Blast from the Past #2

Well, here is #2 in my "Blast from the Past" series. Instead of showing the removal of trees as I had planned, I've opted for some interior shots.

All of these pics were taken over several weeks as we cleaned the house in preparation of the first stage of moving in.

Again, the photos are not as sharp and clear as those from the digital. These were taken with 35mm film so when I scanned them they turned out grainy; this could be due to dust in the air or the picture quality - just not sure.

Anyway, here they are.

For the first few months of owning the house we had a parade of people coming and going just to look. The previous owners had been so reclusive that it was rare to know anyone who had been in the house. Those that had been in it never went any further than the back porch and the kitchen. So there was a lot of curiosity around it and therefore a lot of people wanting to see in side. friends and family members came out of the woodwork to have a look. As well as these people they brought other people with them!!

Here is one of those 'looky-loo' people. She is an old family friend of both sides of our families.

I caught her off guard, but she was amazed at the wood trim that was even in the closets!

This closet is the largest in the house and is located in the Master Bedroom.

This is me poking at the walls. You can't see it in the picture, but the plaster was extremely bad in this spot. I could poke it and chunks would fall.

the Master Bedroom again. In regard to plaster, this room was the worst in the house.

Notice the lack of a proper door. what was in it's place was a vinyl accordion door!! I ripped that thing out with relish!

Here is one of me scraping some of the wall paper.

For the most part the wall paper would just pull off will little effort, but then there were spots that just about needed dynamite to remove.

Excuse the look on my face. I was not in a good mood and I was 'told' to smile. This is the best, forced smile I could do. If you could see the look in my eyes it was more along the lines of "die you annoying person" (that‘s the clean version).

When we bought the house we had two little nieces that we too curious for their own good.

I took this picture of them in the Master Bedroom as they were kicking around pieces of wall paper and plaster.












Following is a reasonably good picture of the wall paper that was in the Master Bedroom.

The person with the scrapper is my Mother-in-law.

Do you see that black rectangle next to her head? That is the light switch!

Why would someone mount a light switch that high up?

You can also see the only other layer of wall paper that was put on the walls of this room. we have no idea when the original paper was installed but assume it was done when the house was built. The second layer was added in the mid 50's. We know this because we know a couple of the guys who did the work when they were in high school!

One of the worst jobs when it came to cleaning the house was the grungy dirt in the attic and basement. I have yet to find pics from the basement, but here are some from the attic.

This is my Father-in-Law.

As you can see, he is using a shop-vac to get the crud up.

I didn't envy him at all - he was doing this during the hottest part of the year! He did find some cool stuff though.

This is me and the Bathroom door.

There were about six doors stored up here - all from the second floor.

As for the door I'm carrying, you might ask "how did you know it was from the bathroom?". Well, we didn't to begin with. We finally figured it out when I found the original window that had been in the bathroom (it was in the red barn). The color painted on the window matched that on the door. I know the picture doesn't show it too well, but that door is painted a purplish red color!!! Can you imagine what the Bathroom must have looked like at some point?! We thought the way it looked when we moved in was bad!

Me, trying to help in the attic.

I was scooting along picking up the bigger chunks of junk and plaster keys before the F-in-L came along with the shop-vac. Needless to say, it take me near as long as it took him.

Here is the F-in-L again.

If I remember correctly, it took him about three days to completely sweep out the attic. The temp up there was probably about 110 the entire time.







Here you can see just how big a difference the sweeping made.

You can also see the knob-n-tube electrical system which was live at the time!






This is my M-in-L helping the wife drag some old carpeting down the steps.

It was a huge area rug and extremely nasty. It was so bad that she and the wife had no choice but to wear masks.



You can also see the two different styles, and colors, of wall paper that were in the foyer.

Here's the other end of the rug being pulled by Annette.

That is one huge area rug!






They dumped it in the Living room and called it 'good'.

Do you see the garbage can? We had several of these through out the house.







I'll leave you with this shot.

This is the F-in-L and I looking at the gas light and trying to decide if we wanted to try and light it.

Basically, we lit it, it burned for less than a minute and then the globes became engulfed in a fire ball! We have not tried to light it since...

Oh, before I forget... Remember that purple Japanese maple I told you about? The one that was up by the front gate and had to be taken down. The one with all the bugs in it. You can see it to the right of the picture behind me. It really was a beautiful tree, it’s a shame it had to go.

One last thing, the row of bushes at the back of the picture - do you see them? Those are the roses that had to go as well.

Well, I guess that's enough for now. I might try to post again tonight though. As I run across more pics of the interior from right after the purchase I'll post them. Unfortunately we do know that most of the pictures that were taken the day after we bought the place did not come out well enough to post. They are extremely dark. The most you can see are window outlines...oh bother.

Anyway, till next time....

Cheers!
Larry ~