It had been on my list from the beginning, but it is such a dreaded project, that I put it off for five years – the kitchen rehab. I wanted to update the kitchen (there was no dishwasher, for instance), but I wanted to do it in a period-appropriate way. And although I love all the beautiful rich-stained Craftsman kitchens I saw in my research, my kitchen is really small, and I felt that dark cabinets would make it look smaller. So I chose white-painted cabinets, which would have been very common in a 1928 kitchen. But I also incorporated many Arts and Crafts details, such as natural materials, period-appropriate hardware, and furniture-look cabinets.

My kitchen is approximately 11’ x 11’. It had no discernible style. Light wood cabinets mounted below a soffit wasted a lot of useable space. A blue laminate countertop had seen better days, as had the rusted stainless steel sink and nondescript faucet. The floor was white 8x8 ceramic tiles, some of which were cracked. More...

I love living in my 1920's bungalow, but an annoying drawback is lack of closet space. My house has four bedrooms, two down and two up. All the bedrooms are small (the largest is 11 x 11; the smallest is 10 x 10). A previous owner removed a closet from the smallest bedroom to enlarge the bathroom that's adjacent. The closets in all the other bedrooms are very small. In addition, the closets in the upstairs bedrooms are tucked under the roofline, and you have to stoop if you step in more than a few feet to avoid hitting your head on the sloped ceiling. And don't even try to find something in there after dark -- there are no lights. More...

The California Plein Air movement occurred at the end of the 19th century, at the same time the Arts and Crafts Movement in the U.S. was in high gear. Several American artists who had studied formally in Europe embraced the new Impressionist style of painting. When they came home, some of them migrated to Southern California and began painting the California landscape, attempting to capture the wonderful lighting and color they observed there. More...

Bay City, Michigan, is a community of about 35,000, situated on the Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron, near the base of the Thumb. Once a lumber and ship-building town, through the efforts and vision of two brothers, it became a center of the catalog housing industry, supporting three firms, Aladdin, Sterling and Lewis/Liberty. More...