The last two weeks have been a blur. With the combination of work, social obligations, and renovations, it has felt like Kyle and I have been in a constant state of busy-ness, which is why I did not post on the blog last week. We have used what free time we have to work on the house, but it is proving to be a challenge to get everything that we want done as quickly as we would like. That being said, despite our time restraints, I am really impressed with what we have been able to accomplish. I am also so grateful to all of the help that we have received from our parents and friends. It is crazy how an extra set of hands can make such a difference. So here is a recap of what we've been up to: Two weekends ago, we spent the entire Saturday clearing off the back patio. We have been piling all of the wood siding and lathe and taking it in loads when we have an empty trailer or truck. The pile had been neglected for a few days though, because our focus had shifted to finishing the upstairs, so it looked like a giant beaver's dam and reached the impressive height of our back room's roof. We loaded up Kyle’s truck and that of a family friend's, and drove back and forth from the house to his family’s property in the country. There, we set massive bonfires to dispose of all of the wood. There was a wintry chill in the air and it even began to snow, but it was actually the perfect weather for working around sweltering fires. Most recently, this weekend, we finished pulling down the ceiling in the front entrance and took out all of the kitchen counters and appliances. Because it is Halloween next Saturday, we also tried to give the front of the house a bit of a face-lift. That included some pumpkins, a large mum plant by the door, and trimming our scraggly shrubs (which will be removed). I am looking forward to sitting on our front porch and enjoying the Halloween festivities in our new neighbourhood. Side Note: Check out the stylish old shoes Kyle unearthed while pulling down the last of the bathroom wall. I love the buttons up the side and the scalloped edges :).
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As Halloween approaches, my mind drifts to pumpkins, witches, full moons... and old Victorian houses. While I don't like to associate our new home with all of the creepiness of the season, I cannot deny that houses of this style are deep in folklore and superstition. For centuries, houses have been key characters in horror stories, taking on human qualities and adding to the mystery and eeriness of a tale. But did you know that the Victorian house did not actually gain its spooky reputation until the 1930s? Prior to that time, castles were the prototype for haunted houses, with their dungeons, catacombs, and grand medieval exterior. It is all thanks to pop. culture and a movement towards a more clean and simple design of architecture at the turn of the century that the Victorian is now a staple of the horror genre. Compared to the newer houses of the 1920s and 1930s, the Victorian house was seen as anti-Modern and over-dramatic. Then Hitchcock began to use the Victorian in films like Psycho, and other filmmakers and artists quickly followed suit. Haunted Houses in Literature: The Turn of the Screw Rebecca Wuthering Heights The Haunting of Hill House The Yellow Wallpaper Haunted Houses in Movies: Psycho House On Haunted Hill The Others (a version of The Turn of the Screw) Amityville Horror The Shining Below, are some frightful pictures of our "haunted house" this Halloween ;): Last week, I decided to play Nancy Drew and solve the mystery of the house’s first owners. I started my sleuthing at the Simcoe County Archives, where a very kind and helpful lady advised that it might be best to start my search at the Land Registry Office in Barrie. That is where all records of previous owners on properties can be found. She said that once I got the names of the previous owners and their years of residency, I could come back and easily track down photos and other records of them. I decided to do a little exploring through the archives anyway since I was already there, and drive out to the Registry Office another day. At the Archives, I was able to look through old newspapers and photographs of the area from the early 1900s. The most interesting thing I found were photographs of labor workers posed behind an old car garage. The garage happens to be on the street where I grew up, so it was fascinating to see trees and buildings that are no longer a part of the residential landscape. Later that week, I drove to the Barrie Land Registry, confident that I was going to solve the mystery; however, the Registry Office came with its own set of obstacles. When I finally located the building itself through the construction (and my general problems with directions), I climbed the stairs and entered a room filled with computers, office cubicles and microfilm machines. First, I printed off a legal record of our house's home owners, which turned out to be a listing that just went back to the 1960s. Then, the woman at the front desk told me that I would need to look at the microfilms, as an historical search, because of the age of the house. While she did show me the basics of the microfilm machine, she was more tough love than the soft-spoken, grandmotherly Simcoe County Archives lady, and eyed me with pity from her desk as I struggled to decipher the microfilm documents. As an historical document, the log of the house's owners is hand-written and has been photocopied so that it is really hard to read. Another obstacle that I encountered was that some microfilms had been sent away to Toronto, one of which supposedly has more information on our house's first owner (of course). After squinting at the microfilm document I could access, and trying to will it into a clearer image, I paid for my photocopy and left. By the end of my first week of detective work, I had a faded photocopy of an historical log and a lot of unanswered questions. Kyle and I studied the faded handwriting on the historical home owner log later that night. What is legible in the name slot is: “John A. McD….d,” with the middle letters of the last name unreadable… John A. McDonald?! While it is funny to imagine a famous Canadian hiding out in Stayner at the end of his life, we realize with disappointment that it couldn't be. Aside from the fact that John A. MacDonald has an “a” in between his “Mc” and that he died right before our house was built, the names are also pretty common. And the “A” initial? Kyle pointed out that including the “A” was probably a party trick that this guy used to get a laugh. I kind of hope it was. It looks like I have another trip to the Registry Office to revisit this microfilm with a magnifying glass and to take a look at the microfilms that were in Toronto on my last visit. The search for John A. McD…..d continues. |
About MeKyle and I just became new homeowners. The house we purchased is not what one would classify as "move in ready"; in fact, it is quite the opposite. Built at the turn of the 20th century, our Victorian style house is both beautiful and terrifying in its ancient status and will be a project in renovation. This is a documentation of our triumphs and lessons learned, as we deconstruct and reconstruct this house. The end result? A space that we can proudly say we created. Archives
December 2016
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