The Tour Continues: Second Floor, Main House
This is the hallway on the second level. Diana's room is the first on the
left, and next to it is the linen closet. The door at the end of the hall leads to the
sitting room (originally designed as a bedroom for the owner's son).
Oh yes...take a look at the light fixtures. A lot of people have asked if they are the originals. They're not. We had to replace the existing fixtures because they were corroded (copper) and generally outdated (couldn't accommodate a fluorescent bulb). Welmoed found these fixtures at Lowe's!
We let the children pick the colors for their rooms. Diana originally had a stereotypical girl's room with pink walls; when she hit the pre-teens she decided she had outgrown that! Now the walls are a lovely peachy buff, with very deep midnight-blue ceiling and a dentil molding designed to look like a crenelated castle wall.
Diana really has one of the nicest rooms in the house, with views of both the front and
side yards, and two closets. The windows in her room were replaced in 2005 with
new double-pane insulated windows.
Another view of Diana's room, showing the two closet doors. Both closets are cedar-lined; one is used for clothes and the other has wire shelving for storage.
Most of the bathrooms were in surprisingly good shape, but we ended up replacing several of the toilets and some of the faucets. However, some of the faucets couldn't be replaced because the sinks were of an unusual design, with slanted faucet mounts. Our plumber was unable to find replacements, so he ended up having to rebuild the existing ones.
The tubs were all in great shape; the only thing we did was replace the faucets with anti-scald Moens.
And here's another interesting point: there is no bathroom on the house's main level. This is Diana's bathroom, which is also used as the guest bathroom.
In our last house, the television was in the family room right off the kitchen on the first floor. There was also a television in the kitchen, and one in the master bedroom. Now, the television is in this second-floor sitting room, away from the traffic flow of the house, so there's much less temptation to simply sit down and flip through the channels.
The fireplace was converted to gas logs, to make it easier to enjoy a cozy fire without the hassles of hauling wood upstairs!
There is also a balcony/sleeping porch off this room, which offers fabulous sunset views, a well as a full bath and cedar closet.
The master bedroom has a small entry hall; the door to the right leads to the master bathroom and the doors on the left are "his" closet.
The master bedroom isn't very large (none of the bedrooms are), and neither is the master bath. This house was built before the "master suite" trend. The only thing it really lacked larger closet. As in many older homes, there are a lot of closets, but they're real small.
So we turned a very small adjoining bedroom and bathroom into a walk-in closet and dressing area!
Believe it or not, the tiny space now used as a dressing table used to be a
bathroom!
This shows the new walk-in closet ("her" closet, of course!) that once was a small bedroom. The door on the left leads to the back staircase.
This linen closet is the exception to the "small closet" standard.
It is huge! Like nearly all the other closets in the house, it is lined with
cedar planks. The shelves also still have some of their original handwritten
labels on them.
Next Stop: Main House, Third Floor
