A couple of weeks ago I ran into one of the Behemoths previous owners. We got chatting about the house and it turned out that he was a wealth of information.
It turns out our pink kitchen used to have a pink refrigerator and a pink stove.
You better believe I would've kept this baby.
I also learned that Jus & I are the 9th owners of the Behemoth but only the 7th family to live there. That the house was built in 1890 and remodeled in 1910. I was thoroughly enjoying my history lesson until the talk turned to the stairs.
Yes, the dreaded stairs, the stairs we recently chopped in half, the stairs I knew this man was responsible for putting in.
He started asking if the bathroom was still under the stairs and if the stairs were still wide. I said that we had taken some of the stairs off due to the plaster work that needed to be done. (I know, I know, I'm a dirty rotten liar) And then he informed me that wide stairs were original to the house.
A record ssssccccccccccrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeched to a halt in my head.
What? No way, those stairs (well, the stairs that the current ones were modeled after) are original? Someone built the house with the intention of having 8' wide stairs at the bottom and 3' wide at the top?
He went on to explain that while the stairs weren't originally that wide but that they were widened during the 1910 remodel, taken down in the 1950s and he rebuilt them in the 1990s.
Later while telling my mom this story she asked if I regretted taking the stairs down.
We're restoring the house, keeping many of the original fixtures and replacing modern things with vintage ones, and we had inadvertently chopped something that resembled the way the house looked in 1910.
My response was an adamant no.
Maybe I would regret our decision to chop the stairs had they actually been original but considering they were cheap & poorly made and how awesome they look now I have no doubt in my mind that we did the right thing.
Would you regret it?
PS Today is the last day to sign up for the giveaway!
12 comments:
I wouldn't regret it!! It's your home, so you want it to be the way you like!
Oh goodness, I love that pink fridge!
The pink fridge totally rocks.
I wouldn't regret it.. even if the stairs were original to the house, there really wasn't much point in them, you know? Plus, you would probably regret NOT taking them out when you come home everyday and see a massive staircase leading into a wall. At least I would!!
Omg I love that fridge, do they even make those anymore?!?! And defs glad you got rid of the stairs. They were ghastly
No way would I regret it! They look a lot better now!
I think you the house looks great! I love anything vintage, and I'm definitely a little envious. :-)
Andie
http://zimmermanlife.blogspot.com
Well you still have SOME of the stairs, lol. I just think they're so weird like that!
What a fun history lesson though!
A pink fridge would be epic!!!
I agree with you on the stairs... they sounded kind of random. ;o)
i regret it....not really, i just wanted to be difficult and i figured nobody would say they liked the big stairs.
i think i would regret it if they were in fact original and if the room was big enough to spare that wasted space. they would be grand if they made sense! i think you did the right thing ;)
The question is: How do you feel about it? There's no turning back now, so you can just design the house that fits your aesthetic while still keeping some of the original elements in there. Don't fret about it--they were taken out because they didn't fit your personal style! Still looking forward to seeing the other rooms start to take shape! :)
I wouldn't regret it! You can restore restore restore but you're still going to live there so do what makes you happy. <3
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