Why this house?

It warms my heart to look back and reflect on the reasons we purchased this house and turned it into our home. I have always been a softie for old homes. The Brainerd Street house, as we call it, had everything I always dreamed of having: two stories, an upstairs porch, four fireplaces, two clawfoot tubs, and good structural bones. All it needed was a little vision and creativity.

There were two original clawfoot tubs in the house. They were both in pretty good shape and just needed to be reglazed {pictured on the right}. The only setback was that one of the tubs was missing a foot. After some research, we stumbled across an architectural store that we decided to stop at on our way to Birmingham. We found exact match to our missing foot at Southern Accents Architectural Antiques in Cullman, AL. Imagine a large lot full of antique sinks, fixtures, tubs, and tub feet - it was heaven! They have doors, windows, corbels, keys, door knobs, you name it! If you are ever renovating an old home or just want some great architectural pieces, you must visit them!

These are two out of the four fireplaces in The Brainerd Street house. Look at those details! All four fireplaces had beautiful ironwork encasing the openings. The left image is the living room fireplace and the right image is the fireplace in the master bedroom. We worked hard to strip the paint from the downstairs fireplaces, but ultimately decided to keep the ones upstairs white.

What do they look like now?

After stopping all renovation efforts on the house while the tubs were reglazed, and after hours of heat gun paint stripping, here is what they look like now.

We added new tub fixtures to both tubs which we ordered from Signature Hardware. I painted the claw feet on the master bathroom tub a metallic silver. This gives the tub a bit of a more upscale and elegant feel to match the pretty chandelier hanging above the tub.

I decided to leave the tub in our son's bathroom all white to keep it simple and fresh. I knew we would be decorating this bathroom with some fun colors, so the tub is a neutral base.

Pictured below is the fireplace in the living room. Our family helped us strip the white paint by using a heat gun, revealing beautiful details. I felt bad about painting over the original tiles, but I knew the yellow green color would not go with our house. So one night, I just did it, I painted over them. It was painful at first, but I am very pleased with the new look. My favorite feature of the fireplace is the original mirror. At one point we discussed replacing it, but I just couldn't part with the charm of it. We added a gas coal-burning fireplace, and there you have it, a beautiful original fireplace!

Keep checking back for more of these before and afters of the Brainerd Street House.

I hope you have a fantastic day!