Bringing our 1936 home into the 21st Century

As demolition of the kitchen and first-floor bathroom gets closer, Dan and I are demonstrating two ways to deal with the reality of living for at least six months with one bathroom and essentially no kitchen. One of us is a planner and is busy researching how to build a temporary kitchen space and renovate…

As we work on packup of rooms, I wonder what the house looked like when it was built and over the years. A neighbor showed us the top photo, which is undated in the database where he found it. It does appear to be not too long after it was built, however, because of some…

The back of the house (on the left in the photo) will be removed for the extension. Because the power is there, now, the first step is moving the box, meter, et al. It looks like demo will start in a week or so, depending on how long it takes the power company to do…

When Glenn and Agda Welch moved into their brand new home in 1937, South Bend had only fairly recently–in the 1920s–switched to the automatic telephone switchboard known as the Strowger Switch that eliminated switchboards managed by women like those in the above photo (South Bend Tribune, 2014). The telephone was high tech for the time,…

We do not yet have a start date, but this week we had a walk-through with our project manager, Tony, along with our designers. We are thrilled at the prospect of having rooms that are not jury-rigged and don’t have weird, badly wrought wall paint, for example. We still have some decisions that are proving…

Daniel et moi vivons dans une vieille maison qui a été construite en 1936. Il a une petite cuisine et de mauvaises salles de bains. Nous allons construire un ajout pour une plus grande cuisine avec des placards en cerisier, des comptoirs noirs et des carreaux verts. Les sales de bains seront plus grandes, plus…

We meet with the detailed planning team next week, but because we are renovating both bathrooms and the kitchen, which are all connected by space and plumbing, I fear that we will have spells of time during the six months of renovation when we will be toilet challenged. At one point, a previous owner had…

Glenn E. Welch grew up in Michigan and moved to South Bend in 1900 (at age 17) for no known reason but perhaps because the economy was booming here. He was a railroad clerk when he married his wife, Agda Blomquist, in 1909. They lived on the west side of the city, near the Studebaker…

Eight years ago, Dan and I lived in a 900-square foot townhouse (with two dogs) in the suburbs of Washington D.C. that we loved. It was, however, cozy. It had one bathroom and a 6-foot galley kitchen, which was a challenge for two people who love to cook. Then a new job lured us back…