The house has four bedrooms, two of which are original to the house. A third was added shortly after the original construction, and the Parkins added a fourth.
The master bedroom had a horrible green '70s rug, but fortunately it wasn't glued down. The pine floor underneath was so dirty and dull that it took some serious elbow grease (and floor polish) to restore. The floor polisher wasn't working, so Darwin just waxed the area where the bed would go. The rest will have to wait for now.
The room has a fireplace with original majolica tile and a transom window over the door, the kind that opened for ventilation, but it's now nailed shut. The bedroom has two added-in closets but still manages to be the largest room in the house. We will be tearing out the closets and restoring the room to its original shape. Then we'll paint the walls a purply-gray color from the Sherwin Williams Victorian Collection.
I bought a set of Eastlake bedroom furniture (bed, marble-topped dresser, marble-topped washstand) at an antique auction, so that will go in this room once we get it finished.
 
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| The front bedroom is one of only two areas in the house with unpainted woodwork. Mr. Parkins told us his mother stripped the paint in these areas, and it looks so fabulous I might continue her work in other rooms. This room also has the prettiest original fireplace tile (in my opinion) ... a warm rusty red. This is one of the two original bedrooms, and the closet appears to be original, too.
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| The third bedroom (our guest room) was added onto the house a long while back in its past. It has its own fireplace (the only one that doesn't have to share a chimney), a bay window and a built-in cabinet. Unfortunately, it also has a fierce slant in the floor and a crack in the wall, so we have to do some foundation work before we make any other cosmetic improvements. We have the white furniture from my little-girlhood in here. This is our cats' favorite room to nap because it gets the best sunshine.
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We bought a restored 1910 chandelier from J.F. PeGan to replace the light fixture in the guest room. We're hoping this one will make the room feel less like a dungeon at night.
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| The fourth bedroom is the smallest. We believe it was probably a sleeping porch at one time that the Parkins enclosed. It has '70s green indoor-outdoor, diamond-patterned carpet that's actually kinda cute. For now, the exercise bike and litter box are in there, along with miscellaneous other things too ugly to put out in the public rooms.
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E-mail: kristin (at) 1902victorian.com |
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