Walnut Avenue in February

If you are new to my blog, my mother is restoring an old house on Walnut Avenue.  The house has been in our family since it was built at the turn of the century.  If you want to see more of Mama’s project, look for my other posts under the “Walnut Avenue” tag on my sidebar.

Now for some progress pictures.  Below you see a “before” picture from the dining room.  Look carefully at the doorway that leads to the kitchen.  This doorway is not original and was added by my great-aunt.  The guy who did it cut through a load bearing beam!  Argh!  Mike and Mama have removed the wall on the kitchen side.

Before:

Mike removed the door from the kitchen side and removed the wall in the kitchen.

After:

Now look from the kitchen side to better see what has been accomplished.  The recessed area on either side of the chimney will one day be display shelves.  Mike still needs to add molding around both sides of the door.

Now let’s go upstairs to the room that will be Mama’s dressing room and laundry room.  Mike has built two closets for her in this room.  I think he’s done a fabulous job of making them look original.  Remember that the closet you see below had to be completely torn out  and rebuilt because it was so narrow that a coat hanger would not fit into it.  The door that’s on this closet in the “before” picture has been moved downstairs because one side hadn’t been painted on one side.  Mama switched it out with a door from downstairs that had been painted.

Closet Before:

 

Closet “After”:

Mike built the linen closet behind the door that you see in the picture below.

Before:

Notice how Mike used a door and trim from another area of the house to make this closet look as original to the house as possible.

After:

Mama and I worked on the upstairs hall yesterday.  The picture below is from July.  She’s since removed the steps that lead to the attic.  (They weren’t original to the house.)

Hall “Before”:

Hall “During”:

Hall in the morning, 2/13/10:

Mama and I scrubbed and scraped all day to remove the wallpaper glue that remained on the walls.

Hall in the evening, 2/13/10:

We couldn’t reach the area to the right of the staircase.

  

What a difference a little elbow grease can make!

Mama needs five spindles to finish off the area where the stairs to the attic used to be.  Mr. SP is going to make them out of pine for her using his lathe.  He also will need to fabricate the railing.  This will be a big job!

This house is definitely a labor of love.  Slowly, but surely, Mama is getting there, one step at a time.

 

I’m sharing Mama’s project for Metamorphosis Monday at Susan’s Between Naps on the Porch.