1893 Victorian: Come Inside!

Now that you've seen the outside, let's come in out of the cold, get some hot chocolate, and I'll give you the nickel tour.  Can I take your coat?

There are two front doors on the house - the formal entrance right as you come up the porch stairs and then the other entrance all the way at the end of the porch and around the side of the house.  We'll  use that one for now.

As we step through the door, we're in one of the parlors and can look into the formal dining room.

The dining room is right through those pocket doors. Yep, they work!

Like many Victorians, this house has two parlors.  In the South, these would have been designated as "mens" and "ladies" parlors for receiving guests.  But, in Kansas City, they were usually "formal" versus "informal".  If you were a guest unknown to the family, you would have been received in the formal entrance and parlor and the rest of the house would have been closed off to your view with the pocket doors. These also served to keep the heat from the fireplace in the room so that it was nice and cozy.  The modern version of this room would be the living room.

If you were a friend of the family, you would have entered the room we're standing in now:  the informal parlor.  You can think of this as a Victorian version of the family room.

This room needed some serious help when we bought the house.  Like the rest of the house, it looked like a 1980's pink and green nightmare.  The wallpaper that had been up for 25+ years was peeling and it was in desperate need of a paint job.  The light was original, but it didn't work and needed to be rewired.  We ended up replacing it with something more modern.

OOPS!  Caught our real estate agent's back side in this picture!

 That door to the right goes into a hallway where there's a closet (you can see the door) and then, just to the right of that, is the entrance to the downstairs bathroom that is tucked under the stairs.  This house didn't have indoor plumbing when it was built.
 

Looking back at the front door that we just came in. Nice shades, huh?

If we turn to our right, we'll see the formal parlor.  Let's head on in and take a closer look.  Notice the beautiful hardwood floors...we didn't have to do any work to these.  They need to be cleaned, but they are gorgeous!

I really like this light fixture better.  More bling!

As the formal parlor, this one boasts one of the three fireplaces in the house.

Who left that camera bag there?

We were really lucky that the original tile is all in great shape, as is the fireplace cover.  All we had to do was clean up the mantel and paint the cover.

We weren't so lucky with the walls.

I'm sorry, but that wallpaper is hideous with a capital H.  And it stank to high heaven because the previous owner was a smoker.  I couldn't wait to rip it down.
 

That stained glass window in the formal entrance is eye-catching.  We'll get a closer look at it in a later post.

The window on the right is HUGE - close to 5 feet wide and it's the original wavy lead glass.  It's a double-sash but the top sash is only about 1 foot tall.  I didn't do this, but I think it would be cool to etch the address onto that top window is some Victorian font.

Once we had all that nasty old wallpaper and border stripped off, we primed and painted the walls in both parlors with two coats of Behr Ultra paint in a nice neutral cream color.  I think it really sets off the color of the wood, don't you?

Looking back into the informal parlor. The stairs are behind us.

From here, we could keep going the way we were going and be in the formal hallway where the staircase is to go upstairs.  But let's finish the downstairs first by heading back the way we came.  Next stop will be the dining room and I  hope you'll stop back by to see it!

What do you think so far?