Blast from the Past... our first house

We bought our first house in 1980 and we did quite a bit of work on that house. We refinised all the floors, gutted the kitchen, rebuilt both the front and back porches and resided the house. We did a lot of the work ourselves but we had a couple of angels who advised us and did some of the work. One of them was Carl Ziegler.  Carl was willing to work with John and teach him.  I was thinking about Carl lately and how important he was in building the foundation of John's woodworking skills.  I called Carl a couple days ago. He is retired now (he is in his eighties) and he was glad to hear from us. It was very cool to talk with him.

 We didn't take a lot of photos back then (way before digital cameras) but I did find a few of Carl working with John. Here are some photos of  Carl working and teaching....

 

Our first project was to side the whole house.  I had my own crow bar because we had to remove the awful asphalt siding.  I remember we paid the kids next door to pick up nails... until we figured out they were "recycling" the nails and charging us again.

Putting up the clapboard and building out the trim took us about a month a side.  We bought a 36 foot ladder so we could reach the top.  It's a wonder we didn't kill ourselves with that ladder.  We had a couple of near accidents.  That is actually me at the top of that ladder.  I was painting the trim.

We only lived there six years but we poured our hearts into that house.  We worked on it all the time we lived in it.  I do cringe at some of the choices we made (foolish youngsters).  There are things I still miss about that house.  The wonderful old heart pine (yellow pine) floors.  The staircase.  The upstairs hall.  The wetlands behind it.  The view over the rooftops from my sewing room on the third floor.  The walk in attic.