Suddenly, It's Finished!! Well, sort of...

Last Tuesday the concrete walkways were poured to the Peter Stuhr House. Yes, I realize that the last time I wrote an entry - about 5 months ago - we were in the thick of all of the interior work, but guess what? They are done! That is right, since we had a relatively mild winter, which meant that the maintenance team working on the house did not spend a good part of the winter moving snow around, they were able to concentrate on all of the interior work of the house and now they are done!! That's right, the walls are finished and painted, ship lap boards are in the kitchen and pantry and pickled, there are new floors in three rooms and the other two are painted, widows and doors trimmed out, new doors made to the parlor, pantry and pantry closet and stairs made to the cellar. (Check out Project Pictures - Interior work) With the concrete work finished to the entry points, that only leaves shutter construction for the windows on the exterior of the house - but these will be completed in the fall. Other items that will need to be added to the yard of the house will be a privy, clothesline and assorted plantings. We have a good start on plantings so far, with the donation of a few lilac bushes enjoying at least their third move - they were originally from the grounds of the Nebraska Veteran's Home, and had been moved to private property just across the street from the home sometime in the 1950s or 60s. They are already getting a good start and are located on the north side of the house. On the south side there will be three trees planted, and in fact one is already in the ground and has been enjoying all the rain we are having.

Ok, well the interior construction is done, but we are nowhere near ready to receive callers to the house just yet. Now for a new challenge - the artifacts. Over the last several years, we have been working to identify artifacts to go into the house. We were quite lucky early on with the donation of a functional period cook stove for the kitchen. This will quite likely be the very first artifact we move into the house, since it will be a good deal easier to place everything else in the kitchen once the stove is set. The Hall County Historical Society also has a setee for the parlor that will need to be picked up soon. We can't just plop everything into the house. We have to identify needed items and donations must be processed (descriptions written, photographs taken and numbers applied). We want to identify as many artifacts from our collection to put into the house as we can. All of these items will need to be designated as use items. The items placed into the house must be serviceable for both interpretive and educational use since the house will be both an interpretive site open to the public, and will also be used for HATS classes (Heritage Activities for Today's Students), specifically for the second grade Winter on the Farm and the 4th grade and up Pioneer Living classes.

So now it is on to the furnishing plan. This plan will be a story about each room in the house, looking at how rooms will be used and what artifacts will need to be in each room to help tell the story of the house and the past. This will be all about what and why for each artifact. In many ways, this is very much like setting up housekeeping for the first time. We will need furniture, such as beds, a desk, an icebox, tables, chairs, a sewing machine and cupboards. We will need soft furnishing - textiles - sheets, curtains, pillows, towels, blankets. And we will need the things that make a house a home, like books, pictures, lamps and kitchenware. As we work through items in the collection, I will continue to share interesting things about some of the choices we will be making. This will be fun!