Restoring my Art Deco House pt 2

I moved into my Art Deco house about four months ago and a lot has happened. Unfortunately, it feels like almost nothing has happened, though, because so much of the things that have been accomplished are not visible. Not only are a good number of them literally not visible once you close up the walls or the ground, I had plumbing redone and electrical redone in some of the different areas, but other things like cleaning the woodwork or plastering over holes just looks like it should look instead of like I've actually done something. In fact, now I just have really patchy walls that still need to be painted, and I've got multiple massive projects going on at the same time. Not only do I have the half bath almost done with a full remodel, but I also am working on the sunroom, which is now going to be my sewing room as well, and that requires a lot. I don't know if there's floor under there or not. We'll figure it out later, but there's not. Not only demolition and a little paint scraping, but completely refitting shelves and painting and new trim and so much stuff, and that's taking understandably a pretty long time. So I figured in the meantime, while I've got all of those big projects happening, I could fill everyone in on what has happened and get some of these smaller projects done, because when you're focused on big projects, you kind of let the little things go, and the reality is those little things can make almost as much of a difference. So I am going to take you around the house, talk about what has been accomplished, and do a lot of one hour or less projects. Oh, and I get to update everyone with a few of the big plans for the kitchen and main bathroom. That's going to be a next year thing, but the design has already started. So let's begin with the room that I'm in, the living room. I have managed to acquire quite a few things on my design plan list, which you can see the entire longer video here talking about mostly this room and what I'm hoping to do to it, including this rug, which is a wool rug from Nordic Knots. It is amazing quality, and I knew I needed that because Bailey pretty much lives on whatever rug I put down or on the sofa in the corner, and this is going to be very much a forever rug. They raised prices right after I bought this, so I was very fortunate on timing. It is absolutely gorgeous, and it goes really well with my adorable chairs, which are much smaller and much better suited to the space than the green chairs I previously had. Those just moved into the sewing room, so I didn't get rid of them, but these are the perfect color, the right size, the right very art deco styling for the room, but I think they need pillows. I've tried a few different ones that I already had. They weren't the right colors, or they weren't the right size, so I ended up getting some silk velvet from Turkey off of Etsy, and our first project is going to be making some pillows. My fabric for these pillows, or at least the main fabric, is this really beautiful silk velvet that I got off of Etsy. It's being woven in Turkey, so it is not very wide, nor is it a very perfect width, so I'm going to have to be a little weird about how I'm dealing with the fabric. It's also going to have to go sideways, which is fine, considering that there's really more directionality in terms of that way versus that way, more so than these two directions. I'm backing this in black velvet, because that's what I've got, and that just makes sense, and I'm doing it with an overlap, just because I don't have zippers, apparently, at least not zippers this long. So now I have pillows, which was actually one of the first projects I was going to do for this house. I bought the fabric all the way back when I got the house. It's just taking me that long, because it turns out buying a house is a really stressful process. There's so much paperwork and so much information getting thrown around. Honestly, it's a little concerning, and that's why I am so happy that the sponsor for today's video is Incogni. Incogni tracks down and removes all of that personal data from hundreds of websites. They found over 200 places that my information had been picked up by data brokers and sold over and over again. Within 24 hours, I actually had a quarter of those successfully taken down, and if I come across any other examples of that beyond their list of known problems, all I have to do is go into their custom requests, submit a link, and they'll take care of it from there. It's not just about annoying emails and phone calls. 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Go to incogni.com slash nicole rudolph and use code nicole rudolph to get 60% off your annual plan. In between the living and dining room is the next problem I have to solve. The trim. In order to reestablish this wall as a full wall instead of a half wall, it took removing some of the wall and rebuilding things and plastering and so much stuff. So all of the baseboards and shoe molding came off, as well as the picture rail. So I have to put a lot of trim back on. I've already started with these pieces. Not only have they been refinished, but I also sawed the two long pieces slightly shorter because they're too long comparison to where the wall ended up. It's, you can kind of see there's a little gap there. It ended up maybe a quarter of an inch, three-eighths of an inch shorter. So not a big difference because nothing's square in this house. Therefore, anything the new builders are going to do is not square. And then from there, I need to add that little bit of trim to the piece that goes across because that's actually wider. There's a lot of not-so-great wood fill on this. Don't judge me. It's going basically on the floor. So no one's really gonna look that close. But I should now have all of these pieces ready to be reassembled. I've cleaned the floor around them. So I just need to nail them back into place. The only problem that I have is with this piece. Not only is it a little short, which is fine, I can fill both those ends without too much of a problem, but also you can see how much further set in it is. So the floor is kind of not the greatest shape right there. So I'm going to try and sand it down and refinish a little before I put it in. Honestly, I thought I was going to have to re-shellac this, but it's not that bad once I got it sort of sanded and cleaned up. I was smart. Pre-drilled my holes for my nails. So that way I don't have to worry about that wall. I'm up here. Why is it so far off? What's going on down there? This wall did not get shorter. I know it didn't. Okay, well this was not the thing that I foresaw happening. So much for that. Was it enough? Probably not. Let's find out. So close. I swear the house changed sizes like the two months this has been down. Not even like one month. Take like five. We got up there, scraped out some stuff in the corner. So maybe, oh, oh, we finally got it. We finally got it guys. Caulking covers all sins, right? We have trimmed mostly back up. The big piece, I think it's going to take a little more effort considering how much trouble that one gave me. So I'm going to give myself a moment on that, which means that the dining room, which actually is going to be a dining room. There was a change of plans after a lot of decision making. The studio is going to move upstairs and the sewing room is going to go into the sun room because it's bigger and I will now have a good amount of storage. And that means I get to do something very exciting. Wallpaper with a wallpaper that I have wanted to use for at this point a solid 15 years, maybe 20. It is from Adelphi Paper Hinges, but the original is from the early 20th century and it is in the Cooper Hewitt collection. I have been in love with it for a very, very long time. So I realized by moving things around, I can actually put this in here. It's really exciting. The only problem, which I figured out a solution to last night, is that here there is no chair rail. Around the rest of the room, there is a beautiful Art Deco chair rail. Now that I've spent more time looking at trim, I'm starting to understand what Art Deco actually looks like. Probably have to do a video on that in the near future too. And there, there's none. It doesn't survive, which is a problem because getting it replicated is very expensive, difficult, or I have to figure it out myself. So that creates a problem. However, I'm going to do banquette seating because I really wanted that. And I think this room makes sense with it. So that way you can still walk through the space without having to go around a table, which means that I will not need the chair rail over there. So I can steal it from that side of the room, put it on this side of the room and have it be okay. That is the plan for this room. It's not going to happen for a long time because this room is going to, well, currently the part that you can't see of this room is a whole heck of a lot of storage of stuff. It's just become the catchall. So this room will eventually get all of that, but it won't be until later next year after the kitchen is done. Speaking of, let's move on to that, which is where things get exciting for me, at least because there is pretty much nothing for me to do in here. I can do a few things. I've hung up some nice little brass pieces. I need to hang up one more curtain once I finish it. And that's about it because this room is going to be pretty well demolished next year, which is, I know, a lot. I did want to save the cabinetry, but there's just no way that it's going to be salvageable in the sense of the things that I need it to be able to do would destroy so much of it and waste a lot of it. It is so much better for someone else to be able to use it and use the parts of it appropriately. So we're going to try and find a home for it because it is still in good shape for the most part. The innards are a little questionable. It's just not going to hold up to what I need. The layout is not going to change a ton, however. This is one of those things that, again, I am not doing this. When it comes to the kitchen and the upstairs main bathroom, I am working with Lauren Wood Builders, which is a local company. They also are up in Indianapolis and they do absolutely amazing design. And we are working through a lot of options for the kitchen and bathroom at the moment. It's at that point where we're looking at tiles and colors and, all we really have is a general layout. So this is roughly what it's going to look like. There is going to be a bench and a table in the corner over by the window instead of the weird additional butcher's block space. The fridge is going to move slightly. The dishwasher moves slightly. Just little things like that. Nothing major. It's just making much better use of the space and the storage and countertop and all of those things. Because right now there's so much wasted space in here. If you want to see more regular weekly updates of how that's going, head on over to Patreon. I'll be posting a lot there. But with that in mind, I don't really have anything that I need to do in here aside from finish the curtain and get it up, which is not a one-hour thing. So that's not happening right now. I would say let's move on to the half bath, but that is also under construction. That's a me project and that's almost done. So there will be a video on that next month. So let's head on upstairs and see what troubles I can get into up there. It's day two. I attempted to do all of these things in one day, but between the woodwork and one of the next projects you're going to see taking way longer than I expected, as is common, I suppose, there was just no way I was going to cram it all into one day. So now we're on to day two. And before I move to the upstairs where I am, I thought I would also show you one of the really small, but very impactful things that I've been doing around the house, which is to say not me doing most of it. I've had someone coming in and replacing electrical things. So that means the switches are getting changed out from the really weird stuff from the 1960s. That's really hard to actually turn on and off to push button style switches. I am going to gradually do that to the entire house. A lot of the outlets also got changed because most of them were two prong and or three prong, which was a lie and not grounded. So most of my outlets had to be changed out to either be GFCI or back to two prong in order to be safe. So there's that. Also, more excitingly, there were the lights. I have been gradually putting lights in around the house. A lot of them were ones that I had from previous places, such as what are usually termed the schoolhouse lights in the hallway upstairs or the light in the entry or this acorn shaped light in the guest bedroom. I have a few others that are going to go other places, but they need some things moved. I did get one new light, which is for the living room because I didn't have anything that was the scale for that room that felt very Art Deco. So I got a new one for that. Unfortunately, you might notice it is not centered up on the fireplace, which is over here. It is, however, centered up on the room. I can't move it because it's also a junction box because they wired things weird. So I think maybe the rest of what's up there runs to the outlets that I think used to be sconces or it runs to the dining room light. We don't know, but it'd be really difficult to figure out. So it's just going to hang out where it is. That's OK. But I still have a lot more lights to change out. I need to find a light for the main bedroom as well as for the dining room and eventually the kitchen and the bathroom upstairs. But I've got some time for those. So with that in mind, I wanted to add a little bit of something to my hallway without having to paint everything. I'm waiting to paint the stairwell, hallway, all of that stuff until after construction is done. So that way I don't have to worry about how much of a mess that makes. And maybe hanging a couple pieces of art would be a good idea. So I ended up with a couple of prints that are really beautiful and colorful. This one is a Japanese woodblock print that is from 1920 and it is meant to be costume design specifically or textile design. And then this one is a brochure print. It was a very popular style of printing in the 1920s coming out of France. Sorry that I'm probably not going to pronounce this right. It's Ukrainian and he kind of used different formats and spellings over the years. But he is a very famous designer from the 1920s through the 1940s of this very graphic style for all sorts of different decor. And I am matting up both of these prints in the same style of frame. I got the frames from Anthropologie. They're supposed to be black but they're not really black, which is fine because what's in the actual images is not perfectly black. Well, especially for the Japanese one. But I want really colorful mats with multiple colors, so I'm gonna play around with what works for this because I'm entirely honestly not sure. So I'm layering things up, playing around with what colors go with what styles. Oh, okay, okay. I'm sensing a little bit more of a theme here. I do like having that rust as the center stripe. Am I going to qualify this the best I've ever done? No, but it is the correct size, so it falls into good enough. So once I got this framed up, the yellow next to this frame was just way too much. It looks a lot better that way. Thankfully, this is not going to be wasted because my other print just showed up and it will work a lot better with the yellow. I think I am going to still do the gray next to it though, so that way those two tones, which I think will play a little bit more nicely. So I just have to cut this one up, which makes this much simpler. So that means it is time to hang both of these. One of them, the Japanese one, is going at the top of the stairs, so you see that from downstairs when you turn the corner, and it's just a nice little punch of color to brighten up that corner. And then its sister image is going on the wall in the hallway between the guest bedroom and what will be my filming studio, to fill that gap there. All right, eventually these walls will be painted in color as well, so they'll have a little more interest going on. But for now, at least it gives me something fun to look at, which leads me on to the studio. Don't judge me for the fact that it is a complete and total mess back here. This is why I am moving all of this stuff downstairs. Even with that giant closet, the things I would have to do to that closet to make that work just beyond the amount of energy I want to put into it. So what I need to do in here is get curtains up, or draperies to be more specific using the correct terminology, which I should know better. I did a whole video on curtains, draperies, and all of that stuff a little while ago, but I just need temporary situations in here. I don't have the exact drapes that I want. I do have the correct rods though, so I can temporarily put up something that I just happen to have around. I'm going to hang these heavy velvet drapes that I have had in every single one of my houses. This is supposed to take 15 minutes. I swear I know what I'm doing. I have hung so many curtains in my life. I don't know who designs curtain rod systems, but when the only tool that can make it past the giant ring to get to the screw is a really long hand screwdriver, I curse thee. It's even with the floor and the ceiling. The window is a whole different matter. We're going to ignore that because it's doing its own thing. But you know what? You won't see it here in just a minute. This is why you're supposed to use allen wrenches for this part. Oh my god, I'm so tired. Not even one, because I still have... This may be a two-day thing. And that will hold me through until everything in this room gets emptied out. Being absolutely honest with you, there is not much that needs to happen in the guest room right now, because there's just not much that I can do. I haven't thought about it that much. I did make drapes. They do eventually need trim on the edge, but that is not a one-hour thing, so that's not happening today. I'm already in day two. I did manage to score these gorgeous little vintage pieces of fabric that are meant to sit on top of a piece of furniture, and just matches perfectly. So I will say that laying those out was my to-do in here. Other than that, the room is going to just kind of be in temporary stasis until I reach the point where renovations have occurred, and then I'll be able to paint and wallpaper. So this is your little hint of where things are going. Really beautiful art deco power print from Isidore Leroy. This is one of the ones that I came across in all of my research. I was like, that has to go somewhere. I don't care where. Just needs to exist in this house. I just know this is what I'm going to do, and the rest will be waiting for that. And finally, not the last room on the list, because I'm going to talk to you about what the bathroom plans are last, but the last of the bedrooms, which is my main bedroom, and it is the most boring right now. There's nothing to it. I have temporary drapes up, because I haven't had time to make all of my fancy ones, and I have temporary bedspread, because I haven't bought new ones, um, in comparison to my old king-size bed, and I don't have anything done to the walls. Um, you saw my closet organization. That was exciting. That's it. That's all I've got. So there are two things that need to happen in this room, in terms of short-term things. One of which is the thing that I've been dreading the most, and avoiding the most, um, and that's not even the terrible lighting in this room. I need to find a new ceiling light for this room, now that the air conditioning is reinstalled. I can get rid of the ceiling fan. That, that, that might take time. Uh, short term, the thing that I've been avoiding since I literally moved in, I think this arrived maybe two days after one day, no, it was one day after the date that I got, I have two of these side tables. You only see one, because I haven't unpacked the second, because there was so much packing material in the first, and I hated it so much that I broke back the second. So let's do that really fast. At least this time I'm better prepared with a better knife, and I know what I'm getting myself into. So heavy. All of this tape, all of these separate pieces, this is why it took me so long last time to try and pull it out. It does not. So I'm gonna fast forward, and I will time. It's 5 30 now. It's been eight minutes. I've gotten far enough. I broke my shoe. It took me 12 minutes from when I started timing, so about 15 minutes. Now I have a much smaller box and a lot of trash. The second thing that I can do in this room is another picture that I need to put new matting and sort of fix up. It's a little bit warped. Fair warning, it is very 1920s French fashion print. If you don't want to see some artistic stuff, maybe just skip this part. I have this lovely lady who is supposed to be off. It's made to expose, but it's fine. It's going in the bedroom. I feel like that's appropriate, and it has never been rematted, although it still has the paper on the back, and clearly had some moisture issues because it's all very warped. It's very dusty and very dingy, so we're going to pull this out, see if I can steam it back to being flat very carefully, or wait it out to be flat, and get some new matting on it, which will probably also keep the whole entrance dark, keeping it stable. Okay, obviously, let's see better days. First things first, let's remove the old wires. What? Okay, no, never mind. I was going to say, why is it pink? Because it's gold. You put pink or red under gold. Unless they painted it gold, and it was painted pink. There's a chance this piece of cardboard is part of the problem. All right, here we go. At least the tape's coming off easily. There's a residue on everything. It's not bad. I just would like it slightly less beige. Zooming in really fast to show you something exciting. This is metal, which means that this this was pink. This frame was bright mid-century pink. So next, we need to figure out what to frame her in. I have this green, which I think is pretty ideal and goes really well with the green that's in my bedroom. So we're going to start with definitely that. The original matting that they did was sort of a mid-tone dark than light. I don't think that's a bad idea. I just feel like it was a little meh. So I do have this for light, but it's really vivid. Originally, I was possibly going to use that, but no, that's too blue anyway. So we'll see. We'll see what I've got. That's the unfortunate thing. I don't really have something that's quite right for a third tone for this. Future Nicole here to let you know that, in fact, this did not work out in terms of the colors I already had, and I could not manage to salvage what was there because it wanted to rip apart instead of just come apart. So I had to order new mat board from Blick Art Supplies because they were the only ones that carry enough colors. No one locally does. So I will put an update on Instagram when that finally gets done. Which brings us to the last room, which is the bathroom. And honestly, the thing that's going to change the most in the entire house. For one thing, there are already holes all over the walls. Those are for testing. So they've all gone off to a lab to figure out if they have lead or asbestos in them. So they have to check interior, exterior walls, as well as the ceiling and lots of different spaces. So I've got some chunks missing at this point in time. We'll find out what's happening there. But that is because this is one of the rooms that is going to be worked on professionally. I don't mess with plumbing or dealing with tile work or so many other things. So this room is actually a horrible layout. Currently the toilet is in such a small space that my shoulders basically touch the wall. And there's a whole bunch of gap over here where there's nothing. So it's not laid out well. It is not an effective use of space for the fact that it is the only full bathroom that is not in the basement. And I have two closets on the other side of this wall that are really not useful. The one in the main bedroom is deeper than it should be. And the hall closet just isn't an effective use. I already have another hall closet and I'd rather keep that as my linen closet and utilize this space. So we are busting down that wall and expanding into that area. Over here will be a sink and storage and a little bench under the window, a beautiful archway, and then tub and toilet and a little bit more storage over there. I am keeping the tub. It's the only thing that's really going to survive out of this space. A lot of things have been replaced. The cabinetry and other things are more modern. So that's not a loss. And the tile, while it is original, is just plain white tile. I would prefer color. But the tub is a really nice cast iron tub with a beautiful art deco style on the front. And that can be fixed up. There's just a smidgen of rust and re-enameled in whatever color I would like. So that's very exciting. We will also get a chance, because of that, because this is a full gut down to the studs, we'll be able to see the way that plumbing was put in in the early part of the 20th century and all the electrical as well as down in the kitchen. So we're going to get to discover a lot of secrets literally in my walls, which is very exciting. Even what type of insulation do they use here? Who knows? I cannot wait to find out. There are so many great things happening. Even tomorrow I get to go to a design meeting to look at tiles and figure out more of the details for both the kitchen and the bathroom. So things are happening. I just haven't been able to share them with you yet. So definitely subscribe and sign up for notifications because there are so many things happening with this house over the next few months. And next year is going to be absolutely crazy with just how much is going to happen. I know that not a lot has updated yet, but as soon as we start getting paint on the walls, that's going to start changing really fast. And hopefully by the time I reach the end of this year, I will have the living room, the studio, the sunroom, the half bath, and maybe a little bit more pretty much ready to go. Not finished. I'm never going to say finished. I'm not sure that ever really happens. But painted and greatly updated. Definitely keep an eye out for the videos coming on the sunroom and the half bath very shortly and a lot more after that. Do I know what I'm doing? It's fun. It's fun.