The 228th Christmas in the Enos Kellogg House

Christmas 2011

As much as I like to stay true to the 18th century period of the house, I make a big exception when it comes to Christmas time.  Christmas in New England in the 1780s just wasn't sufficiently festive for my tastes, and I can't imagine forgoing a glowing tree for the joys of a full day in church and maybe a piece of candy or fruit.  To be fair, Enos Kellogg and his contemporaries didn't have the benefits of electricity, injection moulded plastic and recorded music, each of which lend their unique charms to our modern Christmas.  Hell, they didn't even have Santa to spearhead the whole initiative.  Sure, there was St. Nicholas, but the original St. Nick lacked the panache of Santa (by the way, let's take a minute to thank Thomas Nast, Clement Clarke Moore and Coca Cola for the gift of the man in red, as we know him today).  Nonetheless, sometimes modern life is just unquestionably superior to those happy golden days of yore, and Christmas, like indoor bathrooms, falls squarely into that category.

That said, contemporary, 21st century style Christmas is not my thing either.  As far as I'm concerned, the Christmas aesthetic peaked in the 1930s and 40s.  Granted, this is no doubt informed by too many viewings of A Christmas Story and Miracle on 34th Street (the original 1947 version starring the definitive silver screen Santa, Edmund Gwenn, not the abomination of a remake from 1994).  Still, all-white Christmas tree lights, jewel-colored LEDs, designer-trees bedecked in gold ribbons, and Justin Bieber Christmas songs leave me cold.  I need hot-burning C6 lights from the '40s (preferably bubble lights), mismatched ornaments, tinsel, and the classic Bing Crosby holiday catalog.

My favorite ornament - a gift when I was 8.

So, this year's main Harrington Christmas tree is lit by approximately 100 vintage lights (on dimmers so as not to set the place afire), including 25 bubble lights from the late 1940s.  Ornaments include a hodgepodge of decorations that range from some early glass ornaments the my parents gave us, to some 50s and 60s favorites that hung on my grandparents tree when I was young, to a small group that Jenny gave me for our first Christmas together in 1994, to  a paper plate wreath that our daughter Brooksie made this year.  There is no theme, certainly no sophistication, and the only thing that unifies the tree is the tinsel that covers everything.  Still, it all works together, as far as I am concerned. 

Living Room Hearth - Stockings Hung with Care

As you can see, the rest of the house gets the full vintage Christmas in Connecticut treatment, as well.  Greens from our yard, antique Santas, snowmen, sleigh bells and, of course, the Christmas Garden all get their due.  Did I mention the second tree in our den? Suffice it to say, we have a lot of ornaments.  Don't ask how many plastic tubs all of this stuff fills up in the off-season. 

While it may not feel like it when we're in our dirty second floor crawlspace pulling out container after container of decorations, it's a labor of love, and the resulting excitement of our kids, which manifests itself in almost a full month of frenzied singing, dancing and sundry Christmas spirit makes it well worth the work. 

So, while I take a pass on authentic colonial Christmas, I can't imagine spending Christmas anywhere other than in our old house.   For making it possible, and with apologies to Charles Dickens, raise a glass of Christmas cheer, and I'll give you Mr. Kellogg, the Founder of the Feast!


Merry Christmas!

Vintage Santa and nativity set (thanks, Mom) on the pewter cupboard

The Corner Cupboard

Snow babies and pewter measures, a Christmas present from Jenny a few years ago

Santas and Stoneware

Antique Carousel and Bottle Brush Trees

Dining Room Pewter Cupoard

Tree #2

The Christmas Garden

Christmas Gardens - Hop a Train to Old Baltimore

It being December and all, I am going to briefly switch tracks from my normal old house ramblings to pay homage to my favorite of all Christmas traditions - the Christmas Garden.

 

 

For those of you who are conjuring up visions of poinsettias, holly bushes or some sort of festive horticultural extravaganza, please accept my most sincere sympathies for the deprivation that you have so clearly endured in your life.  On the other hand, for those enlightened souls who immediately picture the sparkle of mica on a well-worn cardboard house, smell a fleeting whiff of ozone from an ancient Lionel transformer, or hear the unmistakable Baltimore accent of a long-forgotten neighbor, I hope that you will grab a glass of egg nog and sit down to watch the trains while I school our less fortunate friends.

According to the Encyclopaedia Kriskringlia, a Christmas Garden is defined as a miniature village set up at Christmas time, located either beneath the Christmas tree or on a raised wooden platform, and encircled by an electric train.  Actually, I made up the reference book (how can Wikipedia not have a Christmas Garden entry?), but the definition holds true despite its questionable source.  

Sparkle, sparkle!

At its most mundane level, a Christmas Garden can be nothing more than a few Department 56 buildings and a new-from-WalMart train set (this qualifies as a Christmas Garden only technically, and certainly not in spirit).  At the other extreme, it can be a display large enough to fill an entire fire station, and requiring hundreds of man hours to erect (check out the Wise Avenue Fire Department in Dundalk, MD, one of the few remaining public meccas of Christmas Gardendom). Whether large or small, however, when artfully executed, a Christmas Garden can be transcendent - a melting pot of ingenuity, nostalgia, childish wonder and manifest Christmas spirit.

Boring Historical Perspective
(If you are in a hurry, feel free to skip this section, like that interminable discourse on whaling in Moby Dick that nobody ever reads,  whoops, too late, you've already come this far so might as well keep reading . . . )

These displays surfaced in America in the 19th century, brought to the Mid Atlantic region by German immigrants.  The once static village scenes took on new life in the Victorian era with the arrival of electric toy trains.  As Marx, Lionel and American Flyer made these trains more accessible in the early 20th century, the stage was set for the golden age of the Christmas Garden.  Sometimes referred to as Christmas villages, train gardens, or Putzes (shout out to my large readership of Pennsylvanian Moravians), they flourished in Maryland as Christmas Gardens, and remained stalwarts of the Christmas season around Baltimore through 1960s.

The Baltimore Christmas Garden

Born in 1972, I missed the heyday of the Christmas Garden.  Once upon a time, as the legend goes, every fire department in the area featured its own elaborate Christmas Garden (a few still do), as did many private homes.  My grandmother used to tell us about her father's Depression-era garden, which featured moving playground equipment and other motorized scenes.  Sadly, no pieces of that garden made their way down my branch of the family tree.  Still, my grandparents always had a train around their tree, and I remember a second garden with old Lionel trains in their basement at Christmastime when I was very young, as well as a more elaborate, multi-level garden in the house across the street.  For a 6 year old boy, there probably is nothing cooler than getting hopped up on Christmas candy and watching trains fly around a track next to a Christmas tree the week before Christmas.

From the time I lived in my first apartment in New York City, I have always had a train around the tree, and was a little surprised that this wasn't part of Christmas everywhere.  Like sauerkraut at Thanksgiving dinner (weird, but true), it is one of the things that is so imbued in you growing up in Maryland, that you just assume that it is universal.

A few years ago, with a house of my own, I decided that it was time to set up a proper Christmas Garden.  So, with a few pieces from my parents and grandparents, and with lots of help from eBay, I got to work.  Having built my own garden,  I obviously am now an authority, and have a boundless font of wisdom from which to fill your eager minds.  So, get out your pencil and take notes.

Hey, Kids - You Can Build your own Christmas Garden Right at Home!
While much of the beauty of the Christmas Garden comes from the individuality that is reflected in each display, there are a few key ingredients that I think are necessary for a classic Baltimore Christmas Garden.  These are: 

• Trains - old, metal and preferably Lionel.  The engine should smoke and the cars should light up;
• Buildings - glittery, mica-covered houses of all shapes and sizes.  Houses, churches, stores and a train station at a minimum.  These need to be lit up from the inside to show off the colored cellophane windows;
• Accessories - Old metal cars, people and signs, woolly sheep and celluloid animals are a must.  Scale does not matter and mixing large and small items without regard to their relative  proportions in the real world seems to enhance the overall feel;
• Nativity Scene - big and centrally located is best.  It is Christmas, after all, and gardens started out as quasi-religious displays.
• Santa Claus - include as many as possible around the garden;
• Snow - cotton, soap flakes, glitter, spray-can snow, even plain old white paint.  It is always snowing somewhere in a Christmas Garden;

• Animation - something should move.  Skaters spinning around, Santa's sleigh circling overhead, cars moving on a road, whatever.  Bonus points if you make it yourself.
• Local color - include a friend's name on a sign, a copy of a local building, or street signs from your town.  Cleverness counts;
• Scenery - a pond and a tunnel are required.  No exceptions.  Bottle brush trees should be used lavishly;
• Extra Credit: use red brick-printed corrugated cardboard rolls to wrap around the garden to hide the plywood and wiring.

So, there you have it.  The Christmas Garden in all of its holiday splendor.  Now, go get out your grandfather's Lionel trains and set them up around the tree.  I'll be working alongside you in spirit.  Having missed my self-imposed schedule of setting up the Christmas Garden the Saturday after Thanksgiving (much to my 2 year old's disappointment), my project for the week is to get everything up and running by the weekend. 

Here is a picture of last year's finished product to help inspire your Christmas Garden green thumb.

What am I Bid? Auctions and Old Houses

 I saw a post concerning auctions on another old house (and more) blog that I really like (www.katyelliott.com), and got to thinking about how integral a role auctions have played in our old house.

First, let me say that I love auctions.  Ebay, country auctions, major auction houses, I love them all.  Why?  Not to sound like Charlie Sheen, but it's all about winning.  Jenny has often tried to convince me that competing for the privilege of paying money for something is not winning.  To quote Ned Flanders, that's stinkin' thinkin'. 

Auctions are an American institution.  They are a test of fortitude, strategy, patience, knowledge and luck.  Sadly, they are also often a showdown between my meager funds and the bottomless pockets of a dealer whose hedge fund manager client has authorized him to spend indiscriminately to make his country estate have that charmingly rustic feel of a Ralph Lauren store.  Like that redneck facing off on tractors against Wren McCormick, that is a battle that I am not going to win (Let me be clear that this is an allusion to the one-and-only "real" Footloose, starring Kevin Bacon and featuring the inimitable musical stylings of Mr. Kenny Loggins and Shalomar, and not to that 2011 upstart starring I don't care who and featuring the music of some country singers that I vaguely know.  But, I digress.  Now, back to our program.)  Still, if you are patient enough to follow the right auctions and wait for something to slip through the cracks, you can find some great stuff at very reasonable prices.  We have furnished and decorated our house that way - tables, chairs, corner cupboards, pewter cupboards, beds, pottery, artwork, fireplace accessories, bric-a-brac (mostly bric-a-brac), all from auctions.  I'd say about 75% of the decor of our house is auction-sourced, and I'm always on the lookout for a chance to upgrade when an opportunity presents itself.  If you are restoring an old house, auctions can also be a great place to get hardware and other architectural items that you might need in the restoration.  I've gotten lots of period iron hinges and latches at auction for way less than I would pay retail.

Based on my experience, there are a few keys to success at auctions.  First, you need to know what you want.  Educate yourself in your areas of interest so that you can make smart decisions.  The internet is an unbeatable tool for this, although it is helpful to go to antique shows in person to look at retail prices and talk to dealers.  Most dealers are more than happy to share their knowledge with you.

Second, you need to know what you are bidding on.  Preview the auction in person if you can, or check out the often detailed internet listings and catalogs.  Check old auction results to see what similar items have sold for recently.  Ask questions - once you have bought it (won it), there are no backsies.

Third, you need to know where you are bidding.  Some auction houses always have price estimates that are way, way too low.  It's miserable to get excited about an item only to see it sell for many multiples of the expected price, but it is pretty common.  Some auctions are frequented by big-spending dealers.  Some auctions are off the beaten path and can be a great place to score good deals.  Remember to check out auctions that are not local.  I have gotten the best deals on New England pieces at auctions in the South.  Even after factoring in shipping, you can still come out far ahead when the auction location and the item that you want are uncorrelated.

Finally, know how much you are willing to pay.  It's very easy to get caught up in the competition and bid more than you would, in your right mind, ever spend on something.  Leaving a maximum bid either directly with the auction house or on the internet is a great way to not get carried away.  It also helps to have a spouse who will kill you if you spend a ridiculous amount on something.

Auctions can be nerve wracking and frustrating when you miss out on something that you have your heart set on, but they're also a lot of fun.  You never know when that deep-pocketed dealer will be off at the restroom and you are able to buy something that you love for a song.  And, as my wife likes to point out, and for all of you hippies out there, auctions are green - the ultimate in recycling. 

So, bid well, but for the love of God, please don't bid against me.

Now, since we've established that you won't drive up the prices on me, here are some of my favorite auctions:

Northeast Auctions - Amazing Americana and early American furniture, heavy on New England.   www.northeastauctions.com

Skinner - Holds both really high end auctions and more accessible discovery auctions.  www.skinnerinc.com

Garths - Focused on Ohio items, but great Americana, too.  www.garths.com

Eldred's Auction -  New England furniture and 18th/19th century accessories, with a Massachusetts focus.   www.eldreds.com

Crocker Farm - Premier dealer in redware and stoneware - leave the Norwalk pieces for me, please!  www.crockerfarm.com

Pook and Pook - The creme de la creme of early Americana, with prices to match.  Still, the catalog itself is an educational tool.  www.pookandpook.com

Nadeau's Auctions - Eclectic auctions with often affordable antique furniture.  www.nadeausauction.com

Ebay - Everything and anything goes.  If you need the link for this one or the one below, I'm afraid I cannot help you. 

Artfact.com - Online aggregator of auctions.  Save search criteria and the site will email you when something of interest is up for auction. 

Mr. Kellogg Goes to Washington

Huzzah!  I was going to say Yea!, but thought that I would kick it 18th century style in honor of our house. 

We got our approval from Connecticut's National Register of Historic Places Review Board last Thursday.  Our house's nomination will next be sent on by the state Historic Preservation Office to the Department of the Interior for final review and inclusion on the National Register.  This is supposedly pretty much a formality - nominations are not supposed to be sent out by the state until they are a slam dunk, but I'm always skeptical until things are officially official.

The Review Board meeting in Hartford was actually pretty interesting.  There were three Historic District nominations presented before our house, and it was a unique opportunity to hear a group of very distinguished architects, historians and archaeologists provide their thoughts an opinions on some fascinating buildings and historic sites.  The Review board does a lot of preparation work.  They had five nominations to read and they clearly had read and thought about each with care and interest.

Our review was, thankfully, pretty tame.  I briefly introduced the property and the reasons for nomination, and, upon request, shared the story of our acquisition of the Victorian-era photo album of our house that my parents found last year.  You, of course, already know this story, having feverishly read and re-read each and every post in this blog, right?   If not, go back to my March 2010 postings.  Do not pass Go, and do not collect $200 dollars.  Say 3 Hail Marys, and sin not again. 

The Review Board had lots of compliments (apparently, it is very uncommon for homeowners to prepare their own nominations, and even rarer for them to do this and not embarrass themselves), and only a few suggestions.  Specifically, they wanted me to include more of the old pictures of the house in the nomination, and to draw more attention to the Hudson Valley influences that are present in our house.  As it turns out, the architectural and design influence of the Hudson Valley on Connecticut is a hot topic in architectural historian circles in Connecticut.  No doubt, you have been following the debate on Twitter.  Happily, even the self-described nit-picker on the board had found no typos, which would have really bothered me.

Anyway, that was it.  Nomination approved unanimously.  After I make the few changes to the document, it all gets printed up on archival paper, and two copies and a CD go to the state for onward distribution to the Department of the Interior.  They have a 45 day turn-around time for nominations, so I'm tentatively planning a plaque-unveiling for late winter.

Wouldn't this be a sassy addition to the front of our house?

The only downside to the day was when I learned from a Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation representative that they would no longer be offering barn preservation grants for private structures.  Since that was the whole reason I started down the National Register road, that was a bummer.  Oh well.  Times are tight and funding for old barns isn't at the top of most people's agendas (including mine), so I can understand it.  I'll just need to buy some extra duct tape to try to hold the barn together until my inevitable lottery win allows for a proper restoration.

Reaching for the Bronze Plaque

Jenny and I are heading up to Hartford tomorrow morning to listen to the state Review Board weigh in on our home's nomination for the National Register of Historic Places.

I spent a long time working on the nomination form (with some key help from my friend Tod Bryant), which we had to submit to the State Historic Preservation Office in August.  We also had a pre-submission site review by the state during the summer.  From what I have been told, our nomination should be well received, but it's still a little nerve wracking.

If the state approves our nomination, it goes on to the U.S. Department of the Interior for final review in the next few months (why does this sentence make me think of the classic "I'm Just a Bill" song from Schoolhouse Rock?).  After that comes a month of hazing, the probationary period, and finally the revelation of the secret National Register handshake.

Off to the Dept. of the Interior?

The process is long, and requires more paperwork than I have had to deal with since applying to college.  And for all of that work, if you make the cut, you have to purchase that nice plaque yourself.  That hardly seems fair.  That said, it would be an honor for the house to be recognized, and it provides a small extra layer of protection for our property should the state ever want to do something like run a highway through our property, which actually happened in the 1930s, when Connecticut appropriated part of "our" farm for the Merritt Parkway, a road which itself is now on the National Register of Historic Places.   My hope is that it also might make it a little easier for us to access some grant money to stabilize our badly deteriorated 18th century barn in the next few years.   We shall see.   In the meantime, please cross your virtual fingers for us.

Nota bene: Most people seem to think that being on the National Register ties your hand with regard to working on your house, but that certainly is not the case.  The current This Old House series in Bedford, Massachusetts disproves that theory - that house is on the National Register, and they are doing a lot of work that is really more renovation than period restoration.  Sadly, it is not even unprecedented for buildings on the National Register to be demolished. The publicity from something like that can't be good, however, so would-be condominium developers and those interested in bulldozing an old house  and building a McMansion (if either of these species still exist today) need not apply at our door.

Snow Miser vs. the Great Pumpkin

We carved some great jack-o-lanterns this year - one for each family member and a joint entry for our cats.  Feel free to vote for your favorite.  Sadly, as usual, there were no trick-or-treaters to admire our pagan handicraft.  For some strange reason, even the most maniacal candy-seekers seem to be turned off by dark, dead-end streets with cemeteries and old houses on them.  Go figure. 

In any event, more candy for us.   Mmmmm.  Twix.

To top it all off, Saturday's snowstorm brought down so many branches and power lines that all of the towns in the area decided to "postpone" Halloween until Saturday.  I thought that only the Grinch was sufficiently deranged to believe that he held such sway over the holidays, but apparently the Snow Miser and his local politician minions have similar delusions of grandeur.  I think that there might be the makings of a claymation holiday special somewhere in all of this meterological madness. 

Thanks, G.P.

Luckily, our premature snowification didn't take too large a toll on the property - we lost a huge branch from an elm tree and a few boxwoods that were already looking pretty raggedy, but otherwise we are in good shape.  We even managed to keep our power.  Sincere thanks to the Great Pumpkin, who must have recognized us as the most sincere pumpkin patch in the area and staved off any real damage.

Happy Halloween!

October 30?!

American Horror Story

Watching four episides of American Horror Story the week before Halloween is making me think about the people who preceeded us in our house in a new way.  I might have to think twice before going into our semi-creepy basement at night, as I really would not like to run into anything like this:

Halloween around the House

The leaves in southern Connecticut are finally starting to change, and much to our kids' delight, the Halloween decorations are up at the house.  Since they're only 2 and 4 years old, we can't really spookify the place too much, so we'll stick with some vintage decorations and a bunch of pumpkins for now.

40s or 50s Paper Party Hat

Oreo, the Halloween Black (and White) Cat

Archaeology 101, or Get a Real Job, Hippie!

I'm going to go on the record here and state that our house is a cruel tease.  For as long as we have lived in the house, I have desperately wanted to find something really cool buried in our yard.  I'm not talking about real buried treasure (although let me make it totally clear to the powers that be that if my shovel should happen upon a cache of gold coins, I will reluctantly embrace the find).  All I'm looking for are a few colonial coins, some intact pottery, even an arrow head or two.  Just the little tangibles that provide a link to the people who lived on the property in the 18th and 19th centuries.

While we have found a few neat items, including a beautiful cobalt ink well, some early clay marbles, and iron strap hinges and tool parts, for the most part, the property has been pretty stingy with us.

This is particularly disappointing given the lengths to which I have gone to uncover the artifacts that our yard must contain.  When we put an addition on our house five years ago, I over-enthusiastically instructed the excavator to pile the fill that was removed from the newly dug basement in our side yard, so that I would be able to sift the dirt for stuff.  As the basement was being dug, it seemed like everywhere I look there were pottery shards, glass, metal and other artifacts.  No doubt, there would be lots of even better stuff in the big pile of dirt that now stood next to our house.  So, I started sifting.  I don't know how many of you have watched archaeologists sift for artifacts on TV, or at Jamestown or places like that, but the reality is that the process sucks.  I quickly found that it takes a brutally large amount of time to work your way through even a small amount of dirt, especially when the dirt contains lots of gravel and rocks.  To be sure, I found some interesting things - bits of local redware, stoneware, some decent sized pieces of green hand-blown bottles and some cool china pieces, but really all I was finding  was old trash.  And this is not to disparage old trash.  Old trash can tell you a lot about the past.  If you haven't read it, I recommend James Dietz's fantastic book, In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life, to find out what I mean.  That said, there is only so much broken trash that a person can take before they throw in the towel.  Which is pretty much what I did after a few months.  And which is why "The Dirt Mound" continues to stand in our side yard, an eternal testament to my archaeological hubris.  From time to time I will take a few wheelbarrows of dirt to fill in a hole somewhere in our yard, and our kids love running down the mound at full speed and digging around the mound to find "Daddy's treasures", a phrase that sounds genuine when they say it, and more than a little sarcastic when used by Jenny.

While Jenny gently teases (mocks) me for the Dirt Mound, she is the one who retained the services of a metal detecting enthusiast at a silent auction, so she shares some culpability for our local (and predictably disappointing) National Treasure sequel.  Sadly, the semi-pro detector guy had just as bad luck on our property as I have had.  Among his paltry finds were a sheet of lead, a dog tag from the 1950s, a few axe head (old, but not that old), and a round metal disk that was the right size, metal and color to have been an 18th century coin, but which had been rubbed flat to the point that it was impossible to identify.  More old trash.

"Treasure" Hunting

The closest I have come to finding anything useful in the dirt was a cache of pottery shards, glass and bones that turned up under a circa 1840s entry hall on the side of the house.  As we were repairing the foundation around this structure, a few tantalizing pieces of Norwalk redware plates emerged, followed by some broken slip decorated stoneware and broken case bottles (and some creepy, unidentified bones).  Thinking that I was finally going to hit the jackpot, I excavated under the hallway, a process better suited to a small, double-jointed child than to someone of my size.  Still, I dug every piece of trash out from under that house, but never did encounter one complete item.

Still, hope springs eternal.  There are old wells and privies on the property to be dug (seriously, digging up old outhouses is generally considered to be the most likely way to find "good stuff" at an old house), and I may be only a shovelful of dirt away from finding that buried musket, figural flask, 18th century plate or diamond ring.

In the meantime, I will continue to fill container after container with broken glass and pottery, and to gaze in awe at the beauty of brilliant autumn sun setting behind the Dirt Mound.

Birdseye Views - Play Along at Home

I thought that I would pass along a great link for those people who are researching their old houses.  www.historicaerials.com makes available aerial photos of geographic locations from various times in the past.  For my house, they have overhead pictures from 1934, 1949, 1960, 1974 and 2006.  Pretty amazing to see the land change incrementally from wide open farmland to New York City suburb over a period of 70 years.  Particularly interesting is how long this location maintained its rural landscape.  Through 1960, my property consisted largely of open fields, stone walls and agricultural structures.  Pretty amazing.  Sadly, I can't paste in a picture here, but this link shows the Enos Kellogg Homestead property in 1934:

http://www.historicaerials.com/api/img-server.php?op=fetchHistoricPhotograph&bbox=-73.4613987412072,41.136469353837,-73.4528468642608,41.127988348799&year=1934&stamp=true

Check out your old house's address - very cool.  Now if only I could get back all those wide open acres . . .

A Cavalcade of Pictures!

Better late than never.  I am backfilling photos on my last few posts, which were tragically short on anything other than text.  So, even if no one is reading this blog, at least we will have a visual record of what we have done on the house over the past ten years.  This batch covers the recently completed work in the living room, entry hall and den.  I am throwing in a few pictures of reproduction lighting fixtures that we have installed over the past ten years for good measure.

Remember, if you like it then you shoulda put a comment on it . . .

Living Room and Entry Hall

Living Room

Restored Board-and-Batten Door to Entry Hall

19th Century Corner Cupboard

Hydrangeas from Jenny's Garden

Living Room, with 18th Century Ladderback Chair from Stratford, CT Area

Newly Restored Entry Hall

Wood Lantern, Converted to Sconce

All Lit Up

Entry Hall Peg Rack with Carved Wooden Hooks

Newly Painted Fron Door with Original Hardware

Iron Strap Hinges

18th Century Door - Original to House

Early October Fire

George Washington Andirons

Original Cooking Hearth