We Love Company

Yesterday the Wirths who grew up in the house stopped by for a visit. I was kind of nervous since a lot of the house has changed since they lived there. But they seemed excited about the work that was being done.

They too said that the outhouse was off of the north-west corner of the house. So I guess I had better get into gear (a little motivation Greg?) and get that moved and fixed up before the weather changes. They also told the story of how they used the room that is now Tim's office as in "indoor bathroom" when it got too cold out for the outhouse and before there actually was indoor plumbing in the house. I think it's great how much that grosses out Tim :) I've been thinking about running out to the barn and getting a bucket and an old toilet seat and putting them in the middle of the room for when he gets home tonight, hee hee.

They said that the cement foundation was put on the barn while they lived there which we knew, but they said that it originally the boards went all of the way to the ground. How they put the foundation in was to brace up the barn and cut off the bottom of the boards where it had rotted. They then poured the foundation and set the barn back on it. When the foundation was done was probably the last time the thing was roofed and painted too.

I think my favorite comment that they made was walking into the kitchen someone said how it still looks like a farm house kitchen. Then they told the story of their mother's new kitchen table and how she got so disgusted with the old one she threw it down the basement stairs and it broke into splinters. It was just great because you know how much I love kitchen tables.

Something I think is interesting too is how the people who lived here previously notice different things that other guests do. Usually the first comment when seeing the kitchen is about the tin on the ceiling. Their comment on the ceiling was remembering how high it used to be and how they would paint a band around the walls to try to "bring it down."

Another discovery we made was that the window in the north side of the upstairs hall was shortened sometime after they left. While in the pantry they commented that there was always a problem with leaks from that roof. And when we went upstairs they noticed that that window was shortened. We knew that because you could tell from the framing when we took the walls out. However we just assumed that the window was shortened when the pantry addition was put on the house. Now we know it was done at a much later time due to the roof pitch being changed to fix a leak problem.

They had many more wonderful stories of growing up here. And as they left they wished us a life as full of happiness in the house as they had.

Thank you!