Late 1800's Farmhouse Vanity Modifications

I'm just now wrapping up a vanity for a client and I thought I'd share some of the specific modifications that I performed to make sure this piece installs easily and functions perfectly in its new home. There were some atypical challenges on this one, which makes it a good one to highlight!

Let's start with a pic of the commode before any work was done ...

I was instantly drawn to this late 1800's commode when I saw it... simple and classic, pleasing proportions, history you could feel, had to have it for the offering. The size is a bit on the small side at 27.75" high, 29" wide, and 15" deep, but for a small space, the footprint is really perfect as it doesn't take up too much more room than a pedestal sink but offers a drawer and a cabinet for storage. So after a few weeks in inventory this piece was reserved for a client in Maine who had a very small water closet in their Farmhouse and it was a match made in proverbial heaven.

First things first, I wasn't comfortable with the height at 27.75" high, even though the rim of the vessel would be at a somewhat reasonable 33", so I removed the top and added 2" between the top drawer and the top. There was a fair bit of work involved to accomplish this and have it look native and natural, but 2" can make all the difference when it comes to comfort.  I also added a small backsplash to the top at this time.  Keeping the original finish was not an option so the client chose Benjamin Moore Coventry Gray, some depth was added back in with a slight edge rub that creates a highlight by exposing the white undercoat.  The pulls are Dakota pulls from Restoration Hardware in a 'soft iron' finish.  I used an antique porcelain knob for the cabinet that I felt tied into the porcelain vessel nicely.

A new life is in store for this historical commode indeed, as it was probably not going to receive the kind of attention it required from anyone else!  A split in the front right door stile was repaired as were other, more minor details.

Getting back to the modifications ... the cozy, 32" wide water closet that the vanity was going to be sitting in has baseboard heating along the rear wall. This dictated that in order for the vanity to sit flush against the wall, I would have to allow safe passage for those baseboard pipes through the bottom rear of the vanity. This was done by removing the bottom rear legs and adding my own rear legs that run along the back of the vanity just in front of the newly opened channel.  This atypical modification will never be seen after the vanity is installed because the vanity is sitting in a nook with a wall is 1.5" from either side of the vanity...

I also needed to plan for drain and supply lines that will be coming up through the floor, a few inches in front of the baseboard channel and on center of where the vanity will sit...

Not done yet!  Can't forget about the top drawer...

Creating a custom solution to my clients needs is an important part of what I do - and I'm rewarded with a great deal of satisfaction for my role in the process!

Vintage Hardware SCORE!

A few months ago I was lucky enough to get my hands on about 50 lbs worth of antique wood screws in almost every conceivable specification. I knew I got really lucky linking up with the older Vermonter who was selling the batch, but I really didn't know how often I'd have a use for it. It has been absolutely indispensable on a near daily basis and pretty much priceless in my world. This stuff was all made here in the USA, back when we made the little things and the big things. The quality of the steel and even the style of the hardware just has no parallel.

One of the most satisfying uses I've found for these classy bits is for attaching pulls or handles on my vanity drawers. Even a discerning manufacturer or artisan producer of hardware will ship their product to you with phillips head (booooo) screws and expect you to be ok with using that - even when the head of fasteners are meant to be seen.  The pull shown below is a shop fave, the Dakota Cup Pull from Restoration Hardware... its a great pull but yes, it comes with sacrilegious phillips heads.

This is just such a huge oversight in my small world, as there is nothing attractive about that type of screw... and the phillips head is also something that was popularized in the 60's .... putting it further out of place and at least 30 years ahead of the antique pieces I work on.

You can tell me I'm crazy, but replacing those phillips with slotted screws definitely adds something that was otherwise discarded. I am happy to pitch that garbage and replace it with authentic Americana. I owe the gentleman I got these from a bottle of something....!

Hidden Love Letter in a Vermont Vanity!

The antique pieces we use for our vanity conversions are often around 100 years old, so one cant be too surprised to find the odd bit of this or that, a vintage thumb tack or a page or two from a depression era newspaper... but this time I came across something a little juicier.  Tucked away, and clearly meant to be hidden underneath the only drawer of a late 1800's flip top commode was a pristine love letter from 1946!

Definitely juicy!  I made an effort to find the author of the letter, as she could very much still be alive and in her early 90's but my trail ran cold pretty quickly... all I had to go on was that her name was Alice and she lived and worked in Plymouth NH in the 40's.  My best shot was reaching someone at the hotel who may have access to records but the hotel, the 'Pemigewasset' had burned down many years ago.  

The historical society in Plymouth is my next move and next time I'm in the area I'm going to swing by.  It's a long shot but as usual, that makes it more interesting!  There is no shortage of alternative endings to their love story... I prefer the ones with no broken hearts... somewhat wishful as it doesn't seem to have been heading that way!

A Very Special Essex

I always try and find a way to make every vanity I build special and unique to the owner... but I outdid myself a bit on the vanity I built for Dana and Patrick.  They were in the middle of remodeling their early 1800's Vermont farmhouse when they found me on Pinterest.  When I went on site to take measurements and discuss the details of the vanity for their small powder room I casually asked if they had any wood that was original to this historical home which could be repurposed for the project.  Their eyes lit up and they escorted me to the stable at the rear which was original to the property in the early 1800's.  In this barn we found two hearty beams, 6 inches thick, that would suit perfectly... I brought the wood back to the workshop and began dimensioning it down to what I would need... no small task on lumber that was loaded with hand cut nails through and through!  In working the wood, it became clear that it was old growth lumber I was dealing with... by my estimation and ring counts, the tree it was from was at minimum 150 years old when it was cut, which would date the lumber to the mid 1600's!  Our founding fathers great great grandparents weren't even infants yet!  So there's that.... combined with the fact that we are repurposing material from the original structure to put to daily use inside the home... very very cool, unique, and exciting to the point where I didn't mind that I chipped up a few sets of spendy planer blades on the project.  For hardware I used a set of Dakota cup pulls from Restoration Hardware.   The vessel sink is an oversize porcelain basin, which looked great with their modernized farmhouse aesthetic.

They decided that they wanted a matching mirror for the vanity as well as full length 5' hallway mirror built from the same lumber so that was of course my pleasure to craft as well.  

Really love the way this project turned out!  

Wood Floor in the Bathroom? Yes please!

Conventional wisdom suggests that a solid wood floor has no place in a bathroom, but I am here to tell you that it can be done... and it can be done without fuss and be a relatively care free material that feels far better underfoot than tile. Truth be told, when it came to our bathroom remodel, my first choice was tile, as I felt like most people do and I just wanted a durable, bulletproof floor. However, when I checked the floor for level (flatness actually, as a floor need not be level for tile, just dead flat), I found that the back wall was over two inches higher than the transition at the door... which would have required me to use a substantial threshold at the door to mate the bathroom floor to the floor outside the bathroom. I think stepping into or out of any room is a bummer, so I decided it best to salvage the hardwood floor that was in there.

After stripping the linoleum and steaming off the associated glue, I found that there were several different species of wood that were used over the last 100 years to patch in repairs. There were also deep dark water stains in this wood that dictated the need for a dark stain to blend in these areas. The problem with this is that these different woods take stain very differently and I knew I'd end up with an uneven mess after all is said and done. Here is a shot after the linoleum is up and before a good sanding ... 

and after a good sanding ... 

You can really see the difference in the wood species, and the color difference would only be exaggerated by a typical staining process. The answer here is to use a 'gel' stain which is designed to sit on the surface of the wood more than penetrate. It is very 'workable', so one can blend light and dark areas easily. I typically stay away from this type of product in my vanity work, because I like to see the wood in those projects, but here, the gel stain offers an ideal compromise...

You'd really never know what a mess it was under there!  I applied 5 coats of water based poly for a little extra protection and this floor has handled daily traffic and showers with ease with no sign of distress from fairly constant moisture...and it has been well over a year. 

So in the end, I got to keep the original floor with no transition into the adjacent room, saved some bucks on tile and substrates, and the floor looks better and feels far more natural than chilly tile ! 

Wood Floor Resurrection!

Like most late 1800's Vermont homes, ours has hardwood floors throughout... albeit underneath many other unwanted layers of flooring like linoleum and carpet.  Most of the floors were covered in linoleum, which in our case was glued down with a now petrified layer of tar paper. The linoleum itself came up fairly easy, but the tar paper itself wasn't going anywhere without a fight. This substrate cannot be sanded off because it would instantly gum up your abrasives, which would not only cost a small fortune in belts and discs but would also just make a messy job even messier. After getting nowhere fast with chemical solvents, I tried a wallpaper steamer (Wagner model 705, $50, available at the big box stores and Amazon) and it was instantly clear that this was the best way forward. The steamer comes with an end attachment that allowed me to set it on the floor for a minute or two while the steam reanimated the stubborn adhesive into a loose slurry that was easily scraped up with a putty knife and wiped clean with a million paper towels. You do have to be methodical and go at this one square foot at a time but the payoff is instantly felt.

The tar paper actually seemed to serve to preserve the wood quite well, so after it was removed, this section of floor only needed a relatively light sanding and refinishing! 

Thankfully, the entire home wasn't covered in linoleum so those areas certainly went quicker as I could just go straight to the drum sander ....

 ...which made quick work of transforming these 100+ year old wood floors from this ...

to this! 

These two rooms used to be a separate living and dining space which we decided to open up. The original floors in each room are different species (douglas fir in the far room, and pine closest)... there was a cavity left by the wall we removed where there was no original wood floor so I opted to lay in a wide plank of Brazilian walnut which made for a beautiful and natural transition between the two spaces.  There is no stain on either floor, just a waterbased satin poly... dries fast, very low odor / V.O.C. and is 'oil modified' which helps enhance the aged tones in the floor.  

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One thing I've really been missing is a place where I can chat about some of the more interesting projects and challenges that come through the workshop.  Feel free to leave a comment if you've got something to say, I hope you find the content here engaging enough to do so!