This weekend, we went to the whatever-th annual Pasadena Heritage Craftsman Weekend. It's always so wonderful to tour around the sweet tree-lined streets with beautiful old houses, and sometimes even go inside and peek into people's built-ins. One of my favorite things about Pasadena is the historical planning convention of requiring specific trees assigned to each street. 100 years later, you have matching canopies of majestic, elegant, matching trees on each street. It's beautiful.
However, the weekend was a little anticlimactic. Now that we're Authentic Craftsman Bungalow Owners ourselves, I did feel a little more legit being there, but I've been sensing something for a while about modern Arts & Crafts/Craftsman culture that was magnified in the home tours. I've always been wary of people who live in museums or antique stores - with everything down to the magazines in the bathroom being authentic! period! pieces!. That's obnoxious. But now I've pinpointed something a little more annoying. It's the 21st century manufactured reincarnation. I'm so fed up of seeing living rooms decorated with new Stickley furniture (you know, those chairs and tables with the wooden arms and vertical slats) and the mica lampshades resting upon new artisan textiles embroidered a few months ago with ginko patterns or a William Morris knock-off design. And hanging chandeliers with the cliche craftsman window decoration in black metal over a white or mica glass.
We saw one house that seemed like it had been gutted and redesigned to match a cover of American Bungalow Magazine. How is that paying any sort of homage to the spirit of the original house? We bumped into the owner during the tour, and he mentioned that he had been up until 2am putting door knobs on. I glanced at the door knobs and saw beautiful retro-looking glass door knobs, but with shiny new esceutions and hardware. The knobs were brand new. The subway brick tiles in the bathroom were shiny and new, the grout blindingly white. The kitchen had granite counter tops and unpainted wood cabinets with over-the-top "craftsman" looking hardware.
I don't know why I'm dissatisfied with both the fake new stuff and the antique stuff. Maybe it's the saturation. Why can't a house have a healthy blend? Why does it all have to look the same?
The emphasis of the era wasn't necessarily on achieving that sought after Stickley chair look; it was on hand-crafted, durable and beautiful joinery. The furniture, like the houses, were designed to find harmony between form and function, beauty and structure. Kitchens and bathrooms, with the exception of a few notables like Greene & Greene's Gamble house in Pasadena, were generally 100% white. The end of the 20s saw a little color being added to kitchens and bathrooms as everyone discovered art deco, but for the most part, cabinetry and trim was painted white in those rooms.
This leads me to my next point. We're pretty much certain that the pink and blue bathroom tile is original. This kind of breaks my heart a little bit. If you recall, we had thought about installing subway tile in the bathroom. Some of the pink tiles were cracked, and others were surely damaged beneath the 70s shower fixtures. I had even almost convinced Erik to go with a light brown grout (ew, I know) to make it look less shiny and new and fake.
However, we've now scrapped the entire plan. We're keeping the pink and blue tile. The only work that needs to be done on the bathroom now is finding new knobs and fixtures, getting a new sink, and fixing the damaged tiles. A friend recommended some guy who is apparently a genius tile restorer. And, since everyone I've talked to is asking me how they do that, I'm just going to tell you right away that I have no idea. We're meeting with him on Saturday and then I'll get back to you.
So now I need to figure out how to decorate this pink and blue bathroom. Good times. I love it already, but it's definitely tough love. I keep telling myself that it takes a special kind of person to love things that are hard to love. This house needs me. Miraculously, the little house has barely been touched over the years. We found out that if it was truly built in 1929 like we're told, we're the third owners. Why should I rip up a perfectly good bathroom now? If I just want to get the pretty perfect subway tile white bathroom, that makes me no different from the guy with the shiny new doorknobs and cliche Stickley furniture.
Also, it will be way cheaper to just fix a few tiles (I hope) than to start over from scratch. The people we bought it from paid $10,000 for it in 1965. Then they sold it to us for a small profit. Everytime I think about how rich the previous owners are now, I cringe about spending another penny.
In other news, look what we got a few weeks ago:
It's about a 1932, which is pretty much spot on what the stove would have looked like in the old house. We will go with a modern fridge, because old fridges are a total energy suck (people and electrical). But the stove is just darling and is quite effective. Not to mention it has been professionally restored a few years ago. Hot.
This was a rambly elitist post. I'm over myself now, though. Carry on. As you were. Etc.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
