Happy Feet

One of the best things we did when remodeling the main bathroom was install a heated floor. There's no heat in most of the house, remember. The ground floor has forced air but the 2nd and 3rd floors have no heat to speak of, and we spend most of our time on the 2nd floor. That's where the main bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and laundry room are all located.

So rather than install some sort of air ducts or radiators, we put in a heated floor. This is basically an electric blanket under the tile. It's connected to a thermostat and timer, so it only comes on for a few hours in the morning and again in the evening. It's set to 88 degrees: like a warm sidewalk in the summer sun.

There's nothing quite so wonderful as crawling out from under the blankets on a February morning and padding into the bathroom with its warm floor. We've been known to "accidentally" drop our bath towels before a shower so they get toasty.

Between the instant hot water from the tankless water heater and the auto-warming floor, I suspect this bathroom is a lot more comfortable than the Victorians ever imagined.

The Real Deal

Last week I made a pilgrimage.

My big brother and I went to Rejuvenation Hardware in downtown Portland, Oregon. Rejuvenation Hardware (not to be confused with Restoration Hardware) carries all things old and historic, and is housed in exactly the sort of building you'd expect: an old brick structure that looks like it was a warehouse.

The front of the store mimics their catalog. It's new/old reproduction light fixtures, furniture, and plumbing. Clawfoot tubs, shower fixtures, door knobs, miscellaneous hardware--that kind of stuff. Like Pottery Barn for the old-house set. We spent a good half-hour browsing through all their wares.

Then we found the back of the store.

The back of Rejuvenation's HQ is an Aladdin's cave of awesomeness. Whereas the front is all shiny reproductions, the back is the real thing. Old doors reclaimed from local houses; iron heater grates with the paint still on them; thousands of doorknobs, locks, strike plates, jambs, hinges, skeleton keys, latches... and on and on. Stained glass panels hung safely out of reach while we fingered and fondled old pushbutton electrical switches, tin mailboxes, crystal cabinet knobs, and one huge and scary-looking proto-circuit breaker from Dr. Frankenstein's lab. Too much good stuff.

In the end, I bought only what I could carry home on the airplane: four genuine brass light-switch cover plates. I've already put them up, but I'll take them down later and polish 'em up a bit. My fingers smell like brass and my head is full of dreams of the next trip.