The best part of Christmas this year was being all together as a family. Now that we live and work in different places, it is sometimes difficult to coordinate our schedules. Luckily, it worked out for us this year. Family is what makes challenging projects, like this house, possible. Kyle and I are both blessed with amazing parents and siblings, who have been cheering us on from the get-go. Gifts were very much house-themed this Christmas. Kyle and I gratefully accepted many household items. We even received a new toilet with all of the necessary bathroom accessories to go with it :). Given that this Friday will be January 1st, I have decided to focus on New Year's resolutions for this post. Usually, I avoid making resolutions, because of the possibility of not following through with them; however, I am hoping that this blog will keep me accountable. Below are a few of my house-related goals for 2016: 1. Learn how to lay hardwood flooring 2. Help Kyle install the insulation 3. Come up with creative ways to display some of the objects we've found during the renovation 4. Have a BBQ over at the house to thank all of our family and friends for their support 5. Continue to blog until Kyle and I are in 212 I am going to end the year with a couple of shots of the house in 2015. I cannot wait to see how these rooms have changed by this time next year. More to come from 212 in 2016! * The amazing photography is courtesy of Kyle
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Last weekend, Kyle worked on the front foyer and when supply teaching was slow this week, I decided to go in and finish pulling up the laminate. I have to admit that I didn't just go out of obligation to our house; there was an ulterior motive. While pulling up the floor, Kyle came across something really neat below the laminate: sheets of old newspapers from the 1950s and 1960s. It used to be common to place overlapping sheets of newspaper as a spacer in between different layers of flooring. The newspapers were preserved beneath the laminate and, for the most part, are still perfectly intact...Yet another hidden treasure has been uncovered in our house; but now, instead of decomposing Victorian boots, we have moved on to articles on Eisenhower and the Soviets, and deals at Simpson's Department Store. Below is a selection of articles and ads that we found. The newspaper highlights for me were: 1) The ridiculously funny advertisements for women's clothing 2) Listings for "technicolour" movies that were currently playing in theatres, like The Titanic (surprisingly, this was a movie before Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet), and Peter Pan, which is the Disney version we still watch today 3) An old Archies comic strip 4) The grocery store flyers with food prices. Prime Rib at 45 cents a pound?! Peanut butter for only 23 cents?! P.S., We are lucky to have such good neighbours who have welcomed us onto the street and offered words of encouragement in our various stages of renovation. To thank them, we decided to drop off some holiday treats. While a small gesture, it felt nice to let our neighbours know that we appreciate them! P.P.S., Merry Christmas from Kyle and I at 212! :) Last week we added a little Christmas cheer to the front exterior of the house with some pretty white Christmas lights. Despite the uninhabitable interior, we wanted to still be a part of the festivities of the neighbourhood. Since then, I have been thinking a lot about what the first Christmas in the home would have been like for John A McD....d and his family (who was the first home-owner, according to the smudged historical land registry documents). What I discovered was interesting. Our house, as you know from past blog posts, is a Victorian, so it was built in the reign of Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert is actually credited for starting many of the traditions that we associate today with Christmas. For instance, he was the one who made it fashionable for families to decorate trees at this time of year. As a German, Prince Albert grew up with the evergreen tree as an important symbol of renewal and hope during the winter season; however, it was never tied to Christmas until he decided to commission a picture of the royal family around the tree in 1848. With this picture, he also gave the holiday more of a focus on family and children. Prior to this time, children were viewed as miniature adults, and had virtually no rights when it came to labour and basic care. Because of the new ideas about childhood and parenting, Christmas became more of a social holiday that everyone could be a part of. It is likely that in its first year, our house would have been adorned with evergreen boughs, holly, and mistletoe. According to my findings, mistletoe was brought into fashion as Christmas decor by the Victorians, who hung it from the ceiling and began its kissing ritual. Victorians had a rule that no longer exists for us though, where every time a kiss was had under the plant, a berry had to be plucked from it. Once the berries were all gone, there was no more kissing! The idea of gift giving and feasting was always present at Christmas-time, but there was definitely a commercialization of the season in the 19th century. Traditionally smaller gifts of nuts, candy, and homemade things shifted to more store-bought toys and games in many of the homes of middle class families. It is important to note that we often romanticize the Victorian Christmas, but there were huge class divides at this time, economically and socially. Labour laws were minimal, as were basic living standards. We see Victorian images of a warm fire and a Christmas tree with heaps of presents beneath it, but appearances are deceiving. Not unlike our modern day tendency to distort reality through photos, society presented itself in an idealized version that was not necessarily one of truth. I will wrap up this blog post by highlighting one last tradition started in the glory days of our house, which is Christmas card giving. I am a fan of snail mail and have been excited about the Christmas cards that have been coming to Kyle and my own post-office box :). Thank you to those who have sent us holiday mail, and to friends who usually receive some snail mail love from me at this time of year, check your own mail-boxes-- it is coming for you! *An Extra: Boxing Day was a holiday started by Victorians as a day when wealthier families would give their servants and workers boxes of little presents. Poorer, working class families were more likely to stick to the older, simpler gift giving of nuts and candies, so this would have been special, and maybe akin to a Christmas bonus?! Kyle and I had our first major life event in the house on Tuesday night. After dinner, we drove over to 212 to turn off all of the lights and make sure that it was all locked up. While we just needed to run in and out, we ended up lingering there for a while and just talking. I was in one of Kyle's over-sized hoodies and my hair was in a silly ponytail on the top of my head. It seemed like just another quiet week-day evening. Little did I know what was about to happen. We were chatting about plans for the house, and suddenly, Kyle said that he had a present for me and ran out to his truck. When he came back in, he was carrying a box tied with a big bow. I took it and opened the lid. Inside, was a smaller box. And inside that box?...A diamond ring. Kyle got down on one knee on the sawdusty floor, surrounded by piles of lumber and tools. Of course, I said yes :). Kyle's proposal was perfect. It was in the midst of our renovation, in our future home. This space, while unfinished, is one of beginnings for us. I have mentioned more than once that I love the many stories that fill the old house, and now we truly are adding our own. I feel so blessed to be engaged to Kyle and have even more love for this house, as the location of such a special moment for us. In my eyes, our house now stands a little taller and with the Christmas lights, it has an undeniably magical look. |
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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