Claudia's Blog

So now we are on to the events that happened at the middle and end of June and the first 2 weeks of July, 2010.

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We need to back up a little and explain a few things that I forgot to mention: 

Most importantly I want to mention a little history relating to my husband Russ.  He is a retired California master builder and was in the building industry for 25 years, building custom homes with Californian codes and standards (that withhold earthquakes).  I always call him an “over builder”!  Everything is beyond code and will never fall down – built to last forever!  This project is a little difficult for him to get used to because everything is very old and needs repairs or replacement.  I’m adamant about retaining the history and integrity of original house, so Russ is very patient with me and helps me create what was once nonstructural  into almost a piece of art.  It blows my mind what he knows how to do.  There is nothing that he can’t build or fix.  I do the drawings of my vision and he makes it happen.  Actually we’ve always complemented each other that way, doing other projects together with amazing results.  

Russ Shane and I flew back to see Mom and Chris May 1st, 2010 for a visit.  Russ hadn’t been back to Missouri for 17 years!  Mom gave us a treat and put us up in one of my favorite little Victorian guesthouses that she had available.  We scouted around in antique stores and worked on Mom’s properties.  My niece Hazel came out as well and we made our projects a family affair.  Russ fixed the picket fences while Shane, Hazel and I painted them.  Russ ended up staying an extra day and I believe that is when the Marshall “magic” happened.  Everything was so green and lush.  The intensity of life and the heart slows down to actually “see” and “be” and remember who you are.  There’s no pollution or traffic, except for the trains that go through or the smell of chicken cooking at the local Con Agra Foods manufacturing company.  You can actually hear the birds singing.  When you look up at the stars it’s like being up at 8 thousand feet!  We were charmed.  We would take long walks everyday and check out all of the old houses and neighborhoods always walking by Della’s house on our way.

So, here’s our signature photo that was taken before we even bought Queen Della.  We had just gone on a tour of the house with Brian King.  Brian had been preparing the properties for Mrs. Ellis and the up-coming sale that was to take place on May 20th.  Russ and I looked in awe and were grateful that we could see what she was like inside along with the other structures. 

 

If you put these 2 properties together, this what we bought.  There is at least and acre and a quarter. 

We have the original stone wall that runs across the front of both properties.  There used to be a Gothic style Victorian in front of the cottage that was torn down back in the 80′s.  To us the lawns are vast and we call them our “park setting”.  Of course we are comparing the lot sizes to the proximity of houses in the Bay Area in California. 

Behind the house and cottage there is a double garage and a 5 car barn.  Brian is showing them to my brother Chris. 

 

 

One side of the garage will be a gardening shed (close to the garden plot), and the other storage or a home gym. 

The basement foundation under the house had 2/3 of it refurbished which was a great selling point. 

It has a canning cellar too.                                                           This is the side that gets scary!

The main floors of the house had many atributes as well as many other challenges.  We seemed to see through the negatives and looked at them with our personal creative eyes, but we knew it wouldn’t be easy.  There would be a lot of time and money invested.  Here’s some of the first impressions:

Love the pocket doors and wood floors (rhyme), and the old french windows in the sun room just off of the formal living room.  The simple stained glass window that has a mate ascending up the stairs. 

Here are some other more daunting impressions:

The funniest of all is what was used as the bathroom.  One would feel like a sausage while taking a shower!  None of us had ever seen anything like this before!  The actual shower basin was made out of some kind of ceramic mortar and was painted silver.  The house originally was built without any plumbing, so they put up particle board paper-type walls just big enough for the necessary amenities.  Chris is showing us the scale and size of the room.

Russ needed to return home to get back to our Martial Arts Academy.  Shane and I stayed on for Mother’s Day.  We went to the Arrow Rock parade and down to the town of Black Water, both very historical in Missouri.  We try to visit them when we go back there because of the history, antiques and the great folks we know there.  Especially our friends at the Bucksnort Trading Company, Connie & Gerald. 

There’s always something going on in the small towns and all of the natives show up to support them.  During the short week I was there I attended a Shriner’s Parade – totally hysterical…. These grown men live to show off their rides by circling the court house which we call the “Square”.

The court house has just been restored to its glory and you can see it from most vistas around town.  We’re right down the street from it on it’s North side.

Then we all couldn’t miss the “Jim the Wonder Dog” contest.  Mom over the years has had a kennel of English Cocker Spaniels, but is now retired.  She still has 5 of them, so we all grabbed a dog and went, once again, up to the Square and pranced about with our show dogs.  Ironically, Mom’s shyest dog Lionel won 1st prize and her little female Dolly, who Shane showed, won 2nd.  As my brother Chris says, “there is never a dull moment in Marshall”!

Mother’s Day rolled around and we went to the Iron Horse Hotel, in Black Water for Sunday Brunch Buffet.  It was wonderful to go out and be taken care of!  I definately want to go back there for a dinner venue and show Russ the hotel.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom!  We love you so much!

I returned back home to pack up and prepare all of our Victorian things for our U-Haul adventure.

In my next post I’ll be sharing about our next trip out which was the end of June, 2010.

Here is the “Francisco House” built in 1874.  My brother Chris did some digging the day of the auction at the local library with our new neighbor to find images of the original house and a little history on the family who built her.

As a kid I would walk by Della’s house, the “blue house”, a couple doors down from my parent’s ”new to us” Victorian home on North Street in Marshall, Missouri back in 1972 and I would wonder what was the story behind this huge amazing house?  Who lived there?  Why was it sitting there always empty? She was blue back in those days.  Anyway, the house belonged to my best friend Esther’s aunt Della, but she hadn’t lived there since she had remarried and it was turned into an apartment building, of three units, as many of those old Victorians were back during the Depression.  I’ve actually met a few people that lived there in the different apartments with their many memories.  I was always attracted to the house and I always wanted to go inside, so thirty some years later “she” went up for sale by her owner who is a very good friend of my mother’s.  In fact there were 2 properties next door to one another that were being sold.  I finally had my chance to see just what she looked like inside and I went home and immediately started thinking about the pros and cons of why I shouldn’t buy her.  I was in a frenzy, dreaming of how I would decorate and restore her just trying to justify why it would be a terrible mistake to take on such an enterprise.  Especially the point that I live in California and would have to commute back and forth to get things done.  I have such a passion for old things (like antiques and architecture) and for interior and exterior comforts that my energy could not be contained.  I had Queen Della Francisco on the brain!

It was a couple days before the auction was to take place in May, 2010 and I consulted with my husband and decided to return to Marshall.  I didn’t want it to be sold and then torn down for a parking lot or because nobody wanted to restore her.  Here she was on the most beautiful and desired street in town, which is practically almost next door to my mother’s corner of Victorian guest houses, which she calls Kitty’s Corner.  Over the past  39 years, my mother Kitty Nelson has been a part of the preservation of the town of Marshall.  Not only did she and my father take their home and restore it, but they slowly purchased the entire corner surrounding them and restored them as well.  They saved “Kitty’s Corner” from a terrible demise that would have left them as parking lots or metal storage structures.  Mom and I made it in the local Democrat News during the summer of 2010.  She and I were graced with the title of “house rescuer”! Take a look at the Marshall Democrat News article.  It gives you a real sense of what my mother is up to and how respected she is in the community.  My Mom is the greatest influence of my creativity, sense of color and ambiance.  I’ve always been surrounded by beauty and resourcefulness thanks to her.  She has been my aesthetic mentor and she has endless energy that is contagious!  We couldn’t do this project without Mom or my brother!

Mom, my brother with his camera in hand and I showed up to the auction and there were many more buyers attending than I anticipated. 

 Dyer & Fenner Auctioneers were representing the seller and all of us were curious who would win the bidding.  My Mother is a real pro at the whole auction scene.  She is so poised and patient knowing just when to nod her head or when to wait and see.  I was shaking in my tennies at the thrill that this old dream house was almost mine.  Before I knew it I was in disbelief that I was the proud owner of 2 new properties.  I signed the necessary papers and called my husband to share the news and then the whole thing sunk in of what had happened.  It’s amazing what can happen when you dream hard enough and mock-up ideas of what could be.  This is when my spirit began to rise and there was a new future for us and our creativity.

Then the studying began.  Our goal was to try to bring her back to the way she was back in 1874 with 21st century technology, but keeping the integrity of her look with a few modern amenities.  My husband Russ and I would sit for hours gathering as much information (actually it hasn’t stopped) regarding the Victorian era, the styles of houses that were built during those years and we began our plans to uncover her beauty and majesty.  She was built just before the “Queen Ann” era in the 1880′s, so she’s considered a Victorian but she had eight of the ten characteristics that the Queens were known for.  Around 1905, someone went through the neighborhoods selling sun porches as additions on most of the original homes in the neighborhood and our girl was one of them.  At the time of purchase, the sun porch’s foundation had crumbled and the roof had been leaking for years.  Now the foundation has been restored, but we have great plans to beautify and repair the rotten roof by creating a small tower on top to complete her crown.  We ended up naming  her “Queen” (almost Queen Anne), “Della” she was always called “Della’s house” or “the blue house”, and she was built by the Francisco family.  It appears that in 1895 the back end of the house was added, detected by the news paper clippings we found bound with fancy ribbon.  They were in the walls that needed to be removed due to mold and dry rot from the leaky roof.  We found other cool stuff like leather shoes, a baby doll head, a dog harness with the dog’s name engraved into the tag, a mourning parasol, a horse switch and a masonry hat.  It was like a time capsule just waiting to be uncovered.  There were other treasures in the basement like an iron fireplace cover that my niece cleaned up which we plan to use as some type of decoration.  It’s too special not to use.

The first obstacle was that she had been covered with the asbestos siding that was prevalent during the early 20th century.  I just knew that there were fish-scales and other architectural details underneath all of it and I was willing to risk that the original clapboard siding was still in good condition.  I found a young contractor and his crew to come and remove it and they responsibly disposed of the asbestos siding, and unbelievably all that I imagined came true.  The 130 year old clapboard siding was pretty much all intact with the other Victorian embelishments uncovered.  It was as if she was unveiled and her whole new personality came through.  We were so excited!  The next step was to power wash the whole exterior and then repair the broken clapboards and other areas of concern before the painting could ever begin.

We were actually back in California when the power washing was being done, so we had to live vicariously through all of the wonderful photos that my brother Chris took  for us.

Chris has cataloged this entire process to date and I have tons of catching up to do with this blog to bring it up to current times.  Chris Nelson has been attached to his camera since I can remember! – me being one of his best subjects! ha ha…  Photography has been his passion and taken him all over the world with many adventures and historical events.  He has one the largest Grateful Dead archives as well as other famous rock bands and artists.  Currently he lives as Kitty’s Corner’s “character”, teaches online computer skill classes to large companies that he calls “computer boot-camp” - which is home based, along with many other talents - his latest being Hemp Heart Pumpkin Peace Pies!  He’s the biggest sweetheart ever!

Our next trip back to Missouri was during the 4th of July holidays.  We rocked and rolled for 2 weeks enlisting help from many local contractors and laborers. The plan was to completely restore the exterior before starting on the inside.  Because of the over-span between the brick columns that were installed replacing the original wooden pillars and brick-a brack, there was quite a sag in the front porch roof .  So, the first thing we wanted to do was to fix the sag and install new wooden pillars to resemble the originals.  During this process I was looking into finding new spindles and embellishments to give her a fresh new face from a place in Texas called Vintage Woodwork.  They were wonderful to work with and I received everything on time and as ordered.  

Russ had torn off the old rotten tongue and groove floor boards and discovered that the foundation under the porch needed some major attention. 

Ron Greene Masonry was recommended to us for the restoration of that area.  We had him recycle the old bricks to face the bottom rear end of the house where the foundation had already been replaced, but needed reinforcement.  While we were at it we discovered that the interior fireplace columns had cracked and fallen as well.  Both hearths on the 1st floor had caved in so I had to remove the vintage tile to be replaced at a later date.  Ron Greene made all of the repairs in a timely manner.  His employees were true masons!

Its amazing the unforeseen expenses that come about during a project like this!  The new foundation = what was going to be my new kitchen!  Oh well, she was becoming happier every minute that we gave her.

I then primed both sides of the new T & G.  It replaced the old decking on the new underpinning for the front porch.  We used the local lumber yards, La Crosse Lumber & the Home Store as vendors.  FYI, buy all of your tounge and groove at the same time and inspect all of it so that it fits together properly!  We got all different sizes and ages, so the porch was a bear to fit together.  It is important to coat the underside and to use oil based primer to preserve its longevity.  Actually any raw or unfinished exterior wood should always be done that way.   Because we were blessed with 4 – 12″ by 12″ pitched gables, I had ordered special gable design wood work to fit above the fish scales.  In order to purchase her other woodwork, I needed the exact dimensions between the wooden pillars.  That part went on hold until the porch floor was finished. 

Needless to say, the entire exterior needed to be scraped, sanded, filled, caulked and then primed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 There’s so much to share and I know I will have to back track throughout this blog, but until then I’ll be gathering more thoughts and photos.