Historic Photographs

This is history. I have never seen pictures of the house from this time period before and very excited to get them. Betty MacDonald is a cousin who has always lived at the River, and made copies of these for Mom and Dad, who gave them to Lois to scan and send to me. This is a real treat. 

This is a studio portrait of George Lowe, who bought the house from the railroad and moved it to it's current location in 1907.  He was born in 1873, and lived in the house until his death in 1948. He is a young man in this photo so this was probably taken around the time that he bought the house, give or take a few years.

This next photograph is amazing to me. That's George with his wife Catherine (nee MacSwain). She passed in 1945, three years before George, at the age of 73, and she was bedridden the last years of her life, so this must have been taken much earlier than that. The style of the dress should be a clue. I would imagine this was in the 1910's. I don't know who the man is on the right but I'll find out. 

And take a close look at the house! The sunroom that we tore off at the back last summer was once an open porch. I never knew that! The photo below is one I took in 2008 from roughly the same angle, showing what the porch looked like as I always remembered it. The barb wire fence was still there in the photo below. Dad removed it last week. It had become a rusty and dangerous obstacle that grew through all of the trees and needed to go, but will be replaced by a hedge of Peonies of Hydrangeas, or something like that. The original purpose of the fence was to keep cows off the railroad tracks behind the house. No tracks, no cows, and now, no fence. So much has changed, but its still the same somehow. 

Below is what I consider the best picture. Has me thinking about a different way to landscape. That's Catherine sitting on the old concrete steps that I remember, and will be restored. The house is straight and crisp, just a perfect little country cottage. The old cellar hatch is there that was torn off in the late 1970's. The little front kitchen porch had not been built yet! I have never seen a picture of that before either, but I knew it was like that because the interior walls of the porch were shingled. I had them reshingled as a nod to the history of the house. You can see the open porch at the back with vines of some sort growing up and over the steps. That picket fence must have been there to divide the barn yard from the front yard. I also had no idea there was a fence. I wonder what colour the house was!
 

It looks like this might have been taken early on as well, maybe 1915 to 1920, but that's just a guess.

This is Mary Anne, my great-grandmother, sitting out by the Orange Blossom bush. Again, there are clues to things I never knew. There was an extension on the front of the garage. I would guess this was taken around 1950 when she was living there.

These photographs are treasures and only deepens my appreciation of the place. Thanks Lois for sending them to me.

Lights, Floors, and a Door

Lois sent me these from this morning. The Moravian Star is installed over the basement stairs.

The lights that David ordered for me from Vermont and have been installed on either side of the bathroom mirror.

 

 

Track lighting is installed in the kitchen, ready for the cabinets to arrive any time now.

 

Some pot lights have been installed too

 The ceiling fan in Mom and Dad's bedroom has been installed

 This is the exterior light at the new back porch door

 

And the original hardwood from the Dining Room has been re-installed, sanded and varathaned 4 times. It has great colour and looks very similar to the new birch in the Kitchen and Butler's Pantry. 

 

 

Hard to believe this is the original flooring!

Mom and Dad have decided to tackle the front Kitchen door. It had three colours on the outside, and the interior was bright yellow. They are stripping the many, many layers of crackled paint to get it down to the point where you can see the great wood details, and then will paint it again, Carriage Green on the outside to match the exterior doors and sashes, and French Gray on the inside, to match the cabinet and wainscot colour.

That's my Dad!

Thanks once again Lois for keeling me from going crazy wanting to see how they are doing.

Mom and Dad's Former Home in Springhill

Before moving to the Island, Mom and Dad were caretakers of Springhouse for about 3 years, a B&B for the families of Springhill Prison inmates, and lived on-site. Before that, they had a 3 storey Victorian house that they lived in for about 15 years, see below. 

 They restored the interior and made many changes and upgrades. Christopher finished High School there, and both of my grandmothers lived out there lives there. I also lived there for a time, and converted the third floor into my office when I had my own design consultancy in the late 90's. Last week, the house had a fire. We don't know the full extent of the damage yet, but I found an article briefly describing the fire on-line. My parents put so much into the place and it's sad think it may be lost. Click on the link for the article:

House Fire

Kitchen Floor

Now we're cookin! Well, not literally. That comes next week when the cabinets are installed. But the Kitchen and Butler's Pantry floors are down! This is the pre-finished birch from Home Hardware. Today the crew is back installing the original hardwood in the Dining Room. Thanks Lois for the pictures. Looks fantastic!

The fridge is in it's final location, but will be turned to face the same direction as the stove. The stove is in the general final location. The cabinets will go in the corner to the left of the stove.

They installed the flooring right through the Butler's Pantry, and turned the boards 90 degrees at the threshold.

 Beautiful!

 

 

Mom and Dad have Grammy and Grampy's original bed frame from Hopefield, so Dad refinished it last week, and they are using it in their bedroom. The ceiling, walls and floor are painted there now too.

They also painted some doors in the basement. My plan is to eventually have them stripped, but for now it makes sense to clean them up by painting them.

They cleaned the basement bathroom door and put a clear-coat varnish finish on it to preserve the faux-graining, which will remain.

Looking good. The electrician is to be there today to install some lights, and the Dining Room floor will be installed, and maybe get a first coat of clear-varnish. Lots happening! Thanks again Lois

View From The Sky

My cousin Tom is a commercial pilot, and he took this photo with his I Phone from the cockpit. Know where it it?

That's Murray Harbour in the center, and Murray River farther inland, with Nova Scotia in the background. You can almost see the house! Thanks Tom!

No Detail is Too Small

Mom and Dad are having the electrician out to the house at the end of the week to hook up some lights and their bedroom ceiling fan, so we decided the get the exterior lights now so they can be hooked up at the same time. I had lights picked out for the exterior a long time ago, but when Mom, Dad and I were in the showroom in June I wasn't too impressed with what I had chosen and started to think about finding something different. I was thinking of very simple carriage style lamps but this caught my eye last night when I was looking at the Home Depot Canada website. They remind me somehow of the old Coleman Lanterns at the house, so this is what we are going with.

There will be one at the front door, one at the new back porch door, one at the kitchen porch door, and one inside the kitchen porch. I think it is just cute!

Garden Shed

Eventually we will build a small shingled shed down by the old barn foundation, see Sketchup image below: 

But Mom and Dad need storage right now, so they got this shed kit and put it together in the old barn foundation down by the outhouse: 

The thing is, the floor of the old garage has fallen through, and is still filled with tools and stuff. There was nowhere to store the lawnmower or barbeque, and stacked in the Parlour are rakes, storm windows, and a whole pile of things that don't need to be in the house. It has to be out before the work on the floors can start, so they can at least see the floor to work on. So this was necessary to get the floors done, to get the kitchen cabinets in. Everything is contingent on everything else.

Mom and Dad put this together themselves and it looks like they did a fantastic job. It took a while because it has been raining almost every day, all summer.

David planted some Daylilies a couple of years ago and they are starting to bloom. The plan is to grow and spread them around the house as part of the landscaping scheme.

Thanks again Lois for the pictures. I look forward to seeing the place and progress and really appreciate you keeping me up to date.

Yet another Birthday gift!

I am milking this birthday thing for all it's worth but I truly appreciate it, and my friends want to contribute, and there are so many ways to do that so why not!

Dolly got me the bronze outlet receptacle plates for the kitchen to match the switchplates that Cheryl gave me. One more step toward finishing that room. See below:

Thank you Dolly! 7 plates down, 66 to go

Jim & Marcia @ the House

Jim, Marcia, Marcia's son Alan, wife Laura Lynn, and their girls visited the house and Marcia sent me these pics of the girls on the back steps. Thanks Marcia!