Waterfall Furniture

Wahoo!
I finally found a Waterfall Bedroom set in good condition at a great price!!!
I scoped out an estate sale last week that advertized a waterfall bedroom set - the sale started on Thursday, and I thought by Friday it would be gone...but it was still there. Dan scoped it out for me and made a deal with the seller and now its MINE!!!! :)

I will be taking better photo soon! This bedroom set was loved and well taken care of for the past  80ish years. There are 4 pieces:

Bed (head board, foot board, rails),
Armour with Mirror
Dressing Table with Mirror
Vanity Chair

You can see the reflection of the bed in the dressing tables mirror, and the little chair in the mirror of the armour.

This will go into my "sewing room" meaning my sewing is getting relocated to a place yet to be determined and the second bedroom is now a "Guest Room".

The set has a few scratched which I have oiled and given a generous slathering of polish - the set looks like new. A few of the cut glass tiles have fallen off but I have them and they will be re-attached.

The only thing that is wrong with the set is on the armour; the knob on the top drawer has a small chip out of the bakelite, and has one replacement mirror clip.

   

Bathroom Shelf Fabrication

Drawing for stainless shelf to hold orchids in master bathroom.

Welcome...

I have been meaning to make a blog since I purchased this home in February 2012, but have not had a chance to do it until now. 

I will be slowly adding back dated stories.

Laundry Sink meet Muriatic Acid

Thanks to the help of Muriatic Acid 61 years worth of ick removed! It took a lot of scrubbing and spraying, but the results are well worth it.

LOOK - It's so shiny and clean!!! This is just the first step of many for this dear old early 50's laundry sink.
The plan is:

1. strip the paint on the outside
2. patch any hairline cracks (there may be two on the outside surface but its hard to tell) 
3. clear coat the outside surface - if you have a cement laundry tub you might as well show it off!
4. patch, fill, sand any rough spots on the inside surface of the tub, bondo like a dented car if you will
5. coat the inside with enamel....should I go with white or a fancy color?
6. clear coat the metal on the rim
7. find faucet to fit the existing holes or use a lame generic utility sink faucet - ho hum
8. make legs
9. install 
10. throw a laundry sink party!

Nice Legs!

New Old Sink Delivered

The new old cement laundry sink was delivered today!

Dan *at gate with Max by his side: "Are you guys afraid of dogs?"
ASWD Delivery Guys: "No man, he's cool."
Dan: "That's good because there are four more in the house."
Dogs inside house: "bark, bark, bark, bark"
ASWD Delivery Guys: "What kind of dogs?"
Dan: "A German Shepard, a Pit Bull, a Doberman, and a Great Dane."
ASWD Delivery Guys: "DAMN!!!!"

Elictrical Don'ts

While Dan was using the sawzall to cut up the old tub over the weekend the power to a light socket and a outlet went out. No big deal right, I have been collecting fuses from estate sales and have oodles of them for this very reason. Well we looked on Yate's map, and checked the fuses...all were fine, nothing blown...uh-o that's not good. So on NYD (official work holiday) the wires were investigated. Dan tore out a bunch of junk wires that were not connected to anything, used his volt meeter to trace the lines and I got to play "what does this fuse do?". This is what we found just above the washing machine:

Eeek! The draw from the radio, the light bulb and sawzall was just too much for the little old copper twist. The wires were charred causing resistance thus not flowing current to the outlet causing them to fail. Old Knob and Tube wiring is fine as long as you don't splice into it and do dumb things like the photo above. Honestly the sketchy wiring in the house is the "modern" Romex!

    

Out With The Old Laundry Sink

The old soapstone laundry sink in the basement, the one that came with the house has been having issues. It has a huge crack all around the right (main) bin so it leaks water all over the floor any time you use the washing machine. It has been calked and patched but never holds. There is also an issue with draining, IE it will not drain unless you plunge it, and the second bin also fills up with water. The third bin, well some crazy person drilled holes around the drain. Why?? I guess to help it drain, all over the floor?!?! AWESOME! So it's a three chamber soapstone laundry sink that has one semi-decent working bin in the middle and the two on each side are utterly useless.

RIP 1915 -2013 (soapstone tubs don't observe leap years)

In my laundry sink research I found that the more bins your laundry sink had the more affluent you were...well call me hoity-toity! In 1915 it was common to have a laundry tub, meaning a portable galvanized tub to do your laundry in. If you had money you had a permanent laundry sink in the basement of your house. If you had even more money you had a two chamber laundry sink to wash your clothing in, one for wash water, and one for rinse water. If you were rolling in the dough you had a three chamber laundry sink, one for washing and two for rinsing! Think of how clean the original home owners whites were!    

The smash of a sledge hammer and zip of a sawzall and there are only pieces left. I plan on saving the faucets, they are fun and quirky.