natural choice, as we had the snug redone, and the keeping room redone, but the thing that connected those two was the entry and powder room, and they were hollering for help! 

This little wash closet had little to recommend it, other than it was here. It did not even have toilet paper, and presumably folks had been flushing tissues? 

Firstly, getting in to the room was complicated, as the door did not open completely, but instead ran into the vanity on the way. 

The next feature generally noted was the choice of wallcovering that featured "country style outhouses". This border mid-wall had cheery sayings about outhouses. No one that ever actually HAD to use an outhouse would endorse these sentiments. 

"Memories to keep Me Company"

"That Dear Old Country Landmark"

This border was complimented by both a plaid and a sepia faded floral. I found the combination unfortunate.

The floor was mostly inoffensive, a tile printed with pictures of... tile? in an orange/pink tone. 

When one went to wash up and check teeth, that is when you would realize the mirror- a plastic medicine cabinet- was placed so low, as to show only torso. And, to be in front of the sink you definitely had to close the door.  Should you turn on the ventilation fan, you were greeted by the sone level of a low flying aircraft. So, that needs to be replaced too. One shouldn't need ear protection in the bathroom. 

The room was small, windowless, dark, cramped and down in the dumps... 

To liven it up a bit, we left a Sharpie on the obstructive vanity to allow anyone to offer up some graffiti. 

"Peeing and Peeling" was also not discouraged- and patches of wallpaper made it to the bin. 

I think Youngest relished the removal of this wallpaper, and I let him have at it, as there is only room for one at a time in this space. 

Stripping out the room- toilet, light fixture- it was dated, and wildly too low, taking out the vanity and the medicine cabinet gave us the blank canvas I was ready to see. 

Unfortunately, I was not ready to see the hole in the wall where the medicine cabinet had been. It had a stud that had been just cut out and tossed back into the wall space. No one had framed any kind of header above to take the weight that stud had once held... and another mystery of "I wonder why".... was solved. In this case, "I wonder why the upstairs hallway (above this room) has a slant in the floor."

It's all good. I was going to rip out the drywall back there anyway to reinforce the wall to hold the sink...more on that later. 

First, let's get out that floor! And, the floor under the floor - vinyl "yellow brick." 

As it happens, I decide what something will look like after I lay down at night, in order to sleep. The next morning, with my cup of tea, I jotted it in my notebook. 

 Every room needs something special. Something that makes it really sing its own tune. For this room it was to be the sink.  And, this was the one I loved. 

It is a 1926 Crane wall mount, cast iron sink with basin taps. A delight. Huz and I found it at Salvagewrights Architectural Antiquities in Orange, VA. The original Crane taps, and the original mounting bracket were all together with the sink. The sink weighs about 70 pounds. Thus the drywall removal to reinforce the framing in the wall to distribute and hold the weight! 

B&A Tub Savers, a local family business did the refinishing on the sink, and it looks marvelous! 

Ferguson Plumbing supply had a great salesman, Seth, that helped me get the plumbing just right- not easy to get these old sinks plumbed correctly. The old taps were much too damaged to be useable, but we could match the style with new reproductions.

And, Mike from Young's Plumbing, Schuyler, VA, patiently replaced all the old plumbing from the wall out to give us a beautiful feature for this room. 

The next thing I felt this room really needed was space. Making a wall mounted sink so the door would open all the way was fantastic, but I also wanted enlarge the room, give it height. One wall is the back of the keeping room chimney, so is brick, and painting that bright gloss white gave the room some textural interest. 

To add to the height, we put in a high wainscot, as one might see in an Arts and Crafts era dining room, leaving the stiles square to play up the length. Adding crown moulding to the ceiling/wall angle also added an illusion of height. 

The last thing I wanted to do in this room to make it special was add a bonus, something you wouldn't see unless you went into the room and then had "wow" to it. 

Here is the sweet little WC. 

 

We installed a travertine stone floor, framed in an antique mirror I have had for ages,  installed the Reese 2-light wall sconce from Mitzi Lighting, added a heavy antique gold mirror from Circa, Charlottesville, and a sweet little glass table from Twice is Nice (2), a local thrift store. 

The special "bonus" is the Hydrangea wallpaper from Rifle Paper in black on the ceiling! I love it.

  

Can you see the "CRANE" on the bottom of the sink? The angle valves and P trap assembly are from Signature Hardware. 

This excellent lighting by Mitzi needs its own photo! You can see it better when it isn't lit. 

The reproduction basin taps are from Kingston Brass. 

 Can a room that is less than 24 square feet be my favorite? Why not? 

Front Entry Friendly. Foxcroft Farm Before and After.

Foxcroft's front entry. These photos were taken the day we closed on the house. Huz knows I am unlikely to leave "as is", so declared the "before" photos should be taken immediately. He's not wrong. It wasn't more than a week or so before I painted the front door! 

This is the view into the snug, I think that "before and after" is the previous blog.

So, the things I liked Day One entering Foxcroft; I love the knocker on the front door. It is brass, and a brilliant big fox head. I like that the door is centered on the house and wide front porch, and has a transom above. The wood floors are a wonderful 9" wide plank. There is also very nice heavy, wide tongue and groove from the chair rail to the floor. 

Things I wanted to change: It is dark, it feels cramped, I am not a fan of carpeted stairs. So, I determined to replace the front door with one incorporating a lot of glass, and open up the stairwell on both sides. Neither one has happened. I am waiting to mix that in to the other bigger changes to the home, post pandemic, when I can have knowledgable, strong people do some of the heavy lifting! 

Youngest and I started the way one does- stripping down to the basics. Steaming and scraping the ceiling stuff off, steaming and peeling the wallpaper- this one had been painted over, and some other treatment that left ridges between the wallpaper seams? 

Working on the stairs, I really appreciate my Little Giant Ladder. It's a lifesaver, and makes working on the ceiling above the stairs possible. 

This phase is just really dirty!

 

The ceilings are best if I take it all the way to dry wall, and retape and mud the seams. 

 All cleaned up and ready to start re-dressing. First up, fixing the ceiling dry wall seams and then coating  a lot of Kilz Primer, pretty much on everything. 

Then, for this space, gallons of WHITE.

One staircase in the house made it a challenge to paint when it also has to handle foot traffic. 

So, I tagged the stairs you could step on, and everyone had to do two at time for a few days. 

Next up was the floor. I wanted to expand the space and make it feel larger, and also make a transition between the original wood floors in the house which are honey colored and the wood floors we just put into the snug, which are darker. So, I painted one of my traditional favorites. Checkerboard on a slant. 

For this treatment, I just measure out my lines and create the 12x12" squares. Then, I free hand the lines. I have a lot of practice with this, so it is easier for me than tape. One coat of Kilz and two coats of white. I top coated with Minwax Clear Satin Polyurethane. It yellowed a lot, but it ends up looking kind of soft and antiqued. 

We replaced the fixture with a gold toleware one. Then I decided the stairs needed something special, a little detail. So in a nod to wonderful architect and designer, Gil Schafer, I created some decorative detail for the skirtboard, or outside stringer.  

I hung a mirror I bought at auction, added the library table I bought in Oklahoma and my collection of family heirloom walking sticks, including two that were my great grandfather's. A few treasured favorites; hand tied rug, original artwork of Affirmed (winner of the 1978 Triple Crown) as a tribute to the racing heritage at Foxcroft Farm, nests from Cowfeathers Farm and Foxcroft Farm, and a lovely hunt whip from a dear friend. 

The entry is now brighter and simply lovely. 

My models came to help beautify. 

Daisy came for a visit too.

 

I'm a front door person. I am a front porch person. I like these things. Now I am happy to have folks find their way to the front! If only I had a walkway.....

It is on the list.

Foxcroft Before and After- "The Snug"

 I don't really watch much television, but I feel as if I am using two different TV themes on this blog post. 

The first is the sensationalizing done by programs such as The Bachelor; "The most shocking season, ever! The biggest reveal to date!" My family thinks this room has had the most satisfying transformation.

The other one is from my mild addiction to the British television programme (spelled in "truebrit"), Escape to the Country. I find it on Youtube. The premise is much like the American program "House Hunters", where the buyers are shown three properties. Only, these are properties in Britain, and they don't have to choose one, and I get to enjoy all the delicious homes shown for sale. I have long been partial to British design- any visitors will be familiar with my well worn, often thread bare seating choices, plenty of muddy boots, dogs, books and always cold house. Except in summer when I have eschewed air conditioning in favor of open windows and fans- in which case my house is, well, hot. (I have pledged to my family to try air conditioning in our new Virginia farm.)

In any case, in Britain, they have different names for the same rooms we have. We have a "Powder Room", or "Half Bath". They have a "Cloak Room". They have "Bathrooms" and "Shower Rooms". We have "Bathrooms" regardless of whether they have a bathtub, a shower or both. We have "Living Rooms", and they have "Reception Rooms."  I gather "reception rooms" are thus named with receiving guests in mind, as are our "living rooms". And what we would call a "Family Room", maybe, is called, in Britain,  "a snug." I love the term, as it conjures up images of snuggling down by the fire, with a good book, a cat on your lap and a dog on your feet. The snug is just for the family, has the crossword puzzle half done, chairs you can sink into and soft lighting. All very "Hygge." 

When we looked at Foxcroft, it was apparent there are a lot of rooms, and the largest of these are designed around entertaining. So, "Reception Rooms." But, there was one smaller room that felt like a "Snug." It has a fireplace and with the door closed would be warm and cozy. But, it is also at the very front of the house! Adjacent to the front door, which would traditionally make it a reception room, or a parlor. My desire for this house is to give it a deeper sense of history, so when you are here, the exact time of construction is not obvious. So, in this room, I wanted to make it a "snug parlor". That is make it inviting and cozy, but also a little more traditionally formal in its bones. 

On top of that, this is the room that Huz has chosen to be his office. Since he works from home now, this is a place where he spends a good bit of time. So, I wanted it to be cheerful, and productive. Which for me means organized and neat. 

As for the most shocking season ever! This is where we began with the snug/parlor.

The dominant feature of this room is the fireplace. Set on an angle, and nearly 8 feet wide, it has an awkward balance, too much brick around the firebox, making the mantle piece legs look skinny and firebox look small. It appeared to me as a really large forehead of brick. But, I do love a fireplace! So, I wanted to play up the excellence of having one and make it look balanced and pretty. 

Just about every wall at Foxcroft was wallpapered. I do love wallpaper, but I tend to take smaller doses, and most wallpaper has an expiration date, after which if feels uncomfortably dated. Exceptions to that are the true classics. William Morris, Colefax and Fowler, Scalamandre; historic wallpapers can be timeless. The wallpaper in this room was excellent. It is a fox hunting print, with scarlet coats, hounds and leaping horses. It is without a doubt the best wallpaper in the house. So, I sat with it for a while. Could I make it work if I got rid of the seafoam green and tomato red of the walls, trim and carpet? 

The carpet was pretty new and in good condition. But it was carpet. And, I am not a fan of carpet at all, and not a green shag person. Plus, the carpet right up to the hearth is concerning.  

The ceiling fan dominates and makes the low ceiling feel oppressive, along with the ubiquitous chunky ceiling treatment. 

I love built ins, but we have a lot of them at Foxcroft, and these three with the gaps between had me wondering how to proceed. The center one has the hook ups to the cameras in the barn. We haven't started using the barn cameras, so for now, I was happy to move it out of the cabinet for the destruction phase. 

I decided that even if I got rid of the carpet, ceiling treatment and red and green colors, the wallpaper was just too much. Maybe if I lived somewhere less fox-huntie, and did not fox hunt I could use it a little. But for now it felt like a beach house with wallpaper of big conch shells, or a house in the woods with log cabin wallpaper. "I get it! You live at Foxcroft, and fox hunt, and there are horses and foxes and hounds!" I didn't want to shout about it, I prefer to make smaller nods. So, Youngest and I proceeded to strip the room, preserving as much of the wallpaper as we could so I could use it in a smaller effort sometime. Maybe wrapping paper for a special gift. 

Thus decided, the destruction began. 

Up came the carpet. 

This revealed on the underlayment what it always seems to. Pet stains and water damage. The house did not have the wide front porch for the first few decades of it's life, and with no porch and open windows, it seems the rain came in at some point. Pet stains come with pets. But it is impossible to clean under a carpet. 

So, up came the underlayment, off came the ceiling treatment, along with the drywall taping, and the built ins. The built ins were placed over the underlayment, so they needed to come up in order to pull up the underlayment. The large center built in was a bit of a bear to get out. But, out it came...

revealing the window that had previously been on that wall. On the other side of the wall now, is the library. And, under the center built-in was revealed the original carpeting of forest green- the main Foxcroft color. 

After a LOT of clean up, the remaking of the snug could commence. First, to fix the drywall, retape and mud the seams, so we could go on to  "The Fun Stuff". The design decisions included making the ceiling feel higher, giving a Dutch feeling to the fireplace, painting the room a cheerful and not-so-serious color, while also increasing the Britishness by adding wainscot and- as my English friend, Christopher, calls them- a "feature center rose."  

I purchased wood flooring from local Heartpine Co.  Milled in Amherst, Virginia, it is a rough sawn oak that smelled divine. 

The tiles were from a company in Ohio, in Delft, Holland tradition. 

 I chose the opportunity of the newly revealed old window opening to create a built in that is sunk into the wall. It makes a deep shelf that only comes narrowly into the room. I gave Youngest some instruction, and advice, but allowed him to build the unit. He has been learning a lot! 

Installing real wood flooring is also a skill. A fun one, like doing a puzzle. The sanding and finishing were also good fun, very satisfying. 

 I chose a rich honey hue. 

Then it was just finishing the built-in book shelf, baseboards, finish the install of the ceiling medallion and light fixture,  and get the room dressed. 

I have so many details in this room that delight me. My favorite is the race day painting above, done by my father, George T. Hamilton in the style of English artist, John Ash. He incorporated my favored color theme in both Cowfeathers Farm, and our reworking of Foxcroft Farm in the blue and white, but also the traditional colors of Foxcroft, used by the previous owners for their race colors of orange and green. And then, the last race colors are those of Maryland, where my parents live. It makes me smile every time I see it, so I have placed it where I don't even have to enter the room to give myself joy. 

The other art in the room largely echoes the previous "equicentric" wallpaper. It has hunt prints, a series of the first known steeplechase and a large Italian horse print, all from my parents. I also have a large antique dutch family piece, and a beautiful engraving of historic Columbus, Ohio, a gift to my husband on leaving OSU. My grandmother and great grandmother are here in the armchair, elegant swan table and dining room chairs, recovered in a favorite fabric. My great grandfather valued the blue Fenton pitchers, as do I now. Somewhere- maybe yet unpacked- I have an old photo of my great grandparents in their living room with the candlesticks on this mantle, on theirs. My grandfather's ship in a bottle is on the shelf, and there are my husband's family here in the Dutch plates, and lamp with shamrocks. The silver cups on the shelves are Huz' baby cups, and the nests are made by the birds of Cowfeathers Farm of our horses' pilfered tail hairs and sheep's wool. 

I think our rooms should all tell a story about our lives, our history and our joys. That history gives a pretty room more than just good looks, it imparts a sense of place, unique to us. 

We have Escaped to the Country, a touch of British "snug" in beautiful Virginia! 

Sources:

Sherwin Williams colors: Walls- (Satin, Captivate)6792 Minor Blue, 

                                         Ceiling- (SG Captivate) Fleur de Sel and (SG Emerald) White, with a stripe of                                                             darker gray, custom mix.

                                          Shelf back- (Gloss, Emerald Urethane) 6454 Shamrock

                                          Trim- Gloss, Emerald High Hide White

Delft tile - Mottles Murals Ceramic Tile, Youngstown, OH

Wood Floor- HeartPine Co., Charlottesville, VA

Antiques- family pieces, Bremo Auction, and Circa, Charlottesville, VA