I have always dreamt of having a big old farmhouse like the one my dad grew up in on the hill near Oak. I’m not sure where I got my taste in architecture from, but I am obsessed with anything that predates 1900. The wrap-around porches, the ornate carvings, crown molding, and last but not least, hand-painted and velveteen wallpaper! So many people have no clue what I am talking about when I say velveteen wallpaper. Maybe I have the name wrong, but it had areas of raised velvet in the paper, so cool!

When George and I met, I was living in my childhood home in Oak. The house needed so much, and we didn’t have the money to put into it. So regrettably, I sold the house, and we moved to Nelson. (I still kick myself for that one.) We moved into the little apartment complex on Fourth Street and either put our belongings into storage or sold them. We dreamt of our own forever home but were turned down for loan after loan.

Apparently, divorce, bankruptcy, and child support do not give lenders a happy, joyful feeling. Who would have thought it!

So when our friends decided to sell their little house on Second Street and offered to finance us, we jumped on it. There was no kitchen, the bathroom was a bit of a nightmare and the second bedroom had plaster falling from the ceiling in chunks. At this point, we were still broke as a joke, and we now had yet another bill to pay.

Somehow we made it work and expected this to be our forever home. The only problem with it is that it’s only two bedrooms, and we have four kids between the two of us (six if you count my two bonus kids.) I thought since the kids were growing and would be out of the house soon, we would manage, but they come home bringing several in tow now. Around the holidays, the house gets crazy. I have had to literally climb over bodies to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night! Not to mention the fact that there is nowhere to escape the chaos.

They say behind every cloud is a silver lining, and that is just the case in this story. We remember when the Fullerton family lost their home to a fire. It was devastating, to say the least. An event that was catastrophic for one family was a God sent for ours.

Jerrod was in the city office paying his utility bill one afternoon and mentioned he did not know what they would do with the property. They didn’t wish to see the home torn down or, worse yet, see it fall into ill repute. At the time, I was employed as the deputy clerk for the city, and being the big mouth that I am, said, “If you’re giving it away, I’ll take it.” What I wasn’t expecting was for them to actually give it away.

So with all the legalities taken care of and the exchange of one dollar, the house on Fourth Street became our “Money Pit.” For the next couple of years, the only thing we could do was try to keep the yard knocked down. George was working out of the state most of the time, and it was all I could do to keep up with one house, let alone two. Honestly, I had thought I had made a huge mistake taking it on. I can do a lot of the work, but I needed George for the things I couldn’t do, and frankly, that was what needed to be done first.

This spring, George got a wild hair and decided it was time to get-er-done. Thankfully, I had been purchasing things here and there that I knew we would need. We started in the area which had the most fire damage, the kitchen. We gutted the room down to the plaster and kept anything we thought we could salvage, which wasn’t much. This room baffled me a bit as I was pulling things apart. Some of the walls were covered in Masonite board. Areas of plaster had been patched with plywood. There is even a bit of drywall in this room.

George and Jacob have spent the last several months in the attic or the crawl spaces under the house. Jacob has a new respect for spiders and hates them ever so much. For the most part, they have been able to do what was needed without damaging my precious plaster. However, there are a few spots that will put my repair skills to the test.

After a lot of bouncing around, cleaning soot, and scraping burnt and peeling paint, I was finally able to start a project where I could see progress! I am an instant gratification type of gal, and wiping walls off that would never look clean is not my cup of tea.

The walls in the living room and the dining room had been covered with paneling. At one time, there had been a false ceiling, so the paneling did not go all the way up the wall. Instead, it had another type of paneling on it. They had filled the lines in the paneling and papered over, which before the fire had been seamless and looked pretty sharp. After the fire not so much. I wasn’t sure what was under the paneling, so I was hesitant to pull it off.

Demolition is one of my favorite things; I like to break stuff! So one day, I found a corner of the paneling that was coming up. Very quietly, so the hubby wouldn’t know I was doing it. I started to pry the paneling up so I could get a peek. Sure enough, I hit the jackpot. The plaster was intact. Not so quietly or carefully, I started pulling all the paneling off. I am probably the only one left in the world that loves plaster, but I am pretty sure it helped save this house! That and the fire department, of course!

For the last few weeks, I have been working in the dining room. I started with sanding and priming the woodwork. After that, I patched the plaster. Mostly it had cracked from where they had nailed in the paneling and from the house settling. There was one hole about six inches square, but it’s gone now. Someone down the line had texturized and painted the walls. I had to scrap the old texture off. I found the walls had been painted a yellow color at one time and had stencilng on them—more than likely original to the home.

After I did the patching, I started to texture the ceiling. I used the skip trowel method I had used in the kitchen and bedroom of my Second Street house. It reminds me of Venetian plaster, kind of “old-worldly.” Once I was sure my patchwork was good and set, I started on the walls. My first thought was to skim coat and sand, nice flat smooth walls, but then I remembered how much I hate sanding! LOL!

I decided to try something different with the walls. Why not? It is my house! So I used a paint roller to create the texture and then knocked it down a bit: an orange peel, knockdown texture of sorts. I think it looks pretty nice, and it was a bit easier! So that is what I will be doing in the rest of the house.

When the texture was dry, George hung the ceiling medallion chandelier. We purchased the chandelier used, and the wires were just a bit short, so George was having a time getting the light fixture and the medallion to cooperate. I was a little worried my pretty medallion was going in the bin. Once the chandelier was in place, I felt like we should have a larger medallion but, there was a lot of grumbling during this install, and I think he might have left me if I asked him to change it out again.

After weeks of frustration, we have one room ready for paint. At first, we were planning to paint the trim work grey, but the grey we chose looked more violet on the wall. I’m not a huge fan of purple, so we went with a color called Waynesboro Taupe; it’s a nice warm cozy color. For the walls, we chose Silent White, which has a slight yellow hue to it and reminds me of sunshine. I will be using a semi-gloss on everything because it reflects light and is easier to clean.

One room may not sound like much, but it’s given us hope! We will be bouncing around again for the next few weeks, but I hope to have much of the downstairs looking like new construction soon. I have gotten pretty good a “slapping lipstick on a pig” over the years. In our house, we refer to this as:putting band-aids on bullet holes!”