House Tour 2013

When we bought the Ugly Duckling, the interior did little to inspire awe and house envy. Sure, it did have good bones, and all the space we were looking for at a steal but it wasn't pretty. No, really. Honestly, I look at these pictures now and can't help but think "Oh goody, what were we thinking?"

We have come a long way and while I occasionally feel like asking "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?", it's been a lot of fun and a whole lot of growth.

Hop on over here to this post for some scary Before pictures, and then lean back and enjoy some "After" pictures. I know I certainly did. Phew!

P.S.: There is no rhyme nor reason to the order of the rooms in this House Tour. Heh. For a floor plan of our little old house, visit this ancient post here.

Our Guest bedroom: With neither of our families living nearby, a dedicated guest bedroom to keep them comfortable during their visits was a must-have when we started looking for a home. It's a darling room - not very big, but sweet and bright and peaceful - and Little Man just loves camping out there on the weekends (it's a special treat).

Our stair case: After breaking it free from the wall that separated the upstairs from the downstairs, refinishing the treads and painting the risers, and adding a newel post at the bottom, all that is left to do is to remove the remainder of the wall and restore the spindle baluster on the downstair's half of the stair case. That is, after I'm done restoring the upper part (read about in the Staircase Challenge).

Our entry hall: Hard to believe it was the tiniest bedroom ever when we bought our little old house. It's hardly ever this tidy, though. 

Our Living room: It's such a cozy snuggly room. 'nuff said!

The dressing room: It's finally starting to look like a real room!

Our dining room: It's still the room in which we spend most of our days;

we should really consider changing its designation to 'living room' and call the living room "sitting room" instead. It's also the one room that we haven't tweaked at all since we moved in.

Our lovely lovely kitchen: We are still madly in love with the big farmhouse sink, and haven't made any changes here either (although I see different hardware, a backsplash and an eat-in nook sometime in the future).

  

Half Bath: The world's tiniest bathroom but serving its purpose beautifully. No changes here either. I dream of getting rid of the wall time and put in wood floors though ... one day, one day.

Our master bedroom: In its second incarnation we are loving it even better! We traded the dark rich teal on the upper half of the walls for a soft cream color (BHG's "Cultured Colonial Cream") and painted the ceiling a custom-mixed light turquoise like a southern porch ceiling. LOVE it! It feels so much brighter and bigger now.

Happy Anniversary, Little Old House!

Ack! I missed it!
Bad blogger, no cookie!

[I can't -wait- to restore the original entry ....]

It's been -two- whole years since we closed on our little old house back in January 2011.

A whole two years of painting, scraping, building, restoring, renovating, and decorating.

It's come a long way, our little ugly-duckling of a house and yet, we still see so many 

opportunities to love on it a little more, to shine it up and polish it until it's as good ...

wait, better than new. 

In the past two years you have been a great home to us, little old house, and we are looking forward to spending many more years underneath your roof.

It's been what???

A year.
A whole year.
365 days.

No, not since my last post.

A year ago on this past Saturday we set our signatures under tons of paperwork and closed on our Ugly Duckling. To our surprise it was a very anti-climatic event - no balloons fell from the ceiling, no confetti, no champagne corks popping - nothing - heck, we weren't even ceremoniously handed the keys to our house since they were still inside the lock box stuck to the doorknob at the house. Yet, despite all of that, this was the day the Ugly Duckling became ours.

Whatever it was that sold us on our little old house in Historic Springfield, it certainly wasn't the kitchen or the bathrooms. Nevermind the dirt, something spoke to us and both husband and I could see the potential in the old gal that we hopped in at the deep end and started swimming. We've been splashing in the pool of home ownership for a year now and it's been great. We've accomplished a LOT, first with the help of our contractors and their subs, then alone, and taken the house from drab and sad to a fresh new look with vintage touches.

While I've grown to abhor painting trim, I love loving on our house and can't wait to dedicate this year to bringing back a few more of its original characteristics.

But back to where we started. The photo two paragraphs up is from the original listing. That was the only picture in the listing so our first meeting was really a blind date. I managed to get a private sneak peek of the ground floor before our official visit when I managed to catch a painter at the house, painting the walls (the bank had decided to up their chances of selling the house by giving the walls a fresh coat of "swine." Fortunately we were able to see beyond the lovely shade of swine on the walls and other things.)

When we bought the Ugly Duckling, the interior did little to inspire awe and house envy. I mean, really, I look at these pictures now and can't help but think "Oh goody, what were we thinking?"

The downstair's kitchen



The upstair's kitchen


The livingroom


The guest bedroom


The bathroom upstairs


The Master bedroom


Our stair case

Hard to believe we fell in love with this place, eh? I mean, what for?? Whimsical Victorian? Nope. Lots of historic features? Grand style? No and no. All I can say is that the moment we set foot into our Little Old House we knew it was "The One."

Hook, line and sinker, y'know.

So we rolled up our sleeves, greased our elbows and went to work. And the Ol' Gal? She clearly enjoyed the attention and care we were lavishing on her, rolled beautifully with the punches and over the past year has become our Home. With a capital "H."

Our Guest bedroom in progress


Our stair case now


Our entry hall today


Living room at Christmastide


The dressing room and adjoining master bath, formerly known as the upstair's kitchen


Our dining room (actually the room in which we spend most of our days so maybe we should rename it to living room and call the living room "sitting room" instead)


Our lovely lovely kitchen


More kitchen (Hard to believe it's the same room, eh?)


Downstair's half bath


More downstair's half bath (and the world's smallest sink)


Our master bedroom in progress

Our Little Old House has come a looooong way, don't you think? We're nowhere near the finishing line but it's great to see what we've accomplished in a year. And maybe, just maybe this will encourage a reader that rescuing an old house and bringing it back to life is not just a green option but also very much worth it. And can be fun :o)

So raise your glasses and toast with us to another 12 months of living, loving, laughing, crying, cussing and diy-ing at the Little Old House! We love that you're along for the ride!

Where in the world is ...

Well, not Carmen Sandiego, that's for sure. I doubt that fickle lady with the shady reputation ever had a permanent address, let alone one in Historic Springfield. She would, however, make a great addition to our "First Friday" parties, don't you think?


With our first year anniversary coming up in just two more days, I thought I'd share a bit more histoy of our little old house.

The person I was looking for was the builder of our Little Old House and its sister houses to the left. All I knew up until about two weeks ago was that somebody named E.F. Rainey built four houses in Historic Springfield, including ours, at the tailend of the Springfield boom years. Three of those four are still standing today, and all three are inhabitated and in good repair, still sporting at least some of their original features, both inside and out.

After the holidays I wasn't feeling too keen on picking up the trim painting brush again (Surprise!) and instead buried my nose deep in census files, death, marriage and birth records and generally went research-crazy over at Familysearch.org .

And guess what?
I found him!

E. F. Rainey is Edward F. Rainey. He and his three brothers moved to Jacksonville from North Carolina in the early 1900s to benefit from the building boom in Jacksonville. In 1920, Edward was 29 years old which means he was a barely out of the cradle and walking when he built those houses, ours included. Kidding.

So, Edward was 23 when he built the Ugly Duckling and its sister houses bringing along his crew in form of his brothers:
Jesse (also spelled Jessie), Edward's older brother by two years, listed as profession "Real Estate".
Virona Glenn, two years younger than Edward, was the painter in the family.
And the youngest, Joseph, must have been barely released from his apprenticeship when he worked as Electrician.

Electrician at 16 - scaaary! Then again, he must have done things right because the houses are still standing and didn't burn down. Lucky us!

Back then the band of brothers lived at Walnut Street, and while I have been able to find both Jessie (Jessie remained a bachelor until at least 1935 and lived at 1644 Main St.) and Virona Glenn (who got married to Ms Hazel Bonnie Southworth on February 25, 1939, in Riverside) in later years , Edward and Joseph have fallen off the radar and are eluding me so far.

I'm really excited to have found out about Edward and his brothers, and hope to dig up more about them to learn more about the people who built our house (and our neighbors' houses). With a little luck I might be able to dig up a picture of the house that has been lost over time. I wonder if it looks anything like the other three?

Blog-iversary: 200 posts!

Post 100 came and sneaked (snuck?) past unnoticed but this time I caught another big anniversary number:

200 posts!

In two more months it will be exactly one year since we first laid eyes on our Ugly Darling Duckling. And what a year it has been! From first tour to closing date, we spent a rocking and rolling 3 months trying to buy this house all the while our fabulous realtor Teresa held our hands. She was also by our side for the 3 months prior to discovering our house, sending listings, touring houses and coaching us through our very first offer (the one that we walked away from.; read about it here).

With the help of our fantastic contractor team from Glory Homes Inc. and their subcontractors we brought the Ugly Duckling up to speed and code, and finally moved in in May. So far we have (with their help when it comes to the big ticket items and in no particular order)

1. 
   
   updated/repaired plumbing in entire house


2. 
   
   updated/repaired electricity in entire house


3. replaced hvac system


4. repair damaged trim/molding where necessary in entire house


5. made a few roof repairs as needed


6. turned downstairs full bath into half bath


7. installed new fixtures in the half bath


8. hung a new mirror in the half bath


9. takeen space from downstairs bath and add to mudroom for laundry space


10. put vinyl plank flooring down in our mudroom/laundry room


11. demoed kitchen


12. salvaged hardwood floors underneath linoleum


13. installed kitchen cabinets


14. installed appliances


15. installed cabinet hardware


16. sealed butcher block counter tops


17. went tankless (with our water heater)


18. opened the wall to staircase to create a single-family home


19. built and installed a new newel post


20. installed existing handrail using new vintage-style brackets


21. opened the wall between entry hall and living room


22. revealed pocket doors hidden in the walls


23. refinished all downstairs wood floors


24. re-open fireplace and inserted a gel fireplace


25. painted fireplace brick


26. painted the livingroom, the dinigroom, the kitchen, the laundry room, the half bath


27. updated the light fixtures in livingroom, upstairs bathroom, kitchen, diningroom, dressing room, guest bedroom, Little Man's cave and the Master Bedroom


28. spruced up an old brass chandelier


29. hung cabinets in the laundry room


30. refinished the stairs


31. removed linoleum on the landing and upstairs hallway and installed new floors


32. got a proper door for closet to heat pump


33. painted the hallway


34. installed batten and board in the Master bedroom


35. re-caulked tub in upstairs bathroom


36. installed a vintage sink


37. refinished the vintage sink


38. turned upstairs kitchen into Master bath and walk-in closet by building a wall and creating two rooms out of the existing upstairs kitchen


39. laid new subflooring in the upstairs bath and dressing room


40. painted and stenciled the floor in the dressing room


41. updatee plumbing for future Master bath


42. built, installed and painted two shelving units for the dressing room


43. laid tile in Master bath


44. refinished a vintage dresser to use as vanity in the master bathroom


45. built a cabinet for the library


46. built and installed wall-mount shelves in the library


47. refinished the built-in butler's pantry and decorated with stencils


48. removed the old ugly awnings on the kitchen window and the hallway window


49. removed the rusty old handrail from the front steps


50. created a simple patio


51. set up an above-ground pool


52. started the planting in the backyard


53. spruced up the back porch aka The Stoop


54. corrected the fence line


55. installed a new door to our shed


56. created a new planter bed in the front yard


57. began planting a butterfly garden


58. changed the outdoor lighting


59. removed a couple of unwanted and unnecessary satellite dishes from the side of our house


60. removed old broken storm doors


61. moved the vintage mailbox to the actual entry door


62. installed vintage door bell push button


63. installed new window hardware on some windows


64. restrung some window weights


65. changed the front door hardware


66. painted our front door


67. replaced the back door hardware


68. installed a new porch light


69. created and hung window treatments in in Master bedroom, library, livingroom, dining room and guest bedroom


70. upcycled a vintage sewing desk


71. reupholstered a storage bench


72. sewed pillow covers


73. created a gallery wall in the hallway


74. chopped a tree

Through all of that I managed to write 200 blogposts and take way more than 200 pictures. Our little old house has gone through a major transformation, even though it's still not done, and we're beyond happy to see with our own eyes what we envisioned during our first visit. No, it's not a major historical landmark. Not even a whimsical ornate historic home. It's a modest quaint example of vernazular building styles with bungalow influences of the beginning of the past century, but we love it to bits and pieces. It's a house with character and personality. It's our Ugly Duckling!

So here is to the next 97 years and the next 200 blogspots. We are far having reached the end of the to-do-list yet! Hope you're going to stick around :o)