Putting Fabulous Back Into The Powder Room
The main floor bathroom in the Cross House, 1999.
But this is not how the bathroom looked when I purchased the house in 2014.
The previous owner, Bob, gutted it. And then, to repair termite damage, I gutted it some more. All the white quartz was removed and is now stored under the main stair.
Bob had removed all the trim and stripped it. This was then all stored in the Aladdin’s Cave and it took me a while to find all the bits and bring them back into the room. Sadly, some bits seem to be gone.
Earlier this year I restored the utterly fabulous oval window, and this was reinstalled along with all its trim. About once a month I step into the room, look at this fabulousness, and smile. Today though I decided to resurrect the pair of petite rectangular windows.
Ta-da! I was ecstatic to find all the pieces! Squee!!!!!!!! All the bits are held with but a single screw so they can be easily removed when I get around to resurrecting the walls.
Bob installed the foil-backed insulation. The windows are small, and so the trim seems deliciously overscaled. LOVE THIS. Oh, and the window pulls are missing. DAMN! This now makes twenty-three missing pulls! Twenty-three! The nightmare…continues!
I also reinstalled the door bits, and only the right-hand upper corner plinth is missing. Bob did not strip this trim, which thrills me, for I can send a sample to be analyzed to determine the original finish.
I also tacked back on the wood trim which sits above the white quartz. Sadly, one long piece seems to be gone.
A delightful discovery was finding that one edge of the quartz trim is enjoying an exquisite mitered dance with the door trim. I love love love how somebody, 123-years-ago, made this effort.
I thought the bath would be fully restored in 2015.
Oops.
I am glad though this did not happen for I learned a great deal about the small room in the intervening years.
I now know that the full bath which existed in 2104 was not what was there in 1894. Subtle clues, which I detailed in a series of posts, confirm that the room was originally a half bath. There was a 34-inch wide marble vanity, and a high-tank toilet. Each rested, likely, upon marble slabs inserted into the tile flooring (which was common in the 1890s).
My plan is to recreate the 1894 arrangement, sans the inset marble. There is a company which recreates the type tile flooring I have, and I will order enough new tiles to create a fully tiled floor.
What has been stopping the restoration of the room is:
- I can’t install a ceiling until all the plumbing and electrical is completed for the room above.
- The quartz needs to be polished, and a broken piece needs to be glued and polished. I have not found anybody who can do this yet although my efforts have been minimal.
Still, after installing most of the rest of the trim, I look forward to stepping into the room once a month, enjoying the newly added fabulousness, and smiling broadly.
Oh…
…and I am LIVING for the day when the peacock wallpaper is installed.
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Wow the bathroom really is going to be fabulous! I’m so looking forward to the peacock wall paper being installed.
I know this is very obvious so I’m sure you have thought of it and eliminated the possibility- but my first thought was if these could be the 2 mysterious sash pulls from your post on the sash hardware? I know-that would be way too easy.
The two rectangular windows appear to have had the Yale & Towne Austerlitz pulls. You can see them in the first image.
A point of geologic clarification — you would have quartzite not quartz in the powder room. Quartz is a mineral, minerals make up rocks. Quartzite is a metamorphic rock created when a sandstone that contains a high percentage of quartz grains is subjected to high temperatures and pressures.
Perhaps the confusion is from the common use of the term quartz to refer to modern engineered stone (crushed rocks bound together by resins in a factory). Definitely not something that would be original to the Cross House.
Also, an easy way to tell the difference between quartzite and marble is the scratch test. Quartz, the major component of quartzite, is very hard and will easily scratch a piece of glass. Marble is made of mostly calcite which is softer than glass and will not make a scratch.
Fascinating!
I stand geologically corrected! Thank you!
Ditto Annette-can hardly wait!!!
I am one of those odd folk who would be happy with a Pullman kitchen if I had a luxurious bathroom. For whatever reason, more than the parlor or library or telephone niche or any other, this is the room I’m most anticipating. The Peacock Potty. :>
I want that oval window. Would someone please send it to me??
Or a template? Must. Have.
Vintage Hardware and lighting can reproduce your missing window pulls.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell from a picture so this might be a dumb question, but… in the picture of the door, the walls appear to be a kind of brown color. Is that paint? If so, is it the only thing before plain plaster? Is it possible that there wasn’t any original wallpaper – just paint?
Also, if it is paint, it looks like it would have matched the original tile.