Mystery of the Missing Sconces

Heave, ho, heave, ho...

Pulling new wire through the conduit has become fairly routine. We're all rather horrified at the state of some of the old cloth wire, and the sooner it gets replaced the better.

But we can't leave the old wire laying around for a minute, unless we want it chomped.

We've been coiling it up and putting it outside by the trash, where the tinkers come to collect it long before the garbage man does.

Now, a few weeks ago I mentioned our suspicions that there might once have been sconces above the fireplace.

Well, Ted and Seamus inspected the wall above the fireplace carefully...

Made some test drills...

And BINGO! We found the old electrical boxes.

(Now if only I could find that pesky hairbrush before the camera comes out.)

As before, these electrical boxes were stuffed with newspaper.

Only this time they yielded a precious clue! The Sears advertisement was announcing a sale for Friday, March 13, 1942; sixty-seven years ago to the day. We found it rather funny that we opened up the wall right before Friday the 13th last week.

So, it was less than twenty years after The Box House was built that someone decided to remove the sconces and plaster over the wall. (We had guessed late forties, so we weren't too far off.)

But I think I know what happened to the sconces.

Four of the six bedrooms in The Box House have sconce lights, two in the upstairs unit and two in the downstairs one. Two of those rooms, both upstairs, have rather simple (and rather heavily painted over) candle sconces. One of the bedrooms downstairs has sconces that are plain, and perhaps of more recent vintage. And then there are these in my mom's room (this is one of two):

Of course, with all the white paint slathered on them at the moment they're not looking their best. But the detail on them is of a knight on horseback trampling a dragon. My guess is that it's supposed to represent St. George. Anyway, they match our Medieval-style electric fireplace, original to the house. (Go here to see a video of the fireplace in action.)

I'm hoping there is a way to strip the paint off the sconces without destroying the polychrome finish, but we'll see. If not, I'll just have to repaint them and "antique" them to give the appearance of age.

However, those particular sconces won't be going back above the fireplace. Mom likes them in her room, and they've now been there far longer than they hung in the living room--if the date on the newspaper is a true indicator of when the sconces were removed, then before she was born!

Instead, we found another vintage set of sconces on eBay:

You can't tell from this photo, but the candle bulbs go behind the fancy grill work, which curves around them; they are going to cast amazing shadows on the walls, and I think they complement the shapes in the stained glass windows nicely.

We've pulled new wire through the conduit to replace the old...

...and now we're just waiting for the sconces to arrive!

Painted Cabinets and Dining Room Murals

And now for a little house porn...

I love visiting Bob and Rachel, my future in-laws (although they're saying yeah, right, when are you guys really getting married?) The kitchen / dining room / living room area of their house is absolutely fabulous. When you walk in the front door, the first thing you'll see is the red living room:

I do love a bold, red room! It's one of the things I miss from our condo; my office was just this shade of red. And the white shutters here really make it pop. The fireplace is painted. Yeah, I couldn't believe it was a faux texture when I first saw it. I love, love it.

Just off the living room is the dining room. Although there is a smaller table in the kitchen, this is the one we gather around in the morning to read the newspaper and drink our coffee. The mural, I believe, was done by a friend of theirs. Isn't it gorgeous? I wish I had the talent for this, but the artistic gene in our family skipped me altogether. I wonder if we could hire a student artist from Northwestern University to do something like this at The Box House?

But oh, silly me! What I really wanted to show you all was the kitchen--but I neglected to take full-room pictures of it! You'll have to settle for these close ups.

Not long ago, I mentioned wanting to paint the old wooden cabinets at my mom's other house. This was my inspiration:
Aren't they incredible? Although our enclosed porch at The Box House is now gray and yellow, it is nowhere near as sunny and cheerful as this room. And I think Rachel's pottery collection is what really ties it all together. (I think if you click on the images you'll be able to see some of the textured faux finishes on the walls as well.)

This was our first visit to K.C. since moving into our own new home. So we found ourselves studying the bones and construction and finishing techniques in ways we haven't before. In fact, Ted says he felt like he got busted with house porn in hand, because he was all alone in the basement studying their ceiling joists when Rachel came downstairs!

We live and breathe home improvement projects these days; I don't think it's possible to just go to anyone else's house anymore without studying the construction itself.

Burn Baby, Burn!

Unfortunately, the fireplaces at the Box House are decorative only, which is a bit disappointing. Our condo has a fireplace, and even though we only used it a handful of times each winter, I like the option of having a fire. Eventually Ted and I may get a gas-burning stove to put in the corner of the living room and satisfy our fire fetish.

Floor one of the Box House still has a decorative fireplace insert, original to the house. I'm not sure exactly what these things are called, and numerous keyword combinations on Google and eBay yielded nothing. I can't find anything quite like it. (If you know the proper term for this, please tell me!)

It's made out of cast iron with a polychrome painted surface. (The middle bedroom downstairs has sconces in the same medieval theme, but they are covered in heavy layers of paint, which obscures all detail.) The seller's agent, who is also a granddaughter of the Previous Owner, does not remember the fireplace ever working.

We spotted another of these fireplace inserts in the basement when we first looked at the place, and when we made the offer we made sure to have it written in that this would not get thrown away, as we might want to reinstall it on Floor 2. That one is pretty rusty, however, and would need to be stripped and repainted before it could come back upstairs. It has one red bulb, and one white, which I imagine give a sort of static reddish glow.

Because we plan to have the floors sanded next week, we haven't moved any furniture in. Nearly all of our possessions are piled in the basement and on the back porches. The only furniture upstairs, if you can call it furniture, is a mattress and a T.V. Ted and I camped out in the Floor 1 living room a few days ago. We rented both Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House and the later remake, The Money Pit, for an inspiring double-feature. (There's a strange parallel in both films as the new homeowners spend their first days on a mattress on the floor--it was a life-imitating-art-imitating-life moment.) As I brought in the snacks and a bottle of port, Ted shared his surprise--he had, unbeknownst to me, gotten the fireplace insert working! Unlike the rusty one in the basement, with its red and white bulbs, this one had been fitted with a spinning disc to simulate live flames. Mere pictures won't do it justice, so I've uploaded a movie.

Although there's not a bit of warmth coming from it, after a few glasses of port it definitely seems more lifelike.