Pillars of the Grand Manor

The Wolverton House if classified as a Greek Revival Plantation House.  This is an architectual style that was prominant in the United States in the mid 1800's and the Plantation House style was popular in the Maritimes, New England States and very popular through Kentucky.  The Pillars are the most important detail of Greek Revival as well as the roof style.  Simply in design but always very very big and dramatic statement of design.  Hubby and I always shop for our house parts by asking the first question, "is it big and gawdy enough".

Spring is hovering around the corner now and it is time that we are getting ready to continue with the seconde stage of replacing our pillars.  At first we considered taking them out completely, however, the way the balcony is key locked into the columns it made it a difficult and expensive project that we decided to stay away from.

Although we are still shopping around for the right pillar, this is something that will be well under construction in the next month or so.  The outer pillars are actually bigger than the inner two but all four are solid trees which makes them very heavy and awkward to duplicate.  I have been eying up the old telephone poles in our neighbourhood and thinking how to relocate at least two of them to our front entrance.

Nevertheless, we are now looking at hollow fiberglass pillars, not by choice but because of availability.

The most difficult part of our assignment was removing the huge blocks of cement that encased the original column bases.  My guess is that someone with Italian blood made this decision....and not a very good one either.  However, back in the thirties or forties, it would have been the easiest solution.  Hubby had to bring home the jack hammer to remove them and as in every step of our journey, interesting history to be uncovered.

We have found two of the bases.  It is not easy to pinpoint an exact age however with the knowledge that we personally have, we believe that one might be original to the house in 1850 and the other probably from the turn of the century to as late as 1930.  Both bases have the exact profile however constructed differently.  The older one is made of 2" blocks glued together to form the hollow base and then turned to the correct shape;  while the second is made in a dish pattern with trim molding added onto different layers.  We were able to take the exact template from these profiles and will use them to reproduce the base.

We are still researching different companies to produce our pillars.  Interestingly enough we did locate a local company here in Canada.  At first I emailed and send pictures with request.  They emailed back and asked for more details.  I then received an email requesting payment for a quote from the engineering department.  "What, is this for real".  What company askes for payment just for a quote...and at what price.  I asked again for them to respond to one of our phone numbers so we could further discuss.  No response.  This company must not need our business.  But I waited two months and emailed again hoping for a return phone call.  This time I sent the template with all the dimensions of our pillar requirements.  The sketch showes clearly a left and right profile with a suggested dimension of 14".  I didnt think it would matter if it were 14", 18" or even 20".  They emailed back and asked that I send the second profile for the 16" pillar (2 are 14", and 2 are 16"). 

This is clearly a red flag to leave well enough alone and forget working with this company.  As hubby said the other day, if this is how they conduct business, what is their service like after the fact...and if an error occures, we are screwed.

We have now located another company in PA who responded immediately to our email send out on Sunday.  I feel good with this one.  The sales rep. left a phone number and invited us to call at our convenience.

After taking out the pillars and preparing for the new cement base pad, we discovered that the original Limestone patio stones still exist.  How sad that previous owns poured a cement layer over it to burry it forever.  It is estimated that it would have been a $20,000 patio in today's pricing.  How sad...as it would have been amazing to restore this....alas chipping cement off would just destroy it.

We hopefully will have our exterior completed by year end....and will continue this post.

Portrait of Asa Wolverton

For anyone who is as obsessed with the home as we are, will appreciate the journey we have been on to locate a picture of the original builder/owner of our home.  I have spent many hours in the museum archives and ancestory sites, library, etc, researching the family responsible for building this manor. 

It was at the library, almost two years after starting our restoration that I decided to check out the file for "Wolverton".  Dont know why it took me so long, but it did.  And low and behole, there was a photo copy, black and white, of this very portrait.  It was at that time that I knew it existed.  I was also lucky to find the book that was published by a decendant with 150 years of geneology records.  Unfortunately, Asa and Juliet (his wife) did not have children, so that it made it very difficult to find information.  But I did contact the author of the ancestory book, Harold Wolverton.  We started to correspond via the internet and I was able to meet other Wolverton's.

While reading this book, I also discovered that my family ancestors were inter-married to the Wolvertons back in the 1800's.  My direct roots go back to Kentucky where the Bryan, Boones (yes the Daniel Boone clan) and the Wolverton's settled.  Joseph Bryan married Nancy Wolverton around 1805.

It was in September of '08 that we had our home on tour for the County of Brant.  In less six hours we welcomed over four hundred people through our Parlour Poladium Window (like a french door only exterior).  Two of our guests were Wolverton decendants.  That was an exciting day for us!  I invited them to come back so we could talk.  Judy Palmer and her husband have a maple sugar farm somewhere in Ontario, I think.  Cristine lives in NWT and was living briefly in Toronto while going  to school.  (BTW, both ladies are our age).  Both Ladies are great, great grand neices of Asa and Juliet. Cristine and I connected immediately.  She is an amazing and interesting lady.  She had come to visit the Wolverton House many times and we still keep in touch.

Cristine was able to point me into the direction that lead me to the portrait.  Many years back, she and her mother saw it while vacationing in Europe.

So I went back to Harold who gave me the addresses of Mary Sheppard and her husband Stephen.  Mary resides in Edmonton as she is researching and writing a book about her famous father and her husband is living in Sheffield, England in the family home....where the portrait hangs.  Mary is the great grand daughter of Asa's brother Enos.

I sent letters to both addresses and got a response via phone and letter from Mary.  She too is a delightful lady, now in her mid eighties.  Within three months, and three letters, and....a bit of money...I now have a 600dpi of the Wolverton Portrait.

We are not sure how old it is, perhaps from the 1840's, however it is an actual camera photo that was oil painted. We are now in the process of having this "picture" duplicated and have it oil painted. 

With much discussion, hubby and I are sure that this is the very wall that the portrait original hung in the dining room.  The holes in the wall are from the blown in insulation, however the black line above those holes is where a picture rail was installed.  Hook and small chains were used to hang pictures back in the day. (not like today where we ram a fat nail in the wall, cracking plaster).  This is an alcove, 19" deep.  The black part of the lower wall is probably where the wainscott was glued to the wall (probably tar based) and the darker grey section just above the tar is where the chair rail was attached to the lath.  Now it is plaster over; looks like cement.  We believe there might have been a large side board or serving buffet sitting in this alcove with Asa's portrait handing over it.  It is our goal to do this again.

The Front Door - Title of the House

Once upon a time there was a beautiful Front Door...that grew old and ugly.  I am always in awe when I come home and entre through this amazing entrance. 

It was not the project of choice,  but rather an opportunity knocking..sort of speaking.  I was caught up in stripping the woodwork in our front entrance.  I had already spent 18 months with my heat gun taking off layers of  paint from stairs, spindles, risers, baseboards and everything, anything that was white.  I believe that at the onset of life at the Wolverton House, all the front foyer was shellac, varnish or anything sheer and shiny.  There is evidance that there was a flogging treatment or graining all the wordwork visible from the front door.  The side lights have a unique diamond pattern with individual set in panes of hand blown glass.

The weather was heating up and I started leaving the main door open with the shuttle letting fresh air while my heat gun was melting off the toxic lead paint.  The weather was soo nice that I decided one day to take my heat gun and test the paint removal of the shutter. 

The shutter was really ladened with multiple colours and so thick that it cracked and curled.  With the heat burning hot, the paint bubbled and blistered with great ease and the flat surface of the main frame was so easy.  I decided to steer away from the tedious baseboard work.  Afterall, a change is as good as a rest and this was looking like an excuse to sit outside and not trapped inside anymore.

Hubby was not amused that I changed direction.  This was my downfall with this magnitude of project, but at least I was still working on the project.  Any work is better than no work!

I had extension cords, putty knives, scrappers, sandpaper, screwdrivers and any other tool that we aid in my goal to get paint from every shutter blade...and there are lots of them.  I counted them one day and almost changed my mind.  But the project was well started and now it was a commitment fo finish.  I had my favorite rock to wedge the door open and worked on one side and then the other.

Days turned into weeks and it didnt look like I was accomplishing anything.  But there were gargage bag after garbage bag of paint chips and dust.  The shopvac came out every night to vacuum what was scooped with the broom and shovel. 

I started to attract curious onlookers including the little old lady, 82 I think, across the road who would sit by the window in her second floor apartment.  I was her source of entertainment for most of the summer.

One bright sunny day in July, I had a gentleman stop to talk about my project.  He was facinated with the construction of the door and probably more that this door was still attached after 160 year.  He commented that he loved working with a heat gun.  This was my opportunity to invite him to join my team.  He volunteered on the spot.  Without even asking his name I rushed into the house and grabbed my second heat gun, face mask, sandpaper and more scrappers.  It was about 20 minutes into our dual efforts that hubby came out to meet my new friend.  I couldnt even do a proper introduction, as I still didnt know his name.  Didnt matter, he was working on our project with us.

Hubby was amazed too and commented that this was a first as nobody has ever volunteered before.  Wayne came back a few more times to help.  I hope he knows how thankful we are for his time and effort. 

It took more than four months to clean the door down.  There were many, many colours of paint; white, grey, black, dark hunter green, kelly green, cream. mint green and probably lighter and darker versions of the colours.  If you do the math on all the colours, and perhaps two coats of each colour, that equates to at least 16-20 coats of paint over all those years.  The original colour was buttermilk paint and did not strip off, however it did sand off beautifully.

People were driving by and actually stopping now and asking what I was doing and what colour would be going on next.  Hubby took down the door once it was completely paint free and took it to the work room to level the bottom and complete the restoration before the new colour applied.  I moved on to strip the frame and windows around the door frame, including stripping the 1/4 inch thick paint on the threshold.

Hubby and I went to an Expo 2009 Restoration trade show and were introduced to a Linseed oil paint that is enviromentally friendly.  We were also told that it would last up to fifty years.  The paint is rejuvienated with a quick rub of linseen oil approximately ever 10 years.  That would mean that we never have to paint again!  The only down side is that there were limited colours choices and we would have to custom mix our preferred colour.

We placed our order and by October, I was finally starting to paint.  Yes, I was now on month five of painted our front door.  By November, the job was complete.  Hubby and son installed over 100 screws to reinforce the shutter door frame, cut the bottom off and attached a new and straight base to the lower edge, and filled cracks, gouges and missing edges with bondo.  Hubby and I caulked the details to the side lights and even puttied some of the windows back in.  Windows were cleaned.  From start to finish, and meeting many of our neighbours for the first time, we completed another project.  It only took  six months!

The Larder...Room with a View

After a quick search through Wikipedia, this is the explanation I found for Larder:

A larder is a cool area for storing food prior to use. Larders were commonplace in houses before the widespread use of the refrigerator.


Essential qualities of a larder are that it should be:  as cool as possible, close to food preparation areas, constructed so as to exclude flies and vermin,  easy to keep clean, equipped with shelves and cupboards appropriate to the food being stored.


In the northern hemisphere, most houses would arrange to have their larder and kitchen on the north or east side of the house where it received least sun.



Many larders have small unglazed windows with the window opening covered in fine mesh. This allows free circulation of air without allowing flies to enter. Many larders have tiled or painted walls to simplify cleaning. Older larders and especially those in larger houses have hooks in the ceiling to hang joints of meat or game. Others have insulated containers for ice, anticipating the future development of refrigerators.

We definitely have a typical larder, sitting in the north east corner of our lower level....expecially the 'cool' definition.  Im not sure that there was success keeping vermin out.   We do have our hunter roaming this territory on a frequent schedule.  He is definitely a star trapper.  Several time this year he has caught at least two critters and probably just outside of the larder, or as it is now called, "our 'working' kitchen".  

In true definition, this is the coldest room in our house even though Hubby installed a floor heat vent and some heat from the fridge vent.  Even heat from the stove will heat the room to a tolerable temperature.  But making bread just isnt happening in our new kitchen without the help of the bread maker.  And last year I worked weeks to perfect the perfect loaf that just wasnt happening.

After three "wash closets" were established, the kitchen was our next and most detailed project.  Hubby and son started by employing the crowbars and ripping our cupboards and exposing pipes that went nowhere and antiquated plumbing pipes that were starting to decay and rot.  There was huge areas of black mould growing in the corners.

I heard a loud crack, smash and hubby hollering up the stairs, "don't come down here...the sky is falling".  Well naturally, this leo is a curious cat and down the stairs I ran.  The corner wall unit was unwedged from ceiling to floor and removed from the room.  The ceiling with it's heavy vinyl peal n stick surface decided to dislodge the plaster from the lath and crash to the floor.
I guess this ceiling was not going to be saved.  One of the major objectives to our restoration projects is to save everything no matter how impossible it presents itself.   But this wasnt going to happen with this part of the room.  So Hubby and Son scooped up all the debrae and contiued to pull the lath off as well.

It was only days later that Hubby had his hernia operation. Nothing major as it was not an issue yet, but with the project in full swing, it was time to do some health maintenance. He was in and out in less than six hours and agreed to watch son and I attempt to pull off the layers of tiles, subfloor, nails, nails and more nails.  We scrapped with shovels, used our crowbars until two days into this, Hubby got frustrated with our 'lack of technique', grabbed the shovel and finished the job in less than 1/2 hour.  I pleased to report that he is still in perfect health.

The original floor looked amazing to me.  I was so excited until Hubby started prying off the entrance boards to see what was happening to the plumbing.  The more he looked, the more the boards came off, until the decision was made that the boards had to all come off.

For months we had nothing more than dirt, dirt, and more dirt...and floor joices that were not doing anything.  Most were starting to rot while burried in the dirt.  However there was one dug out area that had hundreds of dried walnuts and one little skeleton, probably a squirrel, that didnt survive one long cold winter, perhaps 100 years ago (when the first plumbing was probably installed in this home).

Now that we had three new bathrooms, we needed contemporary plumbing to service our needs, this mean digging the dirt, putting it in a wheel barrow outside the kitchen door and throwing it over the embankment.  How convenient!  But all good things come to an end ...or in our case a nasty new beginning. The inspector had to be called in.  We are probably one of the few homeowners in Paris....doing our own restorations....working with a REAL work permit!  The inspector insisted that, according to the code of 2008, we needed to have a space of 18" under the floor boards.  That meant taking out ALL the dirt to a level of 18" or in this case, digging to China.  Vapor barrier had to be used and then we could complete our project. 

Months have gone by and Im getting anxious.  If you havent figured this out by now, we had three new bathrooms and NO kitchen.  Hubby gave me a laundry sink in the neighbouring room, BBQ outside and of course my best friend..."the crock pot".  Pizza delivery and chineses was on the menu...a lot!  I also had the kitchen from our B&B suite that was a blessing when we didnt have guests.

Now with the dirt being removed, the joices being exposed, we had new problems.  Nothing holding up the house as joices were heaving and cracking and breaking apart.  Hubby had to be build from the foundation up.  Cement blocks, cement forms built, and yes we had the best opportunity to crank up the entire north end of the house and level it out.  The house was raised 1 3/4" to a perfect flat. Even the wall cracks in the parlor closed up and doors are now hanging square.

The insulation was sprayed around the foundation and it was finally time to put everything back together.  Although time consuming, the new floor boards (recycled from an 1880 neighbouring community farm house) arrived and Hubby installed them.  We finished the floor by sanding, staining, urathaning and paper covering to continue to finish the walls, install the custom cupboards and install fixtures and furniture.  The cupboards are triple painted with buttermilk paint that was hand mixed from lye powder and pigment.  Then sanded, oiled, distressed and urathaned.  We have an amazing Douglas Fir wood slab for the counter top and a drop in farmers sink.  Although there are still a few details to work on, the kitchen is complete and ....even with heavy socks, shoes, sometimes boots, earmuffs and mits in our 14 degree climate...

I am lov'n it!

Heart of the House

If you have every gone shopping for a house, it is always the kitchen and bathrooms that has to make the first, and best impression.  Well that is for 99% of the people looking for the right  home.  I have never had that desire to find the perfect cooking space or powder room, but rather the largest dining room.  This isnt to say that the kitchen isnt important, but after the meal is prepared, it's all about the food we eat and the people we share it with. Bathrooms are just for the necessities of preeming and grooming.  Im in and out fast.

Hubby and I have always shopped for the project house and overlook the decor that is the reflection of someone's efforts to satisfy their own life style.  We have the appreciation of a simpliar life style;  one that reflects a style more than 100 years or  more.  Seeing the Wolverton House on moving day was quite different than the way it is now and where it wil be in another three or so years.  On moving day, the crowbar was the first item out of the box!

With paper and pen in hand, we start with the list of where to start.  I wanted the kitchen, not because it was so important to have a pretty place to prepare food, but because it was a necessity to run a Bed and Breakfast.  We had a working kitchen in the lower level and another in the second floor that has the ensuite bathroom now.  It was easiest to keep the apartment kitchen in tact as it already had the appliances.  After at least two months of stripping wall paper and paint and crowbarring out excess ceilings, walls, doors, etc, I decided visiting auntie in the states was a great thing to do...and when I returned there was no kitchen at all, or bathrooms!  All the plumbing pipes were in the back of the pick up truck.  And the water meter seemed to be running up a large tab too. But I have told that story already. 

It seemed that Hubby decided, in my absence, to complete the plumbing for the entire house and work at three bathrooms at one time.  If any of you have ever had to build a washroom from bare walls to finished powder room, you know that it can be quite the under taking and very stressful.  Hubby insisted that I put the design to paper and do three at one time.  This way all the plumbing and electrical got done in one big project instead of three little ones that take more time in the end.

We had the 1891 Tub out for restoration.  I had my doubts.  It was quite the piece of crumpled alluminum and the rim was in a cardboard box in three pieces with the forth one missing.  Hubby tried several times to tell me what a gem it was.  Ebay supplied us with the original magazine advertisment and there was hope.

The 1880 footed tub arrived shortly after.  Another jewel from Hubbies family, I think.  I could see more potential for that one.  I purchased a paint kit for the inside and started with the little sponge/scrubbie and gave it a good cleaning.  Didnt do much, but at least it was clean.  I left the bottom for Hubby to finish.  I purchased my wallpaper as I needed inspiration and drive to start.  Hubby purchased the paint for the second tub.  He didnt ask but just picked a colour hoping I would be OK with it.  He was lucky and I spent months searching the purfect paper for the neighbouring room so the colour would work....as it was not ever close to the wall paper planned.

The main floor bathroom came with a different set of problems.  The door was too wide and when opening into the room, the 1890 tub didnt fit anymore.   The three papers were purchased and colour scheme established according to each level of this home.  Now the blue room and the red room had to flip flop.  How was this going to work when the red was only to be featured on the second floor and the main floor parlor and library were designed to be teal blue.  The tub was already in the paint shop with paint purchased and sprayed and coordinating perfectly with the teal and putty toile paper.  Too late to worry, just flip flop the designs and continue with plan B.  I had lost a bit of my incentive for design as Hubby continued to fix the joices and floors, and recycle baseboards and make new ones.  Everything, with lots of time started to come together.  Hubby made an announcement that I had 48 hours to find a vanity to fit a 24" space.  It was a funny little corner with not much room.  And with the way the "new plumbing" was installed, there was no way to put in a pedestal sink.  Again, luck was with me and my friend/antique dealer just happened to have a tiny oak washstand that would fit the spot.  We struggled with some of the next details of finding the perfect sink and fixtures, but again with lady luck on our side, we found a discontinued sink that was the right size and ordered facets to match.  The blue room-turned to red was well on the way to completion.  The Blue room was also close to finish, as well as the yellow ensuite.  I found two 'cheap' sink and vanities a Liquidation World and figured these would work just find until I had the time to hunt down what I really wanted.  Now that they are installed at their appropriate room, they will stay forever.  I refinished the vanity for the blue room and actually like it a lot.  It looks custom after a good scraping of paint, fresh new colour, new (expensive) fixtures and a scrubbing of antique wax...and costing less than $400. 

After eight months, we had three new bathrooms that all worked.  Curtains were sewn and hung and it was time to retire the chamber pot for ever!

The Library

It has been a very long journey for us to get the Wolverton House at a 'some-what' livable stage.  After all of our hard work, rooms are getting ripped apart, restored and decorated.  I am excited to say that the library is a well used and appreciated corner of this house.

At the onset, the library was the main floor bathroom.  It had a funny little hallway leading into it from the parlor and the ??office/computer room??  You will see from the first picture that there is an 'A' framed board that was the interior structure for the ceiling of the tub.

For the first couple of months, hubby and I stripped wallpaper from every room, including the library.  While in the Dining room, we discovered that there was a large built in china cupboard with open shelves on the top, large counter top, two huge drawers under the top and two more shelves under the drawers.  To this day, we are still trying to invision what they cabinet might have looked like. 

It was shortly after finding the outline of this cabinet when hubby announced that he found the cabinet.  I was horrified to discover that it was used to build the interior structure for the tub.  Downspouts were used for ductwork and wallpaper ontop of wallpaper and paint between layers.  Once the room was stripped of all excess materials, it was an interest history to be found on the walls.

To the left of the doorway was a clear outline of shelving with wooden blocks to attach a wall unit too.  There must have been a large, deep decorative header board to the cupboard which was obviously built before the plaster was put on the lath.  The top 18" of the wall showed no evidence of having any plaster on it at all.  The baseboards were painted mint green on that wall and only the original paint.  It was the original buttermilk paint as I could not remove it with my heat gun or paint stripper.  That didnt matter because, afterall, it was to be painted.

Hubby had to strip out several of the floor boards that were hacked from putting in the plumbing.   The original library (or study) had two entrance doors;  one came in from the main hall way and the other from the parlor.  Hubby and I made the executive decision to keep a main floor bathroom using half of the original library space and also add a doorway from washroom to library.  This way, the little room  10' x 9' would be used as a small bedroom if there became a need.  We had to drop the ceiling height by 12" as the plumbling for the master's ensuite is above.

At one stage of our restoration, while the room was stripped, we used it as the tool room.  It was quite convenient to store everything from drill to hammer, nuts,  bolts, screws and even ladders.  It was a catchall for everything including mounds of dust.  But that is all part of our life style these days.  And although the house is coming together, we are still tearing apart major rooms.

The day finally came when hubby picked the library as choice project.  Once the bathrooms were complete and there was a kitchen I could use, the library was the next construction zone.

Floor boards were replaced, floor sanded, calked, painted three times and ready for wallpaper.  The wallpaper came from California.  It was custom printed from the original printing machine, paints and paper.  The paper we chose was a strip designed in 1850 for the Netzley-Yender House, Lisle, Illinois.  The paper was printed 18 3/4" wide on a 29" wide paper.  That meant that I had to trim both edges of the paper before hanging.  I also had to make my own paste.  It was an original recipe of flour and water. 

That sounds really simple and basic, however there is quite the instructions to follow in order to make the right paste that is the right consistancy and without lumps.  I had to sterilize the water, flour, boil, strain, cool before using.  It had to be brushed on quickly and evenly and that was not as easy as it sounds.  The other inconvenience was that each length of paper took one batch of paste.  It took approximately five days to complete my task of hanging this paper.  But it looks great and I wouldnt have chosen any other paper for this project.

Once the room as dressed it was time to place in the furniture.  It is still a small room, but it works well with the computer, two chairs, and bookcase that replaced the built in bookcase.

The last item and most important is the drapery.  As this was the home that Asa built for himself, he cut corners and did not complete the trim details on all the windows.  In the Library, the window trim is nothing more than  1" round dowel.  So I concluded that there would have been a full formal drapery covering this window (or in the day, two windows).  However, this now being half the room, east window exposure with morning sun only, as well as shadowed by the roof line of the balcony, I decided to put up cranes and have a swing rod with simple embroidered linen panels.  This drapery is then able to open up and expose full window and allow full window exposure. 

I look forward to May, open windows and enjoy fresh smell of spring.  That is my favorite thing to do.

The Netzley-Yender House before/after pictures.  Painted in summer of 2007