The First on the First

The First Room on the First Floor

 

In our new/old American Foursquare, the living room is the first room you see. It is just to the left of the foyer with a large opening so that you see it from the front door. You can also see it through the front windows when the lights are on at night.

So, therefore, this is the room I want to keep neat and clean all the time (you can do that when all the kids have flown the coop!). It will be the room where I host Book Club when it's my turn and other such events. And, it has a fireplace with gas logs so it will be a cozy hang-out in the winter.

I have been thinking about this room for a long time. It was the room where we first connected the TV and cable. But, as I've mentioned before, every room was in a state of temporary - it was like those old tile puzzles.

You move the squares around until the numbers are in order? That has been our house! Moving all the boxes and furniture around while we worked on one room or one project. We are just now beginning to put things in order.

In addition to all the things I've mentioned, I really hope to create continuity between the exterior and interior of the house. The easiest way to do that is with color. So, as soon as we picked the blue gray siding I knew I wanted blue gray walls.

Continuity is also why I picked green for the front door (the other dominant color we have on the inside). And you thought I was being bold! It has been suggested that I might be a little obsessive? What can I say? I learned this stuff in interior design school - I can't unlearn it!

So, we're not finished but here is what we've done:

 

We ended up getting Wes at our Sherwin Williams store to mix us a custom color. It is a very light blue with some gray in it. We don't have two matching lamps for the two matching console tables but these will do, for now.



 

I spent a good bit of time accessorizing the built-in shelves (they were already here). I guess that's called "styling" now. I styled the shelving.

 

 

I used mostly stuff we already had and a few things I had in my staging inventory. Being a stager has some perks when you're decorating your own house!

 

Things I still want to do:

• Add a rug
• Add a coffee table
• Paint or wallpaper the backs of the shelves
• Get a better chair to replace the gray one (maybe the chair in the family room?)
• Get a great painting for over the fireplace
• Tile over the red brick on the fireplace???
• Do something with the tile hearth???
• Replace some of the accessories on the shelves with better ones
• Hang art on the large walls on either side of the opening to the foyer
• Get a new, brass floor lamp

Enough projects to last a ...

Mystery of the Reclusive Rafter Tails

Our American Foursquare house the day we purchased

In my second blog post, The American Foursquare, I mentioned that Foursquare homes usually have a colonial or craftsman influence. I've even seen some with Spanish colonial elements. Foursquares vary a great deal even in one neighborhood! I am hoping do do a future post about Foursquares in Ghent. But, I digress ...

Back to the mystery at hand!  I said that our house has some Craftsman elements like exposed rafter tails on the dormers.  In the photos above, if you look at the dormer windows on the third floor you can barely see the ends of the rafter tails under the roof eaves. They look like little white decorative blocks from the front.

Well, when we were planning the renovations of our house, we discussed the possibility of there being exposed rafter tails hiding under the vinyl that is covering the soffitt (underneath portion) of the main roof. You can see (above) on the right side that the roof overhangs quite a bit. We were sooooo hoping that we would uncover and restore a treasure under there!

 

And there they are! When the crew began removing the siding we could see that, indeed, there are exposed rafter tails on our house. At least, they exist in the back of the house?

 

 

Then we got a peek at the side overhang and, yes! Mystery solved in the affirmative! Turns out they are in pretty good condition. I think we have to replace one or two on the whole 91 year old house! But, what you might be able to see below is roofing nails that come all the way through the soffit boards - UG-LEE! After some considerable back and forth between owners, contractor and painters here is what we decided.

 

 

 

The nail tips would be snipped off as best they could be. Then the remaining wood would be scraped and sanded, primed and painted, the best it could be. Everyone promised it would look amazing!

 

 And it does! So far, anyway.  This is the right side after scraping, painting, priming and two coats of paint - finished! Now, imagine THAT all the way around against blue-gray siding and pristine white trim. Perfection ... keep viewing Mission: Foursquare to see!