Now that we’ve studied every inch of the outside, let’s take a look inside. We enter from the Avenue B porch, but pause a moment to admire the detail on that door. If you think this door is great, wait until you see the door on the Elm Street side. I love the transom window, as well. We’ll be needing to find the proper replacement hardware for that knob, though.
Stepping into the foyer, the living room is to the right and the dining room is to the left. I’m hoping the drywall in the foyer is hiding whatever was the original wall treatment. I’m also hoping not too much was destroyed when the electricity was added to the house and/or when the electricity was updated. There is evidence of knob & tube having been in the house, but that’s a story for another day.
The living room faces north, the Avenue B side, so while it may not be the brightest room in the house, I bet it’ll be nice and cool in the summer time. Originally, the room did not have a fireplace. That big window on the south side of the house probably went where the fireplace is now. The fireplace was on the west side of the house. Hopefully, during the restoration we’ll find some clues as to where the fireplace was located when the house was first built.
Try not to stare at the metal pipes going up the chimney. They’re keeping the bricks from falling in. Avert your eyes. Nothing to see here! Move along! I do like that stone hearth, though. It just needs a little sprucing up.
This photo is looking through the house to the south. Yes, in fact, something is askew. The wall under those windows is deteriorating which is causing the windows to lean toward the door. Just another thing on my list of things to do. In the meantime, let’s look at that transom window. Intact. Fully functioning. I wanted this house because of how much of the original bits still remain. The rotting wall, I can fix. It’s a heck of a lot harder to find period elements to replace items that have been removed. Moving on….
Here we are looking back toward the foyer. Note the original hardware on that interior door. Just FYI – I checked to see if there are some synonyms for the word original because I’m starting to get annoyed pulling that word out of the hat over and over. There are zero synonyms that would work in this context. Indigenous. Native. Aboriginal. Primordial. Until someone shares with me a backup word, I’m going to have to say the O word a lot. Now that I’ve pointed that out to all of you reading this, thanks to the power of suggestion, you all can get annoyed with the O word, as well. Someone please send me a backup word.
We’ve moved across the foyer into the east facing dining room. According to the fire insurance maps, there used to be a house across the street. Sadly, it’s lost to the ages. Take a look at that center window. I bet this room is wonderful in the morning with the sun coming in. I can’t wait for the first official breakfast here.
There’s the beautiful little cabinet! I am looking forward to getting my hands on it. Everyone say hi to my amazing realtor! The first time she saw this photo she cringed, but now that she’s world famous, she’s ok with it. Hi, Jessica! (She’s going to kill me for this.)
Hello, pretty! Seems strange to me that this pretty little piece of furniture is original to the house and even stranger that, if it is, it has lasted all these years! But hey, I’m not looking the gift horse in the mouth.
And finally, here we are looking into the kitchen. Look up and take notice of yet another transom. That is four, so far. See the door between the dining room and kitchen. I am having a hard time believing this door has always been there. Even a modest family in 1900 probably would not have had a window from the dining room into the kitchen. They’d want to keep the working/functional part of the house hidden from the view of visitors. Today, we have no problem revealing our dirty dishes and are all about open concept. Heck, nowadays, our guests are right in the kitchen with us chatting as we prepare a meal. Not so much back then. We had our formal areas and our informal areas and rarely, if ever, did visitors get to see behind the curtain. My guess is the door between the dining room and the kitchen would have been a solid door so as to shield the working area from view. We’ll see when I get there and start doing some digging.
So that’s it for now. We’ll stop the tour here.
The House on Avenue B 