Now that Katie and I have moved into the hotel and the boxes are getting sorted out, we now have the ability to start decorating.
The furniture came first with the idea that if the pieces are in their final locations, they won’t be in the way. Well, that’s only sort of true but the theory works for the most part. Here we have a seating area in the saloon that Katie arranged.

The furniture pieces are mostly things that we have collected specifically for the hotel and Craigslist has been our source for most of it.
Along with the new acquisitions, we also had many items that were waiting for a new home. The painting of Lake Tahoe in the last picture had been hanging in Katie’s garage for years where it was really feeling a bit lost. It looks much more at home in the saloon.
It was also my great pleasure to start rescuing my light fixtures that had been hanging in the basement since last fall. Down there, they were just a hazard for banging one’s head on but upstairs, they really fit in.

This fixture is from the early part of the 20th century and it is actually a compilation of three different fixtures. To explain, I don’t like to buy complete light fixtures to restore. I much prefer obtaining heaps of parts and designing my own creations in the style of the period.

This hallway fixture is a bit more humble. It pretty much started with the cross bar that I found in a box of parts and I just started adding things from there.
Along with the light fixtures coming out of storage, I found a grandiose wall hanging that I had packed away three years ago and was pleasantly surprised that it had not split from drying out in the desert climate.

It started life as a souvenir coffee table from the Holy Land. It’s cedar with wood and mother of pearl inlay and it originally had four short legs. When I found it at a garage sale; however, the legs were all broken off because cedar is really brittle and the table had spent its life with a bunch of rough housing children. It had also been treated to a thick coating of Varathane which took many hours to strip off. Once the wood was stripped, I coated it with three coats of old fashioned shellac and buffed it with paste wax. After that, it was a simple matter to add a hanging cleat and hoisting it up on the wall.
Of course, all is not fun and games and the hobby room floor proved this. We call this room the “Rocket Room” because building and flying rockets is something we like to do; although, it’s really the most extreme game of “fetch” that I’ve ever encountered. One spends lots of money and hours of time building the rocket only to launch into the air so high that it can’t be seen anymore. With a little praying, it soon reappears gently descending on a parachute and when all seems well, the wind catches it and blows it all the way to Winnamucca.

If you look beyond the rockets, you can see the new VCT tile floor. We chose the VCT because it had the vintage look of the old asbestos tiles without the asbestos. It’s also tough as nails and easy to install…. well maybe. As it turns out, the tiles are easy to trim and lay but the glue is a real challenge. It’s a form of rubber cement that has the habit of sticking to everything. Just imagine spreading the glue on the floor with your trowel. Then try to put the trowel down. It won’t let go of your hand so you pull it free with your other hand but now it’s stuck to that one. It’s a real face palm moment but even that gesture has a downside.
Now that the floor is done, it’s time for a bottle of brew. I would love to have a second but the first bottle is still stuck to my hand.