Looking 'UP'

 The Atelier brick walls are perfect for displaying good stuff~

 12ft high walls - many people do look up because of the wonderful old pressed tin ceilings and cove.  You'll see the ceiling reflected in some of the mirrors here.

 Isn't this shade something else? Never know what you'll find.

 New retro-style

Thanks for stopping by and enjoying this wonderful old building.  We got the best compliment recently: 'coming in here is like a wonderful surprise'.

Yes, it is - hoping you can come by soon, TERESA

shop inspires the third floor apartment

 On Tuesday, we mounted vintage tin panels to a fence wall in the PORCH level - and we're still patting ourselves on the back over the results (even though all we did was screw it to the fence - the tin should get all the credit)~  

 The embossed wreath tin is old, aged, burnished, painted, chippy and even rusty in spots.  Which equals all the right qualities for me and this awesome 1902 building!

View from master bedroom to kitchen; you can see a bit of the ceiling (2011)

 I had trouble finding a third floor apartment kitchen photo that showed the ceiling.  Because I don't exactly like that ceiling.  It's clean, white, 10' tall (yay!), trimmed in great old cove molding. It's also that 60's fiber-like tile.....

Tiered prism ceiling light inside an ornate carved 'cage' in the original planked and beamed apartment living room

You see, I have some pretty great ceilings in this old place.  Thanks to talented friends and family who are willing to tear out old plaster and then implement my vision~

 Here's another peek at that kitchen ceiling in Country Living magazine, March 2010

A new idea evolved from this shop project.  I've been dreaming of a 'punch' for the kitchen, and there is enough tin to cover the kitchen ceiling! A lot of people ask if the apartment has original tin ceilings as in the Atelier shop level - (mais, non~)

I adore laurel wreaths with their symmetrical leaf and berry circles, especially if that classic tin pattern repeats.  I'll let you know how about progress - a winter project, for sure - and of course it will be 'easy', right?  I'll take photos of the mess it creates!

Have a great Friday, TERESA 

History lessons about this old building~

I have a great appreciation for this old building~

and think of it's history in terms of real people

~This is a wonderful place to be! Every day I feel privileged to have my shop and home here. I've been interested in learning more about this building, and researched what I could find when preparing narratives for Country Living (we're in the 2010 magazine lineup) and the April 2009 Star Trib feature. What I was able to find made the history of this 1902 building even more real to me. When I see an old photo from that first decade of 1900, I can't help but think about what it looked like inside the building then, and ---the people - imagine what life was like then, what they wore, and that horses and buggies were on the streets here.
Originally the Buffalo Post Office (see 1911 photo postcard above), locals know it as ‘The Purity Dairy’ (1940’s through the early 1970’s?-not sure). All three floors were commercial space until that time, the third floor being home to the phone company, dental office, and other business. I believe the third floor was converted to a living space for the dairy store owners. You had to climb an open, outside staircase to get to the apartment/third floor-until the 1970's-?

I was happy to get some personal narrative about the building in 2004, when an elderly gentleman came by the shop with his daughter. He had grown up in downtown Buffalo, and told me that as a young child, he and his friends played outside the building. There was a spring in the corner outside, in the back, and his mother sent him for fresh drinking water here each day. He also remembered overhearing the ‘adults’ talking about the building -that it was the ‘Swedish men who did the stonecutting’ (in the lower level you can see those original stone walls, photo #2).
When renovating the apartment living room in January 09, ceiling plaster was removed, and sitting high on a rafter was a complete Minneapolis Sunday Tribune. Left as a time capsule? I like to think so. ~TERESA