Kitchen Reno Corner
Dear Katie in last week's comments asked to hear about the new tiles around the hearth, so here you go!
Back when we replaced the old insert with the new wood stove, we had to bring the situation around the hearth up to code. The code here says 18″ from the glass needs to be made of a fireproof material (including the option of putting a hearth pad there).
So here is the first change — a post about it here:
Before we repointed the bricks and whitewashed them:
And after:
To make it to 18″ on the floor from the stove door, I just needed one row of 4″ tiles. My mother (Habou as we called her), ever the squirreller-away of pretty things, happened to have a bag of Mexican Talavera tiles in her studio, which she cheerfully handed over. Nothing made her happier than pulling out something that would work for you! And honestly, looking back, I realize how much I relied on that!
These beautiful tiles weren't quite right for the application — they are not really floor tiles and chipped easily. I was always in a bit of an anxious state, what with the dragging out of the heavy fender, dropping of logs, waving of iron poker, and so on. I did love how they looked!
Further, you can see how the one board beyond the tiles got dried out and had its finish degraded — can you see that it's discolored? The heat from the stove actually goes beyond the 18″ and it would have been better to have put another row of tiles in, but I didn't have any, and they would really have been even more vulnerable.
So when the floors had to be ripped out for this renovation, I thought about what tiles I wanted to go there. Anything porcelain, even heavy-duty floor tiles, was going to have this same issue, to some degree, of chipping.
I thought it would be great to have stone tile. My thinking was that if the stone chips, it's still stone all the way through. I love those European stone floors, don't you? I had a vague idea about that…
I went through all the types: marble, limestone, granite, slate. Even brick. Some were too fancy, though lovely (marble); some were way too big (limestone) — it becomes a real issue of how you are going to cut it.
I couldn't find brick tile that I liked, and whatever it was had to be thin (I couldn't use actual bricks!), so we could achieve the all-important flushness with the floor, as this is, like every other area in the kitchen, a pathway and in this case, tripping hazard. And would I whitewash it, and so on.
I have fireplaces in this house elsewhere… most have a big marble piece in front of them.
The black marble one in the dining room actually has a brick hearth, maybe brick-like porcelain, I'm not sure. It's not what I would have maybe chosen myself!
Yet it works.
In fact, I had to go look at it to know what it was — I couldn't remember when I was just thinking about it! To me, it's “normal” and not anything that struck me one way or another. That made me realize that I didn't have to get matchy or too particular. I just needed something classic and useful.
This is the value of old houses and ways. We can tend to get obsessive about things that our forebears just really didn't worry about!
I actually brought home slate tiles — I think they were 3″ x 9″ — but as I thought about how I wanted the herringbone pattern, the space for them seemed too limited for their size. I think slate would have gone really well here, looks-wise, but I realized I needed a smaller tile.
It could use a mopping! Ashes…
By the way, I went to several specialty tile places, and it was at the big box store that I found what I wanted: Basalt Herringbone Honed Mosaic tile. (I'm not promoting this in any way — not sponsored!)
The marble version was tempting. It's really beautiful. But in the end, I thought this was more rustic in keeping with the general aesthetic here and not clashing with the whitewash, though I admit I was nervous about all the black! We used a charcoal grout.
You can see that I designed it to cover a much larger space than what we had before.
My thought was that it would guard the wood floor from the heat and also provide a tactile warning underfoot to the person walking there that there are… obstacles, e.g. a raised hearth.
I think in person it's not as busy-looking as it is in photos.
I liked the sort of frame in the dining room, defining the hearth, so I had the contractor do that here:
It's time now to put the fireplace things in the garage and clean up around here, but I think it all turned out pretty well!
It's very durable and I don't have to worry about damage. This is a working fireplace for sure! I just wanted to eliminate that anxiety.
I hope all this detailed discussion helps you think about how to solve problems and pull together various design elements. The homemaker can do so much to make the home inviting and pretty, but it takes thought! Lots of pondering! It's so easy to get sucked into the marketing and trends. How to step outside of all that and achieve a timeless, classic environment, given our place and means? I mean, what is classic in Massachusetts might not be so in Arizona. And most of us don't have a bottomless pocketbook.
A big part of how I proceeded was to examine how things were done in the past, including pinning many, many pictures to my Pinterest of old things. I made a board for this particular problem and didn't actually find many examples of things that fit my situation in general, much less of of a whitewashed fireplace with wood floor, but I did find one with a black herringbone hearth and that's what inspired me and helped me settle on the basalt.
In this project, I tried to find materials and methods in the here and now to capture that older way that ends up being so homey and welcoming.
Garden and Bee Corner
The Chief caught a swarm! He's so happy about that. We now have three hives! Our friend JJ set one the trap up in our yard. He's had great success with them, and sure enough, the bees came!
The vegetable garden is coming along too. I returned from Colorado two weeks behind, but things are mostly in now. I hope next week to show some of it!
This week I caught up with annuals — the virtue of being late is you can shop the BOGO sales! And I think the herb garden and porch are looking fine with the pots of geraniums and so on, not to mention that the front of the house got painted while I was gone! Much needed and oh so satisfying!
My sage bloomed, which I don't recall it ever doing before:
I planted some lemon verbena:
And I simply can't do without red geraniums!
On to our links!
bits & pieces
- The Mystery of Similarity by D.T. Sheffler. “Despite the grand, cosmic conclusions, Platonism begins from very simple, ordinary observations. These observations are so simple and ordinary that we are liable to miss how mysterious they really are and how difficult it is to understand the deeper structures of reality that must be in place for these simple, ordinary observations to hold true. Part of the enchantment that Socrates weaves over our minds with his persistent, annoying questions is that he makes the simple and ordinary seem difficult and strange in order that we might begin to think about the ordinary for the first time. Among these ordinary mysteries—and leading straight to the heart of Platonism—the common experience of similarity is perhaps the most strange of all.”
- Natural Light is An Essential Nutrient: Decades of Forgotten Research Show How Much Modern Lighting Has Harmed Human Health. I'm not necessarily able to understand everything in this article, but it seems just common sense to me that we need natural light and are depriving ourselves of it in general. I come from a background of Egyptians loving to go to the beach and hang out there all day, who also brought umbrellas and took refuge in the shade. They didn't bake out there but they also did not avoid it at all. Let's use more hats and less sunblock this summer and try to access some vitamin D!
from the archives
- Emergency Summer Reading: The Gift of Modesty — I do think a big part of modesty is finding pretty things to wear instead of all the trashy fashions out there. It's easy to say “don't expose yourself” — much harder to say what one should wear! Fortunately, there are more options now. Feel free to link in the comments to what you have found!
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My daughter (lives in MA) has cracked concrete around her fireplace floor. She is having a terrible time finding someone to fix the concrete and lay new tile. Who did your work (it’s beautiful btw)? I mean who as in GC, fireplace specialist, etc. Thanks!
Oh, for a yard with sun! We live in a city house jammed in on three sides and with huge pine trees on the fourth! your garden pictures are lovely.
Modesty: I have been very pleased with the dresses from Kosher Casual, although most of the prints are kind of garish to my eye. I also like their layering tanks and shells. Also, right now in the Midwest, Kohls and Target are featuring actual pretty dresses and tops that are more modest than the run of the mill stuff.
I married in to a gardening family. My husband’s grandfather made the switch in the family business in the 60s & 70s from cut flowers to bedding plants with… red geraniums! Bedding plants were a new thing then. People grew from seed, from cuttings, and sometimes they would come ask for something already rooted. Great grandpa would go out to the fields behind the greenhouses, dig up a plant and wrap the roots in newspaper. When i first got married, i learned to make the newspaper “boats” for this purpose, as many of our older customers perfer even their 4 pack of tomatoes in a plastic tray to be wrapped this way. Your geraniums, looking so pretty on your porch, got me recalling this anecdote. Red geraniums are still in the top 5 of our annual sales.
My soon-to-be 13-year-old daughter found this very pretty and modest swimsuit on Amazon. It just arrived yesterday and fits her very well! I am happy that she found something so pretty that she will be comfortable swimming and playing in this summer, and I am even happier that modest swimsuit shopping was something she pursued this season, unprompted from me. It was easy and stress free for both of us!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0D3PVKQ16?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
That is really pretty!
That’s really cute!
I buy geraniums every year, too, and agonize over the colors – they are all so pretty! This year it’s a white one between the garden statues of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Hear of Mary (unexpectedly beautiful finds at HomeGoods), and a hot pink one with a red core hanging next to one of the bird feeders. Interestingly, my mother and grandmother were able to keep geraniums as perennials by bringing them inside in the winter – but not quite into the house, just on the unheated common stairway that connected our apartments.
This year I also splurged buying two splendid red dahlias, which looked very elegant in the black urns by the front door… until we had a violent hail storm one night, and in the morning I found all the leaves with big holes in them! Needless to say, the poor dahlias have not recovered 🙁 The hostas took quite the beating, too, and the leaves are like Swiss cheese, but nothing will kill hostas 😀 The hydrangeas were miraculously spared and they are glorious (I guess because we had a dismal May with lots of rain!)
Natural light, YES! And I add, fresh air!! I can’t believe how many homes around here seem to keep blinds down and windows closed year round… it seems so unhealthy and depressing!
I really liked what you said here, “The homemaker can do so much to make the home inviting and pretty, but it takes thought! Lots of pondering! ” And it’s not just about the pretty touches, but every single aspect of the functioning of a household. It’s one of the things I like best, all the thinking necessary to make a home. It’s extremely satisfying to think, research, plan, decide, and then you get the peace and joy of knowing you’ve done something good for the house and for family life. And when money is tight, it’s actually even more satisfying, even if the results don’t match our dreams. I delight in this kind of cleverness, it’s a fun way to apply wisdom and prudence.
So true, Mrs Bee! Beauty on a shoestring budget is especially satisfying, both at the moment and in memory. My mom has a special gift for this that made my childhood so lovely. I remember homemade wreaths and hunting for flowers to dry from the marsh nearby, vases of violets, peaceful trips to the library on hot days, and small splurges like a spontaneous ice cream cone.
I think that’s one of the things I love about the rituals of home, all kinds. They give me a chance to do something over one smidge better than last time! Or, if we are in a nutty season, to cling to whatever sanity I discovered last time.
I had sage blossom once, and I candied the blooms just by covering them with sugar. The sage sugar made amazing shortbread!