old house renovation Archives - Letters from EuroLux

In my previous Kitchen Krazy blog post, I explained our design inspirations and some of our furniture ideas for the kitchen in our 1920s vintage bungalow. Let's see how it worked out!

Greg sanded down the kitchen cabinet door frames that we had repurposed from the spare doors on an antique cabinet we bought to use as a bedroom bookcase.

(You can see the finished bookcase here.) I cut new glass panels using seeded glass that looks like old glass.

We knew those would be the upper cabinet doors on either side of the sink. From there, John Hopfensperger of Cayce Custom Cabinetry designed the kitchen cabinets.

John's designs included all of our wish list items such as a rack for plates, shelves next to the window for growing herbs, a lazy Susan corner cabinet for pots and pans, a slide-out garbage can, and a spot for the microwave off the counter. The vintage light fixtures were hung first.

In addition to kitchen cabinets, I also wanted to use an antique buffet in the kitchen to add even more character to the space. We found an 1920s Arts & Crafts antique buffet in France several years ago and knew it was the perfect piece! It was even painted on the inside with the same blue-green color that I wanted for the cabinets and it has wonderful antique glass doors. Although the top would normally sit on the bottom cabinet, we wanted to hang the top on the wall in order to create more counter space.

I held my breath while Greg and the cabinet installers hung it!

The hardware on this cabinet also inspired the choice of hardware for the rest of the kitchen.

I haven’t completely moved everything in yet nor finished decorating my wonderful kitchen, but here are some early “after” photos.

Of course, I am also not planning to have plywood counter tops. I want copper counters, but that is still a project we haven’t finished yet. We also have work to do for a backsplash. Don’t worry – you’ll see finished photos eventually!

Although the house is far from finished, with the installation of the kitchen, we were finally ready to move in – after three years of hard work!

Aimee owns EuroLuxHome.com with her husband and best friend, Greg. Aimee sources amazing antique furniture, vintage lighting, & high-quality reproduction furniture to help her customers decorate their homes in a unique way. She loves her 8 (you read that right) fuzzy children and is renovating a 1920s bungalow in South Carolina. Find us on Facebook or connect with EuroLux on Google+. Or you can sign up here to receive this blog in your inbox.

Before we started the renovation of our 1920s vintage bungalow, Greg and I talked about which things were most important to each of us. Greg (the music lover) wanted the whole house to be wired for media so that he could listen to his favorite tunes in surround sound, no matter which room he was in.

As for me, I wanted a gorgeous and unique kitchen – unlike anything you would see in most homes. Although I know it is very trendy, I really didn't see myself in a kitchen with dark wood cabinets and granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. I wanted colorful, painted cabinets that looked vintage and had a great deal of character.

Stock kitchen cabinets were out of the question so we hired a local craftsman, John Hopfensperger of Cayce Custom Cabinetry. I fell in love with his ability to create custom paint finishes with as much distressing as I’d like. I wanted the aqua green-blue color that you see on vintage 1957 Chevrolets because it matched my hand-painted Italian Deruta dishes that we bought in San Gimignano when we lived in Europe. I know the vibrant colors are not for everyone, but I love it!

The style of the kitchen cabinets were influenced by this antique kitchen cabinet that we found at the Antique Tobacco Barn in Asheville. We actually bought that cabinet to be a built-in bookcase in our bedroom so I can use it to display my favorite books and family photos. (It's not full yet in this photo... I'm still working on it!) The three upper areas have glass doors and the three lower areas have solid wood doors.

There were four extra glass doors that came with this bookcase, and we decided those would make great kitchen cabinet doors.

You might remember that I blogged about an awesome vintage double sink (it still has the original Sears catalogue sticker from 1952 inside) that we found at a ReStore when we were antiques shopping in Asheville. We had it completely restored and here it is mostly installed.

That's the background story, I'll show you in my next post how it all turned out!

The renovation of our 1920s bungalow has truly been a labor of love. You’ve seen the tile floors go down and penny tiles in the bathroom. We replaced the roof too as well as building a cat porch. Now we’re excited to put down laminate flooring.

We had originally thought that we’d refinish the original hardwood floors, but most of the boards were dry-rotted and had to be completely removed.

We chose a dark walnut laminate rather than true hardwood floors because of the durability against scratches from the dogs’ nails.

We liked this particular laminate because it had staggered sizes of boards and it has a textural wood grain feel. It also has a vintage or distressed look to it, and it has a very thick attached padding to the underside.

Greg worked with our handyman, Frank, to put down the laminate, which we had never done before. They started in the front living room.
It really went pretty fast! Greg and Frank were able to lay the laminate in the front living room and dining room in one day.

In this shot of the dining room, you’re getting an early peep at the kitchen. I’ll show you how the kitchen came together in the next Vintage Life blog. Next came the master bedroom:

And then the closet:

Do you like my vintage Capodimonte light fixture in the closet? I love it!

Now that the floors were down, we could build the closets that we purchased from Ikea. Ikea does know how to provide a great amount of storage space in a small area. Our master closet is now in the same footprint as the only original bathroom in the house.

Now that we actually had flooring throughout the entire house, we could start bringing in furniture, which made us feel like we were really making progress!

We started with the vintage green leather English sofa and chair set that we had purchased in Asheville.

Next we brought over our bed...

...and our antique dining room table and chairs.
Stay tuned! The kitchen is the last piece that is truly needed before we can move in and that will be the next Vintage Life blog post!

Aimee owns EuroLuxHome.com with her husband and best friend, Greg. Aimee sources amazing antique furniture, vintage lighting, & high-quality reproduction furniture to help her customers decorate their homes in a unique way. She loves her 9 (you read that right) fuzzy children and is renovating a 1920s bungalow in South Carolina. Find us on Facebook or connect with EuroLux on Google+. Or you can sign up here to receive this blog in your inbox.

We hope you enjoy this quick “antiques roundup” of highlights from our October blog posts, linked to the original stories so you can go back to see them for yourself!

We had quite a busy month, including adopting a new cat and ooh-ing and aah-ing over the photos in our spotlight on our customer's gorgeous Greco-Roman mansion home.

This is the outside of that lovely house and the inside is just as amazing, filled with antique furniture chosen by our customer Tamra. She chose some beautiful pieces from us, including a French Country Louis XV refectory table, antique Hunting chairs and Hunting buffets, and a couple of antique Mechelen buffets. You really have to see this mini tour, so take a look at the full blog post about Antique French Furniture in a Classic Newberry Mansion.

Our happiest news this month was the arrival of our new little tiger cat Pumpkin. She turned up on our doorstep looking wet and bedraggled after Hurricane Joachim dumped 18″ of rain in Newberry over one weekend.

When I opened the door, she pranced in as if she belonged here and pretty soon she did! She arrived just in time to be the star of my National Cat Day post.

You can see how she's been making herself at home all over the gallery, and we've also shared recent cute photos of some of our other fur babies.

Welcome Pumpkin... named for the month you arrived!

We were less happy a while ago when we found that the roof was leaking in the sun room of our 1920s vintage bungalow. During all our renovations, we hoped that we had about 5 years left in the existing roof but it turned out to be only 3 years. There was nothing for it but to Raise the Roof! As you can see in the post, we also added some skylights and chose a patriotic shingle and paint combo, so it all worked out just fine!

The final highlight that I'd like to mention of our home decor blog posts this month is about the Marble Decor Trend. Marble in furnishings and architecture is, of course, a classic favorite, but now it's getting a new boost of appreciation from the interior design world.

Aside from furniture featuring marble details, the current trend has inspired faux marble looks on everything from textiles to wallpaper! This marble print duvet cover is a great example of a fresh take on an eternally elegant material.

I look forward to spending November with you, sharing more ideas and stories about antique furniture and home decor. Stay cozy!

Aimee owns EuroLuxHome.com with her husband and best friend, Greg. Aimee sources amazing antique furniture, vintage lighting, & high-quality reproduction furniture to help her customers decorate their homes in a unique way. She loves her 9 (you read that right) fuzzy children and is renovating a 1920s bungalow in South Carolina. Find us on Facebook or connect with EuroLux on Google+. Or you can sign up here to receive this blog in your inbox.

In the continuing story of As the Bungalow Renovation Turns – a.k.a. the renovation of our 1920s vintage bungalow – now that we had the walls up and painted and had laid most of the ceramic tile floors, unfortunately we found that the roof had started to leak in the sun room.

When we purchased the house, we thought we had about 5 years left in the existing roof, but it turns out it was only about 3 years. And so we needed to replace the roof.

Although Greg is extremely handy, and I am a delightful assistant, we decided not to attempt a roofing job ourselves as Greg does not like heights. We hired a crew and they set to work removing all of the old roofing shingles. as you can see in the photo above.
There were quite a few areas where the wood underneath the shingles needed to be replaced too.
Since we had a crew up on the roof, we decided to go ahead and punch three large skylights in the roof for more light in the upstairs converted attic space. We’re glad we did – it turned out great! Here you can see the skylights being opened up...
Here are the finished skylights. They are perfect to bring in the light and give us a glimpse of sky.

After just two days, the new roof was completed and looked good.This is the view from the back of the house:

We choose a reddish-colored roof shingle that matched the reddish-paint on the brick foundation around the bottom of the house. It's a very patriotic combination with the blue paint and white trim! We are delighted that it looks so great. We could have done without an extra roofing job but it all turned out for the best! We were so lucky that our little vintage bungalow stayed nice and dry when Hurricane Joachim blew through.

Aimee owns EuroLuxHome.com with her husband and best friend, Greg. Aimee sources amazing antique furniture, vintage lighting, & high-quality reproduction furniture to help her customers decorate their homes in a unique way. She loves her 9 (you read that right) fuzzy children and is renovating a 1920s bungalow in South Carolina. Find us on Facebook or connect with EuroLux on Google+. Or you can sign up here to receive this blog in your inbox.

We didn't intend to have eight fuzzy babies, it just worked out that way. We know we have a cat overpopulation situation, so as we worked on the renovation of our 1920s vintage bungalow, we made sure we created a special space for the cats too. This is how we ended up building a "cat paradise" screened porch for everyone to enjoy.

Here are four of the cats. I keep them supplied with a pot of cat grass so they can happily graze all day!

This shows our porch after we hung new exterior siding, but before we screened it in.
We thought it would really make the porch look nice to tile it...

...and of course we needed a great vintage screened door, which we found at the Antique Tobacco Barn in Asheville, NC, where we also have a booth.

Then we added a very interesting oyster chandelier. We have oyster chandeliers for sale in case you like it as much as we do and are interested in buying one!

There are two cat doors on either side of our front door leading out to the screened front porch so that everyone can come and go as they please - which they do all day and night. We constantly hear "flap, flap, flap" from the cats going in and out.

We built steps up to corner platforms on each side of the porch and then more steps up to walkways along the top of the porch and over the screened door, so that there are plenty of spots for all six cats to enjoy the porch at the same time. We also built a fireman's pole out of sisal rope so that they could climb up and down it like a tree and use it for a scratch post.

Minkey and Fozzy take their perches to enjoy the view at sunset.
Fozzy knows we can't reach him up there.

Lenny, Fozzy and Minkey checking out the neighborhood after the sun has set. Everyone really enjoys "cat paradise" on the patio - even Greg and I like to kick back on the porch with a couple beers after a long day.

Have you "spoiled" your fuzzy babies with something built especially for them them? Tell us about it in the comments or show us with a photo on our Facebook page.

Greg and I love to putter in the garden - we find it so relaxing to be outside, digging in the dirt. I like to call it yard yoga. As soon as spring starts, we can't resist working on the landscaping for our vintage 1920s bungalow, even though we still have so much to do inside! When the weather turns so hot we can't stand to be outside, we'll turn back to our inside projects. We've come a long way over the past few years.

Here are some photos from when we first cleaned up the front yard...

...then created beds, planted baby plants, and put down grass seed in the Spring of 2012.

The following spring in May 2013, the roses were in bloom, the grass was starting to fill in...
...and the jasmine and climbing roses were taking over the trellis.

Last spring, we worked in the back yard. We hadn't done much since 2012 when we cleared it, put up a fence, and planted baby trees:

In the Spring of 2014, we tore down the old dilapidated shed
and built a pretty, new shed for garden tools:

This is the finished shed - it matches our vintage 1920s bungalow!
We also built two raised garden boxes and planted peach trees and fig trees:

We've been busy this year planting more flowers in the front yard...
...and in the side yard:
We added four planters on the steps - two of which belonged to Greg's great grandmother - family heirlooms for blooms! We also added hanging baskets, bird feeders and a couple bird baths, and I built a rose bed around the mailbox out of vintage bricks.
In the backyard, we built two more raised garden boxes.
We have strawberries in one bed; corn, beans, peas, and cucumbers in another; watermelon, cantalope, and zucchini in a third, and tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers in the fourth.

I think we're going to have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year!

Do you love to garden? Tell us about it in the comments!

St. Patrick's Day is coming up on March 17. Rather than tell you how to make green beer 🙂 I thought I'd share home decor inspiration from some beautiful traditional Irish houses.

This is Montalto House, a mansion in the lovely green countryside of County Down, Northern Ireland. The house was built in 1760 and it sits in 600 acres of parkland. (I wouldn't want to have to mow THAT lawn!)

In 2010, architects finished a major restoration on the house interiors.

Traditional Living Room by Other Metro Architects & Building Designers John J. O'Connell Architects Ltd.

This is the library - doesn't it make you want to curl up with a good read? The burnt umber wall color creates warmth and sets the tone for the room. A roaring fire and lighting from the table lamp and wall sconces add more atmosphere. I also spy a brass or copper chandelier overhead. This room proves that good lighting from several sources makes a big difference to the feel of the space.

Traditional Kitchen by Other Metro Architects & Building Designers John J. O'Connell Architects Ltd.

Here is the kitchen. It looks just as you'd think an Irish country house kitchen should look! I love the old metal chandelier and the deep farmhouse sink, also known as a Belfast sink. Montalto House is now a venue for private events like weddings and it is full of Irish and European antiques and art.

Traditional Living Room by Dublin Interior Designers & Decorators Grainne Crowley

A little more modest and more realistic for most of us, this is a very nicely designed Arts and Crafts movement house just outside Dublin. Once again we have a blazing fire! I guess it is chilly sometimes in the Emerald Isle. Heavy wood furniture, barley twist legs on the coffee table and William Morris fabric all add to the sense of traditional comfort in this period home.

Traditional Bedroom by Dublin Interior Designers & Decorators Grainne Crowley

Upstairs in the bedroom of the Arts and Crafts house, the rusty red textured wallpaper has only been applied below the picture rail. It was the same with the olive green walls in the living room photo. Keeping the bold color below the picture rail means that it isn't too overwhelming. It also visually lowers the high ceilings to make the rooms a bit more cozy.

Traditional Living Room by Dublin Interior Designers & Decorators Collette Ward Interiors

Here is another traditional home in Dublin - it welcomes us in at once! The dark brown wood style wallpaper gives an Old World feel and shows that dark walls don't make the room itself dark if the actual lighting is good! This living room seems to enjoy tons of natural light, as well as a handsome chandelier to add a glow in the evening.

Looking at the wood furniture in the Dublin living room, I think that this Woodbridge Furniture Company drinks table that we sell would fit in very nicely! The new Howth drinks table is inspired by original 18th century Irish antique furniture designs.

The patterned table top is crafted with a swirl mahogany veneer and English brown oak burl. With the fluted pedestal column too, the table looks incredibly authentic.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! If we can't make it to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day, at least we can all dream by looking at these amazing traditional Irish houses. Have you been to Ireland? What did you like about the decorative styles there?

It's the most wonderful time of the year, and we've also seen some wonderful examples of creative home decor in our blog posts this month. If you missed my post on our latest antiques container that just arrived from France and our holiday discount, then I hope you'll go and have a look at the link. We have some beautiful pieces of antique furniture and we're still unpacking it all!

Our 15% discount on everything (antiques, vintage, and new) in our EuroLuxHome.com inventory is valid through December 8. We include free shipping too – just as we always do. Now there’s a holiday gift to make Santa smile! Simply enter the coupon code at checkout (chosen to celebrate small businesses like ours): ShopSmall

Among our favorite antiques and creative home decor blog posts from November, our story about Bob H.'s Renaissance Knight Buffet, Mural, and Window has to be one of the most memorable.

Bob was so inspired by the Renaissance knight on horseback carved on an antique buffet he bought from us, he had a mural made to match, and then a matching stained glass window for his impressive foyer. His Illinois home evokes European castles so the Knight theme is fitting. See the mural, window details, and more photos of Bob's home in this blog post.

In another in our series of client spotlights, Amy B. in Wichita, KS, got in touch to show us photos of the Ambella Home Aspen sideboard in Amy's home. She bought the sideboard from us earlier this year and did a wonderful job in accessorizing it.

Eclectic Dining Room by Other Metro Photographers Elad Gonen

For readers who are getting ready to redecorate soon, I shared some creative home decor ideas in my stories on Classic Painted Floor Designs and Red Wine Colored Decor. Whether you are painting floors or walls, I hope that you find some useful inspiration!

The most exciting story for us personally this month is that we finally moved into our our 1920s vintage bungalow.

Regular readers of this blog know that Greg and I have been renovating our darling 1920s bungalow (a.k.a. The Money Pit) since we bought it in October 2011. That vintage house has had a complete makeover from top to bottom since then! We've shared our Vintage Life Bungalow Renovation stories along the way, and we still have plenty of work ahead of us. We'll share that with you too. But for now, as we moved into the house just before Thanksgiving, we are just very thankful to be living in our new home.

I look forward to sharing more creative home decor news with you through the month of December, and hearing about your own antiques and creative decorating too!

If you read Victorian Homes magazine, we hope you see the EuroLux Antiques advertisement we are currently running! Many of our clients across the country are working on Victorian home restorations. We are always delighted to help them find exactly the right piece of antique furniture dating from the Victorian era to blend beautifully into their design scheme.

This antique buffet in the ad has now been snapped up by a customer. It's already been delivered to her home in Kentucky. But we have plenty of other antique buffets in our gallery to choose from!

Are you also furnishing a Victorian home? Or do you just love looking at home décor from this period as much as we do? Then you might enjoy some of my recent customer spotlights about clients working on Victorian home restorations.

Sal in New York is restoring his beautiful Victorian home to its former glory. Sal's interior designer recommended EuroLux Antiques to him. However, Sal couldn't decide between all of the Renaissance buffets we had in stock! So he drove from New York to visit our gallery in South Carolina and make his selection in person. It was wonderful to welcome him and show him around. He finally chose a buffet, a set of ten 1880 Hunting chairs, and a 1900 French Renaissance server too. See more photos of the furniture in my post on Sal's Victorian restoration.

Angela bought several pieces of antique French Brittany furniture from us for her Victorian home in Galveston, TX. Angela is restoring her 1890 house and she chose the Brittany style pieces, all crafted around 1880, because they match the maritime ship's wheel detailing on her lovely white porch. See all the photos - including one of how the house looked in 1894 - in my post on the antique Brittany furniture.

Other clients opt for something from our selection of high-quality reproduction furniture and home accents to bring some beautifully-crafted Victorian style into their home.

If you want to look out for the December issue of Victorian Homes magazine, here's the front cover! Gorgeous isn't it? The festive cover puts me in the mood for the holidays!

Do you live in a Victorian home? Or do you like the elegant Victorian style of décor? Tell us about it in the comment box below!

Aimee and her husband Greg own EuroLuxHome.com. Aimee sources amazing antique furniture, vintage lighting, & high-quality reproduction furniture to help her customers decorate their homes in a unique way. She loves her 8 (you read that right) fuzzy children and is renovating a 1920s bungalow in South Carolina. Connect with Aimee on Google+ or you can sign up here to receive this blog in your inbox.