My pretend root cellar

Under another side of the addition I find things like this...
I imagine it to be a root cellar...
But that may just be my wishes that life were like "life on the farm" as in the Wizard of Oz...

But that is just my imaginings because I am pretty certain it is the service entrance to the basement as I can see stairs that would be directly under the addition from the basement that lead in this direction.

the root cellar?, originally uploaded by Blair Necessities.

In the historical documents we have that relate to the house, it is said that there was a Chinese chef/cook at the house, he cooked outdoors (which must have been really dusty) and would bring the meals to the basement kitchen, most likely through this entrance.

I have a dream of redoing the addition so that the stairs that are there can be incorporated and that would provide us with another entrance to the basement... I am not sure how this could be done, but should we ever win the lottery I am sure there could be a way to do this.

Our addition is at the back of the house, and holds our office area. The laundry room is there and a little porch that looks to our neighbors backyards and some lovely mountains in the distance. This is a time when I am so glad that we have laws limiting the height of buildings here... I can still see things in a distance, the wide expanse of our gorgeous sunsets...

I do have a love hate relationship with this house. I love it so dearly, It is precious and feels right, but fixing it is just not easy and full of delays that are not in my control.

But, now that I think on it, I think this house is teaching me something valuable... let go, enjoy the process.


Tags: house, cellar

secret stairs

I found these stairs while looking through a hole under the addition of our house... these lead up to the original kitchen door to the outside and while they have been there for a while, from before the addition, I don't think they are original...

secret stairs 1, originally uploaded by Blair.

why don't I think they are original?

if you look behind them you will see a window arch (yes the basement has/d drop windows).

Someday I will go down and take pictures of the basement so you can see how big they were, they even opened it seems, but a pool, and the air-conditioner unit and the water heater all have seemed to force them to be closed up over the years.

OH, Kaptain Kaos seems to have been able to salvage a window that looked pretty bad too! Kudos to Kaos.

Tags: stairs

The hook

Here are the things that are all around the house that I realized were for holding the porch to the house. They are located at porch foot level and also at porch roof level.
I have no idea if they are original to the house but I thought they were cool.

the house hooks, originally uploaded by Blair Necessities.

I took a bunch of pictures of other things and am working on the tales of them. When I finish unpacking sometime next year (if I am lucky) I will find a copy of what the house looked like way back when it was built.

I have to say that this process is taking a very long time. We are still working on the living room, and I just can't believe it is taking this long. I love this house and I am so glad that it is ours and that I can take care of it. I just wish I had a sense of accomplishment with it, I want to have a living room with out a view of the mud dobbers and bare window panes... but that is just me wanting to see it done and being able to decorate it to its glory!

On a side note, my aunt, the artist, had a fundraising exhibition at her gallery for a local historical society. When they found out that we owned this house they were thrilled. We might get an article in the newspaper about the house. We also found out that it seems that the city restoration grants have a proviso of passing ownership on to the city... sad isn't it... However, the rules may have changed. But if they haven't I sure won't be sending in an application. Does anyone know of other ways we can find grants for this restoration/renovation?