More Bathroom Progress!

Hey friends,

We're getting closer and closer on the upstairs bathroom remodel. The tile is done, it has been grouted, sealed and caulked and Nick has hooked up the tub, toilet and sink, so it's almost all finished. I am so grateful to finally be able to use this hallway bathroom. There is no longer a claw foot tub or a toilet in our bedroom, we don't have to tiptoe through a sleeping baby's room in the middle of the night to get a drink of water or go to the bathroom, we don't have to brush our teeth downstairs off the kitchen anymore and we can finally bathe our little guys in a tub! Huzzah!

What's left to do-

*Finish last bit of mudding and paint the walls a serene white

*Install the metal shower halo where the shower spout will come out of and the shower curtains will be hung

*Reattach and repaint the window and door frames

*Construct a threshold for the floor between the tile and hardwoods

*Repaint and reinstall the vent cover

*Reglaze the inside of the tub in a nice clean white to match the rest of the fixtures

*Install medicine cabinet and light fixture above sink

*Install towel racks

*Install open shelving above toilet

*Decorate!

I'm so proud of Nick and all he's done without having to hire any work out. He's just plugged along in the midst of 50+ hour work weeks, being an awesome, available daddy, playing on worship team, volunteering at church and taking care of numerous other household tasks. He's just so amazing!

Stay tuned for more updates!

Sneak Peek at Things Coming Together

So, we've offcially been in this house for 9 days and it's, slowly but surely, starting to feel like home. While I am so, so grateful Nick's company paid for packers and movers (don't know if I can ever go back to moving the normal way), I can't tell you how many trees must have been sacrificed to wrap and box our entire house in Georgia. The funny thing is, they must have to really cover their bums for liability reasons because every.stinking.thing was wrapped in five sheets of paper. While that is most certainly useful for fragile items, the over-wrapping of a single woodden spoon or a small, plastic toy is a bit ridiculous. Hence, the unwrapping of every.stinking.thing has taken quite some time. We'll get there!

In the meantime, I've managed to put a few areas of our home together! My utilitarian husband, if he had it his way, would not decorate a stitch of this house until everything was unpacked, but come on! Mamma's gotta nest! And he admits, the homey touches, in the midst of boxland, have been nice. And really, boxland is almost gone, save the upstairs guest room/attic storage staging dump.

So, according to my calculations, about one full weekend away from feeling settled. I say weekend because the amount accomplished during the day, by myself with a toddler, while Nick is at work is not always the greatest. Yesterday I kicked some serious booty by organizing the hall closet and completely finishing Collin's room, all whilst keeping him from setting the house on fire. Other days haven't all been so productive in the unpacking area, especially since I'm still simultaneously running a business, but we have been learning to give ourselves extra helpings of grace at the Bradac house-- be it myself and the long list of things that don't always get accomplished or Nick whose new job is wonderful, but also overwhelming at times.

Take a peek at some finished vignettes:

One corner of Little Man's room.

Gallery walls can be dangerous... Especially for those of the "more is more" inclination like myself. Eventually I just had to cut myself off, ignoring the cries of "Look at me! I'm a gaping open hole, fill me! Fill me too!"

I mainly just took this pic to show you the fun new light we got on sale at the Home Depot! This area will be our dual purposed sunroom/office. I'll have some shots on here of the awesome shelving Nick built me soon.

Millie seems pretty comfortable with her new station, which gives her a birdseye view of the front door...

Stay tuned for a yummy Banana Pineapple Cake recipe and my super cute Dachshund planter!

Our Time Capsule Stairwell

Unpacking is going well, but I thought I'd come up for air and share a bit more about this old house. One of its most unique features is the wheat pasted collage that adorns the walls of the basement stairwell. It's completely wallpapered in 1930's and 40's magazine ads, newspaper clippings, ticket stubs, maps, high school graduation programs, menus, buy war bonds posters and even a filled out IRS form. As previously mentioned, some of the pin-up girls are a bit, ahem-- scandalous, so we might need to sticky tack up a few strategically placed clippings from the same time period, but I truly love that every time we go down to do laundry, we have the opportunity to step back in time. 

I can't help but wonder what was going through the mind of the occupants of the house during that time. There are concert programs dating to mere months before the US got involved in WWII. You sort of get a feel for the mood of the era by reading the comics or looking at the tongue in cheek New Yorker covers. If I didn't have a toddler and a house to unpack, I think I'd be spending more time down there... One of these days I'll pour myself a glass of two buck chuck and spend an evening immersing myself in the 30's and 40's.

It's tricky to get good lighting for pictures, but I hope the following shots give you a glimpse of this treasure trove of a stairwell.

Bob Spurgeon (see name above) was the owner of the house at this time.

They appear to have been a well travelled bunch.

 War bonds poster reads "Hercules son is flying and buying bonds too! How about you?"

Looking up to the ceiling

Caption on this one reads "It's Christmas and they began saying good bye in August."

Going back up the steps

One of the more modestly clothed ladies of the stairwell. Love her face....

That's cheap, but they probably made all their money off concessions. ;)

I'm pretty sure this is Eleanor Roosevelt... Not exactly sure of the significance of her painting a room blue, although it could be Democratic party related. October 1943 was well into FDR's second term, at this point things were looking promising for the allied forces. If you have ideas on the meaning of this depiction, let me know.

Also, I kind of like the look on Eleanor's face because that's how I'm feeling about painting rooms these days. I'm back and forth about wall colors all the time. If that wasn't difficult enough, there is a china cabinet and chairs that need painting as well! I have the most massive pile of paint swatches known to mankind. I told Nick I wished I owned one of those big swatch book/deck thingies so that I didn't have to continually raid the displays at the Home Depot and he pretty much summed things up for me by saying, with a trace of exasperation in his voice, "Steph, owning a swatch book still wouldn't help you make up your mind!"

Please Tell Me If I Am Becoming a Creeper...

This Saturday, Nick was so good to watch Collin all morning so I could have some much needed independence. Any other stay at home moms out there who can relate to how amazingly freeing it feels to do something simple like running to Target without kids? No carseat battles, no trying to figure out what they can play with to keep them entertained long enough in the shopping cart, no unexpected diaper changes in public restrooms. Yeah, it's pretty luxurious, I tell ya. I absolutely love staying home with Collin, but can't help but wish I had truly savored my carefree days a bit more! 

I had the best morning out-- armed with a grande, non-fat Caramel Machiatto, I spent some time getting lost in a local antique mall. Soon you will see my fun finds displayed in our new house. I scored a pair of crosstiched, silhouette cameos of George and Martha Washington, a kitchshy wall plate for my planned wall of plates in the kitchen and for $2 a crumbly, old, hand-painted Kodak finishing sign which I took to Hobby Lobby for framing. I then ran a few errands and stopped off at the library to see what I could find out about our old house.

I met the sweetest old man named John who is in charge of the reference section. Although there was no specific information on the house itself in city records, he did show me how to search through the old city directories which started in 1925 and yielded me a long list of previous owners. In some of the earlier directories the owners' occupations were listed as well.

Turns out, our house was home to the former Assistant to the President and General Manager of Eagle Picher Lead Co., the Secretary Treasurer of R and S Motor Sales Co, and an Episcopal Minister, whom my new friend John knew of from back in the 70's.

I'm hoping to get back to the library some time soon to look through newspaper archives for any of these residents. Now that I have names, I can search the census data and find out the names of their children-- many of them should still be living. How cool would it be to invite some previous residents over for dinner?! Maybe I'm being too much of a creeper here. Please intervene if you think I'm going to far!

Before I left the library, I thumbed through a book on American house styles and while I really don't think our house is a Federal style home, it does seem to have a Federal style door like this one:

See our door here:

Hmm... I feel as if our house has identity issues. Craftsman? American Foursquare? Federal? Maybe if we can meet some of its previous owners, they could give us some insights as to whether or not it was built this way or later altered. The mystery continues!

Saturday night we were invited to a dinner at Nick's boss' house. It was neat to meet the team Nick works with, including their spouses. Collin, of course, was a totally ham. He loves people, like his mamma! What a great group. I look forward to getting to know them better. 

On Sunday we braved the morning weather for church. 'Twas a snowy Palm Sunday in Missouri. I really do hope Easter won't look like this! My brother, who is doing a grad program near Springfield, will be driving out to join us for the day. Fun, fun!

We received word today that we'll more than likely close on the house this Wednesday afternoon! Although our stuff will take a while longer to get here, we'll at least be able to start working on a few projects-- including painting. Lots to look forward to. Stay tuned, dear friends!

You May Call Me Sleuthy McSleutherton

Hi friends! After soliciting your thoughts on our new old house's style in my last post, my awesome, house-buff friend Deb, suggested it might be an American Foursquare house with craftsman details. This led me to do a bit of research and I think she is right.

If you look at what we now consider the front entrance to the house, you'll see some of the classic American Foursquare details, including the two up, two down window placement configuration and the dormer. It does not have, however, the classic Foursquare or even Craftsman Bungalow front porch. Hmm...

Here are a few pictures of the American Foursquare homes:

A modern-day shot of a Foursquare (not our house):

Here is Wikipedia's description of the style: 

"The American Foursquare or American Four Square is an American house style popular from the mid-1890s to the late 1930s. A reaction to the ornate and mass-produced elements of the Victorian and other Revival styles popular throughout the last half of the 19th century, the American Foursquare was plain, often incorporating handcrafted "honest" woodwork (unless purchased from a mail-order catalog). This style incorporates elements of the Prairie School and the Craftsman styles. It is also sometimes called Transitional Period."

I love this quote:

After looking at our house from the side entrance/sunroom enclosed porch, I have become more and more convinced it's just a modified American Foursquare. Take a look and let me know your thoughts:

The previous owner was only in the house for two years and either doesn't know or doesn't see the value in passing along any tidbits about the house's history. We know the house is from the 20's, but don't even know the exact year it was built. In the seller's disclosure she wrote "80-something years old..." For all we know it could be older... For all we know it could have been the scene of a great murder mystery! Sorry, Nick and I have been watching Foyle's War on Netflix, so I'm kind of obsessed with mysteries these days. I'll have to make a trip to the library to check out the public records.

In the meantime, I have already done a bit of sleuthing and found out some cool facts about our house. Nerd alert: I feel the need to tell you I have spent much too much time the Historic Joplin website and am even considering volunteering at next year's Murphysburg Historic District Christmas Dickens' Festival and/or quite possibly becoming the only Historical Society member under the age of 65, but I digress...

Apparently, a prominent bean broker (didn't know there was such a thing) by the name of Fon L. Johnson was one of the home's early residents. Oh, and our neighborhood's name is Roanoke, but it's also called Snob Hill because it was home to all the wealthy Joplinites back in the day.

Once we move in, I'll snap some shots of the walls of the basement stairwell, which were wallpapered back in the 1940's with magazine ads and pin-up girls. Scandalous! Maybe some strategic poster placement is in order.

All this talk of history and intrigue begs-- nay, demands, a five second homage to Nicolas Cage and National Treasure-- the most historically accurate and riveting thriller of all time:

That's all for today. I sense the end of Collin's nap time is nigh!

If you missed the interior pictures of the house, check them out here.