The house next door is getting a major facelift and in the process its façade is being removed. Let me explain.
First of all, the home next door belongs to our eldest son and his family; next, our granddaughter, just back from university, has been hired by her parents to finish tearing off stucco covering up the original wood siding. Once that's done she'll clean and paint the wood in a colour that coincides with the original Heritage Townsite's Arts and Crafts style. This restoration of majestic old homes has become a community commitment and it's exciting to see buildings and yards coming back to their original beauty.
Ripping off the stucco didn't only reveal the wooden siding however; it has resulted in the discovery of a unique feature of these homes: a screen-covered opening in one of the exterior pantry walls. In the corresponding spot on the interior wall is a sliding door just big enough to cover that hole. Shelves in that particular cupboard are made of slats rather than a solid piece of wood. As you may have guessed, a hole in the wall provided the homemaker her pre-electric refrigerator.
Over the course of the past eleven years this son and his family have spent a lot of hours and money in restoring both the inside and outside of their property to what it once was. During the course of it all they've discovered, renovated, revitalized and reworked the original materials to bring them back to their intended purpose. It's been painstaking work but the results are beautiful.
I'm not sure about you but there are days when life feels like one major renovation process. Whether the unplanned twists and turns turn out to be positive or painful, how we react will determine the ultimate results.
"Let integrity and uprightness preserve me."
