A Room with a View

The view from the balcony of the master bedroom is one main reasons I was drawn to this house. The master bedroom balcony looks east at the Manti Temple. Hours of hard work has made a beautiful room with a beautiful view. This photo is a sample of my daughter's work as seen on her site at http://www.nrimages.com/

Living Room: Now to the inside!

After clearing out the resident ghosts, I moved on to the scarier projects at "my old house."

In the living room, there was a crack down the middle of the ceiling from the joist that sagged in the bedroom floor above it. First, After friend removed the floor in the bedroom above the living room, I had the joists repaired and reinforced. A skilled drywaller put in a new ceiling. He did wonderful finish work with no flaws.

My sister and I put up new crown molding, and I sanded and repainted all the mouldings. I hung blinds on all the windows. The windows have storm windows so I do not feel the need to replace them as yet.

A friend rewired the original ceiling light fixture and I shopped around until I found three opaque glass shades that match the center glass.

A contractor wired a light fixture on the east porch and added an outlet in the living room by the door. He also rebuilt the porch floor and steps, taking it back to the original design and supported the steps with a cement slab.

Croft-Beck Floors refinished the original pine floors in October 2004. This room was almost finished! I furnished the room from Ashley, LazyBoy and a few other pieces I found on sale. With a couple of antiques I already owned, three new rugs, and miscellaneous accessories the room was almost done. I would still like to improve on the window treatments, but am stumped on what to get.

My most exciting find was the hanging on the north wall. I looked and looked for something I liked, but alas, my taste was too expensive. One day I said, "I would settle for a blanket to hang there." That night I took a friend out for dinner. We walked from where we parked to the sandwich shop. Wow, hanging in the Ephraim Drug store window was a throw blanket of the historic Manti Temple! It matched the rest of the decor perfectly. The room is now a peaceful sanctuary.

Welcome to my old house.

June 2008 - Captain's log of My Old House.

I am making a blog about restoring or renovating an old house; accomplishments, lesson learned, mistakes and helpful hints/tips. The crowning project of my years of home repairs and remodeling is renovating a turn-of-the century Victorian house in the small town of Manti, Utah. The project is not finished and might never be completely finished. There will always be "one more" thing.

I started on the inside to make the house livable and worked my way out from there. For several years neighboring residences thought the house might be vacant. What I have done is an example of what tenacity and perseverance can accomplish. I believe what made this project unique is I am a older single woman with a limited income and time restrictions who took a shabby old house and transformed it into a lovely lady. I refer to with a female gender, because like me, the house that was once ragged and worn around the edges has become a proud woman who is still improving in many ways with age. Age has certainly added charm and unique qualities to my old Victorian! One example is the divot worn into the floor between the dining room and kitchen where people stopped to push the two way swinging door open. When I refinished the old pine planks, I purposely left the worn place there to continue to help tell the story of the people who called the house their home over the years.

I will not claim I know everything about refurbishing an old home, but I have learned a thing or two. I welcome your stories about this subject and any helpful suggestions.

I still have to repair and repoint bricks on the outside, replace trim and gingerbread. I am torn between using some man-made material rather than wood. Upkeep is so difficult in extreme weather. So far I have used wood, trying to keep the integrity of the original structure. I am interested in rain chains instead of downspouts when I have rain gutter installed. What do you think? Finding transom hardware for 12 doors is a challenge, one I have not faced yet.

p.s. The previous owner of the house was required to declare to prospective buyers that it was haunted because of Utah's laws. No ghosts there now. But that is another story - maybe another blog.