Canadas at Home: House in 1999
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A Home Tour
January 1999: Now that we have finished the last round of major
home renovations that we will make
for a very long time, we invite you on a virtual tour of our home.
As you enter our front door and turn to the left, you see
our living room and dining room. We liked this expansive area
the first time we saw it, especially because of the hardwood floors, fireplace,
built-in bookshelves, and the many large windows, which allow a lot of light
to enter the room. All that we felt we needed to do to this space was to
touch it up and add some accents. We installed crown molding around the
perimeter, painted the walls a pale yellow, repainted the white bookshelves,
added a white carpet in front of the fireplace, repaired the fireplace,
and installed a chandelier and dish rack in the dining area. Because of
the large space and abundance of light, we enjoy entertaining guests here
as well as just relaxing in the evenings and on weekend afternoons.
Moving through the living room and past the dining area, you enter our
kitchen, which we just finished renovating in December. In an early
stage of renovation begun the previous year, we had replaced the less-than-charming
red countertops with almond ones. This past fall, we painted the cabinets
almond, repainted the ceiling, painted the walls cream and beige, put up
wallpaper border, added some curtains that Lisa made, and put down new tile.
The space is now a more comfortable place for Lisa to enjoy one of her favorite
hobbies, cooking, especially since she can be in here and still look through
a window into the playroom to watch Essie.
Added on after the house was built but before we bought
the home, the room that we now call the playroom needed more work
than almost any other room in the house. The main problem was that it was
extremely dark because three of the walls featured dark paneling and the
fourth, originally an exterior wall, was made of red brick. Lovers of light,
we brightened the room by painting both the paneling and the bricks white.
We also put a few coats of white paint on the ceiling, which had been brown,
and added a ceiling fan. Later, we laid some berber carpeting over the tile
floor and put down new tile in front of the back door. For many reasons,
this area is an ideal playroom for Essie and her parents. Because it's in
the back of the house, we don't mind if she strews toys, socks, blankets,
and books all over the floor; the house still looks clean when visitors
come to the front. Of fair size, it also provides room for Essie to roam
and for all of us to congregate for a game of pass the ball. Because it
is on the opposite side of the house from the bedrooms, one of us can play
with Essie here without disturbing the other, or Lisa and I can listen to
music here without waking up Essie after she goes to bed.
Peeking out the back door, you see our back yard, which, because
of its size and the trees surrounding it, is pleasantly private. After removing
some debris that had accumulated while the house was vacant, we planted
a garden, built and installed a birdhouse, set out some Adirondack chairs
that we made back in Chapel Hill, and added a hammock and a set of table
and chairs. We like to sit out here in the spring and summer, especially
when we cook out with friends.
Turning back around from the playroom and then looking
to your left, you see our utility room, the unchallenged winner of
the "most-improved" award in the house. Originally the home of
the house's heating system--a hot-water system since replaced with a gas
pack--this room probably never thought it would become much of anything.
When we moved it, we saw a concrete floor painted battleship gray, a huge
utility sink circa 1960, a hot-water heater, and eight square feet of exposed
electrical boxes. We could have blindfolded visitors, charged then admission,
and told them they were in the hull of a World War II aircraft carrier.
Instead, we turned the area into a useful workspace by laying tile, painting
the bricks white, putting up wallpaper and border, and adding several cabinets,
two work stations, and a bar sink. Now, instead of studiously avoiding this
room in our trips around the house, we deliberately and cheerfully come
here to do paper work, talk on the phone, wash wash laundry, iron, and work
on crafts or repairs. As you walk through this room, you see on your left
a small half-bathroom, where we added tile, wallpaper and border,
and new blinds.
After leaving the utility room, you turn to your left and
walk down the hall toward the bedrooms. On the right, you see the master
bathroom. Though not particularly offensive, this room presented a challenge
because it had black and white tile. Lisa chose a border with both a floral
print and hints of black, painted the walls a grayish blue, and sewed and
installed new curtains for the window and shower. While the room is a little
small for a master bath, it has a very practical feature that we like. The
cabinets here also open into the hallway so that we can put dirty laundry
in here from the bathroom and retrieve it from the hallway.
Continuing straight ahead, you enter the master bedroom, where
we added a white carpet, painted over the mint-green walls with a pale rose
color, added a wallpaper border, and converted the sliding closet doors
to swinging doors. Sleeping here, we are not far from Essie, who sleeps
in the next room.
Essie's room, which is just to the left of the master
bedroom, is the only one that we did not paint. We like the soothing shade
of blue, which is not far from Carolina blue, and merely added a few shelves,
some pictures, and the furniture. One of the most recent additions is the
child's bed, which we covered with a quilt that my mother made for Essie.
While Es is not yet old enough to sleep here, she loves to clamber up on
it and sit or lie there. Sometimes Mommy or Daddy joins her to read a book
or help her drift off to sleep at night.
Coming out of Essie's room, you walk directly into the
guest room, the most recently renovated room in the house. For a
long time, we simply treated this room as a den, but we decided to convert
into a guest room when we learned that our friends the Gambles were coming
to visit us this past Christmas. We had hoped not to do much more than change
the furniture, moving the futon that had been here into the playroom and
bringing in an armoir from the master bedroom and a bed that Lisa had bought
from a used-furniture store. Removing the pictures that had been hanging
in here, however, caused the plaster to chip, and the spackling compound
we used to repair these spots did not match the faded paint of the walls.
In addition to painting the armoir and the bed, as we had planned to do,
we wound up repainting the walls and the ceiling.
We hope that you have enjoyed this virtual tour, and we invite our family
and friends to join us for a real tour sometime.
© Mark
and Lisa Canada, 1999
canada@sassette.uncp.edu