I Found My House!

I was looking for information about Nahant, having decided to drive around it, scouting out places to go on a bike ride with my son, and stumbled upon a collection of photos that were archived in the Swampscott Public Library collection of digital images (actually, really cool pictures, part of a larger collection of North Shore community digital archives). And actually found a picture of my house (well, half my house) circa 1932!



Our house is on the right side, corner, the one with the double wrap-around porches. The picture is fascinating for several reasons, not the least of which is that a picture of our house from 1932 actually exists. For one, the porches no longer wrap around our house, something I always wondered about, since the current design doesn't seem right.



Since we moved in, we knew we had to rebuild the front porch. The problem heated up last Fall when a storm blew a section of the top-most railing right off. The whole thing is a painful eye-sore which I try to camouflage with my garden, hoping no one looking at our house, ever looks up.

Finding the picture makes me a little heartsick; our house clearly has been put through the ringer, and though I love its location, I know we'll never be able to bring her back to her former glory.

Or maybe we will. Now that evidence exists with regard to how the house/porches used to look, it's going to be really hard not to just bite the bullet and try to bring it back to its original form -- obviously when I win the lottery.

-Steph

Not about Gardening

Sorry for the major digression, but since the weather has hit freezing here in coastal Massachusetts, I have to find other ways to pass my time (other than cleaning my dirty house). So here's my latest project - Grandma's old buffet. I took the circa 1960s buffet (believe me, not an antique), made out of veneer and fiberboard, sanded it a bit, added casters, painted it black, coated the top with polycrylic, and voila, newish looking buffet. It took a couple of hours, but brought the old girl back to life for a few more years.

I also painted an old, extremely heavy, mirror black and hung it using this French Cleat/Walldog screw system. Can I just say, these screws were awesome! I've been futzing around with wall anchors for my plaster walls, but these things just went right into the wall and actually seemed to stay there. Miracle!

-SG