Yet another sad day for historic homes

We were sitting on our front porch yesterday evening when I noticed some smoke in the distance. It appeared to be coming from the north side of downtown. We hurriedly hopped in the car and drove there. Afer a few seconds of driving my heart dropped into my stomach. I knew what was on fire, it was the old funeral home on Hill st.

Picture taken 2 months ago

I'm not too sure about the history of the house. Some say it was built right at the turn of the 20th century, others say it's antebellum. Either way it was a beautiful old house. Just 2 months ago I decided to go around town and take pictures of the historical homes in Griffin. I took the above photo and as I was walking around it the funeral director came to the door, I explained how much I loved old houses and he let me in for a tour.

Foyer

Parlor

Parlor2

That was how it looked 2 months ago, the pictures below are from last night:

Previous owner's relatives visit

We haven't gotten much done on the house for a number of reasons. One of them being the new TV we got:




It's a 47" Westinghouse with full 1080P HD. The picture is incredible. It's $700 or $800 cheaper than anything else in it's class. I got it for $1299 from Best Buy. I fully recommend it to anyone in the market for a flat panel LCD.

We had a visit from the relatives of the former owner of the house, Hazel. I've mentioned her in the blog before, she lived to be almost 105 and owned the house since 1955 when she inherited it from her 2 aunts, Helen and Kitty-Clyde. They inherited the house in 1945.

The relatives brought some old photos of them over for us. I gave them a tour of the house and showed them all of the progress we've made, they seemed impressed with the work done so far. Here are a few pictures they brought:

Hazel in front of the house

Helen

Kitty-Clyde

Helen with her husband

They also brought some photos of the front porch after a car hit it back in 2001. A man that was a convicted felon got into a fight then shot at someone that tried to break it up. He then car-jacked a vehicle and didnt get 2 blocks away before losing control and crashing into the front of the house. I've found some evidence of this a few months ago when I was planting new bushes in front of the porch. I dug up what appears to be a front fender reflector and some safety glass that probably came from the drivers window.



In anticipation of their visit we rearranged and straightened up many of the rooms in the house. We completely rearranged the Parlor:



The Buggy is a recent find that we got free off Freecycle.





I'm hoping to get back to work on the house soon.

Paint

We spent the entire weekend painting. On Saturday we painted the shutters and the front porch railing.




We're thinking about possibly leaving the house white when we repaint instead of the pale olive we were originally thinking of. I think white will look a lot better with the upcoming redo of the front porch I mentioned in a previous post.

I also painted the wicker furniture on Saturday, the loveseat and table were unpainted but were looking very washed out, the chair was a hideous blue (we found it at a thrift store for $3):


Sunday was spent painting inside, first we painted all the trim in the Foyer and the back hall, then I painted the foyer:



I still need to finish installing the picture rail and figure out what I'm going to do with the entryway to the Study (on the right in the picture), the entire study is stained a dark walnut so making the transition from antique white paint to stain is difficult. I'm thinking of just staining the entire Study entryway.

The door in the picture leads to the back hall and will most likely be replaced with a salvaged french door. Eventually I will remove the door, widen the opening and add some columns to create a wide open passageway from the foyer to the back hall. I dont have the front door pictured because I still need to strip it entirely and refinish it.

We still have to paint the walls of the back hall. We will hopefully finish that today so I can move back upstairs to the master bathroom and finish it off.

Living room complete!

The living room is finally done, well not done but done enough. We primered and painted the other day.

Primer

After primering, I painted all the trim then did all the cut work for the walls:


Then I painted the walls:




We then spent the better part of the day getting the room organized:







Obviously, there is still a lot left to do. The TV in the corner is temporary until we get our flat panel, it will go above the mantle. The corner that the TV is in now will have a wingback chair and side table.