How do you go about renovating a 100-year-old house to be a cheese store while honoring the architecture of the past?
In this case, it was by revealing what she (the house) was.
We started with the living room built-ins which are classic to a craftsman home. They were covered in painted slate tiles over the mantel, hearth, tops of the wood cases, and up the wall to the ceiling. Knowing the fireplace and built-ins were a focal point, we had to do something. We started with removing paint from the tile.
As the paint was being removed, we noticed the wood mantel was still there, so we shifted gears to remove the tile from the mantel. We expected wood corbels and were surprised when it was revealed they were brick. So, we kept going, removing tile from the front of the fireplace and hearth.
The brick looked great where we started. As we moved to the right, the brick started to look rough where the gas line had been added and we were unable to chip it off the hearth. Revealing the wood and brick showed what she was supposed to look like. Unfortunately, when you apply tile to plaster it will fail and when you try to piece back bricks after disrupting them, they fail too.
We wanted to keep the brick but after consulting with Master Mason Paul Walker, the brick was failing and had to be removed as well as the raised hearth which was not original. In a home built in the 1920s, it would have been inset. Losing the 100-year-old brick was a bit disheartening but when you find a 100-year-old tile originally made in Los Angeles (Batchelder) you pivot, and we think the results add warmth to the area.
Can you picture yourself sitting here enjoying artisanal cheese and a glass of wine?
