We have been completely distracted this week by the start of renovations on the old Victorian house. Like children, Christine and I have been playing the role of amateur archaeologists.
As we started work on the west wing of the house, the old manor started to reveal a few secrets. Some of these surprises have now completely altered our plans.
First, it is now clearly evident that the manor has been the subject of extensive renovations over the years. More recently to address modern amenities such as plumbing, heating and electrical systems.
However, much older renovations are evident from the earlier part of the 20th century. Presumably, while in the hands of the old cannery and before the Great Depression, this home was greatly altered to create four separate apartments.
Furthermore, we now have much more evidence that this home was itself built upon or extended from an older brick-walled homestead.
The official construction of the house is dated as 1880, however since the site was acquired by Josiah Ward in 1865, it seems he may have built an earlier home on the site or perhaps extended the structure of an existing homestead prior to finishing this Victorian manor. In fact, the Victorian manor itself seems to have been built or assembled in at least four distinct phases: the main house (built upon and using material from an older structure), the tower (encompassing the widow's walk), the west wing and a southerly extension to the west wing.
Although the house shows signs of various bricked-in doorways and windows on the outside, it was still a surprise to see these openings from the inside. It started to give us a much better feel for the "flow" of the original home.
One of the rooms, we expect to transform into a large dining room. We also wanted to join it to an adjacent room with what seemed to be an old blocked-off archway where we suspected would have been "pocket doors". This space would be a small sitting room which I refer to as our " Brandy Room", overlooking the backyard.
The results surprised us.
First, the archway does not seem to have been original but perhaps a renovation carried out in the earlier part of the century. The casings which would have complemented the rest of the room simply did not exist and the depth of the wall would have never allowed for it.
Second it was fascinating to see the location of an old back door going into our "Brandy Room". This is in fact a back wall where we have an additional layer of brick (beyond the standard three layer Victorian configuration), suggesting this may have been the back door to the original homestead.
Another real surprise was a hidden doorway and passageway in the corner of the dining room. The door itself seems to be an early renovation while the passageway seems to have been an original link between the dining room and what was evidently the kitchen. This passageway winds around the back of the circular staircase in the centre hall.
This along with the additional discoveries of the week have completely altered our plans. We are now thinking of relocating our kitchen and opening up once again this original passageway. Basically returning the old home to its original configuration.
Finally, one wall of the dining room had been covered with a more modern (30 year old) bookcase and a mantle surrounding a gas fireplace. We've removed this to expose an existing door. We hope to use this door as a decorative architectural element to the dining room.
Other interesting discoveries in this portion of the house included some of the original wallpaper.
After peeling back four layers of ceiling, we were also able to expose the original painted ceiling (which was referenced in the account of an elderly lady that had lived in the house as a child just before the Great Depression).
The painted ceiling was a bluish green with a geometric pattern. Regrettably, it was in incredibly bad shape not only having suffered from multiple renovations, but as well from major water damage.
What also altered our plans were the discoveries in what would have been our renovated kitchen.
It turns out that the north wall of this kitchen is brick (basically the wall to the original west wing extension). We even found a "mail box"or "milk box" in this brick wall.
We also found evidence of the old chimney.
This kitchen seems to have been made up from two rooms. One of which showed a very early doorway which we now suspect would have gone to a coach house. This narrow room also had direct access to the food cellar where we still see evidence of older stairs.
Given the beauty of the old exposed brick walls and beams, we've now decided to preserve this part of the house in as bare a finish as possible and turn it into our art glass gallery.
It turns out that the original wall to the main house is also evident in what we were to turn into a "mud room" (the north end of the west wing). Again, we found an internal brick wall. This room will now also become part of the gallery.
I leave you this week with the final touches to the barn. Our store is pretty much complete and awaiting furnishing.
Meanwhile, the kitchen has just been paneled with a fire retardant and hygienic laminate, while powerful fluorescent lighting has also been installed.
We can hardly wait until it all "comes together".
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