Being green before it was the 'IN' thing

My husband sat down last night after a long day of hard work. Reclined back and held the newest Fine Homebuilding magazine on his lap. As he opened the first page, admiring the photo of the old renovated house, he quietly commented how that is what he had seen himself doing. Instead now, he fixes up houses for someone to come in and abuse.

Like I have mentioned earlier, we love old houses. We drive around neighborhoods admiring the architecture, the lines, the history. Before my husband was a plumber, he was a manager for a local business. On the way home one day there was this beautiful mansion right in the downtown area of Waterloo. A sign was posted on the door "Selvage for sale"

He came home all excited. This home was typical of the times. Very large, hard to maintain and in a location undesirable to live. Originally it was built by a wood baron in the very early 1900's. You were greeted with the grand foyer complete with a fireplace. There was a parlor and a music room, the stairs off the foyer were interrupted with a huge landing and the most beautiful full height ceiling stained glass windows. Everything about this house was magnificent. There was a walnut room, a birds eye maple room, an oak room--everything was quarter sawn wood. Even after years of being a funeral home, you could see the money and craftsmanship someone had invested.

They tried to sell the mansion. But like I said, it was in a downtown location and few wanted to live there. Some had visions of moving the building to some place more desirable. The weight restrictions on the roadways struck that idea. I know of a couple who thought maybe they could cut the house up in sections and move it that way. Well, more restrictions and codes halted that idea. It would have been considered new construction meaning everything up to current code. A house that size, the financing was impossible.

So a man bought the selvage rights. I had 2 little ones at the time and the oldest was about 3 or 4. After my husband got off work, we would go to the house and remove baseboards, door trim, window trim and doors and little things here and there. All the nails had to be removed and loaded up in our beat up old truck. It was in the middle of a very hot and humid summer. Needless to say, it was a lot of work but we had enough woodwork to replace the inferior pine that was in our old house.

In addition to the woodwork, but my husband decided to save the old turret (complete with slate roof, copper finial, curved glass windows) and make a playhouse for the kids in our backyard. The long story behind that crazy idea is found at the link to my picturetrail albums. There is one album dedicated to that story. http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/4555777
My husband was determined and he did make it happen. And now my kids have many fond memories of that playhouse.

We hated to see so many of these beautiful sound pieces of art torn down and taken to the landfill. For a few years after our first 'salvaged' project, we were able to go into many more houses and selvage history. Now 24 years later, it is 'fashion' to reuse. I see it on HGTV all the time.

Just like in the first house we bought that had so much fire and water damage done to it, and before it was torn down, we took the oak flooring and the huge massive front porch posts. I now have a beautiful oak floor in my kitchen. One of the posts I refinished and it divides the living room from the diningroom. Our entire main floor displays the woodwork we removed from the mansion. My living room is birch, my dining room is oak, my office is birdseye maple. Some oak was used in the kitchen and in the bathroom, my husband incorporated the huge headers and door trim.

If our house wasn't of historical value before, it is now.