Old House Handyman: Fearless mothers take on home fixes
Happy Mother’s Day to moms everywhere, especially my mom and the mother of my children.
I have learned a lot about old-house renovation and remodeling from my mom, whose greatest contribution to my toolbox is fearlessness when it comes to tackling a project. Mom instilled that in my two sisters and me, and my bride has passed that same fearlessness to our three daughters.
Example: If Mom decided she no longer liked the paint color in a room in our house, she would order up some paint, prep the walls, toss around some drop cloths and tear into that project. Next thing you know, the living room was a delightfully sunny shade of yellow.
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And don’t get between her and wallpaper that has worn out its welcome – or multiple layers of it, in some cases. She’d steam and sweat the offending pattern until it confessed to being ugly and fell off the walls behind her rapier-like scraper.
But there was nothing quite like the project she and my stepdad took on a few decades ago. They bought a property in the Holmes County village of Winesburg that came with a big, thicket-covered yard and two houses built in the 1840s.
The two houses are so close together that they share a wall – probably built so that, back in the day, a young family could have its own space while looking out for grandma and grandpa in the smaller house next door.
Picture two houses so old that they were built with hand-hewn logs held together with wooden pegs – and “insulation” in the walls made of mud mixed with straw. Plaster had been smeared on top of all of that to make a smooth interior surface.
By the time Mom and Bill bought the place, it needed everything – plumbing, wiring, roofing and gardening of a magnitude beyond comprehension.
Somewhere in a pile of VHS tapes at our house, we have the initial tour of the houses. I gave a running monologue that consisted largely of me saying things like, “Oh, boy, that needs a lot of work,” or “Wow, will you look at that!”
And that was coming from a guy who, with his bride, had seen a lot of significant challenges in the 1870 house they were renovating in Granville and, before that, the 1876 house they had renovated in Newark.
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In both cases, I occasionally would uncover a frightening electrical connection and could be heard muttering things like, “Oh, my God, I can’t believe this house hasn’t burned down.”
Mom and Bill were undaunted. And they transformed their old place into a beautiful, historic home and a shop where Bill did his artistry carving fireplace mantles from old wood, bird baths and eagles from sandstone, and an amazing collection of bronze sculptures.
Meanwhile, my bride tore into projects in our old houses. She stripped wallpaper, just like my mom would do, and applied new wallpaper when the mood struck. Our little girls, the youngest not even 3 years old, helped strip the old wallpaper while we reminded them repeatedly that they could only do that with the old paper – not the new wall coverings.
Growing up around two women who fearlessly dive into home-renovation projects has instilled in our three daughters the same fearlessness. They might not always know exactly what they need to do – before doing a lot of research – but they know that they can do it.
They have all the important tools: The ability to ask questions that lead to the proper way to attack a project and with which materials and implements, and the confidence to move forward after they have clear directions.
On top of all of that, my mom and bride are two of the best chefs ever. They are as fearless in the kitchen as they are in tackling old-house projects. My two sisters, my three daughters and I witnessed and learned all of that, too.
I’m blessed to be surrounded by such amazing women.
Alan D. Miller is a former Dispatch editor who teaches journalism at Denison University and writes about old house repair and historic preservation based on personal experiences and questions from readers.
@youroldhouse
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Old House Handyman: How moms made a home better
