A Tour and The Plan

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We’ve been wanting to add more video to the blog for a while now, to be able to show a bit more depth to the projects we’re doing. Around the same time, our beloved Jackson Street sold again to a couple moving to Indiana from California. The woman who bought Jackson Street from us was moving out of state, and as Loren and Rachel Scott were house hunting, they found the blog and fell in love with the house on Jackson Street. We couldn’t be more excited for the love they are showing our old home. And when chatting about things, I was mentioning putting video on the blog, and Loren – a photographer and videographer – said, “That’ll be easy!” And he graciously filmed and put together a video tour of the house. Some rooms are done, some are in progress, and some haven’t been touched. Enjoy!

All videos courtesy of Loren Scott. 

Introduction

Here is the exterior of the house, restored in 2012-2014. The majority of this work was hired out, allowing us to focus on what we do best: interiors. My dream house would have a turret and a balcony, and we’ve got just that here!

The First Floor

The Entrance Hall

In Victorian Homes, the Entrance Hall welcomed guests into the home. Here, homeowners showed off what they had – the bigger, the better. This is where you didn’t try to keep up with the Joneses – you WERE the Joneses. Entrance Halls were the first look at the house, and generally had a receiving table and fantastic woodwork. Seeing this through the window is what caused us to fall in love with the house.

The Front Stairwell

Initially, when writing this post, I left off the video clip of the front stairwell. Which, is awfully mean and makes me mad at myself. So, if you’re reading this now, you get the see the whole reason we fell in love with the house. Enjoy!!!

The Front Parlor

In the parlor, guests were received, family time was had, and games were played. Again, being a room for guests, your best furnishings and over-the-top decor was in this space. We hope to make the space warm and inviting, and really amp up some of the details here. Just like the Victorian Era, I want this room to be a snapshot of who we are – colorful and vibrant and welcoming. In the Victorian era, this was a place that held some quirky collections – like taxidermy – but we will pass on that!

The Second Parlor / Library

The Second Parlor is adjacent to the Front Parlor. When Franklin Mayor Roy C. Bryant lived here, this was his office, with a now-removed fireplace. Here, he entertained the political elite of the area, including some Indiana Governors. Our plan is to turn this into a library, with the feel of a gentleman’s lounge – cigars optional. And of course, the fireplace will come back into the space.

The Pocket Doors

We have some awesome pocket doors. That really function well.

The Dining Room

I’m a fan of the separate dining room. While this house is pretty open compared to many old houses, I really am an old house girl – I like separate rooms for different things. Open concept houses are not for me. The Victorian era homes were the same way – each room had a function, and here, it was to dine. And goodness, do we love hosting dinner parties.

The Study and Bath

If you look at Victorian floorplans, this room was most likely a family breakfast room originally – where informal meals were held. At some point, it was turned into a bedroom, with attached bath and closet. We’re not going to use it as a bedroom – instead, it will be Doug’s Study. THe bathroom will undergo a big transformation, but will stay right where it is, allowing us to have a full bath on floor one.

The Butler’s Pantry

When the house was built, this room was the kitchen. It was still the kitchen when we bought it, but we opted to turn the breakfast nook into the kitchen, giving it more room, and allowing this room to function as a traditional Butler’s Pantry, which was quite common for this era home. And, the servant stairwell empties into this space – you can’t argue with that!

The Kitchen

This was the original back porch, and it was enclosed as part of the main house in two stages – one pretty early on, and the second in the 1990s. When we bought the house, it was a long skinny room with no cabinets, one outlet, and one sconce. We’ve made a really big transformation here to the kitchen of our dreams.

The Laundry Room

We turned a small pantry room off the kitchen into a laundry room, and it’s one of my favorite places. I love when utilitarian spaces are beautiful. It might nit be beautiful to everyone, but to me, it makes me explode with joy.

The Second Floor

Chamber One : The Turret Bedroom

This is the bedroom we’re currently working on. It’s not square, which is my favorite part about it, and the light is AMAZING.

Chamber Two : Amy’s Studio

I’m breaking all the Victorian Rules with this space. Bedrooms – or “Chambers” in the Victorian Era were supposed to be for ONE purpose only – sleeping. No work, or letter writing, or anything else should happen in these spaces. Except illness – chambers were also “Sick Rooms,” where the woman of the house would tend to any illness of family members. We’re turning this space into my studio – to run the restoration, sew drapes, play flute, blog… it’ll all happen in here. So, I will be endlessly multi-tasking in a space that was supposed to do one job. And that’s okay.

Chamber Three : The Master Suite

This is where the house gets weird. The only place that the flow is weird, in in the area of the house that was reconfigured when it became apartments in the 1940s. It’s choppy, and we’ll remove the added walls and create a floor plan more suitable to the house, the era, but still being modern. This space will hold four things : a Master Bedroom, a Master Bathroom, a Walk-In Closet, and a small bathroom accessed by the hallway to service the from two bedrooms. Currently, you have to go into a bedroom to get to a bathroom on the second floor. So, if we’re removing added walls, we’re going to add a bathroom to make better sense. This will be an ENORMOUS project, and will be many years away.

Chamber Four : The Guest Suite

This cute bedroom has an attached bath, and will continue to function as a guest suite, with balcony access, and the access to the third floor.

The Third Floor

Currently, the third floor has 5 rooms and a bathroom. Eventually, we plan to keep two rooms for storage, turn one room into a chandelier refinishing room,  and open up the rest into a vintage game room and guest space. The bathroom will remain, and will be restored as a “maid’s bath,” very simply done. We live on the third floor right now as we undergo the restoration.

Hopefully you enjoy seeing the spaces and can start to envision what they will look like – we have so many more years to go, but we are so excited about the process, and hope you continue to follow along!!!