Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The porch in question




Here's that front porch, at a point in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Note the hand-hewn lamppost. K points out four chairs on the porch, in addition to the inviting hammock. G muses on how low the bannister is.

Compare that to what it looks like today.

Still a lovely house, but not nearly as much as 100 years ago. I've been mulling over the puzzle of why anybody wanted to change it, and then I realized, of course: the safety of babies and toddlers.

4 comments:

J. Bradwell said...

This sounds like an awesome project. That being said, I hope that Tom keeps from contributing any of his own "handy work" and leaves it to the experts. What a great idea to keep the work local and contribute to the town of Earlville. What others may not realize however, is that this is mearly your continued attempt to get back in the good graces of the Earlvillians ever since the class of 2000 has graduated and your parties with said class have stopped. Little do they know that once the phases have been completed, the class of 2000 will rise like a phoenix from the ashes and we will have to christen the renovations with a reunion party! Oops...maybe they know now...

Rebecca Moore Howard said...

Jason, when they hear you guys are heading back into town, Earlville will become a ghost town. They're probably still talking about you here!

JMKH said...

Your project looks like mountains of fun! Was the porch a wrap-around in the olden days?

Rebecca Moore Howard said...

Yes, it was. That much hasn't been changed: the porch wraps around 1/3 of the house.