The front porch was not enclosed originally but designed as a covered carriage way.  It is believed the Mr. Willys added the leaded class and stained glass that enclose it now in 1910.  There is the original hand laid mosaic tile floor that matches the floor in the sunroom. The woodwork features here, the gothic arches and trefoil topped pillars match the design on the inside.  There was much attention to detail and pattern in the home’s design.  Although the temperatures here this week have been in the 60’s (In December-this is crazy!) I decorated with snowmen.  I thought they would enjoy hanging out on the porch.

The plumber had found many of the original tags that indicated what each room was.  We know the room adjacent to the living room was intended to be the music room.  It has the beautiful built in mahogany cabinets with leaded glass doors.  My dilemma is what do you put in these cabinets??  I do not have a collection of anything that is looking for a place to be displayed.  I think a display of things on a coffee table or mantel or hutch looks beautiful in people’s home and on all the design shows on TV but that isn’t something I have ever done.

Now I have this entire room of cabinets designed to display something and I don’t have the first clue what to do with them.  The cabinets and shelves are labeled and numbered.  Perhaps the priests used this a library? I can’t see a family needing to label the shelves where they would keep their books or display their knick knacks.  But if this was indeed designed as a music room in 1901 what would Mr. Tillinghast have used these for?

The cabinets are only eight inches deep so not many books published then would fit. If it was a music room, would you keep sheet music in the cabinets?  There are also drawers at the bottom so I am really stumped.

They look very pretty, especially with the new lighting in the room but I suppose I am going to have to figure out some practical use for them.  I had considered stocking them as a giant liquor cabinet but the bottles are all too tall.

And they already found a home in the butler’s pantry!

I do have books.  In fact, I have A LOT of books but I am not sure I want to draw attention to my eclectic collection of reading materials.  Any suggestions?

The staircase has a beautiful stained glass window and horrible paint, from maybe 1981.  The stairwell feels dirty and dark.  OK.  The paint has probably been here for thirty years.  It is DIRTY!  We decided to take this on as our first project.  Matt is an excellent painter so we knew we could tackle this on our own.  (unlike the plumbing which is still a work in progress)  Off we went to the big box store.  Normally I would just pick a color and buy the paint.  This is a big space.  We decided to start with samples and make sure we liked the color before jumping in with both feet.  The windows are a soft pink, yellow and green.  We wanted to pick up something light from the window as our color.  I knew it would not be pink!  The first thought was white that had a green tint to it.  We tried several and none looked right.  We moved to whites with a yellow tint and after several more trips to the big box we finally found our color.  We are all shocked at how much brighter the stairwell feels.

Amazing that a little paint can so drastically change the look of a space.