Sunday, October 31, 2010

The backroom has a REAL dryer vent!

Yes, you read that right.. We've been working on the backroom for the past few weeks, well a few months is more like it I guess. My hubby works too hard, I help when I can, but my expertise is not in home construction. I can help clean though.. So here's what we've gotten done. First we had to gut the whole room, just like the rest of the house, we gut as we go and start over. One of the exciting things about old homes is the stuff you find when you start remodeling. When we first moved in, we dug out the old cistern and found tons of dishes and bottles. Well gutting the backroom has uncovered some cool stuff too.. In the walls we found the old coal shoot.
Inside the coal shoot we found some parts to the old stove.. We had to ask around, but we've figured out that this large piece in the picture is from the top of the stove. There was another one just like it that clamped together, much like a mouth to crush the large pieces of coal.. It's really heavy and from end to end is 17" long.


We also found some other stuff too, here are a few of the really cool ones. A shoe... Note the patches tacked on with tacks, not glue. It appears to be a women's shoe, i'm guessing about a size 6.

This paper is one of my favorites.. The rolled up one was in the wall where the chimney used to be. It is a bit chard but it's dated and readable. Since it's rolled up and crumbly it's hard to take a good picture of it.

November 14, 1926

"ROWAN, 7063, between Green and Beard--Five rooms and bath, newly decorated, with garage; west side"

under the section for "SALE- BUNGALOWS
"Alter Road
Step to Jefferson, 6-room semi, oak finish,
decorated throughout, 3 large bedrooms,
garage; only $1,000 down."

We have found other papers, in the dining room and kitchen, but they are packed in a tote for now. They were used as lining under the tiles and were from when GM was first opening and hiring!

So back the the dryer vent.. This house has never had one. If you don't believe me, here's a picture of the laundry area when we moved in..

yes, that is lint all over the wall and coating the gas line. Safe eh?? We have been using a bucket of water contraption UNTIL today!!

I will post updated pictures on another post. It's hard getting pictures to the bottom of the page on here..

2 comments:

Jules said...

Very cool finds! Hope you kept them. There is a show I like to watch called "If These Walls Could Talk". It's about ppl who find things in their attic or walls from years past. Just recently my husband found a few antiques in our attic in our shed. I love finding old things and decorating with them! (PS. I hopped over here from AlwaysFaith's blog.)

Jen said...

I've seen that show, we all LOVE it! We find the history of our home really interesting. We've had the pleasure of meeting a few of the people who lived here at one time.. She stopped by when we first moved here, and told us some really neat stories of her now husband courting her thru my now boy's windows. Very cool stuff.

Thanks for coming over here and commenting!