Salvage Score: Perfect Timing

I was headed out to the bank on Saturday with a heavy sack full of a year's worth of spare change to cash in. As I walked down my steps there was a guy walking past my house with a shopping cart full of all sorts of scrap metal he had collected from dumpsters and wherever. Anyway, what really caught my eye was a big (26" x 26") heat register grate with a nice decorative pattern sticking way up out of his shopping cart.
 
I walked over and asked if I could look at it. He didn't speak much English but he indicated was cool with it. Anyway, the thing is solid and heavy and awesome.  I asked him if he would sell it and we haggled a little and then he yelled to his lady friend across the street for approval and she gave him the green light to sell.
 
I plopped my bag of change down on the sidewalk and counted out his price and that was that.
It turns out it is solid brass. Suddenly I feel like maybe I should have given him his original asking price. Next time maybe.

 

 

This thing is awesome!!
What should we make of it?

INVENTORY: Bathroom Vanity Lights

This is certain to be a boring post.  And I am not sure why I care.  This blog is supposed to be a dialogue with my wife and heaven knows I often bore her much worse than this post ever could.  But still, on the off chance anyone else is reading this, go ahead and change the channel.  And away we go...

We have pretty much every fixture in the master bath figured out now except for the following:

• Towel Bars
• Lights over the sink / Vanity lights
• A chair or stool to set beside the tub to accommodate a baby washer or a dry friend of a tubber - but that is just furniture

This post is concerned with the lights over the sink.  As with most things in this house, the requirements for the lights over the bathroom sink present certain problems. Specifically, although the wall behind the sink is flat (unlike the rest of the house), it is not square - by which I mean, this bathroom is on the top floor and the ceiling/roof slopes down towards the right side of the sink counter.  Therefore, the placement of the light on the right side of the sink is going to be a little cramped by the ceiling dropping down over it.  Look.

It feels pretty cramped on the right side of that space by the wall with your head bumping the ceiling.  And, because of the ceiling the light on the right has will probably have to be placed a little lower on the wall than you might normally install it - and, inevitably, the one on the left will be positioned to match.  The wires you see in the photo are just guesses at light location - they will be moved and boxes will be installed in the final location once we pick out our lighting.

Anyway, there is no dearth of choices when it comes to vanity sconces.  Resto Hardware, West Elm and the rest are positively bursting with them - but obviously, that isn't how we roll (we being me mostly).

Anyway, to the point, last weekend I found a pair of wall sconce lights at BIG NYC in Astoria that I think will probably do the trick... maybe.  Here they are.

What are they?  Urban Archaeology "Loft Light".  They are supposed to have glass cylinders on them.

The pair only came with one glass cylinder - but happily I found that Grand Brass sells matching blown glass "opal" milk glass cylinders for a fraction of UrbArch's price (about 83% less).

Here is what they are supposed to look like:

They were very reasonably priced (do I need to keep saying that about everything I pick up? By now it should be clear that I would not purchase it if it weren't reasonably priced - or, if I did, I would try to justify how much I overpaid).

So, why do I think these will work?  Here is why: most of the sconce lights I like sort of blossom off the wall up and a little out, like they need room to grow.  As a result of the sloping wall/ceiling, a sconce with such ambitions is going to look cramped.  Happily, the design of these sconces with the back plate framing the sconce/light element seems to contain that expansive quality.  The frame creates a finite space in which the fixture lives.  I think this makes sense.

As I think about it further, what would probably make most sense would be an overhead vanity light - something situated horizontally over the center of the sink.  It's never too late I guess.  But, for now, we're going with these (unless something better shows up at BIG).

Inventory: toilet paper holder (why I choose what I choose... sometimes)

I picked up this toilet paper holder at BIG Gowanus yesterday.

If you asked me why I bought it, I think my reasons would be unlike most people's reasons for selecting their roll holder.  I wasn't looking for one. I had already paid for what I was there for. But then there it was with some other hardware and it caught my eye and I picked it up and I knew.

Basically, it is big and incredibly heavy (1lb 14oz) and feels good to touch and hold. From the weight, I could tell it is chrome over solid brass. And the chrome is really thick. And the spring in the spool is unusually strong - so strong that you could knock out a tooth if you accidentally let go while squeezing it to install a new roll.  And those flanges on the sides of the spool... Well, they're just so big and heavy. I bought it because it is really well made and a nice simple look. 

So there it is. I'm a sucker for the overbuilt.
When I got home, just for kicks, I took a stab at finding it on the internet. It has no markings on it at all. But I had a hunch. It took me a total of thirty seconds to find it. It is the Yale Club toilet paper holder from Urban Archaeology. No wonder it weighs so darn much.

Transom / Clerestory / Skylight Window - UPDATED

I can't recall if I have spent any time explaining our thoughts about the opening high on the wall that divides the master bathroom from the master bedroom.  Somewhere along the way, I instructed one of our many many contractors to leave a large opening high up on the wall -- so they did.

Here it is, seen from the bedroom side.

And here it is (or a sliver of it at least at the top of the photo), seen from the bathroom.

Here is a better pic taken before the bathroom was tiled.

So, basically, it is a rectangular hole that spans from above the shower to the far edge of the bathroom door.  And, if you stood in the shower and climbed up onto your showering partner's shoulders (which I don't recommend), you could look through it down onto the bed in the master bedroom against the opposite wall.

My thought was that, since the windows are low on the walls and the ceiling is very high, I would want to create as much light high in the bedroom and bathroom as possible.  There is only one skylight in the bathroom and three in the bedroom so I figured this would allow a lot more light to move around over our heads.

But how to fill that hole?

At one point I thought we were going to fill it up with glass bricks.  So, I went and bought a big stack of cool old glass bricks from BIG NYC.  Then after looking at photos of glass brick projects, I realized that glass brick really isn't the look we want - it is so... so... 1980's.  So, we have a couple big stacks of glass bricks out beside the shed.

From time to time I have had visions of stained glass windows or old casements windows in that space - but I really don't know how that would happen.  Seems like a lot of framing to make smaller casement windows fit.  And finding just the right size stained glass is a virtual impossibility. 

Our current contractor is a thoughtful guy - the first we've worked with in quite a while - and he asked me the other day whether he should have the glass guy measure that opening for a window as long as he is coming up to take measurements for the shower door and upper half of the shower walls.  I told him to have the measurements taken, but not to order the glass yet.  I still wasn't ready to give up the dream of something more specific than a cut to size piece of flat glass.

So, what then?

Well, I was at BIG NYC out in Astoria today and I saw this beat-up old door.

It has a couple things going for it.  First, the glass panes are thick and clear and beveled all the way around so they have a really nice tone and light to them.  And all the original panes are still intact and matched - no unbeveled replacement panes.

And second, it is a heavy old solid wood door which means the wood portion surrounding the windowed center section can be cut down without falling apart the way a hollow core or poorly constructed door would.  Also, it is in really solid condition with all the panes and window trim very tight and clean.

The one catch is that I don't know the measurements of the rough opening in the wall, but I took measurements of the glassed center section of this door and just eyeballing it against the photos, I am pretty sure we will be able to trim down the wood and still fit all ten glass panes.  I hope it fits!!  

It was very reasonably priced (far less than a new piece of glass would be) so I figured better to buy it now and return it if the measurements are wrong than to miss out on it.  Turns out I was right because after I paid for it, when I went to put the SOLD sticker on it, there was a couple pawing it and seriously discussing how they would use it.  Why does that always make a purchase feel like a score?  Why does someone else wanting what I just bought seem like a ratification of my purchase?  It isn't like there is any possibility that their particular needs for this unusual item and my own are the same.  But, it does feel nice.  

Now I better call the contractor and get those measurements and tell him not to bother having the glass guy measure that opening just yet.

UPDATE: The contractor just texted and the rough opening is 82" x 23.5".  IT WILL FIT JUST FINE!!

Heater Grate Update

The heat source in our master bathroom is an in-wall electric heater with fan mounted on the outside wall between the toilet and the tub - highly visible.  It is controlled by a thermostat on the wall just inside the bathroom door, which explains why there is no knob on the hole in the lower left corner.  

I'd like to say it doesn't matter to me what the grill over the heater looks like, but I care a lot.  And this thing makes me sad, especially since we put down a beautiful marble floor and are installing a claw foot tub with classic brass filler and so forth.  This thing just doesn't go.

But not to worry, I am prepared.  I was at BIG NYC a few weeks ago and I spied a vintage cast iron heat register grill with lovely scrollwork.  It was downright cheap so I bought it figuring I would find a use for it.  Looks like it will have a place in our house much sooner than expected.

I am thinking I will paint it off-white and mount it about a half inch off the wall, just in front of the existing sheet metal heater grate. I don't want to get rid of the existing grate because the holes are smaller and I don't want any little fingers getting in there through the big holes in the scrollwork grate.  Yes, I know that the existing heater grate shows through the scrollwork, but that is just because it is white - I intend to paint it flat black so that (hopefully) it looks empty behind the top grate.

Upstate Update: Master Bath Progress

I went up to the house on Sunday for the first time in over two months (due to certain complications with our new contractor) and there was a lot to see -- almost all of it in the master bathroom.  So, in no particular order...

Remember this lovely vanity/counter/sink combo that I picked up at BIG NYC back in February 2012? Here it is sitting at BIG.

Well, after much back and forth about whether it would fit, it looks like it will finally have a home in our master bathroom!  So exciting!!!  I'm glad I don't have to help carry that massive marble slab up the stairs into the bathroom - it weighs an awful lot.

And look how nicely this tile border I devised for the master bath floor came out.

And here are some panoramae I assembled.  They look wonky, but that is just the panorama software.

UPSTATE UPDATE!! Hallelujah!!

I just received these photos of the master bath from our current (and fourth!) contractor:

Here it is! The first photo of our splendidly tiled shower in the master bath!

Here is a detail of that shampoo and soap cubby you see in the above photo...

... but what you couldn't see is that there is another cubby just for me!!  We have "hers" and "his" cubbies!!  Hooray!!

And here is the fixture wall waiting for some beautiful fixtures to go in.  Exciting!!

GOOD GOLLY!!! WE'RE CLASSY!!

First update in ages

I just received these bathroom photos from the contractor.   Notwithstanding the fact that our well line and our neighbors' well lines are frozen, he continues to lug multiple 5 gallon jugs of water up there so he can keep working.
Hooray!!

 

 

 

 

DESIGN IDEA: Mix & Match Plumbing Trim

I have mentioned in at least a couple prior posts the vast amounts of brand new, super high end Waterworks plumbing I have picked up cheap on Craigslist.  Anyway, now that the plumbing is all roughed in, it is time to figure out which trim kits we are going to use.  The problem is, we don't have enough matching trim kits for all the various locations in our master bath -- not even for the shower alone.  By itself, the master shower requires five different trim items - 3 controls and 2 outlets:

1. thermostatic valve control
2. overhead shower volume control
3. overhead shower arm and head
4. hand shower volume control
5. hand shower wall outlet and hand shower assembly

So, while we have an abundance of great parts, they aren't going to match.  And, keep in mind, there are two ways they can match or not match: style and metal finish.  I am pretty comfortable with the handle styles not matching, but having dramatically mismatched metals might be a little harder to get okay with (e.g., vintage brass and chrome, or polished nickel and brushed nickel).

So, what do we think of these two mismatched lads for spots #2 and #4?

They are both polished chrome, although the one on the left is a little warmer in tone as a result of the way the nickel was applied to the brass before it was chromed (newsflash (to me at least): a layer of nickel is commonly used underneath other metals when plating brass because it gives better connection - basically, nickel is the primer of electroplating).

And then we would use one of these vigorous gentlemen for spot #1:

and this frolicsome lass for spot #5:

And finally, looming overhead will be this friendly 10 inch (and 10 pound) rain shower on an 18 inch arm at spot #3:

 

Yes, we are going to get there.  One way or another, I am going to shower up in that house by next Spring.

B&B Reads Our Brains, Steals Kitchen

Am I wrong, or is this what we are talking about? Everything on legs, square sink, I've even been digging wooden counters, pipe shelving, subway tile, vintage stove, EVERYTHING!

At some point I will post more kitchen inspiration images to show what I mean by "moody", but I just saw this on Remodelista and had to post. From a recently opened B&B in Hudson, NY whose aesthetic is right up our alley. 

I love this tile. They link to American Restoration tile, which sells this hex in patterns. Cool! I know we have our kitchen floor, but I love this. Good to know.