Friday, July 3, 2009

That it's all just a little bit of history repeating

Friday Jul 03, 2009

That it's all just a little bit of history repeating

... and I've seen it before
... and I'll see it again
... yes I've seen it before
... just little bits of history repeating

Shirley Bassey - History Repeating

As many of you know, Derek, Jay and I live in the house that I grew up in. My parents got married under the tree in our side yard, and our backyard parties are continuing a long line of summertime pig pickin's. Jay's nursery is the same one I came home to. So our house has a lot of sentimental value. My parents (with some major help from my grandparents, Appie & Papa) put a ton of work into this house. They built an addition with a great room and master bedroom and made some major changes to the kitchen/hallway/bedroom where we're now re-renovating to create a pantry.

Nevertheless, we occasionally want to take a bulldozer to it. Every project is 10 times more complicated on a house that's 50+ years old and has had numerous layers of renovations already. On this latest remodel, we've found holes in the floor where shower drains used to be, and created our own holes in the floor where the wood has rotted out. We didn't exactly budget for replacing the subfloor.

So to minimize the work (and $$) involved, my dad keeps encouraging us to save what materials we can. "Don't rip down sheetrock if you don't have to," he says. "Just patch it where the mirror used to be, and you'll never know the difference." Sometimes we ignore his advice. Derek priced sheetrock at ~$6/sheet this morning, so we decided we'd replace the whole wall rather than try to patch those major holes.

And in this case, I'm glad we didn't listen, because we found a really cool piece of history behind the wall...


That's "Michael J. McLean, Builder; Laura McLean, architect; Jenny age 3, helper; Matthew age 1, nuisance" We told Jay that he can get on the wall, too. Still determining whether he gets the job title of "Helper" or "Nuisance."

Comments:

How cool! What a fun find!

Posted by Erin on July 04, 2009 at 07:58 PM EDT #

I vote for "helper." You've already said that he helps out by being a good sleeper. Staying out of the way totally qualifies as helping at his age. :)

Posted by Amy on July 05, 2009 at 09:08 AM EDT #

What a neat family history find! Your mother (aka The Architect) has been telling us about your project and her advice/design help. Can't wait to see the completion photos! Sweet baby Jay...NEVER a nuisance!

Posted by Lynette Rhodes on July 06, 2009 at 10:07 AM EDT #

That is such a nice surprise! Maybe Jay could be "supervisor." : )

Posted by Lisa on July 06, 2009 at 03:23 PM EDT #

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