miscellaneous purchases

Here are some purchases we've been acquiring over the last couple of months for the house...



Vintage Czechoslovakia chandelier for the master bath. It has really sweet scale; it's not too large and not too small, and is more wide than tall, so it really fits the room well. I fell hard for this little charmer- I love the glass arms and the sweet floral rosettes on the arms. I might take the bobeches off, I'm not sure yet.




This light will hang in the pantry. You'll be able to see the light through the transom while standing in the kitchen, so I wanted it to be pretty. The chain is new, so we'll replace that.

This three-arm light will go in the walk way between the kitchen and the Barn room. I will use different glass shades for this fixture, but I will use two of the glass shades in the photo for a sconce that goes over the guest bath sink.

This is the mantel for the new master bedroom fireplace. We were thrilled to find it! We had specfic size requirements since it is going around a direct vent gas fireplace and we needed certain combustible clearances. Most Victorian mantles are on the smaller side, so our search was proving difficult. We found it in Portland, Maine, five minutes before Portland Architectural Salvage closed. I knew it was the "one" the minute I saw it because it looked like a cousin to the living room and the dining room mantels! Here it is the night we bought it placed next to the living room mantle. The mantel is less ornate which seems appropriate since it is going upstairs and the formal, or public mantels would have been more ornate.




Here it is primed and ready to be painted. The original back board was long gone when we found the mantel, so I've had the carpenter add one. The rounded corners will have details that match the detail in the next photo. Besides the 'cousin' factor I also knew it was perfect because in all honesty, if I were to pick my perfect mantel I would have chosen a different one... but this isn't about me, it's about the house and this mantel was a perfect fit for the house.




Victorian Eastlake detailing. The grouping of the three 'dots' inside the cut lines will be the details I will copy to the back board.

These antique holophane shades will hang over the island in the kitchen. They are approximately 11" tall and 12" wide. They are being made into pendants at a fabulous lamp shop in Cape Neddick, Maine called Cranberry Hill. As you know, Dan usually makes all our lamps, chandeliers, and fixtures, but all of his lamp making parts are packed away...



This is the wonderful shop where the shades came from. Smith-Zukas Antiques in Wells, Maine.

Some other things: Notice the wood casing going in between the entry and living room. It just looked too contemporary having only a plastered edge. The newel post in the photo is primed ready to be painted black... it's our ode to those gorgeous antique front doors (that we love) that you see all over France done in a high gloss finish.

We drove by this house in Brattleboro, Vermont last weekend. We had gone to Vermont to antique for the day and stopped in Brattleboro for dinner.

Imagine how long it took to gather, sort, and stone this house?! Each row is a different size. Love the attention to detail. Wouldn't you love to know the story of who went to such lengths to achieve this perfection?!