Gloria and Bob Make a Visit

Last weekend I heard a knock while I was working on the house and it was Gloria and Bob, on their way back from SLC, where they'd been celebrating Maxine's 98th birthday. We had a nice visit, walking through the house. Gloria took lots of pictures and shared her memories of Jennie, telling stories from the days when she lived there.


They picked-up the Great Walker spinning wheel. Bob told me that Gloria had been dreaming about it for twenty years. She said maybe someday it would be back. I hope so. We had a nice visit with Ken as well.

Planting

Planting a catalpa tree we got in Mt. Pleasant, in the early Spring.


Ethan tests out "The Ephraim Aeron Chair".


My makeshift potting shed.


Kitten fertilizer. (Ethan's kitten is the cutest.)

Lime-washing the Ceiling

Trent and Ethan white-washing the ceiling. I chose lime-wash, for historical reasons, and also because I wanted to maintain the texture of the old wood.


Ethan wanting to know how many more coats we have to do.


The secret to a good days work: a big country breakfast.


Ethan frying eggs in bacon grease, just like Great Grandpa George used to do.


Trent discovering the charms of a small town paper.


Ethan making hermits from Jennie's vintage cookbook. For your information, a hermit is a spice cookie with currants or nuts. They were so very good.

Fairview Museum

I stumbled across the Fairview Museum on one of my Sanpete sojourns. I don't remember ever going there when I was a kid. I think it would have made an impression, because they have a fashion gallery and a Cinderella's ball diorramma.


Courtyard of the old school, where the collection is housed.






I was admiring the lovely vintage murals, when I realize they were by Max Blaine.


For me, the Fairview collection crystalizes the Sanpete historical esthetic, kids will love it, and I highly recommend a visit.

Over Head

Uncovering the plank ceiling in the living room was really exciting. Once we got the right tools and heavy gloves we developed a system of peeling and cutting away sizable pieces to haul outside. I could never have done this without Trent.










The front room looked like a war-zone for a little while.

Living Room Walls

Originally, I had planned on scraping, patching, and prepping the living room walls for paint.

But as I got into it, I realized-as a professional painter-that I could not in good conscience just re-paint. The walls needed serious work, and I wanted to make a real improvement.


The ceiling was in the worst condition, and I knew from an exploratory hole, that the old plank ceiling-like the ones in the bedrooms-was underneath a layer of plastered metal lath and chicken wire.


Here Trent is scraping away layers of wallpaper.




I bought a Wagner steamer at Home Depot for around $50, it worked beautifully to strip off the layers.


There were four to five layers of wallpaper, with two different borders. I saved pieces of each layer if you are interested in going on a trip down memory lane!

Under foot continued

Ethan and Trent adding the rust shag carpet to the pile. It has been a glorious Spring in Ephraim.


Removing the carpet pad.


Scraping away the blue linoleum.

Bye, Bye, Shag Carpet, Hello Plank Floors

Here, Trent is removing carpet tack in the East bedroom.


After removing the blue shag carpet.


The floors were painted around the perimeter to compliment an area rug. They were shades of blue and red at one point.


The original floors have an incredible quality to them. People pay big money these days to try to reproduce the look and feel of a hand-planed floor, but we've always had them.

Under Foot

In order to access the condition and repair the old wood floors we had to uncover them. This meant rolling up the area rugs and, pulling up carpet, and linoleum.


In the West bedroom, there was a layer of stick-on linoleum squares around the perimeter, a mid-century era layer of linoleum with a wood-look, and then the earliest covering was a burlap type material painted mustard yellow. Here is Betina using a spatula for a tool.


Here you see some insect damage and the area that was replaced with plywood after water damage.


It was very exciting to uncover the original plank pine floors, layed with square blacksmith nails!

The Fate of the Combustioneer Heater

I know some of you were sentimentally attached to the coal/electric heater in the front room. Honestly, I always thought it was the ugliest thing in the house. It had rarely been used since the seventies, and had been obsolete since Wanda put in the new gas furnace over ten years ago. Also, the weight of it was causing the oak floorboards to buckle. I listed it on KSL for $60 (a bargain I know) and some folks from Manti came and got it. I watched three big strong guys nearly collapse under the weight of it, and this was after Mom and I bailed at least a hundred pounds of coal out of it.

The chimney is blocked with cement, but eventually I think it would be nice to have a working stove again.

After they moved it out, I did a little jig, so happy to have the open space.