Curbside Trash in the Poolroom

Driving home one day I passed a pile of… of???  Something that looked like the poolroom!  I turned around and stopped.  They were made out of the same kind of panelling as in the poolroom.  They were —  ummm…  The happy un-clutterer came down the driveway with more trash.  I asked him if I could have these things.  He said I was welcome to them; they were pelmets that they’d torn out of their family room.  And if I wanted the curtains too, they were in those bags; all I’d have to do is get them cleaned.  I declined the curtains and loaded the pelmets (about 9 feet long), which looked like display shelves to me, in the HHR.

With some measuring, and sawing, and L-brackets and screwing they assumed their true form — display shelves!

Looks like they were there from the beginning!

 

Lower Those Shades!

The poolroom is one of the greatest spaces in Pergola House.  It’s slightly sunken and  completely open to the living room.  The living room is where the original bungalow part of the house flows into the modern era.  The poolroom is octagonal with two almost floor to ceiling window walls, two open sides, and two long and two short panelled walls.  It’s two steps down from the main level, and has a 9+foot beamed ceiling.  The windows stop about 15 inches above the floor  (at ground level from outside) with a 21 inch tall operable awning window at the bottom separated by a transom from fixed glass to the ceiling.

The original owners had installed honey-comb shades on the window walls,  attached at the very top of the window so they came down only as far as the transom which meant that at night passersby could see in, right at the level where one was playing pool, or dancing with a lampshade one’s head.  They had made a hideous large-floral pattern valence to hide the top of the shade.

Original shades from the inside -- horrid valence already torn down!

Original shades from the outside -- note transoms

So we trashed the valence!!!    We removed the shades.  And then took left-over mahogany tongue-and-groove flooring lengths, cut them to fit, painted the outside face the colour of the outside trim and mounted them 21 inches from the top of the windows– faux transoms.  We remounted the shades on these faux transoms.  The shades now come down to the bottom of the window so no one can see in.  The top of the windows, above the shades, becomes a clerestory light, and the faux transome  improves the proportion of the windows from both inside and out!

newly hung shades from inside

newly hung shades from outside

newly hung shades from outside at night

 

Transforming CD Holders

CD tower

We are fuddie-duddies.  We don’t know anything about MP3 players.  We have LPs and 45s.  We have approximately 89,590 CDs.  So many of them have no home.  But I did a neat fix for at least some of them.  I took two CD towers — you’ve seen ones like them, I’m sure — that were tottering on the carpeting.

I unscrewed the bases and pulled the knobs off the top.  I measured the width of the short panelled wall behind the poolroom CD player and hacksawed the ends of the metal towers to that length.  I went to the trusty Ace Hardware http://www.acehardware.com/home/index.jsp , metal tower in hand, and found a mirror bracket that would work to hold it to the wall.  I bought a dozen of them.

With a friend I measured, levelled, drilled and screwed and got the towers wall-mounted, horizontally!!

mirror brackets holding CD rack

I replaced the knobs on what were now the front “corners” of the racks, and I think they look pretty swell under the vintage sunburst clock!

Transformed CD racks under vintage sunburst clock