Shoo Lie Loo

Original Photo of House

Confirmed by the Kewanee Historical Society, the house was built in 1901!

Sent from my iPhone

Buggies, Wagons and Chryslers??

Picture it...1905...trotting up the drive are two dignified maple-colored stallions, freshly groomed with shiny horseshoes. Pulling behind them an elegant covered buggy with large, sturdy wheels and a gleaming brass plaque on the side reading "Taylor & Son Carriage Company". Out of the carriage steps a man in a period suit coat with the evening newspaper tucked beneath his arm. Then, a sweeping fog rolls in, and the horses, driver and carriage disappear....where once sat that buggy now sits a 2007 Town & Country and a Jeep on jackstands.

Ok, so Chris drives me nuts, truly he does (sorry, sweetie), and we have our most hair-raising moments, as most couples do. But then there are those unexpected moments when he surprises me by capturing the essence of who he is - a sweet, kind-hearted guy who wants to find his place in this world every bit as much as I do.

Case in point, not more than 15 minutes ago, he presented me with a piece of paper. A print-out of an email that he had received. And his face was beaming with pride and intrigue as he handed it to me.

Unknown to me, Chris is as interested in the history of our house as I am. I have known all along that he is curious. But I had pictured him as more of an "armchair historian".

Last night, after working a grueling second shift, he used his own free time to shoot off an email to the folks at the Kewanee Historical Society (something I hadn't even considered doing). It was a request for basic information about our house, as suggested by their website. Their historians take requests and will look up this information for Kewanee residents to better educate them about the town they call home.

We have the deed in our possession, but it is not the original deed. So we are both unaware as to the exact year that this house was built. Elaborating upon that fact is that we also don't know who the original owners of the house were.

Larr at the Kewanee Historical Society responded to Chris this afternoon. Per Larr, according to the city directory dating back to 1905, the house was occupied at that time by A.C. Taylor, either the founder of or the son of the founder of Taylor & Son, a company that first sold buggies and carriages and now sells Chryslers (the dealership is still in operation right on the main drag in town!)

Larr further stated that he would be at the Society soon (he was working off materials he had at home) and would look at earlier registries dating 1876, 1893, 1898 and 1900. He also advised Chris to get in touch with Cully, a descendant of A.C. Taylor, who runs the dealership today.

So wow....the garage/stable structure that is attached to the back of the house and has what appears to be an old stable door is probably what we had joked about it being - a place to house a Model-T or a set of horses and a buggy!

The first paragraph's description is simply me waxing poetic; I don't know anything about Mr. Taylor nor the company he owned. But I'm aching to find out more.

In the past week, we've learned that this house was once inhabited by a famous state Senator (after whom a local state park is named) and now A.C. Taylor, carriage connoisseur at large. So the plot thickens.

I am now anxiously awaiting further communication between Larr and Chris to see what else is uncovered. Chris suggested we try to locate an original picture of the house, which I jumped on saying that we could restore and blow up to hang above the mantel. I love it when we are simpatico!!

Additional news - health around the house is restored. Henry has just completed his last dose of oral steroids (nasty stuff, that). It was a rainy and cold Saturday, so I have started our "someday laundry room" as my "project room".

I've finished re-painting Lulu's vanity. It is a bright, might need a pair of sunglasses yellow. I ran out of paint and had to run to the store to get more. I asked Lucy if she wanted the drawer to be a different color, since it was the last thing that needed to be painted, and she settled on light blue.

Well, after spending way too much time in the fumes, I walked out of Menard's with a bunch of spray paints and primers for all these projects that I now have planned and forgot the blue. I had, however, found this super cute Key Lime color that I had intended for a mail sorter.

When I got home and realized that I had missed the blue, Lucy agreed that she would like the Key Lime for the drawer. After finishing it and topping it with the semi-gloss clear coat, I have to agree - it's made the vanity really pop! And I definitely have to find at least one other thing in this house that is begging for this color...

Once all has dried and my brain has recovered from today's dosage of paint fumes, I'll take pictures. We are supposed to present it to her tomorrow.

By the way, in case you were wondering, when I asked Lucy what she would like to call her new vanity a la Auntie Petra's "Stella", Lucy responded with "Just vanity." (sigh)

I suggested Vanna on the way down the stairs and she nodded in agreement.

I wasn't sure we had a "Vanna" on our hands until tonight, before bed, she asked if she could peek in at "Vanna" before bedtime.

Welcome to our crazy life, "Vanna".

Sunset on Chestnut Street

Chestnut Street

Before and After

It's been a relatively uninteresting Tuesday. However, I feel compelled to keep blogging so I don't fall into the A.D.D. crack that I'm prone to, never to return to the blog.

I posted a bunch of photos from the house - these are all "before" pictures, except for the repainted radiator. It's not placed where it will ultimately go, but it has been finished!

I would really like to post pictures of the elevator shaft, as I find that to be one of the most intriguing features of the house, however, lighting is poor. I just couldn't get a good shot.

As we continue to work on the old homestead, I will periodically update the photos with where we are in the project. I'd appreciate and welcome any comments, even the critics, to help us find direction. Advice is always welcome.

Ultimately, we want to maintain much of the integrity of the house, however, we are going to modernize it so that it makes sense for a family of four. (In example, we don't plan on hanging our undies in the dining room forever - we're just waiting to install a gas line to the upstairs kitchen/soon-to-be-laundry-room.)

For tonight, I leave it simple. My mind is a bit tired. I had an invigorating walk to the playschool to pick up the kids and then it was rush, rush, rush as usual to get Lulu to her lessons (tonight was swimming). Sometimes I find myself wanting to just sit and play Yahtzee on my phone or watch old episodes of The Twilight Zone instead of tackling projects (or even thinking about them).

And a good night of sleep never hurt anyone, either...

Original Front Door

Original Leaded Glass Window - Staircase

Wall Pass Thru Cubby

The Mystery Unraveled a Little Further...

Today's project was to buy a new van. Pending some other issues, we are waiting until Monday to complete THAT project.

One of the benefits of backbreaking yardwork (which was the back-up A.D.D. project du jour) is that you often get to converse with your neighbors.

While Chris and I watched the skies for threatening rainfall as we shoveled about 23 bags of leaves, branches and seed pods, an unknown neighbor came by to introduce herself. Forty-five minutes later and her cat Wendell using one of our eight leaf piles as a litterbox as we watched in resigned curiosity, we found ourselves covertly dancing back and forth with "we need to move on now" as she continued to talk.

However, truth be told, she was a wealth of information about the previous homeowners for at least the past 30 years and the goings-on of the current residents of our prestigious Chestnut Street. 

Chris and I have always been very intrigued by the Winchester Mystery House in California for its odd structures and designs, a la  Sara Winchester, the wife of the late inventor of the Winchester rifle. A psychic had apparently told her, at some point, that she needed to move from her native Boston to the West Coast.

The eccentric Sara Winchester required her builders to work 24/7 to appease the spirits with a grandiose house made of nothing but the finest of materials (and she was a bottomless pit of money) and also to confuse them with odd architectural designs to prevent them from following her. With the unusual staircases and completely odd architecture of our house, we had immediately begun referring to it as "The Winchester Mystery House of Kewanee."  

And guess what...there was indeed an "eccentric little old lady" who lived here. As we had suspected. And she barricaded herself into the dining room as her primary residence. As we had suspected. And she built on various additions and questionable upgrades. As we had suspected. And she had plopped a bathroom two feet from the grand foyer in our house because "she could". As we had suspected.

We also found out that this eccentric elderly lady had, at one time, turned her home into a home for elderly ladies. So parts of the picture become clearer.

This all still clearly, and possibly more so, propels me to go to the Kewanee Historical Society to uncover more mysteries.

Now - some hydrocortisone on my neck, a nice adult beverage and some blogging about the day's experiences have made me feel quite good. And I'm ready to tackle something else tomorrow.

But guess what....we FINISHED the project. The front yard, as proven by the pictures in the photo album, show the before and after shots of what we tackled today. And I'm awful proud of us. We worked as a family in the beautiful "day before spring" sun, each with our own rakes and each child additionally wielding a cheap plastic shovel. And Super Grammy came to the rescue at the right time to bring us additonal lawn bags (we seriously thought ten bags would be enough...?) AND take over childcare for the evening so we could finish without having to constantly run interference.

We have uncovered grass and hostas and renewed our belief in ourselves that we can complete a project.

The result? Sore....but very, very proud.

The Journey Has Already Begun...

My family and I were the unfortunate "victims" of the economic downturn. Actually, due to a number of circumstances, some within our control and some not so much, we ended up losing the cookie-cutter mortgage monster that we had bought back in 2005. Or so we think...the bank still hasn't told us what's going on.

In any case, being the proactive person that I try to be, I enticed hubby into venturing into a wild and crazy goal...one that I had reservations about from the word "go" but, once determined, embraced tightly like a child at the end of a kite string on a windy day. We bought outright a beautiful, unusual, mysterious Victorian home, circa 1901 (or so we think -- the deed isn't even specific about its exact year of construction).

The home has a huge, wraparound and enclosed front porch, complete with ceiling fans, five bathrooms and five bedrooms, an elevator, a dumb waiter, two kitchens, two staircases to "nowhere", an attic straight out of a V.C. Andrews novel and a lovely yard with mature trees with a full-on squirrel "farm". And we are finding treasures slowly as the snow melts.

It may sound like a fairy tale, and maybe, in some respects, it is. But we've suffered a lot to get where we are. And we will struggle to keep ourselves afloat. Follow along and offer your advice and your words of wisdom, even if cynical, to keep us going.

We are a diverse, curious family. We love change and challenges and wonder. So we hope to keep you interested and coming back for a bigger dose of what we are up to.

:-)