Wrapped in Plastic

More progress to report.  As of today the floors have been stained, the countertops, fireplace and bathroom stones are all in and most of the light fixtures have been installed. The painters have also been hard at work which means that the inside of the house has been draped in splatter-proofing plastic wrap. So put on your x-ray goggles and take a look around.

The kitchen cabinets, island and most appliances are in.  The ceiling lights in the kitchen and living room are super simple.  

Just a porcelain fixture with an exposed bulb.  Right now they're all hanging by a thread so the painters can get up underneath their business.

The island pendants are from West Elm and they're also very simple: plain black canopy, black cord and black shade.

I found most of the light fixtures for the house on ebay and at salvage stores.  But when I saw these West Elm pendants they reminded me a teeny bit of the fantastic industrial salvage pieces you can find at http://www.skinflintdesign.co.uk/.  Like

 

this

and this. And since I was suffering from re-wiring fatigue (well, loading the car, hauling the lights over to the lighting store, paying someone to re-wire and restore the fixtures, picking them up, hauling them to Huron and unloading them through 10 inches of snow) I decided that the ready-made versions from West Elm would be just fine.

One more glance at the kitchen, here's the fridge and pantry cabinet.  Can you see it all coming together?

Underneath these layers is the stained hardwood flooring.  I really like how the floors turned out.  There are spots that need to be touched up and massaged but overall I'm super happy with the color. 

This is the dining room. For a long time the temporary stairs sat here so it was easy to ignore this spot.  There's a cut out in the first floor ceiling right above here so when you look up you see the second floor ceiling soaring above and, offset slightly, the skylights that are above the landing on the stairs. There are two large lights that hang down from the 2nd floor rafters that have the potential to look great. They're another ebay purchase and the jury in my head is still out on them. But huge thanks go to Sharon and her cousins who picked them up from some guy in Michigan and stored them for me for a couple of weeks. Once the table and chairs are in I think it'll be easier to see if the light choices are a success or not and be easier to appreciate Bill's design for this area. If I don't screw it up it could be really dramatic and lovely.

I love holophane lights and found two for the front part of the house.  One hangs in the entryway and one is in the library.  These came out of a factory in Racine, WI and the guy I bought them from was super nice and he and his wife were very hospitable. And their little girl was a peanut so this transaction was an all around pleasure.

Each stair tread is wearing a warm wooly toupee right now.  I suppose they're covered up because of the painting but it's also nice to have them protected from the many many feet that have been coming in and out of this house.  I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that there have been more people in Huron while the work has been going on than I've had over to my apartment in all the time I've lived in Chicago.  The other morning 4 friendly faces smiled down from the 2nd floor as I was dropping something off before running to work.  I'm going to miss the crowds and the mayhem when this build is done.

Here's another angle on the stairs where you can see the coffee brown stain peeking through.

Door knobs were a trickier choice than I thought they'd be. The front door hardware was a splurge and it's really beautiful. The door is painted a dark, high-gloss bronzetone and the hardware is white bronze. The rest of the interior doors (bathrooms and closets) are all painted white so I opted to do the opposite of the front door and go with light doors and dark knobs. The shape of the knobs sort of match so I think it all might be okay in the end. I have wondered if I spent too much time thinking about this...

On the 2nd floor the doors for the bedroom and guest room are still in the design process. They'll be sliding doors with the hardware mounted along the wall above the door openings. Remember when Bill was featured in Chicago Home + Garden magazine? A few pages after his piece there was an article on a design collective here in town so I shot them an email to see if anyone wanted to make some doors for Huron. This project is in the very initial stages, no decisions made yet, but I'm hopeful that someday there will be custom sliding doors for both of the bedrooms.

Here's the view back at the guest room / office. One more project on the to do list is to install a window unit over that half wall. I have some ideas about it but no source to do the work yet. Maybe the guy who's making the doors will have some thoughts on that. Mystery project, it remains a giant TBD.