Built-In Wholesome Goodness

Having limited square footage you have to get creative to make the space work. My house is about 12'-6" wide (45' deep) on the interior, with a single open space on the main floor. While this lends itself beautifully to an open floor plan, it makes room arrangement and furniture usage and placement annoyingly difficult. To best make use of the layout the Queen and I made an executive decreedecision to add built-in bookshelves. You see, I have what used to be a fireplace near the front of the house. It now contains a HVAC grate. Lovely. I can't just remove the old fireplace completely since my water heater and furnace now vents through the old chimney. The old fireplace sticks into the room, creating two 10" depth spaces on either side of it. Currently this space isn't very usable. We decided to change this. Keep in mind that living in a rowhome originally built in 1900 guarantees a couple of things.

1. Nothing will be level.
2. The brick walls adjacent to your neighbors are a combination of plaster/cement, with firring strips and drywall on them.

These two items made the decision to make built-in bookshelves difficult. We couldn't just attach some shelves to the wall, since they probably wouldn't be very level, and there really wasn't anything to brace the shelves into. Dadolescent and I ripped the drywall off the wall, exposing the plaster and framing around the fireplace. We reframed walls attaching into the ceiling and floor joists with 2x4's, which will hold approximately 1,000,000 lbs of books. Trust me, I did an engineering calculation? Since we used 2x4's the shelves can't be more than 7.5" deep or they would protrude past the fireplace - probably should have used 2x3's, but a bit late for that now. Anyways, since the new knee wall means the couch will offer a direct view of the fireplace and shelves, this offered us a problem of where to put the TV. Should it go in the cove to the right of the fireplace, or above it? We decided above since the fireplace was already a visual draw, and bookshelves surrounding the TV are flat out sexy.

With 60" of width above the fire place, we decided a 47"-50" flat screen would work well. A 36-63" LCD tiltable wall mount is now ordered, and framing and electrical above the fireplace will commence this week. I'm going to put electrical and cable behind the new TV, placing conduit for a wire chase behind the drywall from the TV to the electronic gadgetry located in the right hand cove. This means no visible cables running from the TV to the cabinet. The Queen and I argued about whether this should be a floating credenza or not (I think it should, so I can hardmount electrical into it), but the Queen doesn't like this idea. The ball is in her court to find a 48" credenza for this area that:

A. Looks Hawt.
B. Is 48" wide.
C. Is a minimal depth. The shelf depths will only be 7.5" deep or they would protrude past the fireplace, so I'd like to minimize the credenza depth jutting out in the room.
D. Looks Hawt.
E. Can hold electronics, and be able to receive an IR signal from a remote. This means it has to be either open or glass for part of it.
F. Is a normal height. A lot of stands nowadays are meant to sit a TV on top of them, causing them to be extremely low. Since our TV will go elsewhere, something higher would probably look better.
G. And Looks Hawt.

There is also the possibility of a built-in credenza. The issue with this is the space is like 50.5" wide, and my cabinet building skillz are non-existent. The shelves will go above the credenza shelves. For now, the plan is for the left of the fireplace to be all shelves.

For shelves I am still thinking of how best to design the shelves to minimize the visual impact of the brackets and my installation time, while also making the trim around the shelves (crown and baseboard) work. For now, I am leaning toward modifying Ikea's white Lack shelves to shave some depth and width off to fit the space. This would solve the problem of showing brackets, as their brackets mount inside the 2" high shelves for a seamless appearance.



There is also the possibility of going with fully customized bookshelves, but I don't know if it would look as good as the above option, and I think the install time could be a lot greater. The jury is still out on this.

*I’ll add more pics to the post when I upload them in a couple hours.

Hungarian Bookshelves & Subway Tile Fireplace

The Hungarian shelves and the white subway tile in the fireplace are finally in. The fireplace was non-operating, thus tiling it over wasn't an issue. We thought we were going to paint the mantle white, but after looking at it with the white tile in we decided it was too cold looking. We'll just refinish it, with the wood adding a bit of warmth to the otherwise white and silver palette.



The shelves were much easier to do than standard bookshelves and we like the modern look. All the online materials I saw had them unpainted, but after a few coats of white semi-gloss they look like a million bucks. We used sanded plywood instead of MDF, as the ends are free hanging so we needed the extra strength. The front edge of the wood is covered with a strip of melamine. I'd never thought of an iron as a device used in shelf building, but indeed it is.

Over the fire place is the electrical and cable line. When we order the TV I'll know exactly where to place the outlets in relation to the wall bracket, so for now the locations are notional.

I'd say it looks better than it was before, especially with the ceiling fan gone too.

Design Daydreams

While in the middle of exposing the brick along my stair wall I daydream design choices for my main room downstairs. The wallpapers at ferm-living are an idea to use in one of the coves in my room. It's not for a whole room, but I was thinking about building some built-in bookshelves and putting some ferm paper up behind it.



Also, I don't know what to do with a small arched cove in my brick wall. The brick is all exposed around it, but part of me thinks I may keep the cove drywalled/plastered. I kind of like the contrasting look, but am at a loss of how to trim it out - the engineer in me can't helping thinking like this. Pictures are forthcoming.

Hello AT

Howdy folks from Apartment Therapy. If you are looking for some of the better blog entries I recommend checking out the kitchen and the hungarian bookshelves.

For the regular blog readers head over to AT and take the survey posted over at AT about the tile choices.

Built-In Bookshelves Drawing

To make sure I hung the shelves right, and to help decide what size TV to get I made an AutoCAD sketch of the built-in area.



To compare, here is a shot of the area before the renovation.



The framing and drywall of the area is complete, with an electrical outlet added behind the TV space, and a wireway created to the entertainment unit. Also, speaker wire has been run behind the TV to allow speakers to go unobtrusively on the shelves. Thus far, there should be no way to see any wires.

The shelves will most likely (read, if they work) be a white Ikea Lack, modified to fit. I bought a couple shelves to play with; hopefully I can make them work, as I really like the frameless look and I can only use the framing wall behind the shelves for bracing as a couple of the side walls are not structurally sound. The max load per shelf is listed as 18-44 lbs, but I am decreasing the depth of them by about 20%, and trimming down the length 15-25%. This should increase the load capacity, especially since I'll be stiffening up the frame too.

The television will be a 46-50" TV, wall mounted on a tiltable mount. The lines on the drawing show both sizes, which I'm town between. While I'm all for a nice big TV after living with a 20" TV for the last 10 years, I don't want to get too big from a height perspective. While the width is nice, the couch sits across from the TV about 10' away, so going too high means you are looking up at it. The bigger the screen, the more you have to look up. Gotta love the limited design trade space due to having a small space.

For the electronics storage we purchased the Ikea Tobo. We needed something to fit the electronics and had a way for the IR signals of the remote to get into the cabinet. The 19" depth and glass front accomplish these goals. While I would have preferred a more mid-century modern wood piece, the width of this indented area really limited us. If something nicer comes along we'll get it, but this will work for now.



The tile area in front of the faux fireplace will be tiled over with white subway tile (yay for $1.50 sq/ft tile from HD), and the mantel painted white. The hardie-board is laid down and I'm waiting to borrow a tile saw to get this project done. The ceiling fan in the above picture is also no longer. The light would have shone onto the TV and the width it gone and can lights put in the 9' ceilings are definitely more noticeable.

Uber TV invades the house

Reading houseblogs and other design sources, the TV is something to be hidden in a deep dark corner of the house out of view. Yet when you watch TV it's supposed to be convenient. Hmph. The 13' width of the rowhouse limited our TV space to one of the side walls. Add the fact that bookshelves fit so perfectly into the niches to the side of the (non-functioning) fireplace, above the fireplace was the only good place for the TV. While we admire our new 50" TV nightly, we get a crick in our neck while laying on the couch.



We also decided to refinish the mantle instead of painting it white. After stripping the brown paint off the top, we were happy to see it was oak instead of the pine that I expected. There are multiple cigarette burns around the edge. To me, this just adds to the charm. After 5 coats of poly, the mantle looks HAWT when coupled with our $1 a sq/ft subway tile. We also decided to collect little birdies with the mantle serving as a great perch.

The 8 Commandments

During renovations Beancountingqueen and I have been dreaming of greener pastures, a.k.a. a place with a lawn. We peer at house listings longingly, emailing ideas back and forth. During this I have solidified things I want in the next home. I bring to you...

The 8 Commandments of the Future House

1. Thou shalt be a single family home - Living in a rowhome is pretty cool, but it doesn't offer the space that I'd like. Don't get me wrong, I really think rowhomes in Baltimore have great character, but a bit more space and some seclusion would be nice. Also, no townhomes.

2. Thou shalt be an old house with character - No brand spanking new, vinyl sided houses for me. That may be fine for most, but I know if I decided to make it how I liked it inside it would still be a ho-hum box. I can handle an old cottage type home, a tudor, a colonial or a mid century ranch, but no homes built after 1990.

3. Thou shalt have a beautiful yard, with a house that is built just right for the lot - Having a big yard, by itself, doesn't cut it. A monstrosity of a brick façade jutting out a characterless lawn doesn't do it for me. We want something secluded; an oasis near the city where walking out into the yard feels like walking out into the woods. Yes, this means lots of old growth trees and the like. Some decent landscaping would be nice, but eventually I'll landscape the place all beautiful'n'stuff.

4. Thou shalt be close to city - Or at least far from frightening suburbs filled w/ chains and screaming babies. Children are lovely joy filled little beings… Some chain restaurants are ok… Chain restaurants filled with screaming, running, food slinging children kind of cramp our style. It's cool that some people are into that, but the Queen and I aren't so into it. At least not now. Or for a long time.

5. Thou shalt be cozy - We don't need a McMansion, just enough space for us. Anything above 3000 sq ft is too much. More maintenance, utilities, and furniture to fill rooms that we won't use. Nothanxkbye.

6. Thou shalt not be completely done - One of my favorite books is Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'. I am also a fan of the Myers Briggs personality test. The book's main character, Howard Roark, is an architect that builds homes that fit the building site. My Myers Briggs personality type, INTP - The Architect, quotes Ayn Rand describing Howard Roark,


"He was looking at the granite. He did not laugh as his eyes stopped in awareness of the earth around him. His face was like a law of nature-a thing one could not question, alter or implore. It had high cheekbones over gaunt, hollow cheeks; gray eyes, cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the mouth of an executioner or a saint. He looked at the granite. To be cut, he thought, and made into walls. He looked at a tree. To be split and made into rafters. He looked at a streak of rust on the stone and thought of iron ore under the ground. To be melted and to emerge as girders against the sky. These rocks, he thought, are here for me; waiting for the drill, the dynamite and my voice; waiting to be split, ripped, pounded, reborn, waiting for the shape my hands will give to them.

Reading this makes me want to split trees and cut granite. Of course I've done neither, but this is but a small detail.

7. Thou shalt have a basement, preferably a walk out - The basement will be dubbed the man space. Women shall be forbidden from entering the testosterone lair.

8. Thou shalt have a walk-in closet (or the ability to add one) - The Queen added this. Men don't care about this stuff - see testosterone lair above.

The Queen said the above list severely limits our option. I'm ok with this. If the cottage is still around, and has dropped in price quite a bit then we can consider it. If not, my house will be pretty cool by the time it's done. We're also on the lookout for other options, as more and more houses are sitting on the market.

In the meantime there are many things to do to the rowhouse, like some built in bookshelves and the like, so there is plenty of time to experiment. Before my house in in sellable condition is probably 3-4 months of work ahead, so there is plenty of time, but if anybody knows of a chemical I can sprinkle on the cement in the back yard to make it sprout a lawn please let me know. This could hold us over for a while.