Hidden Treasures

Last week was incredibly busy and productive.   For those of you who don't know my husband, he's a work horse.  He had some time off from teaching and put in six full days (12+ hours) of work.  It wasn't without a lot of help from friends, though.  John and Kevin came some nights after putting in a regular day and worked until after dark.  Tim worked a day, and repaired the roof leak, which is a huge blessing.    Most of the plumbing is done, the electrical work is off to a great start, and the roof leak is fixed.  The boys and I helped with clean up, which included two trips to the scrapyard.  What a great week!

In the midst of working, we found some hidden treasures.  As Jack was ripping away at the upstairs bathroom wall, a tool fell to the floor.  At closer inspection, he found that it was a plaster hammer.  It's a really unique looking tool: it has a sort of ax on one end, and the back looks like a meat tenderizer.  Most likely a worker dropped it after putting a lot of the lathe on in the room, and just left it.  For 115 years it's been concealed, until last week.  We were able to hold a part of history in our hands, which is an amazing feeling.  It is stamped by Underhill Edge Tool Company, which was only in business until 1890.  I have since read that Lizzie Borden used an Underhill hatchet to commit her bloody crimes in 1892.  Thankfully, there was no evidence of foul play on the tool that we discovered. :)

Another great find was a cigar box full of the missing pieces to our fireplace puzzle: the tiles that had fallen off throughout the years.  Thankfully Mr. Michelegko stored them in the garage rather than throw them away.  Even so, we could have easily lost them in the rubble of the decrepit garage, which we plan on taking down soon.  It would have been impossible to match the lost tiles precisely, so this was a huge discovery for us.  Someday when we repair the fireplace, it will be there in it's entirety.

The only thing that could have made this find sweeter was to find someone's name carved into the handle.   

A cigar box full of treasure!

Several tiles are missing above the insert

Springing Forward

This week marks an exciting milestone.  We are finally done with demolition, and are moving on to rebuilding.  It was great to see progress, even in the way of knocking down walls and such, but we won't miss the plaster dust and all that came with it, namely wearing respirators and other protective gear.

Jack is on Spring Break, so this week we are really going to make some progress.  A friend lent us a giant Shop Vac, and I have been busy cleaning up all of the dust that was left behind from the destruction.  We have also been able to open windows, some that I'm sure haven't been opened in years, to let some fresh air in.  It's been lovely.  Jack has been busy with plumbing, and will move on to electrical later in the week.  The whole house needs new plumbing and electrical, so this is quite the chore.   He had hoped to work on the roof this week, but the weather won't allow it.  The thawing of the snow on the roof and the rainy weather really emphasizes the roof leak.  Our friend Tim is coming over this week to help Jack patch it temporarily.  That will be a big relief.   

We've had to make a lot of decisions before he could work on plumbing and electrical, like what size shower do we want, and where do we put it, do we want a utility sink in our laundry room, and so on.  It wouldn't seem like these would be so hard to answer, but they are big decisions, and once it's done, that's final.  We did end up moving the downstairs bathroom so it's off the mud room instead of off the kitchen.   It's smaller than the other bathroom would have been, but we feel like it was the right decision.  We've also moved some things around in the kitchen so that we have a more open layout.  I don't like  to feel cramped while working in the kitchen, so this was important to me.  The kitchen seems to be the hub of activity, especially with three boys who are growing quickly and seem to be hungry every hour or two.  With that in mind, we made a closet into a walk in pantry, which will be great to have for extra grocery storage.  We also decided to use one of the bedrooms upstairs to make a master bath and walk in closet.  I really hated to use up a bedroom space, but we will finish off the attic into a living area, and it's not like we're lacking for personal space in this house.   Jack was able to frame in the closet this week, and things are starting to take shape.  

It's really exciting to see progress, especially of the rebuilding kind.  I'm so thankful for Jack's expertise and work ethic.  Even though it's a huge project, we are excited about it together, and that makes the hard labor much more rewarding.

A beautiful chandelier piece, I think.  We found this in the garage, and assume it was originally a part of the house.

The new half-bath off the mudroom, framed in and door in place.  (No, we won't be using that toilet. :))

Future utility room, insulated.

A former upstairs bedroom, framed and ready to become our walk in closet/master bath

Layers of History

We have sporadically been able to work on the house lately.  We are still in the demolition process, so it's basically one big, messy, dust bomb of a project.  My brother, Jordan, graciously volunteered to help us this week.  He and Jack were bulldozing the plaster walls away.

 As the plaster and lathe were being knocked down upstairs, I was busy peeling off layers of wallpaper in our to-be family room.  The walls throughout the house were covered by wallpaper, although it had all been painted over.  Many of the rooms have a few layers, and if I'm careful scraping, I can see what each layer looked like.  I am amazed at the intricacy of the designs of the original paper.  Most of it has metallic elements to it, both silver and gold.  The borders are often thick; in one room it was about a foot and a half wide!  The ceilings were also papered, often in different designs than  the walls.

Upstairs Hallway

Master Bedroom

Original Wallpaper in the Laundry Room

Dining Room.  It's hard to see how metallic this is.  It was beautiful!

Living Room

To-be kitchen

Every room has gas light hook up in the center of the ceiling.  I wish some of the original lighting was here, but unfortunately they were replaced for electric lights, and none are left.  We did find a crystal chandelier piece, which was likely in the house at one time.  I wonder if it looked like the chandelier from Downton Abbey.  :)

I so wish we could see what this house looked like in it's original glory.  For Genesee, it was certainly a grand and decorative home, with many details that others didn't have the luxury of living with.