Hi I'm Bob Vila.
Welcome home again to our final visit here in Cambridge.
Unfortunately, on a cold and rainy day,we are going to be giving you a complete tour of the interior of the house.
Everything is pretty much done including the green picket fence on the front of the property.
And unfortunately we haven't been able to finish the,the final touches here on the front porch and entry.
But under these blue tarps we've got some very brave carpenters.
Stick around, it's good to have you home again.
Bob Vila's home again.
And under the tarps we have Anthony Forbes and David Eyes both from Fort Hill Construction.
And you guys have really well these guys have been here since ten months ago when we started and even the weather is not slowing you down.
Thanks so much, it's gonna look fabulous.
Let's go inside.
Alright, lets start the tour in the vestibular were very lucky have this front section of the house with a huge closet here and Sheila Smalls from California closets.
Hi Bob.
How are you today?
You know, we had lots of space here, but you've re-interpreted it for us, right?
That's exactly right.
We've taken this great entry closet of yours, and it was about eight feet.
Yeah.
So it's a good sized space.
Right.
And what we've done is we've created some room for your jackets and coats.
The lowest space in the corner, for my down vests and the like.
Yes.
And then longer coats in the middle.
That's right, and of course you see here the drawers that we've put in the closets which will help with big gloves and mittens and hats for each member of the family.
That's right.
Five drawers, there's five of us.
That will make life easy.
I think it will be perfect for you.
The shelves also will help out with any other hats and things you might have, so you basically have over eight feet of space and a great deal more.
Magnificent.
Well, you've not only done a great job here, but also throughout the house.
I really want to thank you.
Well it's our pleasure, Bob.
Thank you so much.
OK.
Now the best of you, which of course did didn't have much architectural interest, benefits now from a lot of our architects designs.
But I think one of the key elements that have come into play here is this stenciling in this, around the ceiling, kind of creating a cornice like effect.
Kim Sweet, our artist in residence took care of this.
Nineteenth century rooms often had decorative detailing that was actually painted and stenciled, and here in our little vestibule, Kim Sweet has designed this motif, this will actually be on the vertical, on the wall, and this will be up there on the ceiling, on the horizontal.
She's actually getting started.
Kim, I want to interrupt you a little bit.
Well, I can't interrupt you, you got to keep on going with the brush work I know.
But the first step here was to put up all the blue masking tape, right?
Right.
And that must have taken you the better part of a day.
Yeah.
I just finished up a little bit ago, and now I'm just starting to fill in the color.
OK, and the color for the part that will resemble the cornice is a deep red.
What kind of paint is it?
This is all oil-based.
OK, and then the tops section the base coat there is a beautiful teal green.
Yes, this is what were going to lay in.
Yes, how long is it going to take to do all of this?
About four days.
And will the the detailing also be stenciled, or is that hand painted?
I'm going to stencil it but there's going to be a slight detail around the edges, just a freehand black line to bring out the gold.
And is the gold gold leaf or is it?
No, we're not going to use gold leaf are going to use paint.
Sound's good to me.
Can't wait to see it finished.
Let's say hello to Greg Rockland, the architect who's has done all the work here.
Bob, how are you?
Great.
Now, much of what you design relies on modern materials, right?
Yes, there's medium density overlay board here next custom molding.
Right.
And this is just is the wood from a lumberyard.
Right.
And then on the floor.
Floor is a stock inlay against it, the existing flooring.
And yet it's little touches like this that bring the flavor of 1890's back into this house.
Definitely.
Well I want to thank you personally for a magnificent job
Thank you.
And before we kind off leave this area, about ten months ago when we started, let's reminisce and look at some old footage.
You've gotta admit, it doesn't read like an 1897 house when you walk in here.
These architectural features are straight out of the 70's, like mirrors and the lack of moldings, and the lack of chair rails.
No detailing at all in here.
That's right.
They stripped it all out, and I think it's been part of the project here to put it back.
Have you looked closely at this hutch?
This is a very nice piece of woodwork.
It's buried under many layers of paint right now, but if this could be restored, it really would be a quite a nice piece.
At one time, as you can see from this stock, there were doors, probably glazed, in the top of this hutch, and I think we want to think about re-creating those.
Well it's the detailing that makes a huge difference in a Victorian house.
This has all taken us 10 months from the time we started demolition to this point, and we're at the point now that we can celebrate the interior design.
well this is Christine Lane and Susan Shaunger from CLC interior
Bob, how are you?
How are you?
Nice to see you.
Let's start a little bit about what you have done, because you have choose colors and wallpaper.
Right.
And furniture placement and
carpet patterns and stuff.
And here in the dining room you talked us into a very Very busy wallpaper.
Right and we That looks spectacular.
I love it.
Its a very dense pattern it works in a small on because it gives you a very intimate feeling, and we've broken it up with a Off-white colour which brings out the background of the wallpaper and beautiful green below so it's not too busy
In a review red pick up red berries and walk.
Let me make one point out you had a big room, you wouldn't want to use a paper like this right
It would totally overwhelming and too busy.
Yes, yes, that's the and it's expensive so we used a small amount in a small room like this.
Right, right.
Tell me about the drapery fabric OK this is a well priced cotton chintz.
And what we've done is a traversing drape which means we've covered the pole in the fabric as well as the finials.
And this fabric will go all the way across the window, which is about ten yards, and we featured some beautiful goblet plates named after a goblet.
Yeah, I like the one in gold.
It's very nice.
That's right.
Yeah, what I loved about was that it was 15 dollars a yard, right?
Right.
And then in this corner we have the only architectural feature that was in the house but it was missing it upper doors.
So we've recreated doors based on kind of the paneling design we had here, and we've stuck in some old blue and white pottery that I think really think livens everything up.
It's a great touch.
Let's talk about the hall.
The rug in the hall is one that we picked up on a trip.
It's actually Russian, and you've used it as your palette inspiration here, right?
Yes, there's a lot of different reds in the carpet.
And we used it in the William Morris wallpaper also.
And again, it's a pattern that unifies the entire space.
It relates to the dining room and everywhere in the house
That's right.
And, also, yo u can see the blue in the rug.
And the Greek turn key, which is repeated in the border in the runner.
And it's a nice detail.
And these are the important things to unify an interior.
To, kind of, have everything blend and relate to each other
That's right.
You've done a great job.
Thank you, Bob.
Thank you so much, Christine.
Suzanne, thanks a lot.
Thanks, Bob It's been a pleasure.
One last touch that I love on the staircase is the anaglypta -- this 19th century textured paper that we used along the wall here.
Which really is appropriate, I think.
We've gotta break for messages.
Don't go away.
