Not quite finished...

What color do I paint the walls?  Seriously...what color??

While there is still a ways to go, I wanted to share photos of the parlor I am working on returning to a parlor instead of a giant half bath!  One day, there will be a wall up with a pocket door and transom windows across the top to preserve the light from the window.  And, hopefully sooner than the wall, I shall figure out what to put over the windows instead of those fabric panels.  Even sooner than that, I shall repair and paint the wall where the old monstrosity of a vanity was.  But...progress!

Here you can see the space prior to my mucking about with it.  I understand that they were just trying to put a bathroom on the main floor for an old woman who had become handicapped, but could not the smallest bit of thought been put into this?  This room is a pass-through parlor with one door at the end of the deacon's bench in the entry way and one end at the base of the servants' stairs just before the kitchen.  The path is not exactly straight because it is tucked around the corner of the back side of the fireplace and laundry chute.

 
In this shot, you can primarily see the most beautiful vanity that I found to better fit the character and historic nature of the home.  While there would not have been a vanity in 1920, it still looks far more appropriate.  When the wall will go up, the vanity and toilet will each be centered in the small space.

This view shows the solution for making the toilet as private as possible given there is also a French door on the entrance to the parlor.  Do not look to carefully at the wall, though, for it is a mess of layers of paint over wall paper that peeled away when the vanity was removed. 

Because I think the lights are beautiful, I tried to take a shot with both of them, but I think it needs to be done during the day.  Still, the gargantuan eye-sore is gone!  Gone!  Gone!  A tad bit of work on the walls.  A small repair to the baseboard.  An idea for what color to put on the walls.  And this will be a nice room even before a permanent wall is built! 

My realtor is a bit wicked, saying I had turned the parlor into a true reading room...double entendre intended!

Amos is a bit sad that the mirror is now up on the wall.  He had rather enjoyed sitting before it when it was resting on the ground and giving himself kisses.

Speaking of the mirror being on the wall, I really, really, really stink at measuring and all things mathematical.  I very carefully measured the two hooks on the back of the mirror.  The vanity is centered on 40 inches, the space that the pocket half-bath will be.  That means the lighting is centered at 20 inches.  The hooks on the vanity are 18 inches apart.  So, I very, very carefully placed two hangers 8 inches on either side of the mid-line.  The electrician helped me lift it to the wall and then burst into laughter when he realized that 18 divided by 2 in my mind is 8, when in reality it is 9!  Since the mirror will cover up my mistakes, I simply very, very carefully re-set the hooks 9 inches to either side of the mid-line.

SIGH.

Still, beautiful, eh?  What a gift this house is to me!  What an unbelievable gift!

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. ~ James 1:17

Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!