View from the Innside

restoring a historic bed & breakfast "inch by inch"

I just finished reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt and found this great quote about restoring old houses. It pretty much describes the way we're restoring the Bottger Mansion of Old Town--one project, one piece at a time.

"Step by step. Inch by inch. I learned an invaluable lesson from my old mentor, Dr. L. C. Lindsley. Did I ever tell you about him? Dr. Lindsley was a college professor who restored and lived in one of Georgia's great houses, Westover. It was built in Milledgeville in 1822 in the grand style. It had spiral stairs and a pair of white double-height columns on each side of the front entrance.

"Dr. Lindsley told me that an old house will defeat you if you try to restore it all at once--from roof to windows, weatherboarding, jacking it up, central heating, wiring. You must think of doing one thing at a time. First you say to yourself: Today I am going to think about leveling off the sills. And you get all the sills leveled. Then you turn your mind to the weatherboarding, and gradually you do all the weatherboarding. Then you consider the windows. Just one window at a time. That window right there. You ask yourself, 'What's wrong with that part of that window?' You must do it in sections, because that's the way it was built. And then suddenly you find the whole thing completed. Otherwise, it will defeat you."

Amazingly, The New York Times Book Review called this book "elegant and wicked... Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime."

I’m having fun--come on along!

Kathy
Bottger Mansion of Old Town
historic bed & breakfast
110 San Felipe Street NW
Albuquerque, NM   87104
www.bottger.com
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our new dining area at the Bottger Mansion Bed & Breakfast

Here it is!  Our new extension of the dining room is about 99% done, but certainly done enough to use it. All that remains is to clean and re-hang the blind in the window.  We put up a little Christmas tree on the far wall, but my vision for that space is to have a collage of Bottger family photographs.

Now we have tables for two for those times when guests don't really want to share a table, like the adorable young honeymoon couple who just stayed with us, or the guest on business who needs to review documents during breakfast before that 10 a.m. meeting.

I’m having fun--come on along!

Kathy

Bottger Mansion of Old Town
historic bed & breakfast
110 San Felipe Street NW
Albuquerque, NM   87104
www.bottger.com

 

the disappearing office

Here's a photo of our office, which is being transformed to an extension of the dining room. Take a good look--you're one of the few people who have ever seen the inside of our office, and it's never been this neat before.  We have an office downstairs and have decided to expand the dining room at the Bottger Mansion of Old Town by combining the two offices into one.

The challenge has been to take all those things that currently reside in the office--phone, computer, music system, wireless router, printer, etc.--and figure out where to relocate all that stuff.  We're nearly done with that.

The desk has been sold.  The tables and chairs we ordered from Kay's Stools and Dinettes have arrived and are being held until we're ready for them.  (Great people to work with!)  New table linens have been ordered.  The whole area has been scrubbed and we're re-painting.  The gate and curtains will stay up until that's finished, to keep the work-in-progress out of sight.

Stay tuned for photos of the new dining room expansion!

I’m having fun--come on along!

Kathy

Bottger Mansion of Old Town
historic Bed & Breakfast
110 San Felipe Street NW
Albuquerque, NM   87104
www.bottger.com

 

 

mural progress after Valentine's Day

The mural artists ("Airbrushing by Sandy") have completed their work and moved on to the next job.  It is absolutely gorgeous and completely changes the look of the stairwell.

You know how it is when you drastically change something, and it's so much better and so delightful that you just keep going to look at it?  That's how this is.

Since Sandy and Judy left, I worked for 12 hours last Friday on the rest of the pink paint on the ceiling and walls at the upper end of the stairwell where they didn't do any painting.  The remainder of the day was spent preparing, priming and painting one coat of white on the trim and molding.  What a difference!  It now looks so crisp and clean, and it's a cohesive color scheme instead of mint green walls, dark rose carpet and plum-colored trim.  And with the lighter pink walls and white trim, the light really bounces around in there, lightening up the entire area.  I have to put the final coat of white on the trim since it's still a bit streaky with some of the plum color. 

Today, I hope to be able to put the second coat of white on the trim and finish it so Steve can put the switch back in and I can put my vacuum cleaner and tools back in the closet.  Then the real chore begins, because I have five doors to paint--the door at the top of the stairs, a little access door to some plumbing, the original door from the kitchen to the cellar, the laundry room door (louvered, no less) and the door to the Wine Cellar Suite.

I have lots more ideas for improvements.  My trouble now is that I have far more ideas than time, but it will get done eventually.  My goal for the six years we've been here is "improve one thing every day."  I've stuck to that nearly every single day, and now there's not a room in this house where I can't point to multiple things and see what's improved.

I’m having fun--come on along!

Kathy

Bottger Mansion of Old Town
historic bed & breakfast
110 San Felipe Street NW
Albuquerque, NM   87104
www.bottger.com

 

mural progress

Here's a view of the progress on the stairwell so far.  It's amazing how quickly this is going, but when experts do something, they always make it look easy.

Sandy and Judy previously said they thought they would have it done by Sunday, but I want to make sure they have a little time to see some things around Albuquerque and enjoy their time here as well.  We also all just realized it's Super Bowl Sunday.  While I don't care about football and won't watch the game, some people will. 

This is turning out to be a magnificent addition to our bed & breakfast, and I can't wait to see it completed.  On the other hand, I have a ton of work to do once they're done, like finishing painting the rest of the walls and ceiling, prime and paint all the trim, and install two more light fixtures.

But it will be oh so lovely!

I’m having fun--come on along!

Kathy

Bottger Mansion of Old Town
historic bed & breakfast
110 San Felipe Street NW
Albuquerque, NM   87104
www.bottger.com

 

stairwell in need of improvement

This stairwell has needed updating so badly, I don't really want to show the "before" pictures, but here they are.  The walls were mint green, the trim is a light plum color, and the light fixtures didn't put out nearly enough light.

So far we've put in new light fixtures at both the top and bottom of the stairs, which has added a lot more light.  Most of the stairwell now has two coats of a pale pink paint.

Our mural artists are now here and are busy at work painting some grapes and grapevines, faux arched windows, and lots of other details. 

The rest of what we'll do has to wait until after they're finished.  We had to finish the part where they would be working, and the rest we can do later.

Once they're done, we'll finish painting the rest of the stairwell, paint the trim a glossy white, install a light box fixture, and install rope lighting in a track along the top of the steps.

I have to admit that even if we only painted the walls and installed the new light fixtures, it would be a thousand percent improvement, but the painting they're doing will take this stairwell from nice to extraordinary. 

I’m having fun--come on along!

Kathy

Bottger Mansion of Old Town
historic bed & breakfast
110 San Felipe Street NW
Albuquerque, NM   87104
www.bottger.com

 

Introducing our mural artists

Our mural artists, Sandy and Judy, arrived late Tuesday night.   As soon as I saw their car on Wednesday morning, I knew we were in for a treat.  Look at this beautiful artwork on the side of the car. 

Their website is www.airbrushingbysandy.com, and you can view more of their artwork there.

I’m having fun--come on along!

Kathy

Bottger Mansion of Old Town
historic bed & breakfast
110 San Felipe Street NW
Albuquerque, NM   87104
www.bottger.com

 

Quilts Ole in Corrales--my new favorite shop

After nearly six years of living here, I finally made it to Quilts Ole in Corrales.  It's about 10 miles away, and every time I've been by there, I either didn't have time to stop or it was after closing time.

My friend and guest Susan teaches quilting in California and has stayed with us several times.  However, she gets to be the tourist and go visit the quilt stores around Albuquerque while I have to stay home and take care of the housekeeping.  This time their visit was during a slow time and I was able to go.

We should both know better.  I had determined that I was just going to go look but not buy because I already have more unfinished projects lined up than I can do in the next five years.  She very nearly left her credit card behind as a way to keep herself from buying anything.  We both left with purchases.  (I am pleased to say, however, that I have already completely finished the project for which I bought the fabric!  A new record for me.)

Fabric stores for me are deadly in any event, but when you walk in and the fabrics are lovely and beautifully displayed, they have great tools and patterns for sale and lots of completed quilts and projects hanging up on display...  it's heaven.

Quilts Ole

3923 Corrales Road
Corrales, NM 87048-9312
(505) 890-9416

painting the Violet purple

For nearly three weeks, I've been trying to paint one of our rooms, the "Violet Christine room," or simply, "the Violet."

First you have to know that we have a 100-year-old Victorian house with trim and molding everywhere--door frames, 8-inch baseboard, picture rail, the whole deal.  All of that needed to be sanded, scraped, repaired, whatever.  Lots of dust ensued, resulting in me going home every night to get it off my skin and out of my hair.

In addition to that, we have the original windows with ropes and weights that also needed to be sanded and restored.  Did I mention that these windows are humongous?  They're 48 x 60 inches.  Lifting that bottom sash out by myself is something I only did once.  The next time I got help.  On one of the windows, we're going to have to rebuild part of the sash, since it's so warped that the glass isn't even in the frame any more. 

Sand, scrape, fix, rebuild, clean up, clean up, clean up... prime...  90% of the work in painting is all prep work.  I finally got to put actual paint on a paintbrush to paint the trim about three days ago, and it's taken me three whole days just to paint the trim in that room.  Granted, I run a bed & breakfast, so the painting gets done at the end of the day, after everything else is done.

On Wednesday, July 1st, I was finally able to start painting the Violet purple.

And the song that keeps going through my head is "Painting the Roses Red" from Alice in Wonderland.