Not the Plan, Still the Dream

To my amazement, the renovation keeps moving forward every single day. The upstairs transformation is officially in full bloom, and honestly, it’s been the perfect cure for the January blues. It’s a far cry from how 2025 began.

I haven’t shared much about the upstairs on the blog until now, mostly because for a good stretch of 2025, it was just too painful. But with a little distance (and the clarity that only hindsight can bring), it finally feels like the right time to talk about one of the biggest bumps in the road.

From the very beginning, our guiding principle has been simple: save as much as we can, and honor this 100-year-old building wherever it makes sense. We love preserving her history—but we also know when it’s time to bend. You might remember that lesson from 2021, when we unexpectedly lost all the main-floor flooring.

The upstairs brought a similar heartbreak. The plan was to keep the beautiful original ceilings and restore the floors. That dream lasted exactly one meeting with an insulation specialist. In no uncertain terms, we were told insulation couldn’t be added without blowing-out the fragile plaster beneath the pressed tiles. Since insulation is non-negotiable this translated to: you just lost your ceiling.

It was a tough blow. We were so close to starting, only to be pushed right back to the drawing board. Meeting after meeting followed, full of options I didn’t love - and none of which were in the original budget. (Is there anything more annoying than paying for something you don’t even want? I think not.)

After weeks of firmly vetoing ideas like a drop ceiling (hard no), we landed on an unconventional solution—and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

While the ceiling is technically new, we were able to reuse nails saved from the old hardware store upstairs and place them into the corners of each tile. Their aged patina was the perfect touch of history to something brand new.

Once again, creativity wins—and this old building gets to keep telling her story, just in a slightly different way.