When we moved into our Little White House over seven years ago, one thing I just loved was how original and untouched the upstairs was. Oak hardwood flooring and the original yellow pine trim adorned the bedrooms. However, those beautiful oak hardwood floors were covered underneath white carpet from the 70s. Both bedrooms. The stairs. Why people cover beautiful wooden stair treads with white carpet, I'll never know. The carpet was the first thing to go. We removed the carpet from the stairs and our then-spare bedroom. When we got to our bedroom, we then realized that the carpet was a shortcut. Half of our bedroom had the beautiful oak hardwood flooring - perfectly preserved beneath the carpet, and the other half had plywood subfloor. I told myself I could live with the carpeting for awhile rather than look at a subfloor. Time goes by, and life happens. Dogs and cats get sick on the carpet, stains galore. We lived with it, and I was ashamed of our bedroom. It was a place to sleep, and that's it. Fast forward to early this summer, when I reached my tipping point. Have you ever just woke up one morning ready to tear apart your house? I'm sure many of us have, and unfortunately for my husband, I act on those impulses. I decided I had lived with the dirty disco sheep carpet long enough, and today was the day it was coming out. My plan was to paint the subfloor. Anything could be better. When my husband, Tyler, got home from work that afternoon, he was greeted with a bundle of carpet sitting on the steps. Wives, if you tear anything out of your house without your husband's consent, you better have a plan. After the initial shock of "you tore our bedroom apart" subsided, he coyly asked my what my plan was for the carpet, assuming I wouldn't have an answer. I had one. Our neighbor used to put carpet in her garden. Yep - sounds nuts, but it really keeps the weeds down. Since we had a sudden influx of available carpet, we reinstalled the carpet in our backyard garden around our tomatoes and pepper plants. After getting the carpet removed, Tyler suggested we pull up the subfloor and lay red oak flooring to match; it'd look much better. I definitely agreed, that was my preference too, although much more work. We had our small stash of salvaged red oak flooring we got from a jaunt we took near Sargent in the garage, so it made sense to put in the extra work already having the materials on hand. Removing the subfloor was hard work. Using crowbars and hammers, we removed the first portion only to confirm our suspicion - there was no other subfloor underneath, only joists. There was no possible way to lay the matching flooring in the rest of the room. After brainstorming and not wanting to give in to the painted subfloor idea, we came up with a solution. Not surprising, as this is how it usually goes, but my afternoon project had turned into a couple weeks worth of work. You can't cut the joists down 3/4 of an inch to make room for the subfloor and hardwood - that's holding the weight of the second story of the house. Instead, we "sunk" our subfloor. We ran 2x4s along the joists so we could lay the subfloor on top of them and piece the subfloor in between the joists. This part took forever. We slept in the old part of our bedroom for over a week - the other half of the room was rather precarious with holes in the floor as we worked to sink the subfloor. Our boys thought mom and dad's bedroom was so neat all rearranged like that. Once the base work was done, the salvaged flooring went in easy as pie. After getting the floor in, I painted our bedroom, and Tyler worked on trimming out my closet and the two windows on the north side. We installed a floor grate in order to bring some heat upstairs from the fireplace below, and I had fun shopping at a local junktique store to replace our cheap mid-century modern "wheat" shade with a more fitting art-deco shade. We also switched dressers with our boys. I don't think the dusty teal color will be popular with my growing boys in a couple years! I had redone those dressers when I was pregnant with Easton. After PicturesThe moral of the story here is, when you reach your tipping point, go for it. Just have a plan. ;)
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Hastings, Nebraska was incorporated on April 20, 1874. Two years prior, a decision had to be made about the St. Joseph and Denver City Railroad. Railroad representatives wanted to build it near Juniata, the then-county seat, but the funding wasn't approved by the voters. Hastings ended up being the spot where it crossed the Burlington. "Hastings, part of the alphabetical naming system of the St. Joseph and Denver City Railroad following Glenvil, was named in honor of Thomas D. Hastings, construction engineer of the railroad." "In its first ten years, Hastings had grown from nothing to 3,000" (Adams County Historical Society, 2018). Ok, so what in the world does Hastings have to do with our Little White House? Comparatively, our town was incorporated 13 years later, in 1887. Hastings was a booming railroad town that is just packed with a plethora of old houses. When you have old houses, what do you get? Yep! Plenty of architectural salvage. Tyler and I have now made three trips to gather salvage materials for our project. In our first trip, we scored our yellow pine trim, matching doors, and clawfoot bathtub - which I have previously posted about. We have begun using some of the pine trim to match the woodwork in our bedroom upstairs. There will be a blog post about our bedroom when that project is all done! Since I'm on Facebook marketplace daily, (like refreshing the results about 100 times a day - yes, I know - crazy.) I'm apt to find a good deal. Two weeks ago, I came across red oak flooring that was located in Hastings. Perfect! That's what is original to our house. How much? Oh, about 700 sq. ft. I worked out a deal with the seller, and shortly after, another pickup box full of flooring popped up on Marketplace in Grand Island. Fortunately, we were able to schedule pickup on both days, and stopped at Grand Island on the way to Hastings. The pickup box flooring was just scraps from a salvage of a 1950s house. I didn't pay much for it, but we can take all that we can get! The 700 sq. ft. came from a house built in the 1940s. Talking to the seller, his wife's grandparents built the house, and this flooring was original to the house. Rather than refinishing the floor, they pulled it out and put new oak flooring in. The flooring was piled taller than me, and took up a good half of their two-car garage. It took the three of us a good hour to load all of it! We had a 14 ft. trailer, and it got so full that we had to use the back of the pickup too! When we got back home, we unloaded it into our garage so we could begin working on grinding the nails off throughout the week. We weren't able to use our garage the entire week - I was sure hoping a hail storm wasn't going to come through with our vehicles sitting outside. Luckily, we were safe. We had planned on storing the flooring against the south wall of our garage, below our other oak flooring we had previously salvaged. However, my dad called and offered us a place to store it in one of their outbuildings. Deal! Dads are amazing. At the end of last week, I found a "hutch" posted on Marketplace. Where else, but Hastings, NE. In the description, it said that this "hutch" was not finished on one side. It had beautiful leaded glass windows, and woodwork the same color as our house. Hmm...my mind started racing, wondering if this was the colonnade that I had been searching for. Ok, so colonnade isn't a word that comes up in many everyday conversations, if at all. I've had to explain what a colonnade is to many people. A colonnade is simply a built-in cabinet, common in craftsman-style houses. They usually come in a pair, and have columns reaching up to support the ceiling. When we moved in, there were cut-outs in our original oak flooring, indicating that colonnades were more than likely once there. I've been aching to put one back in, but they're hard to come by. After some pondering, I messaged the seller. I asked if this had a finished back. He said he didn't think so, but would get back to me and check. He replied shortly after, and sure enough, it did have a finished back. Done deal. I loaded up my two boys, dragged my two nieces along, and made the road trip to go get it. When I got there, it was even more beautiful in person. I felt a connection to it, and knew it was meant to be in our house. Sappy, I know. We loaded it up and headed for home. (With a quick pit-stop to a convenience store, where the munching of Cheetos could be heard coming from the back seat!) This colonnade was definitely converted to a hutch, with faux marble tiles placed on the top in place of where the column once sat. We will make it a built-in again someday with a rebuilt column, separating our dining room from our den. For now, it is content sitting in my dining room disguised as a hutch, holding my Fiesta serving dishes. 71.3 miles. That's the one-way distance from the Little White House to Hastings. Although it's not a short drive, if it means finding quality pieces to put our house back together, those 73 miles are time well spent. Reference
Adams County Historical Society. (n.d.). Prairie to Prominence: Hastings' First 10 Years. Retrieved from https://www.adamshistory.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33:prairie-to-prominence&catid=2&Itemid=42 It's summer break. Although, my summer grad classes begin today, so it feels as if my summer break was rather short. I've decided it's impossible to work on my coursework with my two littles running around, so that will need to wait until tonight when they're in bed. Ok, so I am writing a blog post today, but let's be honest - that requires a whole lot less thought and concentration than my grad class, Educational Research. Tyler and I are co-parents. I know, that seems obvious, right? We both parent our children? Yes, but that's not quite what I mean. I need to brag on my husband a little bit. We both work full-time jobs. (With the exception of my summers.) It's exhausting for both of us. We're both worn-out by the time we get home at 5:15 from picking up our boys from LaRanda, Tyler's sister, who watches them. (I could do an entire blog post on how blessed we are to have her with our boys during the day. She's extraordinary.) Despite being exhausted, we have two little boys who need our love and attention when we get home. Tyler is simply amazing with them. He plays with Easton, changes Case, and we alternate getting up with Case at night. (Thank goodness he's beginning to sleep through the night!) Tyler is a stronger parent than I am. I always thought I would've made a great 50's housewife. I enjoy cooking and baking from scratch, sewing, and gardening. Although, I realize after having kids that would be entirely impossible for me. I NEED my husband's help with the kids. I really wish I could be one of those energetic "super moms" who seem to get everything done, but I'm beginning to doubt that they even exist. We all live in our own glass houses. Today while I was cleaning the house, I had Alexa playing my house-cleaning guilty pleasure music, Taylor Swift. Yep...Taylor Swift, back when she was still country. I had laid Easton down for a nap, but Case was sitting on the couch playing with his brother's Hot Wheels cars. I was getting ready to steam mop my floors when Never Grow Up came on. It hit me like a freight train. I stopped, grabbed my baby, and held him while I sobbed as the song played. Why does time have to fly by so fast during the hustle and bustle of our busy lives? I'm pretty sure if my husband walked in at that time, that would've sent him into panic mode and he would've thought I was nuts. God put man and woman on Earth for different reasons. Mothers nurture their children, and have this unbreakable bond that started in the womb. We are so strong, but even the tiniest thing, like a song, can break us down. We feel things on such a deeper level than our spouses. On the other hand, Tyler is so good at playing with the boys and teaching them all of the things little boys like to do - the different parts of trucks and tractors, fishing, and fixing things. Easton follows his dad around with his play toolbox. Maybe it's because I'm a mom of boys, but children need both their mother and father's strong influences growing up. We both share our love in different ways, and that's what makes our co-parenting so great. For better or worse, our marriage is strong because we can each offer different things to our boys. It's been nearly 7 years since Tyler and I were married. I remember meeting with our pastor before our wedding and picking out our sermon scripture: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. 7 years later, and describes our relationship to a T. While it's 2019 and the dream of a 50's housewife has subsided, I realized I have created my own dream instead. I am able to cook and bake from scratch, sew, garden, read, blog, play the piano, refinish furniture, further my education, and all of the other things I do, all because of the support I receive from my husband. Oh darling don't you ever grow up, don't you ever grow up
Just stay this little Oh darling don't you ever grow up, don't you ever grow up It could stay this simple I won't let nobody hurt you Won't let no one break your heart And even though you want to Please try to never grow up Don't you ever grow up Just never grow up - Taylor Swift My mom and dad moved to Pleasanton in 1997. We moved from my dad's childhood homestead, where he and my mom had moved in a custom Wardcraft home shortly after they were married in 1989. The house they were moving into? A 1907 American Foursquare. I was around seven years old when we moved; I don't remember much of it. I remember the orange shag carpet and teal plastic barstools in the kitchen - groovy. I remember my parents showing me the upstairs, and letting me choose which of the two extra bedrooms I wanted. However, most of all, I remember the old upright piano sitting in one of the rooms downstairs. I was drawn to it immediately; I honestly don't think I'd ever even encountered one before that. I remember sitting on the bench, pushing two keys in unison, and it sounded like the start to Jingle Bells. How neat! I just couldn't figure out the rest of the tune. I thought, "How on earth does anyone know which keys to press?!" My parents must have seen my wanting to learn, maybe I begged them, I'm not sure how that all went down. But, fortunately for me, a piano teacher lived right across the gravel road behind our house. I began weekly piano lessons when I was seven years old. Little did I know, how much of a profound impact this would have on my life. Her name was Eunice. She was an older lady who taught half-hour lessons to a few kids when I had started. I remember not wanting to practice. I wanted to play songs! I longed to play Beethoven's Fur Elise that I'd heard my sister playing on the piano when she came to visit. Patience Katie, patience. Years went by, and those half-hour lessons commonly turned into 45-minute lessons. Eunice was my adopted grandma, and I was her only student. I took piano lessons until I was 16 years old - ending my sophomore year in high school - and felt like I just couldn't juggle so many activities anymore. Eunice had well prepared me, and I was able to classically train on my own. Now, not only was I able to play the coveted Fur Elise, but I could play the entire thing - something my sister could not do. (Ha!) When I lived at home, we didn't have cable TV or internet. To fill my time, I'd play the piano religiously every night while my parents sat in our front parlor and listened. I'd gone through all of the Alfred's piano books, and really took a liking to a series of books that had popular classical sonatinas, menuets, and etudes. Each year, I picked my contest song. My high school music teacher entered my piano solos into the district music contest, and I received a superior rating each time. When I went to college, I considered minoring in music, and Eunice encouraged it. I went to UNK one day, and played for the chair of the music program. She encouraged me to audition for the program, but listed titles of music that I should be playing, and it sounded like too much to take on; my heart wasn't in it. I greatly missed playing the piano during my college years. When I went home to visit, I always spent time with my old upright. I'd thumb through my favorite books and play until my hands were too tired. When Tyler and I bought our house, there wasn't a spot for a piano. I've always wanted a grand piano. Eunice had a grand piano - her nice piano - and I got to play it on occasion in the summertime when it was too hot for lessons on her upright in the porch. However, this house, our little white house, didn't even have a spot for an upright piano. My fingers and heart ached to play again; what was I going to do? When we remodeled our living room and took out that ginormous entry closet, it suddenly came to me; a piano can fit here. I called my mom, and asked if we could move my childhood piano to our little white house. It took four men and an enclosed trailer with expired license tags to move it out of my parent's house and into ours. My piano, made by "Erbe & Co." has a patent date of 1898. I don't know much more about it - I've researched online, there's nothing. I'm wondering if it was original to my parent's house, and nobody was ambitious enough to move it. It left marks in my parent's hardwood floors when it was moved. Once my piano came to live with me is when I really started practicing again, and renewed my love for my classical books. I even began practicing those pieces suggested to me by the UNK chair, and could play them well. However, with an old piano, she doesn't hold her tune very well. That's where my love for Scott Joplin came in. Scott Joplin was a ragtime composer during the late 1800s/early 1900s. You've heard it - it's in every western movie with the piano player in the saloon. Even better? I think Joplin's music sounds fantastic on my slightly out-of-tune piano. Having kids always turns your life upside down. I no longer can play every night for an hour practicing my songs. Fur Elise? A little rusty. Ok, quite a bit rusty. I've traded in my hours of classical practice for Baa Baa Black Sheep and The Farmer in the Dell. I do get the occasional Maple Leaf Rag thrown in, albeit needing some practice too. Sure, I could get a different piano that can hold a tune, but where would the fun in that be? This piano inspired me at a young age to have a love of music, and look - it's continuing to inspire younger generations. Maybe they'll discover Jingle Bells someday on this piano and beg me to give them lessons. I'm not going to push it...but if it's meant to be, this old upright will be right here to fulfill their love of music. Spring is always one of my favorite times of year. It's really a tie between spring and fall. Fall gives you sweater weather, hot chocolate, hunting season, and of course, Husker football. But, I just love the freshness that spring brings. New baby calves, pennycress, and the smell of a hayfield after the rain - the best solution to the winter blues. Next year, our house turns the big 1-0-0. It's crazy to think about all the changes and remodels our house has been through during that time. In the 70s, they added 10 feet onto the north side of the house. They added one of my favorite things about the house - the stone fireplace, but upstairs, they just put in sub floor and put white shag carpet over the original oak flooring. (I learned this while tearing up said carpet. WHY would you just put down sub floor!?) Downstairs in the entryway, they put in a closet large enough to hold the entire population of Buffalo county. That was one of the first things to go, after that orange wallpaper, and now makes for a fantastic spot for my old upright piano. I learned a new craft recently: shellac. I'd read about it on other old house blogs, and wanted to give it a try. We put in a closet door a couple years ago, and I never did put a top-coat on it. I finally coaxed Tyler into taking it down for me to work on. Big mistake. One thing I didn't do was research the proper application methods. I'm experienced with poly, and I assumed it would be like that. Nope! Shellac dries incredibly fast, so you have to apply it as though a drill sergeant is behind you. If you make a mistake, too bad. Go back and fix it once it dries. Fast and furious is the game. Once I figured this out, I realized I never should've taken the door outside - room temperature works best. I went inside and practiced in there. That's where I got hooked. I shellac'd (I'm making that a verb now.) all of the original woodwork in the bathroom/stairway landing, and was just amazed at the results. One neat things about shellac is that it blends in perfect over the top of the old, original shellac coating. If it has a rough "alligator skin" coating, denatured alcohol will dissolve it and blend in. Once I learned the "fast and furious" technique, and the denatured alcohol technique, where could I go wrong?! I'll definitely be giving the upstairs trim a fresh coat this summer too once I'm out of school. Even though our house is no longer new, the shellac brought freshness back into the century-old woodwork; just as spring breathes freshness and new life back into us each year.
I always love a good deal. Even before the days of buy/sell/trade sites, my mom and I would go to garage sales on Friday afternoons in Kearney. That's how I furnished my entire first apartment with Tyler, and I did it without ever spending over $200. Most of those furnishings are long gone now, but my love for bargains remains the same. You can find so many amazing things, if you're willing to put in a little elbow grease. Tyler and I enjoy going to garage sales on Saturday mornings. He scored a nice little fishing boat with a trolling motor for $50 once (the man-find of a lifetime), and now he's hooked; although he's usually disappointed in the lack of "man sales." During one of my excursions with my mom, we stumbled across an antique hoosier cabinet for $100. It was in pretty sad shape, but the bones were still good. I thought it was a good deal, so I bought it. This was my freshman year of college, with absolutely no place to put it! Mom agreed to store it until I found a buyer to flip it, or until I refinished it. Two summers ago, I finally tackled the project. The original white paint on the bottom had bubbled up and was not salvageable. The top had been painted many times, and the only decent looking part of the whole thing was the cream and green colored enamel top. I stripped off the layers of paint, (discovered the original fruit decals on the doors) gave it a light sanding, and painted it a gingerbread brown with black hardware. It makes a perfect place to store my plants, Instant Pot, and empty canning jars before they're taken downstairs. Here it is now, as it sits in my kitchen: About a year ago, I located an antique Eastlake dresser nearby for $20. I rushed right over to snatch it up! I'm so in love with the Eastlake style- if I lived in a large Queen Anne, it'd be filled with it. This dresser was missing one of the teardrop ebony drawer pulls, but was otherwise complete. She'd had a long, hard life. I scraped foam adhesive strips off of the side, the top had water rings, and the drawers had cotton batting glued to the inside. Yuck. I didn't see any way around the cotton batting, so I did my best to scrape it off, and used mod-podge to line the drawers with a pretty yellow floral fabric. I shined up the finish with orange oil, but those stubborn rings just won't disappear on the top. I chose not to refinish this piece, but to just clean it up and love it as it sits. Tyler made a matching mirror to make the look complete. At least it looks presentable now. When we went to Lincoln about a month ago, I located the matching ebony drawer pull. Connor's Architectural Antiques had an entire little shoe-box full of all kids of ebony teardrops to match the late 1800s dressers. When I got home, I realized it was just the slightest bit different, but I guarantee you I'm the only one that can tell. ;) If I was to ever quit teaching, it'd be to go into business with my dad to run an antique shop. I just love finding old, tired pieces of furniture and bringing life back into them. Maybe someday, but for now I'm pretty happy where I'm at, finding my bargains for fun.
Tyler and I drove to Omaha yesterday for his semi-annual check-up scan. His scan came back stable, with no evidence of tumor growth, thank God. Whenever we leave the doctor's office on those check-up days, I feel as if a 1,000 lb. weight has been lifted off of me. Tyler's tumor is a type of glioma, which means it will rear its ugly head again someday. I pray that day is many, many years down the road. This December, he will be 5 years out, so he will get to start getting his scans on an annual basis instead. In my philosophy class I'm taking this semester, we were tasked with writing a paper of a defining experience - something that has shaped us to who we are today. When I read the syllabus, I knew instantly what I was going to write about. I whipped the paper out in less than an hour. My favorite thing about having my own blog is having the platform to share my excitements, my struggles, and my feelings with everyone. Here, is my defining experience: December 28, 2014 – 2:30AM. While this date is nearing upon 5 years ago, I still remember it just as clear as if it were yesterday. We had found out that we were pregnant with our first son, Easton, the week before, and were excitedly making plans for that. We were on Christmas vacation. The Huskers had played in the Holiday bowl earlier before we had gone to bed, and it was a normal night. All of the sudden, I felt Tyler sleep talking, or having a bad dream. Sometimes Tyler talks in his sleep. I enjoy hearing Tyler talk in his sleep – some of the things he says make me laugh. However, when I woke up a bit more, I realized that I was wrong this time. Tyler wasn’t talking in his sleep, or tossing and turning like I had thought. He was shouting out; convulsing; my young, healthy husband of two years, was having a grand-mal seizure. I called 911, because I was scared and didn’t know what to do. The town whistle went off, and I had two police officers in my bedroom within 4 minutes of my call. I was so relieved to have someone else who was conscious in my home with me. Tyler’s seizure lasted a couple minutes, but it took him a good 15 minutes before he fully came out of it. The EMTs took him to Kearney, where he was checked out at Good Samaritan Hospital. By 4:30AM we had a diagnosis no 26 year-old man or his young wife wants to hear – my husband had a brain tumor. They were sending the on-call neurosurgeon in to talk to us, and Tyler was admitted to the hospital. Surgery was scheduled two days later to have it removed. Talk about turning your life upside down. To go from planning for a newborn, to hospital beds and risky surgeries?! Tyler’s surgery went well, and the surgeon removed as much as he could. A few days later when Tyler was more alert, we found out that the tumor was nearly as big as a tennis ball. A biopsy was sent to Mayo clinic, and it was found to be non-cancerous. He underwent radiation therapy less than a month later. I wish the story ended there, but I could write pages and pages of my defining experience. The extra-condensed version is that Tyler ended up getting a Staph infection, multiple other infections, and then a bout with MRSA that nearly took his life. He fought infection for over 2 years, and multiple, multiple surgeries that did nothing, until finally we went to UNMC in Omaha. They saved my husband’s life. They removed part of his skull and did an extremely complex procedure that lasted nearly 16 hours to rid the infection. He then spent nearly two years without a skull covering, because replacing the skull then was too risky for fear of infection. Finally, in September of this past year, Tyler had his final surgery in Omaha and we have since returned to our “normal” life. This defining experience has made me question. I was 24 years old that night Tyler had his seizure. I was so young, and I thought our life was absolutely perfect. Our future was so bright. We were going to be parents, we owned our home, we had two nice new vehicles, and I thought it was pretty cool that our household income was nearing the $100,000 mark. (Tyler worked construction in the summertime, and had a lot of overtime.) Wow. Just kids. Why would this happen to us? There are millions of “what if” questions that have gone through my head. This defining experience has helped me discover my truth of who I really am. It has humbled me and taught me not to take life for granted. These past 5 years we endured financial hardships and learned the value of friends and family. We make considerably less than before, but we are so much smarter with our money. My faith and relationship with God has gotten so much stronger. We expanded our family and have two beautiful, ornery sons. Most of all, my defining experience has made me reflect on these events. There is no growth without reflection. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of the hell that my husband endured. We are told that his tumor will come back some day, and he has scans every six months to check for changes. This defining experience, quite frankly, took me a long time to come to terms with. Those young kids had to grow up quickly and deal with the horror of what life threw at them. February 25, 2019 – 8:00PM. Tonight I will head to bed with a full house and a full heart. My sons will be in the room next to us. Tyler will take his anti-seizure medication before bed; his past surgeries make him more apt to repeat seizures. Before I close my eyes to drift off, I will thank God for what he has given me and pray for my family. I pray that we will have continued strength, and that I will not let any part of this defining experience fade from my memory – we’ve come too far for that. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4: 6-7 Part of the fun is the journey. The past couple weeks we have been venturing out to go get some things that we'll need for our addition. Facebook Marketplace can be a magical place...and a black hole that I can so easily get sucked into. Yes, we aren't planning on starting right away, but how often do you find the old, salvaged materials that you'll need?! Well, according to my husband, I'm finding plenty. I found a salvage guy out of Hastings who had posted yellow pine trim out of a 1920s house. Hmm...that sounds familiar! I sent him a picture of our trim, and he replied that he had doors to match our house as well. Deal! Upon further inspection, I found that he also had a clawfoot tub for sale. Perfect. Tyler and I took an enclosed trailer to Hastings to pick up our haul. Easton asked us what we were doing hooked up to our town's cardboard trailer - which is also an enclosed trailer. Haha - no child, we did not steal the town's cardboard recycling trailer. Unfortunately, another lady had already beaten me to the baseboards that he had; so, I was on the search for baseboards. After more time on Marketplace, I located just what I needed/wanted - except, they were located near Ogallala. I eyed them for a couple weeks, and they hadn't had any hits yet. I told Tyler, and he talked to his brother, Trent. They were interested in making the jaunt to get the boards. Road trip! We were able to check out Lake Mac for some potential camping spots this summer, and I couldn't believe how many fishermen already had their boats out. There were even some ambitious campers! Brrrr. We drove the rugged backroads south of the lake to find our destination - an old farmhouse destined to be destroyed via practice burn. It feels good to know that other houses will get to live on through our little home. We loaded up and headed for home. Our garage is full. Correction: our garage was full before we started collecting for this adventure. Now we're just being extra thrifty with space. Do you ever have competitions on who can load the dishwasher the best? It's kind of like that. The doors and trim are piled along the wall. The baseboards are in the rafters. See that wood floor piled up near the ceiling on the above picture? That was a previous trip to Sargent - 300 sq. ft of oak hardwood. It's getting to be one giant game of Tetris.
Wives, do you ever have fun seeing just how far you can subtly push your husband's buttons? I'm on my way to pick up a vintage bathroom vanity in Holdrege after school tomorrow. I'm really into Nebraska history. I've spent countless hours researching the history of Buffalo county on my internet browser, and have indulged in all of Solomon Butcher's photos. If you haven't heard of Solomon Butcher before, you HAVE to check him out. He was one of the first photographers to take pictures of Nebraska settlers. You can check out his work here. My favorite picture is the picture of a family in front of their sod house with the cow on top! In my last post, I talked about the orange wallpaper in the kitchen. Here she is, in all her glory: Did you know, that if you've bought your house in the past several years, that the original listing photos from when you've bought it are probably still floating around on the internet? I found this out while trying to find old pictures of our house researching online. It was a nice reminder on just how far we've come since buying our Little White House. However for some reason this past year, our tax assessor listed our house as being built in 1894, not 1920 like it originally stated. I'd love to call and ask why, but I highly doubt they have a reason. Nothing about our house screams 1894 whatsoever.
In our plans to add on, our current entire kitchen will become a walk-in pantry. I can't wait. Easton just loves to help me cook, but I think you can see how our current kitchen layout isn't optimal for any culinary assistance. It's a one person max space! We need a large kitchen for our summer canning and putting up our haul of fresh, Nebraska venison every November. This weekend we took Easton to see the monster trucks in Lincoln. My dad had told me to go to Connor's Architectural Antiques, while we were down there. I wasn't disappointed! When I walked in, I was overwhelmed of all the amazing things they had. We spent the better part of an hour exploring all different kinds of salvaged materials. I was able to match an ebony drawer pull that was missing from my late 1800s Eastlake marble-top dresser, so I count that as a score! We will definitely have to go there again when we are moved along in our building process a bit further - there were just too many options for me to make any decisions now. I've always wanted my own blog, then life happened. Bachelor's degree, wedding, first real job, husband's medical problems, two children, and then grad school. As in the terms of my three year old, "someday....someday I will do that." I think of all the things I've done - all of my creative hobbies - just wishing I could share them with the world.
This year, we made a decision - that we will stay in the Little White House as our forever home. Yes, it's small - yikes, is it small - but it's really everything we'd ever want. We will make it what we want. Our plan is to add on to our basement and add on a larger kitchen and master suite. My parents raised me in an antique store. I traveled all through Nebraska in the back of that '96 Chevy Silverado on Saturdays while my parents were in search of a new store they hadn't been to yet. When I was 12, I could tell you every pattern of Depression Glass made, and still today, I bet I could remember the names of most. Antiquing and appreciating the relics of days gone by is in my bloodline. When Tyler bought this house, we were engaged to be married. I just loved that it was built in 1920. It had beautiful oak floors, but needed a lot of work. It was a 1970s nightmare with orange wallpaper, paneling, and funky, outdated light fixtures. Many of the original elements of the house had been removed. Our goal with this addition is to bring our Little White House to it's former 1920s glory. Antique stores, here I come. :) |
Kathryn HollandWife. Mother. Teacher. Lifelong student. Archives
March 2022
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