THE GARDEN MONSTER AND OTHER HORRORS

Nothing tells you more bluntly that you have a monster restoration project than two things: a falling ceiling and a neglected, weedy yard. First about the yard…

What the hell are those humans DOING to my yard?

The backyard of Laura’s house is a JUNGLE with nothing but weeds – thick trunked weeds – growing there. It’s survival of the fittest with various weeds muscling and nudging one another for their own turf, so they can continue to grow out of control.

Think I’m kidding? Here’s a typical bi-monthly haul of mowed down weeds – only weeds. No grass grows in this yard.

This bird was overseeing our efforts.

Here’s one of us after wrestling with these critters just a couple of weeks ago.

The Garden Monster

The Garden Monster's claw.

Contrast this with the backyard of our adjoining house, lush and green like a tropical garden.

So we have a yard that is our burden. But it will eventually be our joy as we turn the yard into a lavish garden, one a true Victorian would be proud of.

Next the ceilings…

For any of you restoring a house, don’t you love it when you come upon yet another plaster chunk that dislodged itself from the ceiling?

If it's just the ceiling (often, it is not), be thankful. Deteriorating ceilings are symptoms of bigger roofing problems. Here’s a major example of this when a roof recently collasped in a building just down the street and around the corner from us…

The recently condemned building at 520 Broadway.
(Photo courtesy of Hannibal Courier-Post)

The collasped 2nd and 3rd floors.

(Photo courtesy of Hannibal Courier-Post)

Why, oh why do people allow their buildings to get to this condition? For months, this building was offered free to anyone who would step up and restore it (within an 18-month timeframe). There were no takers and now the City of Hannibal is coughing up over $40K to demolish it.

If you think this folly wrought on Hannibal is done only by neglectful, fund-less locals, I assure you it is not. The deterioration of otherwise desirable and useful properties has also been the domain of out-of-towners who bought their properties at prices unheard of in their native cities.

Often these out-of-towners come from a sunny climate and are virtually ignorant of the effects of extreme cold and stormy weather in the Midwest (Case in point: just last month, Hannibal witnessed its greatest monthly rainfall at a whopping 11-1/2 inches. Normally, October sees a little over 3 inches of rain.) They’ll leave the house unattended during the winter months not understanding that an unweatherized, leaking roof will allow water to infiltrate the house and cause ancient electrical wires to ignite and burn.

This happened to one Californian at the worst possible time of year – a time when Hannibal streets were clad in ice. Add that the street was very narrow and steep, and this owner’s house became a total disaster when fire trucks couldn't make their way up the street to douse the ensuing fire. Owners who get away with a powerful drenching of their hardwood floors are more the norm and are the lucky ones in this case.

No danger of this with the Laura Hawkins house. The first thing we did (and what every new owner should do with an old house) was replace the roof and replace & upgrade all the electricity. Nearly all old houses in Hannibal come with a deteriorated roof and old knob and tube style wiring (often uninsulated and almost always unable to carry large, modern load demands).

So, Laura’s ceiling…

Here’s what it looked like…

Major plaster losses.

Major water stains.

Here’s the work ongoing to replace the ceilings totally. No half-ass, patching jobs for this historic house. The ceilings will be our subject of a subsequent blog post.

In the end, all of the ceilings in Laura's house will be like new.

Certain Cities “Get It”

We visited Kansas City last month for two of the best reasons to go there during September – the Art Festival in the Country Club Plaza and the American Royal Parade.

One of the things we love about K.C. is that this city “gets it” as far as preserving their heritage. I’m talking about revering and preserving their old buildings. Downtown developers in general loath tearing down anything old and replacing it with new structures. The result is many restored structures recycled to house new businesses and purposes in downtown Kansas City. A prime example of this is K.C.’s Union Station…

This Beaux-Arts station opened in 1914 as the 2nd largest train station in the country.

This grand depot (used in a scene in the movie “Kansas City”, made in 1996), like many others fell into disrepair and required massive restoration if it was to be saved. K.C. stepped up to the plate with stunning results:

The “Lobby”.

95-foot tall restored ceilings...

Harvey House Diner...

This retro-style restaurant serves diner style breakfasts and blue-plate lunch specials.

I wince whenever I think of what Hannibal could have had were civic leaders more mindful of preserving their Union Depot. Here is a photo of that structure. It was demolished in 1953…

The Royal Parade was in its setup stage as we toured K.C.’s Union Station. Here is a shot of it with K.C.’s wonderful old downtown looming in the background.

The American Royal in Kansas City began as a cattle show in 1899. Today, it is an annual 8-week season of barbecue competition, rodeos, livestock shows, equestrian events and agricultural activities benefiting youth and education.

On to the Plaza Art Festival…

A crowd is forming late in the morning. Later, this would become wall-to-wall people.

Within a few minutes of arriving, who did we happen upon? None other than four Hannibalians displaying their unique creations. You’ve likely seen these artists’ works at Fresh Ayers and other venues around Hannibal.

Joachim Knill. Website: http://www.joachimknill.com/

Joachim’s huge photos take you into a fantastic play land where you will ogle, agape in an attempt to glean some meaning from his surrealistic world – a netherworld of towering dolls, creatures and plant life. Joachim uses a huge camera (I believe the largest in the world) that he himself designed.

Janice Ho. Website: http://www.janiceho.com/

Janice designs jewelry – morsels of organic shapes created in gold and silver, depicting miniature compositions of nature and scenic elements. Elegant and contemporary, a piece of Janice’s jewelry is a simple, fun treasure one would give to a close friend or relative.

Michael Cole. Website: http://www.colesnaps.com/

Michael is originally from our neck of the woods – Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. He got his start blowing glass art in the studio of Dale Chihuly, the area’s best-known, living super-artist. Michael’s photos immortalize insects, roads, old cars, tools and standing structure on aged photo stock – images that are icon-like and cause you to recollect similar images from deep within your own memory. To frame his works, Michael borrows from salvaged architectural panels.

Melissa Dominiak.

Melissa paints realistic oils of room interiors. I asked her if she was inspired by the interiors of Hannibal abodes; she said that interiors in general inspire her. In viewing her paintings, I kept telling myself “yes, that brings me back to this place from my past… déjà vu?”.

Melissa and Michael bought the old Douglass Community Center building in Hannibal a few years ago. It is their studio and showplace.

The Studio of Michael Cole & Melissa Dominiak located at 1100 Broadway.

Don’t you just love Kansas City so far? It’s a wonderful place to escape to when we desire a change of scenery from our idyllic Hannibal. Kansas City has it all – a wonderful arts community, many jazz clubs, its own brand of BBQ, a Farmer’s Market, the Country Club Plaza, Westport… the list goes on.

Once back home, we continued rebuilding the Laura Hawkins attic. Here are more goodies that will populate this area of Laura’s house, like this restored trunk from the Civil War era. One of several attic trunks, these will display magazines, textbooks, report cards, and other remnants from Laura’s earlier days…

A hooked rug fashioned during the late 1800’s.

This unique “folk art” hooked rug is actually a product of “poverty. This would have been something handed down from a poorer relative of Laura’s. Hooked rugs were fashioned from remnants of factories that produced machine-made carpets for the rich in the 1800’s. Often the creators of these rugs were women employed by these factories.

Though girls like Laura were taught to embroider and quilt, fashioning these rugs and mats were never part of their curriculum. It was considered a country craft. So off to the attic or other “out of sight, out of mind” area of the house it goes.

This adorable Victorian doll carriage from the late 1800’s would not have been used by Laura during her childhood in the late 1840’s – early 1850’s. It would have been used by a child from the Judge’s household in the late 1800’s. And that’s what an attic is about – a time capsule containing nearly forgotten remnants of a multi-generational past.

The hand-woven rug underneath the buggy will go into the “escape room” in the attic. What’s an escape room? Why, it is a room in the back part of the attic where one might have escaped the rest of the household. It has a great view of the Mississippi and its own door to shut out intrusions.

More treasures abound in our upcoming posts.

We're Getting Noticed

As I sit in my cozy corner of our Chateau pounding away on my keyboard, I spy that we are getting noticed.

This online publication, Small Town Living, used an excerpt from our blog (with our permission of course) for their October/November issue. Click on their current issue, and scroll to page 42...
http://www.stliving.net/

And this company noticed our restoration efforts and developed house plans based on Laura's house...
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=366191

In the next few weeks, I'll be posting more on the Laura Hawkins attic, the complete ceiling replacements, and our chance meeting with a Hannibal artist foursome at the Country Club Plaza Art Fair in Kansas City last month.

Meanwhile, here are some items that will go into Laura's kitchen which is also being restored to reflect Laura's turn-of-century way of life...

Shown are a grinder, a sausage maker and a primitive rolling pin
hand-carved from a single piece of wood.

An OPULENT Period in Hannibal's History

I must have been a Victorian in my past life because I love to buy things, lots of beautiful things. I especially love to buy at auction and from auction sites such as eBay. eBay is a godsend availing anyone to a plethora of antiques and art at prices well below what retail or even wholesale markets offer.

So, Laura Hawkins House-Victorian Interior, what should this home look like?

We enthusiasts of the Victorian era know that interiors back then were opulent, to say the least. We know the Victorian era to be a materially extravagant one - a materialism triggered by the industrial revolution.

This revolution brought the means to manufacture goods quicker and cheaper with steam-powered machines. Wealth was being created in this country at an enormous rate (income tax was not yet a concept) and with it came new-found money and more affordable possessions. Hand-made items were replaced by machine-produced ones, and chemical dyes replaced natural pigments for fabrics and paint, making bright, rich colors commonplace. Decoration, which once was the domain of the rich, became available to the masses.

The Duffy-Trowbridge Stove Manufacturing Company
located on the "other side" of the tracks was the
largest stove manufacturing company in the midwest
around the turn of the century.
The factory supported hundreds of Hannibalian
and emcompassed nearly two city blocks.

From top to bottom are the Moulding Room,
the Sample Room and the Mounting Room in the stove factory.

But with the industrial revolution came filth. The massive increase in the number of factories and people migrating to cities in search of work resulted in major environmental and household pollution (and illness). The pollution came in the form of dirty smoke (from burning coal) from chimneys and factories. This smoke would block out light and cover streets and houses. In additon, many of the streets were dirt roads supporting mere planks along its outskirts for pedestrians to walk upon.

This was the Beggs-Goodson Wagon Factory, also located on
the "other side" of the tracks in Hannibal.
This leading Hannibal factory for farm and freight wagons
was established in 1901. The manufacturing center was
producing 3,000 wagons annually by 1905.

In reaction, the Victorians came to view the interiors of their homes as an escape from the filth outside. So, their new wealth was used to furnish interiors to make their homes a beautiful part of their lives. As the Victorian era progressed, interiors became more elaborate with another influencing factor - the rise of the British Empire. The colonization of India, Australia and Africa fueled an interest in oriental rugs, sensuous fabrics, brass accessories and tropical houseplants.

Armed with all this information, choosing interior décor for the Laura Hawkins house had become a fun part of this entire project. So let’s step back to the pre-Victorian era in the 1840’s when Laura was a girl ...

Back then, furnishings were rather plain. They were hand-made treasures passed on to subsequent generations. So, wouldn’t it make sense that the interior of Laura’s house be a combination of earlier family treasures and the Victorian grandeur of Laura’s later years?

Let’s start with the color scheme of the house. The house was built in 1897 and by then rooms (particularly more public rooms like the parlor) used rich jewel tones of blue, red, green and purple. Additionally, walls were adorned with oriental and floral-inspired wallpaper and floors (polished wood, of course) were adorned with richly patterned oriental rugs.

This turn of the century Anatolian carpet from Turkey
will grace the dining room floor of the Laura Hawkins house.

Antique Qom (city of Persia, now Iran) area rug.

To keep the “filthy” environment out of their private home lives (and to retain interior heat), Victorians layered their windows with dark heavy drapes. Ivory lace curtains were used to allow in natural light while keeping outdoor scenes out of view.

Damask Period Drapes...

This period pattern belongs to a set of drapes going into the house.

Accessories used in a Victorian home are what excites me the most. The Victorians surrounded themselves with personal treasures – photos adorned with ornate frames, souvenirs from foreign countries such as polished brass, peacock feathers and tropical plants in oriental urns, and ornate lamps...

Antique banquet parlor lamp.

For dining, Victorians set out the finest (most ostentatious) utensils and sets they could afford. These things were as much for show as for their intended use (in some cases, frivolous).

Antique Reposse Tea Service.

And of course, chandeliers were grand and highly decorative...

This turn of the century chandelier will grace the small dining room.

Victorians loved to collect paintings...

John Brown George painting. John George (1831-1913) was one of

19th-century America's most skilled and popular painters of children.
In some circles, he was dubbed the "Boot Black Raphael".
Victorians relished Renaissance style paintings.

Such was the "gilded age", as Twain so coined it in his novel of the same name and of whom he named a principle character "Laura Hawkins".

In contrast to the glorious public rooms, the less public rooms (kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms) were more ascetic with muted, creamy shades, and floors were often painted to match the trim.

We plan to add a feature of display in the Laura Hawkins house - the attic. With few exceptions (Anne Frank attic, for example), attics would not normally be a draw for your historical house enthusiast. Imagine this though ... Laura moved in with her son and family during her final years and wanted (no, demanded) to be surrounded by cherished treasures from her childhood and earlier adulthood. This was agreed to and many of the items were kept in the attic.

This "rustic" collection will populate the attic and not so public areas of the house. This will be the subject of my next post. For now, here are a couple of teasers...

I don't know who this is, but I loved that it is an ancestral portrait,
circa early-to-mid 1800's. This was an estate find from a seller in the
Kentucky-Tennessee area - the area from where Laura's family
migrated to Hannibal around 1840.

Ice skating on the Mississippi was a popular pasttime
in Laura's day. These ice skates made in 1850 would
have been similar to what Laura would have worn.

A Once-In-A-Lifetime Auction

GASP!!!

I'm finally coming up for air after what seems like an eternity of work. Do you know when you're a work addict? A couple of things will give you away...
-You don't feel like you've been fully constructive with your time if you haven't worked past midnight for several weeks in a row.

-When you have a few moments free, you don't know what to do with yourself.

So there you have it readers, the writer of this blog is a workaholic who is lucky to have an occasional hiatus to pound out Laura's journey in the most nouveau of bites (remember nouveau cuisine from the 80's?).

Construction-wise, the ceilings of the Laura Hawkins house are being replaced totally. The cracks, water stains and large chunks that have been littering the floors demand this. So we're having the ceiling plaster removed and replaced with dry wall and then smooth plastered over, the old-fashioned way. But this is not what this blog post will be about.

I'm switching from posting construction-related stuff for now and treating you to eye-candy. I'm going to show you the furnishings for the innards of this old lady.

First, I'll take you back to last summer when the contents of the Becky Thatcher House were being auctioned off.

The Becky Thatcher House, girlhood home of Laura Hawkins.
The house is located at 211 Hill Street
right across from Mark Twain's boyhood home.

Mark Twain's boyhood home,
located on 208 Hill Street in Hannibal.

The interior of the Becky Thatcher house before the 2008 auction.

In August of 2008, Hannibal was the scene of an auction of the contents of the historic Becky Thatcher house. This was done to make way for a million dollar restoration. Oh, few if any items were original to the house when Laura lived there as a child. Most of the antiques were staging props used to make the house look like it might have back in the mid-1800's (Laura's day).

Nevertheless, Becky Thatcher house items are a real draw for us history buffs and folks wanting to restore a similar house.

The widely-advertised auction held at Hannibal's Quality Inn drew a crowd of locals and out-of-towners alike. I noticed a few familiar faces, such as Henry Sweets (curator of the Mark Twain Museum), Wesley Knapp (new Director of Downtown Development), Barbara Errako Taylor (local artist and author), Candace Klemann (President of the Hannibal Arts Council), other civic leaders and some merchants who would later resell their winnings.

Members of the crowd position themselves.

One fun part of course is the pre-auction perusal.

Even these props were being sold.
This Becky Thatcher mannequin has a very mid-century
(20th, not 19th) look about it. I'm so glad it's out of that house.

That goes double for this prop, supposedly Becky's mother.

This adorable hand-carved baby bed went for a mere $235.
I passed on it opting instead for items representing
Laura's later years as a child and woman in Hannibal.

The auction begins...

I'm a regular at auctions, and when I want something badly, I will keep my head down and continue raising my arm to display my assigned number. Other bidders realize I will get that item no matter what. Sitting in the back of the room and jumping in just as everyone thinks the bidding war is over is also great tactic for throwing off the competition.

Of the two things I bid on and got, this is one of them - a hand-carved youth bed from the early 1800's. Laura Hawkins would have slept in something similar as a child. I won it for $230.

See the rocking chair on the left?
This is a hand-carved rush seat rocking chair circa 1835.
This too will go into the Laura Hawkins house.

Here is the other item - a pier mirror, circa 1875. I got it for $400.

Here's the glorious crown on that pier mirror.

Items went for amazing prices with folks "stealing" deals left and right. In looking back, I wish I'd have bid on more items, but you know what? These are props, albeit nice antique props, and we all know where the best deals for these are.

That's right, good ol' eBay.

For my next post (and I promise it will come very shortly), I'll show you some of the furnishings going into the Laura Hawkins house, compliments of this very popular auction site.

So long for now...

Amish folks are regular visitors and this group visited our town
during the auction, right after the flood of 2008 subsided.
Here they are riding the Hannibal horse-powered "trolley".
In the background is the Mark Twain Hotel
(now a restored subsidized apartment for seniors)
with the open lot about to be infilled by a new theatre.

See the sandbags on the levee in the above photo? The flood had subsided from its peak in June 2008 and the levee gates were left open.

For your entertainment, here's a video by Richard Boggs that I discovered on U-Tube about the flood in Hannibal during this period. The haunting background song is "When the Levee Breaks" performed by A Perfect Circle:

http://vimeo.com/1298431