lmgervais Posted February 25, 2009 Author Share Posted February 25, 2009 Make it the parsonage and him the preacher? The ranch and him the rancher in his office so the hands don't go in the house? A famous author and that his study? The dentist's office? The poker room for the saturday night games? The drug dealer's house, and a drive up window in that room so they don't have to get out of the car to get high? Don't laugh, there was one like that in the town where we used to live-only it was a motel room and two boys ran out to the cars and took orders and filled them! Thanks for the ideas, Sherry. Because my collection of houses/buildings are going to represent part of a 1900-1910 small town, I already have a house (in box) for the dr and his family, a farmhouse, and another small house. I also have an idea of what I want for a dentist, a bank/banker, a general store, a church and rectory, more houses, etc. Now, I just have to work on what I have and wait until I get more houses to work on and bash. Holly, I think that I will look into your idea of seeing if I could bash to make a separate entryway. You always come up with possible solutions to things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havanaholly Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 ...look into your idea of seeing if I could bash to make a separate entryway. You always come up with possible solutions to things.Thank you, but most of those ideas come from listening to the house kits tell me what they want, or could have. Back when I was building the Glencroft I wanted to make it a lovely country cottage, but it wanted to be a country village pub! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfie Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 1910 was an amazing era! So many changes between late Victorian and the Edwardian eras.....and all for the better of humanity it seemed. Anyway yes the houses were a blend of the "old" and the "new" and families were big and warm and inviting. As were their homes. That is one of my favorite eras too......though I didn't come along until 30 years later, my early homes with my parents were filled with relics from that timeframe. And in Maine where I was little, it seemed we were still in that era as we didn't have electricity or a bathroom as we know it today, or running water in the kitchen either. And we lived that way until the late 40's when we moved to Massachusetts and it was a novelty to turn on a light with a switch, or flush a toilet or yes, even use a real one! Also a novelty, was the ice man as we didn't have an electric refrigerator until the early 50's. And a phone you just picked up and used? What a novelty that was as in Maine, we had those that looked like the Chrysnbon phones.....you rang the crank, and then the operator would come on and you would ask her to connect you to so and so, and she did. Dialing was a new fangled thing to me in the late 40's.....lol So I love the idea of your 1910 home! Congratulations and it's going to be beautiful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynette Smith Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 The 1896/97 house I lived in as a child was built for a banker. It had a front door, dining room door, tradesman's entrance, and kitchen door, as well as the cellar door. The cellar door just now occurred to me is a detail frequently overlooked . In 1972 it looked like nothing had been done to the place in terms of decorating updates. The bedrooms all had wallpaper and the public rooms seemed to be painted, though I suppose it might have been wallpaper underneath, but that is not my impression. The kitchen still had the original cookstove after 70+ years! When decorating the house, consider the station of the occupants.An old lady is going to have everything reflecting an earlier era, including (possibly) the Victorian notion that to have table legs showing is indecent and consequently everything is draped. A traveler will have furniture and accents reflecting a favorite culture or mixed foreign decor. I like the house to reflect the personality of its owner. Interior decorating magazines always show lovely rooms, but frequently they have no more personality than a furniture showroom! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havanaholly Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 I also like the turn-of-the-(last)Century through pre-WWII, my grandparents' & parents' youth & childhood/ coming-of-age, respectively; that's what all the stories I heard were about. We have seen an technological evolution, Wolfmeister & Kathie, et al. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmgervais Posted February 25, 2009 Author Share Posted February 25, 2009 You are all such a wealth of information! I will do my best to do justice to this house and the ones that follow. My inspiration for the era was the 2-part mini-series Anne of Green Gables starring Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst. I just loved that movie and it's sequal, and the Glencroft easily agreed with me to be moved back in time since it was going to be an old stone house built way before that time anyway. Don't you just love it when your ideas and the house agree, and you can manage to work it out - it's just such a nice feeling! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesterfieldzoo Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 Why can't you cut a door at the first landing of the stairs and have a few steps down into the other room? Like the garfield. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shy Spirit Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 It's very interesting to read all the suggestions here. I really like the bashed Glencroft - it has so many possibilities! I don't have anything to add, but will be reading along anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havanaholly Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 Why can't you cut a door at the first landing of the stairs and have a few steps down into the other room? Like the garfield.That's a good idea, sort of like some of the Craftsman houses of that era. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmgervais Posted February 25, 2009 Author Share Posted February 25, 2009 Why can't you cut a door at the first landing of the stairs and have a few steps down into the other room? Like the garfield. The extra room was not built to be very large, and adding the stairs to it would take up too much space (I think) and I'm not sure I really like the look. Saw it in the Dollhouses to Dreamhouses book, which is where all this bashing started from originally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shy Spirit Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 I've heard of that book - people say it's got tons of great ideas. I keep my eyes peeled for a secondhand copy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmgervais Posted February 25, 2009 Author Share Posted February 25, 2009 I only have book 1, and we bought it a long time ago around the time when we bought the dh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grazhina Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 Why can't you cut a door at the first landing of the stairs and have a few steps down into the other room? Like the garfield. Did that with my daughter's Heritage when I added a bathroom and kitchen wing. The kitchen was a couple steps down from the dining room, and the bathroom over the kitchen had a few steps leading up from the staircase landing. Worked very well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sherry Posted February 26, 2009 Share Posted February 26, 2009 Hmmm-I thought I said something about the back porch/utility rooms in this thread? I probably posted it somewhere else and everyone is wondering what the heck I was talking about! Anyway, the houses of that age that I am familiar with had big screened in back porches where the old wringer washer, summer beds, etc, were kept. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynette Smith Posted February 27, 2009 Share Posted February 27, 2009 The house I lived in had a screened in porch off the kitchen which led to the kitchen garden and the well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmgervais Posted February 27, 2009 Author Share Posted February 27, 2009 The house I lived in had a screened in porch off the kitchen which led to the kitchen garden and the well. I was looking closer at the house yesterday and think things will work out ok. However, because the kitchen window with it's roof is already in place, there really isn't enough room for a door. I would have liked to put one there, and keep the window, but there just isn't enough wall space on that side, which means no porch either. I guess that I will just have to imagine a door into the kitchen, because I know that there really should be one, I just don't have enough wall space to put one! Probably have too many windows and too large (lower far left and far right, especially), but I have already been adding paperclay to the outside around the windows, so it would be very hard to change them now, although I am still looking into that possibility (DH won't be happy with more changes). Anyway, the occupant is now a lawyer and his family, so he should be able to afford some better things for the house, like new-fangled lights! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havanaholly Posted February 27, 2009 Share Posted February 27, 2009 Why not just add on a porch? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmgervais Posted February 27, 2009 Author Share Posted February 27, 2009 Looked at the house again after your suggestion of just adding a porch. Found out that if I give up a bit of wall space in the kitchen, I can fit a door between the window and the back of the house, so now I have a kitchen entrance, which is more in keeping with the era of the house - main door just for important guests usually. I will also add a side stoop/porch - will have to see how big I can make it as the house is already ~42" long. Still thinking about making the lower far left/right windows smaller (they are not installed yet). They just seem too big for the house as they seem almost as big as patio door openings. Definitely too large for this era of house! Still going with paint instead of wallpaper as paint was around then and I just love the colours I have. Have to change my ideas for the furniture a bit and for the layout of the lighting. Glad I haven't bought the fixtures yet! Are house shells ever really finished? Or is mine just one of those that is changing it's mind bit by bit until I figure out everything it wants for the new time period? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmgervais Posted February 27, 2009 Author Share Posted February 27, 2009 OK, I think things are finally settling down, AGAIN! As I said, I found a way to add an entrance to the kitchen. Will add some short walls around the front door to make it look more formal, just makes the sitting room a bit smaller than I would like, but that is ok. Creative furniture choice and placement will help there! Also finally played with foamcore and reduced the size of the lower larger front windows to something that I think is more suitable. And, found a way to add a small porch leading to the door from the kitchen. Will probably make the porch walls solid river-size stone like the rest of the house. What do you think? Still have to decide on the location for the entry to the cellar from the kitchen, but that will happen once I have some of the actual furniture in place. Don't want it ending up under the sink or a cupboard! Will add new pictures to the gallery showing the changes soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shy Spirit Posted February 27, 2009 Share Posted February 27, 2009 We are used to airy rooms with space - but in that time period, their rooms would have been much smaller, even cramped. The sitting room will probably be in keeping. My grandparent's sitting room (in England) had a central table - beautiful, carved black wood with carved panels, from India. I remembered this table particularly - it had made a big impression on me when I was a child. It dominated their sitting room! When it was brought to my parents' home here in Canada (many years later), I was shocked to see how small it was - it now sits in my parents' living room - still beautiful - but just an accent table in a corner of the room. My granparents' sitting room must have been a quarter of the size of my parents' one. I think the kitchen porch walls sound perfect! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmgervais Posted February 27, 2009 Author Share Posted February 27, 2009 We are used to airy rooms with space - but in that time period, their rooms would have been much smaller, even cramped. The sitting room will probably be in keeping. My grandparent's sitting room (in England) had a central table - beautiful, carved black wood with carved panels, from India. I remembered this table particularly - it had made a big impression on me when I was a child. It dominated their sitting room! When it was brought to my parents' home here in Canada (many years later), I was shocked to see how small it was - it now sits in my parents' living room - still beautiful - but just an accent table in a corner of the room. My granparents' sitting room must have been a quarter of the size of my parents' one. I think the kitchen porch walls sound perfect! Thank you. Yes, I find that a lot of dh's have such small rooms. Now I know why. All I can say is that this is an adventure changing to 100 years earlier. So much for the laptop I originally wanted to put in the library - lol! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmgervais Posted March 2, 2009 Author Share Posted March 2, 2009 Just finished posting pictures in my gallery of the proposed changes to my Glencroft. Please take a look and tell me what you think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shy Spirit Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 It looks fantastic! I just love this bash - the Glencroft is my favourite dh, and you've doubled its glory! I'm just commenting about the wall for the kitchen entrance. (As you've asked for opinions.) It's fine the way it is, of course. You're doing a wonderful job ... I just pictured it a little lower. A low wall was the image I had when you first mentioned the idea. I tthink that a lower wall would "open up" that entryway. You would have easier access to the door, and the view from the dh would be extended. Well, that's my thought, for what it's worth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmgervais Posted March 2, 2009 Author Share Posted March 2, 2009 It looks fantastic! I just love this bash - the Glencroft is my favourite dh, and you've doubled its glory! I'm just commenting about the wall for the kitchen entrance. (As you've asked for opinions.) It's fine the way it is, of course. You're doing a wonderful job ... I just pictured it a little lower. A low wall was the image I had when you first mentioned the idea. I tthink that a lower wall would "open up" that entryway. You would have easier access to the door, and the view from the dh would be extended. Well, that's my thought, for what it's worth. Thanks! I really didn't know how tall to make the wall. I guess I was going off what I remembered the one on our front veranda being. I think I will make the walls lower. I was also going to see if I could make Holly's suggestion of columns at the front entrance work by placing them on top of low walls. I've been playing around with how to configure that entrance a lot, and finally decided that simpler would be better since the house is already supposed to be old. Hmm...maybe posts instead of columns to match the ceiling beams...have to think about that one! A lot of the ideas I've looked up suggest wallpaper was still more common than paint. With all the angle, I don't really want to go there, but I'm still thinking about it. Now I just need to come up with an appropriate pattern for a runner on the stairs - will probably make one myself, as well as a rug for the sittingroom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havanaholly Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Some of the embroidered ribbon trims make great stair runners. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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