A Trip to Gladewater TX

Sorry for the few week gap in posts. It has been been a crazy busy month of October and life is just now getting back to normal. I have had this post written for a couple of weeks now and just haven't had time to get around to posting. If you are lucky however and we remember to take pictures of all the progress happening in our house right now you might get multiple posts this week.

If you head out of town on 271 past the UT Health Center you are going to run into Gladewater, the antique capital of East Texas. In my 15 years of living in East Texas my only experience with Gladewater was the frustration it caused with its 35 mph speed limit on the way to Arkansas. It’s one of those places I heard people talk about, but never really imagined myself gracing the streets to peruse store front windows filled with other people’s unwanted junk.
Over the last few months (or year and half) Katie and I have been planning for the renovation of both bathrooms in our house. We enjoy the older home charm that comes with a 50’s style house, however could do without the quaint 50’s size bathrooms. Both of our bathrooms are small in size, and outdated. Our first thought was to add an addition to the house with a grand master on suite. We actually purchased the house with this intention, however when we started to add up the bill, the major addition price tag just didn’t make sense for a house in our neighborhood. We feel like we got an exceptional deal on our house when we purchased it, but we still analyze every choice we make in the grand scheme of will this project add more value to the house than it cost, and does it make sense for the neighborhood both in terms of style and price. You never want to price yourself out of the neighborhood you are currently in by spending too much on your home renovation.

For our bathroom we wanted a 60” double vanity. That sounds simple enough right? We thought so too, but when we started to see what the big box stores had to offer we found 2 options. You have your standard cheaply made builder’s grade cabinet which is boring, or something with a little more style for twice the cost and up which is more than we wanted to spend on this project. After several trips back to the store just to see if anything new had arrived we decided to explore other options and talked about using a dresser or other piece of furniture to convert into a vanity. You have probably seen this done all over for the past 15 years, it’s nothing new, but still a good alternative and adds a little more interest than you would get with your basic vanity. So where better to look for antique furniture than the antique capital of East Texas.

Gladewater is a small East Texas town, population just over 6,000 and it seems every one of them decided to open an antique shop. We parked downtown next to the railroad tracks and were able to walk about a quarter mile in every direction. We did find a map at one point which was helpful. These are some of the more interesting items we came across and thought we would snap a few photos of them. Above is a medic bike used in WW2, and below is a popcorn machine from the 1800's. Both of these were a little bit out of our price range and weren't exactly on the list of pieces we were looking for.

This is one of the shops we entered, and immediately turned right back around. The owner had just returned from Italy were she acquires a lot of her items, however her style of displaying them stressed me out.

She did have an entire hallway full of century old iron and wooden doors that had been removed from churches and other buildings overseas. I can't image what it would cost to ship these beasts back to the states, but then again after checking a few price tags, I probably have a pretty good idea.

Luckily our trip was a success and we were able to find exactly what we were looking for. We found this vanity at our first stop and thought it would work perfect, but of course we had to go hit every other possible option to verify that indeed it was the best option. After several hours and an excellent lunch (see below) we can back to where we started and purchased it.It is exactly 60" wide, has tons of storage with all the drawers working perfectly, and even has a matching mirror that was included. It is currently 34" tall and the plan is to add a two inch think concrete countertop (that we are pouring this week) with a glass vessel sink which is already sitting in inventory in the guest room. We are really happy with this purchase, we got the vanity and mirror for $350 and plan to paint the entire piece a light grey and replace all of the pulls. We are not sure how old it is or even if it is an antique or not however through Katie's knowledge she obtained during her years of selling furniture she is able to point out to me the dove tailed drawers and dust covers that tell her this is a quality built piece.

While were were trying to find our way out of the maze at the crazy Italian lady's shop, she asked us if we had eaten lunch and directed us across the street to Alba's Italian Kitchen. We knew we needed to grab a bite somewhere and really had no other plans or recommendations in the area so we decided to give it a try.

It was a late lunch and we ended up being the only table there but Alba was great and her food was outstanding. The menu included only a few items so we asked her what she recommended. Katie got the Lasagna and I ordered the Cheese Tortellini in cream sauce which she had just finished making when we walked in the door.

We were so hungry and it was so good we had already eaten half our food before I realized I hadn't taken any pictures. Both entries were delicious however the homemade lasagna was amazing. The portion were enormous and I had to decide to forgo eating the rest of mine to finish Katie's leftover lasagna (actually I ended up coming back to mine and finishing it, really you thought I left food on the table?). Since we were the only ones there and the place is not very big we ended up talking with Alba during our meal and learned that she is from Sicily and had only been in the states about 18 months, moving to Gladewater to be closer to her daughter. She is retired but needed something to do during the day so she decided to open a little restaurant offering food she has cooked her entire life back home. We told her we were from Tyler and had just came over for the day and she mentioned that her daughter had just finished making home made cannolis for a catering company in Tyler. Didn't take much convincing before we had to order our own. We got laughed at for trying to eat it with a knife and fork so I had to pick it up with my hands and finish it off from this point.

If you are ever in Gladewater be sure to make plans to stop by Alba's, or take a long lunch today and head that way, its only about a 30 minutes drive and well worth it.

This past week we went on buying spree and purchased everything we needed for two bathroom renovations that got underway this past weekend. In the bed of the truck is two bathtubs a vanity and a toilet, with another toilet hanging out in the backseat. We had made a lot of progress already, the old claw-foot tub is out of our bathroom (if anyone is interested in it let me know) and the new tub is installed and we will be ready to tile this week.

Also, a big thank you to my parents who spent practically their entire weekend helping us demo and plumb up this bathroom. Just another reminder how fortunate we are to have parents living nearby.

Lighting

So with our 1950's house came 1950's lighting. We knew from the first time we looked at the place that every fan and fixture would eventually have to go. Before we renovated the kitchen we had a pendant over the sink (which really wasn't that bad), a small three bulb fixture over the breakfast table by the back door, and a ceiling fan with four lovely globes. The ceiling fan looked out of place to me but since the kitchen was so closed off from the rest of the house it did get really hot in there when we cooked that one time.

In the kitchen we added four can lights around the room and these two pendants over the island that I mentioned in our kitchen before and after post.

Since the old pendant over the sink didn't match we took it down and put a another recessed light in it's place. With the sink in front of a window we prefer that the can light does not obstruct your view of our football field of a front yard.

We have been told by several of our neighbors that the hill our house in on is one of the highest points in Tyler and after we went jogging for the first time in this house we believed it. We frequently like to get out doors to go on bike rides, walk the dog, or head over the Pollard Park and swing on the play ground like we are 8 years old and once we leave the drive way any direction you go you are headed down hill. My office is located a mile away on the other side of the neighborhood and we learned one night that you can get from our driveway to the office with out pedaling. Now getting back is a different story. I told Katie I would ride my bike to work but she would have to come pick me up every day and that would just be embarrassing.

When we first moved in to the house our plan was to knock down the wall between the kitchen and dinning room (which we did) and make the dinning room into a family room. We went ahead and moved the dinning table and chandelier to one side of our large front living area and ran electrical and inserted a new switch for the light. We have gone back and forth and changed our minds, multiple times, on almost every project in our house and this one was no different. We finally decided that since we already had two living areas (we also have a den with a fire place that I am currently using as an office) for us to eliminate a true dinning area to add a third living area didn't make sense. So once the wall was down the dinning table went back. Where the dinning table was in the front room we put our small wooden breakfast table that no longer fit in the kitchen with the new island and bar seating. This became a game table and a place for the just the two of us to eat and be able to see the TV. The additional space in this area was filled up by our piano which is a whole other story that I will get to one day. Over this small table we needed a light that looked different enough from the new island pendants in the kitchen but helped tie in our new dinning room light that we hadn't yet purchased but knew what we wanted it to look like.

(This is our little bookshelf with games beside this table)

We tried everything in the space, went to every lighting store in Tyler, twice, even tried to make one ourselves by installing a light kit into a lantern we bought at Home Goods last time we were in Dallas. Nothing seemed to work in the space. Our last thought was to open a new lighting store in East Texas that actually carried some different and exciting looking lighting. That discussion didn't last long though and we were back to scouring the existing stores.

Going into it we thought we would have a problem with being cheap. I don't know if I would actually say cheap but we were looking for different and unique on a budget. What we found though is that different and unique didn't even exist. We weren't even given the chance to say "man that is perfect, too bad it's so expensive". Finally during a trip to Lowe's for a completely unrelated project, we came across the new Allen + Roth collection. We had started to see several of these glass globe pendants around the Internet and on several shows but had never really seen one in person. I was hesitant on the finish, never really being a fan of oil rubbed bronze, but really liked the glass globe so we decided to take it home and give it a shot.

We ended up liking it so much that when we were looking for an entry light we went back to Lowe's and found this one from the same collection. This entry light needed to be high enough and not too wide so the door could swing beside it. We didn't really want another pendant and can never find a flush mount that we like so this seemed like the perfect alternative. (We also really like the vintage filament bulbs that come with these lights)

Back to the dinning room that is without a light since I took apart the old chandelier to use parts for our home made lantern attempt. For months Katie had been searching the Internet for chandeliers and the only ones that we both liked were the wine barrel chandeliers from Restoration Hardware. Now if you click on that link you will quickly learn that this just wasn't going to happen. So the search was on back to all the lighting shops within a 50 mile radius. We would tell people we were looking for a wooden wine barrel chandelier and they would always say sure I know exactly what you are looking for and then show us a light that was the complete opposite. We were frustrated, and almost gave in a few times and purchased a light that neither of us liked, however we never really got over how great a unique wooden light would look in our house.

Finally we heard from some friend that there was a man at First Monday in Canton that sold lights that sounded like what we were looking for. So the next First Monday weekend that rolled around we made the 35 minute drive over to Canton. Sure enough we found this little shop inside one of the main pavilions and were really impressed with what he had. We settle on one that was a little smaller to work with our 8 foot ceilings and after a little haggling it was ours and we couldn't wait to get it home to install it.

Installing a light is something I have done numerous times and if everything goes right should only take a few minutes. After four hours I gave up and called my Dad in for reinforcement. Apparently at this junction box in the ceiling was a connection for almost every other light in the house and when we took the wall down and moved the lines into the attic a few of them did not get reconnected correctly. The first time we wired the chandelier up and flipped the breaker back on the light stayed on all the time. You could flip the switch all you wanted but the light was always on. We thought about just using the breaker as a switch because how often do we really dine, but decided to forge ahead and figure it out. In our next attempt the light worked, however half our house was out. Finally after taking everything apart and chasing it through the attic we got it all put back together and working.

We know our table is too small for the space and we are still looking for a knock off Restoration Hardware table to go with our new light. Something that seats 8-1o. We had a big mirror on that back wall but ended up moving it to the entry way of our bedroom across the closet. It gets more used there.

We are really happy with our lighting solutions thus far and hope we have the same luck going forward with the rest of the house. Currently we are having a hard time finding ceiling fans that we like. Maybe we should open up our own lighting store, any investors reading? This past weekend we traveled over to Gladewater and made a purchase for our upcoming bathroom(s) reno so be sure to check back for that post.

DIY: Found Headboard

Last spring my parents purchased a house here in town to renovate and turn into a rental. The previous owners of this property were an older couple who had lived there for quite a few years and managed in that time to accumulate a mass of junk. There were multiple storage buildings in the backyard filled with all kinds of dust ridden treasures from the 1950’s and a house full of items that they must have decided weren’t worth taking with them but were too lazy to throw out themselves. Among the items left in the house was this:

A solid wood matching headboard and foot board, missing the side rails.

Katie and I immediately noticed this bed on our first visit to this property and really like the shape and finish. Our current guest bed had been an iron headboard Katie had used in college, painted over multiple times, and attached to your standard metal bed frame. We didn’t have time to do anything with it at the moment but decided that it might make a neat guest bed in our house someday so we took it and placed it in our garage in inventory, where it stayed for several months.


This past weekend we decided to pull the bed out and see what we could do with it. We knew we needed to add side rails and somehow refinish the entire bed to make the new side rails match but honestly neither one of us had any knowledge of how to go about it. We spent some time looking at our bed to understand how the side rails worked and took some measurements and decided that a 2X6 would probably be a good height and thickness for the two side rails that we needed to make. We also needed some way to attach the side rails to the headboard and foot board. So we headed over to the Home Depot, because it was lunch time, and picked up a 12’ 2X6, and a handful of brackets to attach the side rails to the bed.

We added a block under each side rail nailed to the bed to help support the weight so it is not all being held by the bracket and also to help line everything up.

We also needed some smaller brackets to attach the ledge on the inside of the rails that the slats would sit on. After the railed were attached, we ripped a 2X4 through the table saw in half and flipped the bed on its side to attach our ledge.We had some 3/4 hardwood left over from various projects so we cut a few slats about 3" wide, measured the inside of the bed from rail to rail and cut them to length.


We also decided to go ahead and add a few center supports under the middle rails to help hold the weight of the bed. We had a few feet of the side ledges left over from the 2x4 we ripped in half so that worked perfect.

Now that our bed frame was complete we dragged the box springs and mattress out to the garage just to make sure our measurements were correct and it all fit before proceeding. I thought a bed in the garage would be perfect for guests, or even for taking a short nap during projects, however the misses strongly disagreed.

Once the mattress was safely back in the house, we decided to do an antique finish by staining the entire bed and then painting it and sanding off a portion of the paint so the stain would show through. Since the headboard and foot board were already pretty rough looking and the side rails were brand new wood, we thought this would help unify the look.

We didn't have enough of a single stain on the shelf to do the entire bed so we mixed a few together, probably from containers that had been mixed before honestly. It ended up being a light brown but served our purpose well.

After the stain was dry we painted the bed white. We used a Behr ceiling white in a satin that was already on our shelf. We decided on white since we knew the nightstands in our guest room were black and the dresser that will eventually go in there is white as well.


As soon as the paint had dried we got to work sanding. We took some fine grit sandpaper and we over the entire bed, especially the edges and corners so some of the stain underneath would show through.

Finally got Katie in a picture. She was glad when we were finished with this project so she could park in the garage again.

When we finally finished, around 10:30 at night I believe, and the end result looked great. Better than I imagined halfway through the project when I had some serious doubts if the whole thing was going to work.
We quickly took the bed apart and set it up again in it's new home in our guest room. We were relieved the white bed works so well against the grey/blue walls (granite builder, Behr) which was the first thing we painted in our house over a year ago.

Along with building beds, lately all we seem to be working on in our house is lighting. Our plan is to replace every fixture/fan in the entire house before everything is said and done (we are about halfway there) so our next post is going to be about our most recent, and most exciting, lighting purchases.