"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower ..."

Today was a perfect autumn day in western Indiana in the midst of Fall Break at DePauw.  The temperature hovered around 70* and reflecting on & documenting six months at Butternut Hill seemed appropraite.  The title of this posting comes from Albert Camus, and is my second favorite prose on the season.  The first:

l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
li
ness
-  e.e. cummings

 In this spirit, here are some captioned photos of the hill exactly one year from when we first viewed the home!

Side View



A Fantastic Tree



Another ...

The tomb of a 'neighbor'

Leaf Covered Driveway

The Interior "Before"

When Butternut Hill was built in the 1830s, it was a one and a half story structure, but a second generation of the original owners converted this into a two story home with additions 1901.  The main house has approximately 4800 square feet of living space, including a parlor, kitchen, dining room, library, mudroom, with butler's pantries and ice room on the first floor, and five bedrooms on the second floor.  There are two staircases: a formal staircase near the center of the home, and a back staircase from the mud room area/laundry room area.  When the home was sold in 1996 by the descendants of the original owners, the new buyers converted the house into a bed and breakfast, which required the addition of several bathrooms.  In fact, there were 6 bathrooms in the house when we purchased it -- two of these were downstairs, four were upstairs.

This description sounds lovely ... and I hope some day that it will be ... but right now every house in the room needs restoration work.  The house was empty for nearly five years, and during that time there were several water leaks; some were from the many, many DIY bathrooms installed by the prior owners, while some were from poor outside water runoff from gutters.

Here's a partial tour, beginning with the kitchen  ...   





The kitchen ... when we moved in



After Chad's demolition work ...




Three smaller rooms are attached to the kitchen, including two pantries and what will become a mud room.


The first pantry
(with some fresh paint)



... and the butler's pantry
 [water damage],



This back stairway comes off the mudroom .... 



decorated with these angel stickers :)



Here are some other rooms, both upstairs and down, all in pre-restoration condition!

This is the main dining room with french doors!



The front staircase, upstairs.




Upstairs Bedroom 1




Upstairs Bedroom 2



Although these pictures only begin to reveal some of the damage that we have to reverse, we think they also reveal the great structure we have with which to begin.  I will save tours of the basement and attic for a future post!

Our first major project is the original "ice room," a 1901 wood-frame addition to the house that was once used for ice and food storage.  This room had been converted into a bathroom, and as one of six in the house, we decided to use the space as our laundry room ... the topic of my next post!