Saturday April 2nd was officially Tom Sawyer day at the Cottage
as I tried to convince people how fun it is to help scrape paint
and get ready for painting. Green trim paint is planned to go with the green trim
on the Jim and Rosa Wilson farmstead house. Grandkids joined in the fun.
Youngest grand daughter with wire brush scraping loose old paint.
The Willy Ford Po-tater Car looked like the truck from the Grape's of Wrath book as it drove to the garage with someof the things that may be used in the cottage in the future. They needed to be out of the way for now.
Have a fun video of it driving out of the cottage where a
bedroom and later a workshop used to be. It is so cute on the draft. The video is not yet coming through on the blog. .
This may be one of my favorite photos of the cottage yet. It was taken from the second floor of the Jim and Rosa Wilson farmstead house. It was spring time in the Rockies! It snowed over night and this is what it looked like in the morning from the bedroom window as I looked out. It made me think of some of what the family must have gone through in the snows of 1914-1919 when the main house was finished.
The old Ford tractor fits right in with the scene. I am wondering what year the tractor was new.
More photos from Cora's Cottage for those who are really interested in the restoration project that is going on there.
Caulking is happening around windows. More caulking is ready to put in leaks around wood.
When the ceiling was straightened, the window on the right top popped out of the frame. Plaster cracked in new places. Patches have been started to hold the plaster in place where the largest cracks are.
The floor under boarding is in the attic!
I spent some more hours pulling little nails that used to hold up the plaster lath. This has been a year long plus project for me. I finally finished to day with the kind help of Judy Covert helping pick up nails from the floor as they were pulled out of the ceiling. Hoping she will come back and decorate as she is a really good interior decorator.
The supports have been hidden in the wall and plastered over. So incredible what friends have done!
Recently in order to make room to move around in the cottage the Singer treadle sewing machine was moved to the main Jim and Rosa Wilson Farmstead house upstairs hallway. It was given to my mother by Trinity Methodist Church Ladies after out house burned down in the 1960 era. It was quite a project to move but my husband and I made it up the stairs.
I sewed a hem for mother on it soon after moving it. It is working fine.
After getting dressed in overalls to deal with the mess in the cottage, I found that the old neighborhood landmark called the Hangman's tree had fallen after high winds the day before.
When the tree fell it knocked down the fence that kept the horses in the creek pasture.
While looking at the fallen tree. I took a photo of the back of the Jim and Sara Wilson Farmstead house which is rarely seen. The cottage which was the original homestead house for the farm is to the right of the photo and just the back corner of the roof shows.
Tried to give a better idea of the size of the fallen tree by taking these photos which include me.
The branch to the left in the photo was the part that looked like it could have held a hangman's noose. It is longer than I am tall.
Ragan Simpich enjoys sitting at the table with me before I got started on projects for the day.
Friends came and moved out the things I have been sorting through in the cottage after my mother moved into assisted living. This was what it looked like this morning. The photos are mostly in reverse time order except the one of my husband was taken about March 18th.
The shelves came down that had been put up before we became the owners of the cottage when it was used as a workshop. That started happening before 1960's when I first came to the cottage and took a peek inside with Mike Stanton who brought me to the farmstead with his Well's family's Thanksgiving celebration. I think it was an Aunt to him that owned it at that time.
These pieces were moved under the stairs in the main house with many odds and ends that I hope to refinish and put back in the cottage. The little white cabinet on the right was handmade by Charles Nickson for Jan Simpich when she was a child.
Along the way I have gathered an old microwave and a little refrigerator that someone dropped off to use in the garage which I thought would make the cottage more livable when we stayed here for the week after Christmas in 2014 while we had Airbnb guest in the nice warm farmstead house which was finished being built in 2019. I just realized that we stayed in the house for the 100th birthday of when they probably started living in the cottage and building the main house. It was negative 13 degrees the week we stayed in the cottage and our appreciation of what the Wilson family must have gone through as they built the two houses increased. These modern conveniences are now waiting in the large garage to go back into the cottage after repairs are made. I am trying to figure out how to make them hidden yet useful in restored cottage.
The candles in the corner were all used for light and heat when we stayed in the cottage. The couch was moved in more recently to rescue it from the critters trying to take over our Lazy Tree Cabin. Then fall came and more critters moved into the cottage than we had ever had at the cabin. I stopped them before the couch was ruined but a next was found in the corner where they had started to try to nest. The hobnail lamps may be used when electricity is added to the inside of the cottage beside the currently extension chord.
Looking forward to the after photo that will go with this shot as the plans are to patch and paint this wall.
This is the hole in the ceiling that I have been using to climb up to the loft. One of the guest that stayed here and encouraged me that more guest might want to stay in this place was over 70. She climbed up on the old wooden ladder and said this will be just fine! She said she had been a painter for years.
The stove came from a house on Main Street in Victor, Colorado that we call the Gambler house because a gambler had lived there and we found dice in the house. It was next to the log house that we actually lived in there.
The little pantry is stuffed full of insulation that was given to me to keep the wind from blowing through the place. It all has to come out now to work on it.
This is the back of the Wilson Farmstead house from the side of the cottage. I actually took a video tour of the cottage and this is my third attempt trying to post it. Suggestions on how to post video on a blog are welcome. Looking forward to having the "after" video to go with it!
The floor looks better in the photo than it did in real life. The old tin trunk is from an 1860's house that we fixed up in Colorado Springs, CO in the 1980-1990 era. The trunk made it through the wagon train ride with mules pulling the wagon. It started its trip west with wagons that had horses. They separated the horse drawn wagons from the mule drawn wagons because of the different speeds of the animals. The faster horse drawn wagons were attacked by Indians and never made it according to Miss Brown Finley from whom we acquired the trunk. The Finley/Brown family moved to the Fountain area and we are searching for how the two homestead houses are connected. Maybe the Finley's ate at this house with their neighbors.
This is the well worn door step of the cottage from here I have started selling things on Ebay as Cora's Cottage.
Above the door there is a large whole where the wind comes in and tonight it may allow the snow to drift in to the cottage.
Some old linoleum found in the cottage. We are considering going with the green and white color scheme. I do not remember seeing another cottage painted like that but it certainly has signs of being original to this cottage.
At the end of the day the floor is swept. The couch is moved out and the main floor is ready for construction. There is still much to be moved from the attic, the outside and the pantry. It is Easter weekend I think of the place God is preparing for me in heaven! I also thank him for the friends that he has lead to help me in fixing this old place. I sure had fun working with them today. I was exhausted and falling asleep but just had to write a little about it.
The window on the right has replace the old door that had covered the hole in the wall for years. My husband did this over a year ago.
I have heard stories that the garage/carport was once a bedroom. I wonder if the marks on the wall at the right were a door into the bedroom living area of the homestead house. The shelves are off the wall now. Started to take out the extra empty boxes but thought it might help me move some of the things in the loft/attic space. The drywall was purchased months ago on a $20 special for the whole batch. The old wooden ladder was found here I wonder what stories it could tell about the many projects it has worked on in this place. Wonder if anyone will ever read it. Please let me know if you did. I must sleep now as I just learned a friend might come and help some more early Saturday morning and that is now today!
