A Quickie

This entry will be brief, just to note that the cabinets were delivered this week and have more or less filled up the living room.

The material looks great--a dark mahogany that will go nicely with the mahogany furniture in the living room.

As of Thursday night the first few cases had been hung on the wall--just a hint of things to come. This wall is where the refrigerator will be (on the right side of this view).

There will be two rows of cabinets over the counter with a library ladder and rail between them so that I can get into the upper ones. The lower row of cabinets will have frosted glass fronts and one of my jobs this weekend is to pick out the exact glass that should be installed. I'm trying to get a similar translucency as the old etched glass panels in the pocket doors. Alas, each pocket door only has one of the original panes--the other one is plain frosted glass. Another possible mission is to see if I can find a couple of replacement panes at a building salvage place. They were a standard design and chances are there are some still around.

My other quest is the stone for the replacement hearth on the downstairs fireplace. It's a crazy looking thing, a random mix of brown and green stone, and very shallow. These were originally coal burning fireplaces and the coal was burned in a small iron basket that hung on brackets that you can see sticking out of the edges of the fireplace opening. It's hard to believe it did much against the chill of a Boston winter. In those days this would have been a small parlor and all the bedrooms would have been upstairs, above the parlor level in the space now occupied by two other apartments. Unlike the upstairs fireplace, this one will never be pretty, but I like the fact that the original pieces are still in place.