My grandmother, Evelyn, lives in an old house in a little community not too far from Nashville, Arkansas. It's called Center Point. The area was once a thriving community & was the original county seat, complete with a court house, post office, doctors office, orchards, stores & a plethora of beautiful old homes. When the railroad came through, everything moved to Nashville & only a handful of the old homes remain. My grandparents moved to Center Point in the 1950's when my dad was a baby. They bought an old house & an acre of land for $1200 from a member of the Reese family. The Reece family was a very prominent fixture back in those days. I know they were property owners & had a couple of businesses. The house was built around 1880. She had her flaws but 70 some odd years after her birth, my grandparents started remodeling, not out of vanity or to "keep up with the Jones'" but out of necessity. My grandmother told me she originally had high ceilings, an original foyer, no cabinets to speak of, no indoor plumbing & there were drafts everywhere. She also said, when she first walked in the house, there was wallpaper falling down everywhere, including from the ceilings. This house had no wiring whatsoever. She told me that it was so cold in there in the winter time that you had to sleep under a six inch pile of quilts just to keep warm. My grandpa hurriedly put up old sheet rock, built home made cabinets, wired the house, lowered the ceilings removed the foyer to make the living room bigger & put in a full functioning bathroom complete with the cast iron shallow square tub. He also added a back porch, where I always remember them sleeping. Some years later, they got the wood paneling bug & put in some DARK walnut paneling in the living room & old light colored paneling in two of the bedrooms & bathroom & ARGH the covered the original hardwood floors with some old school type tile but later it was re-tiled with peel & stick. The paneling has always been there as far back as I can remember. The house was old & shabby but held an inner beauty we wouldn't appreciate until the summer of 2013. Make a note of this last sentence because I will be posting appropriate pictures later.
Two summers ago (2012), my dear friend Karen, (who also happens to be married to my first cousin, John...who is more like my brother, so that would make her my cousin-in-law or sister-in-law depending how you look at it :)) & I decided to redo the living room. Paw has been gone for about 7 years now & Maw, being alone most of the time, well...she just needed new scenery. So we went to Wal-Mart, bought us some paint & hooked her up!
I will have to dig for the before pics but these are the AFTER!
This is the front door....it's where the original foyer. Had to repair some of the facings but it wasn't a big deal. I know it looks crooked...that's because it is. This house has been standing here since the 1880's. :P Pardon the junk around there...we had stuff piled on there while we were working. Notice the overhead light? It came from the old newspaper office (The Dierks Banner) in Dierks, Arkansas. My great aunt & uncle ran the paper for a few years.
This is the other side of what used to be the foyer. Both doors go into bedrooms. We made the shelf from an old king sized waterbed headboard. My hubby had to cut it down to make it fit but I thought it made a good shelf. We originally had a sewing center set up there for her but...well..she had other plans.
Here's another side of the living room. She has her daybed in there. She mainly lives in this room & uses the bathroom & kitchen these days. See Mr. Thumper sitting there in the chair? :)
I'll try to upload some before pics & a pic of the mantle. I had to pull these from Facebook & the others are on the phone I had before I got the one I have now...stay tuned!
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