My Old House

Greetings All !

We decided to “invest” some of our tax return into two consultants:

1) Paul Helmer from “Touch of Distinction”, for exterior period color (scheme) consultation.

2) Maria Whittaker from “Whittaker Landscaping” for landscaping consultation.

On Saturday, Paul came out to the house and sat with us for about 3 1/2 hours.  He asked if we were willing to tear a few of the asbestos shingles off of the front of the house, so he could see what was underneath.

Terry and I hadn’t expected this request!   I was willing, because I was curious.  Terry was scared out of her mind, because we had relatives coming by the next day for Easter dinner and she was worried about what they would think!

Well, fortunately, Terry was curious too!

When I removed those asbestos shingles, they revealed a few architectural characteristics to the house that we had not known about!:

a) Lower columns are ‘echoed’ on the 2nd floor corners!    Yes, the Greek columns that are holding up the porch are NOT a relatively-recent addition, like I had thought.  Paul said they are most-likely as old as the house itself!  The proof is that when I removed a shingle at the northeast corner of the second floor, it revealed a thick vertical beam that had grooves in it… the same grooves that are on those first floor columns!

b) “Trigliffs” were apparently on the second floor, as well as the first.  “Trigliffs” (I hope I’m spelling that right) are the funny little (green) carved relief symbols that are above the two pillars on the porch.  Well, when I removed a shingle at the top of the second floor, it revealed an area that was painted, plus an area that had NOT been painted.  Paul says this blank area was evidence that a trigliff existed there once.

c) Although removing the shingles on the second floor revealed the old, thin, “lapp” siding… removing it at attic-level revealed wood shingles!

d) This is more-or-less a note to myself:   The soffits were probably originally bead-board.  So, when it comes time for me to replace them, I want to “do it right”.

Paul jokingly said the house was a “Victorio-Prussio-Kansas-Cityo-Franco Shirtwaist-Foursquare”, meaning basically that it was quite a mix of architectural styles!

Paul then asked me about what I had in mind for colors.

Well, I said, I had hired him because when I looked at the house, my reaction was “big white bulky farmhouse”.  And, although it had a trim color, I felt perhaps it needed a second trim color… or something else to reduce the effect of one big block of white shining at you.  I said since he was familiar with period color schemes, I trusted his recommendation as to what colors we should go with.  He asked how many colors I had had in mind?  Three, I said.  

Would I be comfortable with more?  I had no objections.  The thought never occurred to me that we might be able to do more, since all of these architectural features had never been revealed to me before.  My impression of the house had been “here’s a farm house where the middle class owners wanted to be rich” (which is how I explained the presence of a servant’s stairwell).   However, Paul was starting to show me that the house was more special than that.

Paul asked my wife what colors she liked.  She said “jewel tones”.  Well, about 2 hours later, Paul had sketched the front of the house and had applied a sort of “paint by numbers” diagram that painters could follow!

NINE colors!   Yes, 9 !   That’s what Paul recommended.  

Now, granted, most of the colors can be grouped into very similar shades.  There are two variations of burgandy… and at least two that could be considered to be grey.  And the porch railings alone use up one color all by themselves, so it’s not like this will be some crazy circus-looking house.

We accidentally discovered later that same evening that Paul had recommended the color scheme on an old Queen Anne Victorian on Delaware Street in Independence.   Anybody who’s ever driven down Delaware knows exactly which home I’m talking about.  There’s only one big Queen Anne there.  And while we don’t really personally like the colors they chose for THAT house(variations of mustard yellows and browns), you can see the quality and the thought that went into it.

Here is a link to a photo of the sketch Paul made for us.   Note that the “key” to this diagram shows Sherwin Williams color codes. (Sherwin Williams’ website has a  Color Visualizer that you could use to look up the color codes and see what the colors look like, if you’re that energetic and curious.)

So, Terry and I like our paint scheme.  Paul’s going to send us a list of painting contractors he has worked with in the past.

Now the only problem will be PAYING FOR THE PAINT-JOB!

Terry and I have agreed that we can’t afford it… whatever the final quote will be.  We just finished remodelling the kitchen!  There’s no money left! 

We’ve agreed that we will pray to God to send us the money for this.  Only He can do this, as I just don’t see where even another $1000 will come from.

And although it may seem selfish to pray for money for a paint-job, we know that this would provide something of a morale-boost for our neighborhood / our side of town.  We would be encouraging others to invest in the history of this area.

So, God, please send us the money for this!

 

On Monday afternoon, Maria Whittaker came out and gave us a landscaping consultation for about 1 1/2 hours.  We basically walked around the yard and discussed what was working and what wasn’t, in terms of plants and overall design.  Terry and I threw out some questions, which Maria dutifully wrote down.

Then, Maria took about 20 minutes to walk around the yard alone and record her own thoughts and ideas.

Finally, we all walked around the yard together again and Maria gave us her recommendations (she also gave us her notes to keep).

I’m not going to go into the full details of her recommendations, but we were very happy to get her advice!  Overall, she knew that we wanted to go with an “old fashioned” look, that my wife liked pink, and that my wife didn’t like the fact that almost nothing in the yard blooms after Spring (except for the orange day-lillies that surround the side-yard).

All this, plus we had a garage sale for two days… and we had the family over for Easter dinner!  All-in-all, a very busy weekend !!

Gotta run!

Thanks!

-= Dave =-