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Our Olde House

Miss Sherry and I live in a circa 1863 house in Olde Towne, Clinton. Our house has had at least two major extensions and several interior rearrangements during the past 159 years. As we are taking our turn at caring for this part of Clinton’s history, we have learned to accept that there are no simple fixes to anything that needs attention or updating, and that whoever last fixed what we are fixing again did their best with what they had at the time; judge not, lest ye be judged.

 

Our Olde House: March 2024

I decided to let technology help me with my freezing pipes on the back deck, so I purchased an electric pipe heater and taped it to the pipes. This is basically a wire that gets warm when its thermostat detects the pipe temperature at 38F or below and stays on until the thermostat reaches 45F.…

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Our Olde House – February 2024

After two winter days of 70F degrees, I was inspired to complete my little diversion dam that is keeping the rain from going under the front of the house. I moved my row of scalloped bricks back toward the house, and next to my other row of regular bricks; the line of regular bricks behind…

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Restoration of our Olde Towne house completed

By Guest Columnists Gerald Kerner and Sherry Landrum It was June 16 when our old oak tree fell onto our kitchen, causing extensive damage to the roof structure and to the kitchen and sunroom. This home restoration was completed on December 4, just shy of six months after the tree fell. We had no idea…

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Our Olde House : January 2024

As Christmas approached, our whelmed feeling was quickly heading back toward overwhelmed, so we decided to take two weeks off from unpacking boxes and deciding what to put away or discard. This was a good decision for our mental well-being, but we did end up skipping putting up any outside Christmas decorations. Miss Sherry bought…

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Our Olde House: December 2023

The kitchen was completed on December 4th and the pod was retrieved on December 13th, thus officially completing the ‘tree fell on the house’ project in just short of six months.  Back in June, I thought the longest it would take to rebuild the kitchen would be four months, and I was planning a trip…

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Our Olde House – November 2023

After five months of repairing the house, I believe that we are no longer overwhelmed by the tasks before us. Our mental outlook improved significantly once all demolition was completed and building a new kitchen was begun. Today, I think we are merely whelmed, and the light at the end of the tunnel is visible…

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Our Olde House – October 2023

The new kitchen is progressing nicely. At the end of September, we got new wiring, rearranged plumbing and real insulation in the kitchen walls, with an OK from the City inspector for all of that work. The first two weeks in October we installed beaded pine ceilings in the kitchen and sunroom, and plywood on…

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Our Olde House: September 2023

The first week after the oak tree fell on our kitchen was difficult and stressful to say the least. This disaster did not come with instructions on what to do or even where to begin. Fortunately, Miss Sherry has friends who called a tree service to remove the tree, and our neighbor recommended the contractor…

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Our Olde House – August 2023

Our Olde House definitely took a big hit when our oak tree fell onto the kitchen. Tree branches covered the roof of the house, the back deck and most of the backyard.  The most important thing to us was to be sure that all people and pets were fine, and this we quickly verified, but…

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Our Olde House – July 2023

By Guest Columnists Sherry Landrum and Gerald M. Kerner It was not officially a tornado, but at 5:13 and 39 seconds on June 16, eighty-five-mile-per-hour winds that lasted less than one minute pushed over an oak tree in our backyard, and the tree landed on half of the kitchen in Our Olde House.   Sherry:…

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