Projects continue at the “Big House”
By Karen Walk
Work continues! One recent project was when Jim King of King Construction, donated his labor to hang sheet rock on the ceiling of the parlor. The room isn’t really that big, but it seemed like a huge project as the room is full of angles and very difficult to cut the sheet rock to fi t. We appreciate Jim for this donation. He also brought his sheet rock lift which is a terrific piece of equipment! It saves a lot of lifting and holding the piece as you screw it to the ceiling. The joints will need to be taped, a coat of primer, paint, then wallpaper will be applied. Once the ceiling is finished we can go to work on the rest of the room. The wallpaper has been completely removed from the walls. Many people showed up to help Jim that evening, although only a few could actually help with that particular job, but there were other things that kept them busy. Rob Carson, Don French and Hank Knobbe moved a very heavy radiator to enable Gin Knobbe and Jeanene to scrape wallpaper in behind it. Ann Wiles and Ashley Simons have stopped by since to help and now all of the wallpaper has been removed from the dining room walls. Karen has been hanging wall-liner. This product is great for rough concrete walls. The wallpaper will then be hung over it.
Ben Gambleian, Ann Wiles and Karen have worked very hard scraping wallpaper from the ceiling in the dining room between those beautiful wood beams. A decision has been made to cover the ceiling with the vintage tin tiles because of the difficulty of working over your head to scrape the 3 layers of wallpaper off. In the upstairs center hall was a spot that was damaged by water when the roof leaked, so Karen repaired it with concrete patching, sanded it, hung a layer of wall liner on the wall, and now it is ready for a coat of paint.
The hall ceiling has been painted. A beautiful fan will be hung above the stairway in memory of Kathryn Ford, purchased from her memorial donation. There is a large old cabinet in the hall that came out of “a” store, but no one remembers what store. I wish we could have a séance with Margie, ha! There are several questions I would like to ask her! Margie’s husband, Oren, had a gun collection in the cabinet many years ago, then Margie had a doll collection in it. Again, there was pegboard on the back of it, so Karen wallpapered it and put a collection of all black hats in it. Years ago, every woman owned a black hat. They didn’t go anywhere without a hat. If they could only afford one hat, then it was black, which means, there are many different styles and sizes of black hats.
Some of the big, strong football players from the Wichita County High School football team came to the museum and hauled seven large pieces of furniture to the 2nd floor of the house. They worked so hard as some of those pieces were very heavy, and they are so much stronger than us “ol’ folk” at the historical society! Antique furniture is so much heavier than the new pieces. Those that helped were Blake Nickelson, Drew Smith, Alex Horton, Bryer Porter, Chris Kreutzer, Arthur Turley, Mario Mancillas and Coach Jason Archuletta. Marcia and Shad Mehl loaned 2 pickups, and to beat all, Marcia served home made cookies, cantaloupe and bottles of cold water to them when they were done! Thanks, everyone!
Jeanene has been putting the film on the windows to cut down the UV rays. This will keep artifacts and window treatments from fading, cuts down the glare and also blocks 60% of the heat. We can tell a difference while working in the house already. There sure are a lot of windows in that house!
We will soon be writing a grant to the Dept. of Commerce for Rural Communities to restore the exterior of the house. Don French has all of the frames made for the new screens and has stacked them in the basement for the time being. He has put a coat of primer on them. We will paint them later, apply the wire screen and molding after the decision has been made as to the color. This project will be part of our in-kind donation that we need to match for a grant. A historic color consultant has been hired and as soon as we get the diagrams from them, we will send them on to the painter, who will then present us with a bid for the removal of the paint, priming and paint. It will be painted like the Victorian Painted Lady with 5 or so colors.
Karen’s daughter, Donna and husband, Bob from Mountain View, Arkansas worked on the house, hanging sheet rock and wallpaper on the wall at the top of the steps. Wow, it looks good! Donna furnished the wallpaper for the covered pegboard in the downstairs hall, the landing area at the top of the steps, and inside the hat case. It is very elegant. When you stand in the entrance hall, your eye is drawn to that upstairs wall, which is why I chose to hang that particular wallpaper there. A little settee and lamp will grace that area with Margie’s red velvet drapes.
Karen painted the walls and ceiling in the front upstairs bedroom, which will be Margie’s Boutique. She has been hauling hats, etc. over there. That room will soon be done.
Most of the woodwork in the hall has been cleaned up and a coat of polyurethane on it. All will agree the woodwork in the house is outstanding. Don has removed the old linoleum from the kitchen floor, which will be cleaned, stained and then several coats of polyurethane will be applied to it. The walls and ceiling will be painted Navajo White. Kitchens in the Victorian era were functional, and not decorated as we do now. Doors were closed to the kitchen and visitors did not enter or even see into the kitchen. Most homes had domestic help that cooked and served the meals.
Roger Long has done a lot of new wiring and installed a breaker box. He and his brother- in-law, Dean Ribbing were working when the temperature was very high. Crawling in the attic was a very hot and dirty job for Roger. He also dug a trench and ran conduit underground to the new power pole out at the alley. Roger donated his labor to the historical society. Thanks, Roger!
It has been wonderful how our own local contractors have donated their labor. This is definitely a “community project.”
One thing that was not so good was that we found termites. That was an unexpected expense, but very necessary. They have now been treated and we are back to work.
It is fun to see how many people from out of town or state have helped work on the house. Let’s see, there would be Las Vegas, NV; Janesville, Clinton, and Lake Geneva, all in WI; Fort Hood, TX; Seattle, WA; and Mountain View, AR. And then looking at the guest book, visitors that have signed are from Hays, KS; Wallace, KS; Gunnison, CO; Buffalo, NY; Lake Geneva, WI; Janesville, WI; Clinton, WI; Ft. Hood, TX; Denver, CO; Kansas City, MO; Seattle, WA; Scott City, KS; Grand Junction, CO; Palm Desert, CA; Emporia, KS; Valiant, OK; Mill Creek, OK; Colorado Springs, CO; Goodland, KS; Temple, GA; Boudan, GA; Fairbanks, AK, Elkhart, KS; Marshalltown, IA; Colby, KS; Mountain View, AR; Sidney, NE; Modoc, KS; and San Antonio, TX.
Just a few days ago, Dean Wiegers brought in a neat old artifact that they found in their stuff. It was a “Do It Yourself Paper Hanging Tool Kit” in the original box, with step by step instructions, razor knife, 2 extra blades, seam roller, pasting brush, smoothing brush, plumb line, and lump chalk. All of this for the price of $2.49! I wonder what that would cost now?
Work continues! One recent project was when Jim King of King Construction, donated his labor to hang sheet rock on the ceiling of the parlor. The room isn’t really that big, but it seemed like a huge project as the room is full of angles and very difficult to cut the sheet rock to fi t. We appreciate Jim for this donation. He also brought his sheet rock lift which is a terrific piece of equipment! It saves a lot of lifting and holding the piece as you screw it to the ceiling. The joints will need to be taped, a coat of primer, paint, then wallpaper will be applied. Once the ceiling is finished we can go to work on the rest of the room. The wallpaper has been completely removed from the walls. Many people showed up to help Jim that evening, although only a few could actually help with that particular job, but there were other things that kept them busy. Rob Carson, Don French and Hank Knobbe moved a very heavy radiator to enable Gin Knobbe and Jeanene to scrape wallpaper in behind it. Ann Wiles and Ashley Simons have stopped by since to help and now all of the wallpaper has been removed from the dining room walls. Karen has been hanging wall-liner. This product is great for rough concrete walls. The wallpaper will then be hung over it.
Ben Gambleian, Ann Wiles and Karen have worked very hard scraping wallpaper from the ceiling in the dining room between those beautiful wood beams. A decision has been made to cover the ceiling with the vintage tin tiles because of the difficulty of working over your head to scrape the 3 layers of wallpaper off. In the upstairs center hall was a spot that was damaged by water when the roof leaked, so Karen repaired it with concrete patching, sanded it, hung a layer of wall liner on the wall, and now it is ready for a coat of paint.
The hall ceiling has been painted. A beautiful fan will be hung above the stairway in memory of Kathryn Ford, purchased from her memorial donation. There is a large old cabinet in the hall that came out of “a” store, but no one remembers what store. I wish we could have a séance with Margie, ha! There are several questions I would like to ask her! Margie’s husband, Oren, had a gun collection in the cabinet many years ago, then Margie had a doll collection in it. Again, there was pegboard on the back of it, so Karen wallpapered it and put a collection of all black hats in it. Years ago, every woman owned a black hat. They didn’t go anywhere without a hat. If they could only afford one hat, then it was black, which means, there are many different styles and sizes of black hats.
Some of the big, strong football players from the Wichita County High School football team came to the museum and hauled seven large pieces of furniture to the 2nd floor of the house. They worked so hard as some of those pieces were very heavy, and they are so much stronger than us “ol’ folk” at the historical society! Antique furniture is so much heavier than the new pieces. Those that helped were Blake Nickelson, Drew Smith, Alex Horton, Bryer Porter, Chris Kreutzer, Arthur Turley, Mario Mancillas and Coach Jason Archuletta. Marcia and Shad Mehl loaned 2 pickups, and to beat all, Marcia served home made cookies, cantaloupe and bottles of cold water to them when they were done! Thanks, everyone!
Jeanene has been putting the film on the windows to cut down the UV rays. This will keep artifacts and window treatments from fading, cuts down the glare and also blocks 60% of the heat. We can tell a difference while working in the house already. There sure are a lot of windows in that house!
We will soon be writing a grant to the Dept. of Commerce for Rural Communities to restore the exterior of the house. Don French has all of the frames made for the new screens and has stacked them in the basement for the time being. He has put a coat of primer on them. We will paint them later, apply the wire screen and molding after the decision has been made as to the color. This project will be part of our in-kind donation that we need to match for a grant. A historic color consultant has been hired and as soon as we get the diagrams from them, we will send them on to the painter, who will then present us with a bid for the removal of the paint, priming and paint. It will be painted like the Victorian Painted Lady with 5 or so colors.
Karen’s daughter, Donna and husband, Bob from Mountain View, Arkansas worked on the house, hanging sheet rock and wallpaper on the wall at the top of the steps. Wow, it looks good! Donna furnished the wallpaper for the covered pegboard in the downstairs hall, the landing area at the top of the steps, and inside the hat case. It is very elegant. When you stand in the entrance hall, your eye is drawn to that upstairs wall, which is why I chose to hang that particular wallpaper there. A little settee and lamp will grace that area with Margie’s red velvet drapes.
Karen painted the walls and ceiling in the front upstairs bedroom, which will be Margie’s Boutique. She has been hauling hats, etc. over there. That room will soon be done.
Most of the woodwork in the hall has been cleaned up and a coat of polyurethane on it. All will agree the woodwork in the house is outstanding. Don has removed the old linoleum from the kitchen floor, which will be cleaned, stained and then several coats of polyurethane will be applied to it. The walls and ceiling will be painted Navajo White. Kitchens in the Victorian era were functional, and not decorated as we do now. Doors were closed to the kitchen and visitors did not enter or even see into the kitchen. Most homes had domestic help that cooked and served the meals.
Roger Long has done a lot of new wiring and installed a breaker box. He and his brother- in-law, Dean Ribbing were working when the temperature was very high. Crawling in the attic was a very hot and dirty job for Roger. He also dug a trench and ran conduit underground to the new power pole out at the alley. Roger donated his labor to the historical society. Thanks, Roger!
It has been wonderful how our own local contractors have donated their labor. This is definitely a “community project.”
One thing that was not so good was that we found termites. That was an unexpected expense, but very necessary. They have now been treated and we are back to work.
It is fun to see how many people from out of town or state have helped work on the house. Let’s see, there would be Las Vegas, NV; Janesville, Clinton, and Lake Geneva, all in WI; Fort Hood, TX; Seattle, WA; and Mountain View, AR. And then looking at the guest book, visitors that have signed are from Hays, KS; Wallace, KS; Gunnison, CO; Buffalo, NY; Lake Geneva, WI; Janesville, WI; Clinton, WI; Ft. Hood, TX; Denver, CO; Kansas City, MO; Seattle, WA; Scott City, KS; Grand Junction, CO; Palm Desert, CA; Emporia, KS; Valiant, OK; Mill Creek, OK; Colorado Springs, CO; Goodland, KS; Temple, GA; Boudan, GA; Fairbanks, AK, Elkhart, KS; Marshalltown, IA; Colby, KS; Mountain View, AR; Sidney, NE; Modoc, KS; and San Antonio, TX.
Just a few days ago, Dean Wiegers brought in a neat old artifact that they found in their stuff. It was a “Do It Yourself Paper Hanging Tool Kit” in the original box, with step by step instructions, razor knife, 2 extra blades, seam roller, pasting brush, smoothing brush, plumb line, and lump chalk. All of this for the price of $2.49! I wonder what that would cost now?
Comments