Thursday, December 29, 2011

This Old House

I always wanted a house that faced the east so I could watch the sunrise from my living room window.   And truthfully, for a long while, I questioned whether or not that would happen.  You see, I lived in a "mobile home" for many years and didn't really see the likelihood of being able to move or build something more to my liking.  The trailer house had, for the most part, very small windows and only one that faced the east in a small bedroom on the far end of the house.  This left it, to me anyway, quite dark and dreary.  While it was quite modern and as trailer houses go, cozy and nice, it just wasn't a "house" to me and it definitely did not face the east.

But a few years ago, when we were able to purchase family ground which had been owned by my great grandmother, Jennie Calkins Doyle Cline, there was a glimmer of hope that I just might have that house facing the east.  The original house on the place was built about 1910 or there abouts.  Later, in about 1950, the house was added onto and a basement added.  Interestingly enough, my dad, who was a young whippersnapper at the time, helped mix the cement for the basement and the stairs leading to it.  Over the years, quite a few family members had called this house home.....but no one had lived in the house for at least 7 or 8 years and it had not received much attention in the years prior to that.  The living room ceiling was falling in, leaving a huge damaged area on the floor underneath, there were several vital stays that were completely rotten from moisture, the house had settled tremendously and we questioned whether or not the foundation, built of "sandstone" (native Sandhill sand rather than gravel) would have held up over the years.  We considered bulldozing it into a pile, burning it and starting over.

But I'm so glad we didn't do that.  After having a carpenter who sort of specializes in remodels of older homes (that's putting it lightly what he actually does to some of these old houses), we decided to "bite the bullet" and have the house rebuilt.

There were a lot of good things about the house also.  With the exception of the damaged area in the living room, the original hardwood floor there, many years before covered in carpet, was in pretty good shape.  The interior walls had much better lumber in them that what you can buy today.  The house had character.  It had family history.  And I really, really liked that.  I can remember being a tiny little girl and visiting "Granny Cline"  at her house.  It wasn't until we were redoing the floor that I remembered the sound her shoes made as she shuffled her poor arthritic feet across the hardwoods.  AND.....it faces the east.

We had several walls removed to make the house more cohesive, changed and added two bathrooms and utility as well as adding a two car garage.  Where once there were two windows facing the east, there is now a large sliding glass door, allowing lot's of sunlight in..........and..... I.... can.... see.... the sunrise!!!

Each morning as I look to the east, the shadow of the old farmstyle barn comes into view right in front of my sunrise.  Several old timers have told stories of the barn dances held in that old hayloft.  I think of the family members who have lived here and what that means to me.  There is family history here, joy and sadness, hard work and happy times.  And I think to myself that I got just what I thought I had wanted all these years.  And while many times a person finally gets that thing they'd longed for and it isn't what they'd thought it would be, that isn't the case for me.  It's all I'd hoped for and then some. 

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