Newborn House Restoration

Andi works to smooth and repair the plaster on the arch in the downstairs hall.

Hello, dear readers. First, I apologize for leaving you to wonder for so long about the progess of our work on the Newborn house. Many of you have inquired about our progress. Thank you for your interest and your patience.

At the moment, I’m on a plane somewhere over Texas. That means I can’t be running any wire, repairing any plaster or painting anything. (At least, I hope there’s nothing on this plane that needs repairing!) That also means that I have time to write to you about some of our recent progress.

The main news that you may not have heard is that we moved into the house about a month ago. Our earlier restoration work had been done while we were still living in the log cabin back up in Rockdale County. When that property finally sold, we made the move to Newborn.

After about a month, we are feeling right at home in the new, old, unfinished house. It’s great. Many of the boxes are still packed, sitting in the upstairs hall and front bedroom. One side of the unfinished dining room is packed with dining room stuff and the other side is packed with tools, supplies and other equipment.

Status of other areas:

- The kitchen is complete (except for grouting of the new antique tile on the fireplace).

- The parlor, master bedroom and hall bath are completely complete.

- Upstairs, Candice’s room and the sewing room are functional, but not yet repainted and refinished.

- Yesterday, I finished the last of the low-voltage wiring. We now have cable/satellite, telephone and wireless internet throughout the house.

- There’s still a good bit of electrical work to be done, but much of the wiring for the interior lighting is complete. Most every room now has overhead lighting and working outlets throughout. We are still looking for just the right light fixtures for the house. Andi found a great, crystal chandelier for the entry hall at an estate sale over in Social Circle. For the rest of the rooms, we are using a bare bulb until we find just the right fixture for each room.

The current major project is to complete the downstairs hall. Andi ripped down the ugly old (but not period) wallpaper and has started repairing the plaster and cleaning. The goal is to have the hall completed by Christmas.

Also, we have found a local contractor who will be here in the next couple of weeks to get started on some clearing and excavation work. All of the underbrush, overgrowth and dead tress will be removed from the backside of the property. Around the house, he’ll remove some old rock walls, solve some draining problems and fill the old well. That should make a huge difference.

When we bought the house, we figured that it would take about a year to restore the house. So far, we are about nine months into the project. We are no longer working on an overall timeline. It’ll take as long as it takes to do it right.

I can’t promise that I’ll be more timely in my postings, but I will do my best to keep you updated as we reach the major milestones and completion points. Stay tuned.