Bathroom renovation as of April 17, 2010

Bathroom renovation as of April 17, 2010
Originally uploaded by Athens Nikita

Here is the "Intermediate" -- new floor, new vanity, new mirror, and stuff is painted. We're still missing wall trim and a variety of improvements in the tub/shower area...

Which, you may have noticed, is no longer in the entryway to the room. Yay! The shower/tub is in the adjacent area, and looks kind of rough right now.  

We will also be building a bench over these radiators under the windows.

Here are the products we used:

• Behr's Pure Premium Paint in Cornsilk.
  
• Allure resilient flooring in  Cherry.
  
• The Valencia 3-piece euro vanity.
• The toilet is from Kohler -- can't recall what it was called.
• Glacier Bay "teapot" sink.

Bathroom Before

side 2 bath
Originally uploaded by Athens Nikita

Please note that this was the bathroom when we bought the house in November.

It was long and narrow, had this hideous marble-pattern plastic wall cladding, was carpeted, and stank. And when we finally turned the water on, we discovered that the plumbing was completely shot.

What you'll see next isn't exactly "after," but is definitely an improvement over the thing you're looking at now.

The "Hell Strip" and the Daffodil Thing

The "Hell Strip"
Originally uploaded by Athens Nikita

Currently, what I have is this sad thing that you see to the right. What I want is something more like this. Oh, well. Maybe once I dig myself out from all the house projects and the temperature goes up by 10 or 15 degrees, I'll pry up those slate pieces and go to town.  

I just found out, though, about Bellefonte's daffodil thing.  I say "thing" because it's a fairly complicated happening.  Project Daffodil was originally done in 2004 as a community planting that would function as a sort of tourist driving tour in the Spring.  Roughly 100,000 daffodils were planted from State College to Bellefonte.  Since then, innumerable daffodils have been planted.  

Anyway, now there's a daffodil game and other tie-ins.  But I have no daffodils whatsoever.  So, as soon as is practical, I'll be fixing that.

So...when was this house built?

This is a great question. And the answer is: I really don't know.

However, as we get into the Wolf era, it's important to note that I bought what was supposedly a house contructed in 1885. Certainly the house showing in the historical photo from the turn of the century looks like my house, and the easement that is on record in 1906 indicates that whatever was there had roughly the same dimensions, which is to say dimensions placing the Burrows Street side way too close to the neighboring house. So it's definitely at least ca. 1900. And the style, which is a sort of Italianate/Eastlake/stick/Queen Anne/late victorian polyglot, suggests that it is of roughly the 1880s or 1890s.

However, it wouldn't be unusual to see a house modified and decorated which was actually constructed earlier, and there's a lot of evidence suggesting that the house is actually older.

That evidence is:

• The development pattern of Bellefonte, in which Allegheny Street developed all the way to the site of the current elementary school during the Civil War antebellum period.


• Sanborn maps and other historical maps -- which indicate a double structure on my property in the 1850s and 1870s. These same maps indicate some additions -- the rear staircases and side porch and commercial area -- over the years.


• The deed research, when coupled with the census. The deeds continue to be transferred and legible back to 1823. The census indicates residents on that lot back to 1820.


• The relatively good records of the Civil War era -- Bellefonte at the time had four competing newspapers. So if there was a structure on the property before 1847 and it burned down or was otherwise replaced before 1880 or so, we'd probably know.

So...I don't know when the house was constructed. but I'm definitely assuming that it's pre-1885.

Hastings and Spangler, 1886 to 1896

In 1896, Daniel and Jennie Hastings sold the house to J.L. Spangler and J.H. Sands. There's a surfeit of information about Hastings and Spangler, and I will attempt to keep it brief.



Hastings was, among other things, a Civil War general, a natural-disaster hero, and Governor of Pennsylvania. J.L. Spangler was his law partner. Together they mounted a number of initiatives, including starting the Blue Baker Coal Company that was a crucial part of Johnstown's early growth. In fact, an unincorporated area in Cambria County bears Spangler's name in his honor.



Spangler and Hastings probably never lived in my house, though Hastings owned my house, then sold it to the father of Mrs. Lane about the same time that he bought the Lanes' home and expanded it into more or less the house that we see today as the Hastings mansion. Presumably renters that I've been unable to identify thus far lived in the house instead.

Is It Ever Done Done?

This post pretty much sums my current mind state up.  We have a second and final tenant moving into the house sometime this week.  She's pretty gung ho -- and that's pretty cool.  But she wants to move in right now and we're not ready.

There's a lesson here about the road to hell and home renovation, but I'll spare you guys.  All you need to know is that absolutely nothing is done.  We had fantasies, and you know what they say about fantasies. 

Oh, but we did get some stuff done.  We now have a bathroom painted Cornsilk and a mossy greenish front-room carpet in the rental side.  Good stuff.  

Small Towns

Holy Schmiscuit, Batman!

I don't think it was clear to me before I moved here exactly how small the Happy Valley is.

It's this small -- so small that my hiring was announced in the local paper!

Horses: To Have and Have Not

I had been in the process of planning to bring my horse, who had to stay behind in Georgia until after final frost to reduce the chances of colic, to Happy Valley, when ironically he colicked and died. I now have to go back to Georgia to pack up his things, among other things. So this will be a combination commentary on horse facilities in Happy Valley and a sort of memorial commentary.

First, Happy Valley is gorgeous and land is actually supposedly more expensive, but also more available than it was in Georgia. So when I started looking around for the right barn for my boy, I was immediately able to find a few places in the are that would take him and sounded more or less appropriate to what we were doing. However, in general I've noticed that Happy Valley isn't as internet-savvy as Athens -- most businesses lack a web presence, and are kind of hard to identify by remote means. In other words, you gotta network.

But networking turned up a number of acceptable facilities, and it also turned up some hidden options, such as renting an entire barn at the base of Tussey Mountain or share boarding on the edge of state lands, which of course one has to share with hunters but are gorgeous. Anyway, not that it matters right now, but I did find better options than in Georgia. I have to think about whether I want another horse, and when I might want one, but it sounds like when I am ready, I will have good options.

The Lanes, 1896 to 1948

The record on the Lane family is a complicated one, with several sales. Yet, for over 50 years the house was occupied by various members of the Lane family.

Patty and James Eldridge sold the house to William and Alta McClure in 1948.

Patty Eldridge was the sole heir of Elliott Eskridge Lane, and inherited the house at Lane's death in 1948. Elliott Lane bought the house at a public sale in 1942, when its value was thought to be about $6,500 -- Lane paid $5,000. At the time, it officially belonged to Elliott and several of his siblings, including Martha Lane/Pattie Lane Fay, Fred Lane, James B. Lane, and John H. Love. (Their parents, John Lane and Louisa Lane having presumably moved to what would eventually be Governor Hastings's mansion.)

The group had inherited the house in 1913, from J.H. Sands, when Sands died and the Pennsylvania orphans' court distributed it to the group. A notation in a historical text notes that J.H. Sands was also a relative -- his daughter was Mrs. John Lane.

The Lane family has an interesting connection to President James Buchanan, as well as some of the other movers and shakers of Pennsylvania history, such as Daniel Hastings. From Memories from Another Era: a complete collection of the articles written by Charles A. Mensch on his memories of growing up in Bellefonte, 1995:

“Living next to the Sieberts was the family of Mr. and Mrs. John Lane and their two sons, Fred and Elliott, and Mrs. Lane’s father, J.H. Sands, who had owned a bakery, later purchased by Joseph Ceader, in what was known as the Sands block on S. Allegheny Street (where the Fountain restaurant is now located). Mr. Lane was related to Harriet Lane, a niece of President James Buchanan, who served as the official hostess of the White House during her bachelor uncle’s administration. A bookcase, one of two which stood on each side of the fireplace in “Wheatland,” the President’s ancestral home and birthplace near Lancaster, was given by heirs of the Lane family to the Bellefonte Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The local chapter had it restored to its original beauty and presented it to the State and National DAR. The bookcase is now part of the completely restored shrine honoring the first and only native-born Pennsylvanian to become the nation’s chief executive.

Before the house came into the ownership of the Lanes, however, it was occupied by them. In 1896 the house was sold to J.L. Spangler and J. H. Sands by Daniel Hastings. However, the 1900 census makes it evident that the occupants of the home were the Lanes. At the time, they included:

• John N. Lane, a 48 year-old male


• Louisa S. Lane, a 40 year-old female


• Eskridge Lane, a 12 year-old male


• Fred Lane, a 15 year-old male

This situation is one of the fun things about the house -- since it is a double house, at various points it has been occupied by renters. Spangler, for example, probably never lived there, since records indicate that he lived elsewhere. More on him later.