Wednesday was a very busy day. My brother and mom were coming for lunch, and I had a lot of preparations to do. When I got up I set about wrapping the Christmas presents for them to take home.
Then I collected all the pictures, etc. of the old house that I had. I had a surprise for the couple letting us tour the house: very old steroscopic slides and a viewer of the house as it was when we bought it. These rendered the images as 3D.
Then I got the ingredients for Sloppy Joes ready and set the table. I got a shopping list ready, got a shower and did chores and was ready at 8AM when my helper arrived.
We got the shopping done, ran the errands and were back by 9:30. I had called the seller of the stove several times to let her know the new delivery company might be there on Wednesday to pick up the stove. But she never answered and I couldn’t leave messages. So I told the company to pick it up and hoped for the best. Then I went out and FedEx’d the check to her.
I'd gotten 2 oranges to make pomanders and my helper started on one while I returned the call from the seller when I got back from FedEx. It was okay for them to come and get the stove.
My helper left and I set about making the lunch: salad with tomato and the Sloppy Joes on big buns. There was organic vanilla ice cream for dessert. My mom and brother arrived just after noon. Tom was at the house when we’d returned from shopping so I invited him to lunch too. We ate and headed out to go see the old house.
This is what it looked like in 1965.
And this was in 1969 after most of the exterior work was done. A picket fence around the yard and a swingset had been added, but things were kept pretty simple in the renovations. Lots of pastures had been fenced around the yard with just electric fencing.
The couple who bought it from my parents in 1975 did a huge amount of renovation, especially to the outside. One pasture along the driveway was removed and trees planted, an in ground pool added, and lawns made.
Lots of trees were planted in the yard, the well by the house covered over and turned into a water fountain, and a large patio made in front of the house. The driveway/turnaround area was much smaller, hard to accommodate 3 cars when we visited.
I was standing roughly where the Volkswagon was in the first photo when I took this one.
Two of the 3 added doors and the patio where the well was
My parents had done a lot of work before selling the house that I never saw. It had unpainted plaster walls or bare sheetrock when I lived there. The 1st couple had added 3 doors to the kitchen area in place of existing windows.
The 1st couple had sold the house in 2002 to the current owners and the new owners reversed a lot of what was done inside the house. It was very similar to what I remembered in most rooms, except now everything was painted.
This 2nd couple graciously allowed us to explore the entire house, but we forgot to ask about the attic. The odd thing we all noticed was how small the house now seemed. But when we went out to see the barn, it was exactly the size we remembered.
I had brought the pictures and a photo album of the house as it was and they were fascinated with those and our stories of the work my dad had done on the whole property. My mom had brought a large cookie tin of Christmas cookies of all types and they loved those.
We were there for about 2½ hours and I think we all enjoyed the visit. When I got home around 6PM, I found messages that the stove had been picked up at 5PM. So I called the delivery company but though they had said they would deliver on Thursday, they told me it would be Friday morning. So I said ok.
A quick supper, a look through the nearly 100 photos I’d taken so my sister in NM could see the house, and I was in bed by 8PM, really exhausted.
Thursday my helper was coming again because I had to prepare for a dinner with Tom and his wife. This was going to be another busy day.