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I’m sunk in a spate of touch-up projects right now. So I will attempt to entertain with some pics I took 3 years ago (wooooosh—yes, that was Chronos winging away) at the Vrooman Mansion in Bloomington, Illinois. We’ll start with fixtures that feature lovely old wood.
Copper-lined tank:
And a little something to stoke my push-button obsession:
I think this might be the mother of all toilet seats:
And check out the tank. I’ve got pics of the inside. It’s a little gruesome, but just in a rusty way.
Then there’s the wood-rim tub:
We’ve finally gotten the clawfoot shower pan in working order in the downstairs bathroom! It’s a bit tight trying to take pics because the whole room is only a little more than 5×6 (and that’s after previous owners bashed into the pantry next door for extra space). But here are some attempts.
From the top:
The pan is 36″ x 36″ cast iron with replated original feet and drain. It first lived in a mansion in Youngstown, Ohio, according to Don Hooper at Vintage Plumbing Bathroom Antiques, whose expertise, courtesy and fabulous selection of fixtures make me wish I had more bathrooms. Check out this page, where you’ll see our pan (bottom of the page) as I did for the first time.
Of course it’s been 3 years to this point, and we’re still working on building the storage unit (which will feature an ingenious boyfriend-built toilet-paper device) and recreating the woodwork that was ripped off around the window and door. So check back in, oh, 2011.
There’s a new creature in our house …
We recently visited another 1911 house—actually it was Casa Loma, the former estate of Toronto financier Sir Henry Mill Pellatt.
It’s a grand place, and I could share pics of the tower or the round room below it or the magnificent wood paneling. But the one that had me spellbound was the bathroom. I have towel rod envy.
And check out his ribcage shower.
And furthermore!
… in my house anyway. What bathing device would be about 27″ high and 38″ at its widest? There was a small, square hole in the floor in front of where this thing was. The plaster wall behind the mystery object is scraped a bit as if a rim was jutting against it. Here is a photo that shows the paint shadows that whisper of the very small bathing fixture (I assume, but you know what they say about that) that used to inhabit our downstairs bathroom:
There is a date from 1946 written on the wall above this area, which indicates when the previous owners abandoned the plaster walls and put up drywall (on furring strips from an old packing crate, so this plaster wall was left intact).
The room this is in is about 5′x5′, though it was originally smaller. The room was bumped into the adjoining pantry to make the space where this mystery fixture was placed.
Any idea what this fixture might have been? So far as we can tell, the upstairs did not have a bathtub until 1929 or later. The house was built to hold at least two families at a time; it is essentially a two-flat with a kitchen and bathroom on each floor. We saw the shadows of high-tank toilets on both floors. And both bathrooms were originally smaller but expanded into neighboring rooms, probably in the 20s, from what we can figure out. I’ve already asked an expert in antique plumbing fixtures, and he couldn’t come up with anything he’d seen that would fill that space.
When a vacationing vintage junkie has been rolling down scenic roads for days on end—driving through trees …
… and cavorting with questionable characters at miniature-golf courses …
… waking up in sterile surroundings that boast 50 different shades of beige—a little clawfoot spells big relief. Who takes a bath in those boxy, plastic hotel tubs? This curvy beauty begs to be filled and dipped into.
Gold … foooot!
It wasn’t quite this …
But it’s more than a week since we stayed at the home of that tub, the Metro Hotel in Petaluma, California, and I’m still reminiscing about it. And this lovely sink.
I should have asked where they bought that trash basket because it fits the decor so well.
Y’know, when I installed my old sink, I chose a mixer faucet because I thought those separate hot and cold taps were going to be irritating to live with. But I didn’t mind them at all. I just got some hot out of the one side and some cold out of the other and mixed it all in my hand before splashing my face. Of course this is making me reconsider my bathroom remodel, which—oh dear—I really don’t need any encouragement to keep refining. In any case, the Metro also can fulfill your desires to sleep in an Airstream trailer.
But even if you’re in a traditional room, beware the local creatures.
(And if anyone knows what that French says, please let me know. It may have invaded my subconscious as I slept, but I wouldn’t mind hearing it in English as well.)
I also loved these curtain holders, so I’m going to document them here so I can find them later.
ETA: Ha, I finally did a search on these and it turns out they’re an Ikea thing, so most likely everyone in the world but me knew about them before. That figures, since I’ve never been inside an Ikea store.
I’ve got housespiration from various places to post as well. Please do not hold your breath, however, because I seem to have embraced the lazy life of late.
If you are a person of delicate sensibilities and the title has not already put you off, please avert your eyes. I am about to talk of my most primal needs and desires. I am going to speak now about …
… the importance of having the perfect toilet seat.
I have spent many an hour trolling the Interwebz looking for the perfect parking place for my posterior. I have in fact purchased and installed several different throne tops. I am difficult to please in this area. I will spare you the details.
However, despite all this, I am feeling ridiculously optimistic about my latest test seat, which comes to us from the fine folks at DEA Bathroom Machineries. It is MDF, which is in fact not my first choice, but I also seem to have this thing about having a black toilet seat, so while I would really rather have wood, I want it to be black wood and this has turned out to be a stopping point in ordering wood seats (the painted one I had needed frequent touch-ups with a Sharpie marker, which didn’t really work).
So how does it look?
Apologies for the dust that shows in some shots. It’s from the styrofoam the seat was packed in, and I didn’t see it at all as I shot the pics.
Now to see how it holds up to the daily indignities. I will post back about that in the future, since I am quite proficient at destroying objects of all sorts, and if this things survives my household I can be fairly certain it’s to be recommended for yours.
About a week ago I came home to an ominous note on the downstairs bathroom door: “DO NOT USE.”
Mr. Handy was nowhere to be seen and I was too intimidated to peep inside. The next night I got ballsy and saw the beginnings of the shower sprouting out of the wall!
Woohoo! When did we start working on this bathroom? Two years ago at least. See, we are the king and queen of uber-project-frenzy, i.e., beginning to end equals reeealllly long time. In this particular case there was the 3-stage plastering of gaping maw in the walls, rebuilding and tiling the floor and all sorts of other slowdowns that I will detail in full in the year 2012 when we may be able to call this finished. In the meantime, a closeup of the shower diverter in polished nickel that looks dingy because it has been lying in the corner of the dining room for years:
The shower will one day flow from a sunflower head into an original early 1900s clawfoot shower pan, which was our space-saving solution that allowed us to keep the window. The window that he needs to re-create casings for because the originals were trashed long ago in favor of erecting Masonite panels all around. The sink you see below is a repro of a 40s-50s style; not our original choice, which was early 1900s-looking, but we’re happy with the compactness and built-in ledge on this one.
And the corner that shows the old plaster below, the new plaster above, the new old-look casings on the left and the new beadboard on the right. A cabinet is being built for that corner space; there’s a little heater that’s going to be built in underneath. The plan is to put radiant under the marble floor in the future too.
And just to prove that there’s no rest for the wicked, my new plaster work got damaged when the casing and beadboard were put in, so I get to exercise my skills again in a patch job. Hot dog! I think I will wait until all the new woodwork is in until I get going on the touchups.
A darling little preview of what’s in the 1914 J.L. Mott Iron Works catalog that I’ve got in a reprint. I give you the pegleg seat!
Sorry about the fuzzy pic; it’s a digital shot, not a scan. Isn’t it just darling, though? I want to go nuzzle it and take a nap on it.
And the catalog lists it as only $20! Ugh, wait, that’s $414.65 in today’s dollars.
Greg over at the uber-blog Petch House pointed out in the Old House Web forums that there’s an 1888 J.L. Mott Iron Works catalog online at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. I have a reprint of a 1914 Mott catalog that I oughts to scan and put online. In the meantime, check out the 1888 flushing-rim slop sink:
And the folding urinals:
