Reception Hall

In the "good ole' days" a young gentleman caller had to wait in the Reception Hall. There was a plate near the door on which the man was to place his calling card. Our Old Home has a rather wonderful reception hall. I am told this is where the young suitors had to sit while waiting for the owners daughter to appear. At least there is a fireplace to take the chill off his nervous soul. That old fireplace cost us a fortune. When we moved in it was blocked off with a thick cast iron cover. We talked ourselves into have the fireplace restored to working condition so that we could have our guests also be greeted by a cozy fire. Gas logs are now installed, but I have to tell you, even the contractor was beginning to think we were nuts. More pictures below.

The picture to your right shows the doorway to a den with fireplace. This was an addition to the house, perhaps sometime in the 1940's. It is not on the original floor plans. Both pictures include a shot of the restored fireplace. As you will see below, it had been sealed with a cast iron plate some years ago. We felt it had to be restored and did so with gas logs.

Through the french doors to the living room with fireplace.

This picture is taken standing in the doorway of the added on den. To the left is the main entry door and to the right is the passage to the kitchen. The French doors are salvage that we added about a year into having the house. The original doors, we think now form a type of "air lock" for the entry door.

Looking from the first landing of the stairs leading to the second floor.

The French doors are to the right opening into the living room.

To the left is the added-on office now converted to a den.

Now you are standing near the doorway to the front master bedroom, looking down on the stairwell.

The door to the left used to be another stairwell, but going down to the kitchen. Servants would use this door to bypass the Reception Hall on their way up to the third floor quarters.

The carpeting is a recent addition of ours and really makes the whole stairwell look and sound much better.

One of the first jobs I got was to tear up all the carpet. We found 20-30 year old green and gold carpet throughout most of the house. Thirty year old odors would waft about my head each time I

lifted another section.

The floors underneath looked pretty good. All they needed was a good cleaning by hand with steel wool, paste wax and a case of beer. There was this really odd thing though...there was one section of the living room floor that looked like someone had dipped a cat in green paint, dipped a dog in white paint, then set them to chasing each other about the room. Must have used four pounds of 0000 steel wool to clean up the mystery mess.

Another view of the "suitors" seat next to the fireplace. We discovered that the iron cover shown covered up some very creative, and totally wrong, chimney work. No problem, it was only thousands of dollars to correct. Now we have a great set of gas logs in the restored fireplace.