SPEARFISH Though no one has lived there for at least a decade, the historic Johnston Ranch house (also known as the Walton Ranch house or Cundy house) on Upper Valley Road is undergoing a restoration and will once again act as a home for Spearfish residents soon.

Rachel Headley bought the three lots (about six-tenths of an acre) that include the house, barn, and outbuildings of the historic ranch, and since Dec. 26, shes been hard at work preparing the interior for renovation.

I cant tell you how many people have said that theyve driven by and stopped and really thought about how great it would be to do this house, but no one has, she said. Theres been a couple of attempts to remodel it. All have aborted early in the process.

Headley, who grew up in Brookings County and moved to Spearfish in 2008, started looking at lots with the thought of building a new home but wasnt finding anything that really felt right, so then she decided to look into homes that could be redone. When she saw these lots, and the potential for what the idyllic space could provide for her daughters childhood, she was hooked.

Im excited for the whole thing, in the sense of the property as a whole, Headley said. I have a 6 year old, and I grew up on a farm, so giving her a place that has a barn to snoop around in and bugs to catch and frogs to catch Thats the part I like.

Headley has been doing a lot of research to try to put the houses history in order, and different documents have conflicting information, making the details a bit fuzzy. From what shes found, it appears John Walton received a patent on the land in 1892, and in March of 1898, he sold the land to Ida Hall. Documents list either 1898 or 1900 as the date the house was built, and Headley has found newspapers from 1898 tucked between plaster behind the walls as crews have been preparing the house for the renovation. Shes guessing that Ida Hall built the house; in September of 1899, Ida divorced her husband, Edwin Shock Hall and sold him the land, and in 1907, he sold the land to Irvin G. King. In 1925, the land sold to William Johnston, and starting in 1927, the land passed back and forth between members of the Johnston family, with Louise Johnston taking ownership in 1958, before selling to her nephew, Philip Cundy, in 1975. In 2004, it was sold to developers, and at some point, the larger property that had been a ranch was broken into separate lots.

Though the houses surroundings have changed as new neighborhoods have grown up around it, the house itself is largely unchanged from its early days.

Many people have asked about the two front doors and two chimneys, unique features to a home that was never used as a duplex. Headley said shes heard several guesses about the features, but the most plausible seems to be that houses could be ordered out of catalogues, and some had the option for duplexes. When examining the doors, the north door had frosted glass and fancier design, and someone mentioned that that door would be used as the more formal parlor entrance, while the south door would have been used for more informal and everyday purposes.

Headley said that theres no central heating and basically no indoor plumbing; theres no bathroom in the main part of the house. A double-hole privy outside provided that service, and an indoor bathroom was later added in an addition to the houses rear. That addition will be torn down due to structural failure, replaced by a two-stall garage. The main floor has 9-foot ceilings, with 8-foot ceilings on the second floor, and there is a root cellar with a poured cement basement.

Headley is pleased that the house was never updated.

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Restoring a historic Spearfish home

Published: Monday, January 19, 2015 at 12:01 a.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 12:06 a.m.

Hopper's sister, Vera Freeze, contacted Doors2Change, a local group with the purpose of improving homes in Eloise.

A representative then contacted Hopper and said his home would be one of their first projects. They said it would make major repairs, which Hopper, who had no insurance on the house, couldn't afford.

Today, however, the house on Third Street still isn't inhabitable. Hopper and his former wife, Lavonia Martin, with whom he has been living since the fire, are angry, and say they feel as though they have been passed over by the group they thought could help them.

"They told me to 'just hang in there,' " Hopper said. "They weren't returning calls. My ex-wife tried to call them, then my daughter did, and then my granddaughter called, and there was no response."

Since the fire, the house has fallen victim to thieves and vandals who broke in and "messed with" the house, Martin said.

Martin lamented the state of the house, saying she was "scared to walk inside."

"The more it sits there, the worse it's going to get," she said.

When Hopper and his family initially approached the charity for help, Doors2Change didn't yet have the grant funds that would allow it to fix houses since it was a new program at the time, founder Jane Waters-Thomas said.

"The cost of fixing the electrical equipment alone was greater than what we had to spend," Waters-Thomas said.

Read more here:
Doors2Change Clearing Roadblocks: Veteran Waits Years For Home Repairs

Julie Gaines and David Lenovitz share a passion for old restaurant ware. Together they would scour the basements of restaurant suppliers in New York Citys Bowery district for odds and ends or discontinued items.

Eventually their collection so overran their Gramercy Park home that Julie would have to travel to her mothers apartment on the upper East Side to take a shower. Thats when the couple decided it was time to open a store and turn their collecting into commerce.

That was 28 years ago, and their store Fishs Eddy is still going strong at 889 N. Broadway. Its one of a handful of independent retailers sprinkled among the outposts of Americas biggest home furnishings chains in New Yorks Flatiron District.

The area, named for the iconic triangular Flatiron Building bounded by Broadway, East 22nd Street and Fifth Avenue, is a mecca for seekers of high-style home decor. Its blocks are lined with eye-catching window displays of everything from cutting-edge design to the old comforts of home in greater quantity than youll find virtually anywhere else.

Another area of Manhattan to explore decor is the East Village, southeast of the Flatiron District and just as accessible. Its leafier streets and quirky offerings make for more pleasant strolling, but the concentration of stores is lighter, so if hitting a lot of shops in one day is your goal, go to the Flatiron first.

If you arrive by subway, the N and R lines stop at 23rd Street. When you reach the sidewalk, just head south.

One block down, at 935 N. Broadway, youll find a large Restoration Hardware, with plenty of rooms to browse through, furnished like the movie set of a castle with huge chandeliers, aged-leather sofas and distressed-wood everything.

Right next door is Whisk, a local purveyor of kitchen wares with just one sister store (in Brooklyn). I found a $15 blue-glass milk bottle to use for carbonated water and a $12 ceramic version of those pre-Starbucks paper coffee cups the Law & Order cops were always carrying (impractical because it gets very hot, but pretty!).

In the next block youll find Safavieh and Design Within Reach, two retailers familiar to fans of shelter magazines, the first very upscale and the second with more affordable prices.

On the corner of Broadway and E. 19th is Fishs Eddy, the delightful tableware shop born of a couples overflowing apartment.

The rest is here:
Where to find home decor items in NYC

Dad would have loved this story.

Its about a 120-year-old brick house in Northside, a one-room wide, modest but nice place where on its third floor and out in its garage a young man began inventing things that would later save more than 20 million lives my fathers included.

Its not the sort of house youd expect to connect with a cardiovascular surgeon named Thomas Fogarty, a man so important that in November he was awarded the Presidential National Medal of Technology and Innovation at the White House. Fogarty is an inventor and entrepreneur who has developed many medical devices used in heart surgeries.

And, oh yeah, heput a pig valve in my dads heart at Stanford University Medical Center in the mid-1970s that extended his life by 25 years.

I shared this story with the couple who have lived for 12 years in the Fogarty House Michael Griffith and Nicola Mason and in turn, they shared a few Fogarty stories and their passion for the hallowed place they and their daughter call home.

A lot of effort went into having floors refinished, a kitchen created, wallpaper removed and paint and polyurethane applied, but the end result is the goal they set.

Its got quirks and its got history, Mason said. Its also got craftsmanship you cant find in new construction.

The couple lived in Baton Rouge, La., when Griffith was offered jobs in Cincinnati and North Carolina. He interviewed here in February 2002.

Griffith, an English professor at the University of Cincinnati, and Mason, managing editor of The Cincinnati Review, zeroed in on Northside during their initial house hunt. The 2-story Fogarty House, which was built by the doctors family in 1895 around the corner from the Andrew Jergens mansion, was an obvious contender.

A lot of houses we looked at didnt have the woodwork exposed. It had all been painted over, Griffith said. I was looking for original woodwork and door frames.

Follow this link:
Home Tour: Surgeon and inventor 'grew up here'

The restoration project in the Great Hall at Allerton Castle

First published in Harrogate & Ripon news

A MAJOR project has been launched to clean and restore the 70-foot high ceiling of a North Yorkshire stately home.

The restoration scheme in the Great Hall at Allerton Castle, between York and Knaresborough, has involved Harrogate Scaffolding Ltd installing its highest ever interior scaffold.

A team of stonemasons has been restoring the window tracery and stone ashlar blocks, after which work can begin on cleaning and restoring the wood panelling of the hammer beam ceiling and bosses, as well as the decorative stained glass windows.

Once the work at the top of the ceiling is completed, restoration will begin on the Angel Gallery, with all the work having to be completed before Easter so the castle doors can open again for visitors and wedding guests alike.

Go here to see the original:
Restoration project starts at Allerton Castle

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A builder's mission to turn a derelict former Victorian schoolhouse into his family home will be featured on Channel 4s Restoration Man.

For years the Old Schoolhouse on Braxted Park Road, Great Braxted - where workers of the neighbouring stately home schooled their children - had been unloved and unlived.

But now it is enjoying a new lease of life just 18 months after changing hands into the ownership of Jim and Bee Goody a renovation that attracted producers of the TV show, who sent presenter George Clarke to visit the project several times, while film crews were at the house more than 20 times during the revamp.

OnWednesday (January 14), Jim and Bee will be seenreliving the mammoth task as the episode featuring their new beloved home was aired to the nation.

Jim said: It was wrecked inside. We had to do everything, refurbish the whole lot; it was re-plumbed, had new electrics, was plastered and redecorated. Everything.

The Goodys, including Bees stepson Lewis, 22, have relocated from Chigwell after their 288,000 bid for the property, built in a Tudor revival style popular at the time, was accepted in September 2013, before work began in April 2014.

We didnt know what we were looking for until we found it, said Jim. I went to view the property and saw the views around it, so I text my wife a few photos of the fields around the place.

So we thought lets do it, we put in a bid three days later, and the rest is history.

The project was perhaps not as daunting to Jim, who specialises in home refurbishments, as it would have been to other property developers.

Go here to read the rest:
WillWatkinson commented Old Schoolhouse on Braxted Park Road to feature on Channel 4's...

By GLENN GRIFFITH ggriffith@digitalfirstmedia.com @CNWeekly on Twitter

Paul Coons working inside the building that will become the Vischer Ferry General Store

George and Karan Donohue have joined Tom and Louise McManus and Paul and Joanne Coons to rehabilitate the building that formerly housed the Riders Crossing Tack Shop, 357 Riverview Road, Rexford. The mid-19th century structure was badly damaged by a suspicious fire Sept. 11, 2013.

Fearing what might happen if a new owner bought the empty building, Clifton Park native George Donohue called the Coons shortly after the fire. He asked the couple if they would be interested in a partnership to restore the building and return it to its place as a commercial gathering spot for the small riverside community.

The Coons have a history of restoring homes in town. They restored the home directly to the south of the shop and the home they presently live in off Moe Road. Both projects won them awards from the towns Historic Preservation Commission.

Now, they and their private restoration crew are hard at work in another cold building putting in new framing, windows, insulation, wiring, and plumbing for what will eventually be a store with two apartments. The Coons also want to make the building historically accurate but also as environmentally efficient as possible.

We try to buy as much local source wood and green products as we can, Joanne Coons said. Were going to maximize what we can within historic preservation standards.

A tour of the work site showed mid-nineteenth century beams holding up a second floor thats been framed out for a two bedroom apartment. Several stacks of pine planking sat nearby waiting to be measured and nailed into place. A propane heater valiantly tried to provide a bit of heat while the restoration crew went about its work.

These pillars are all different, Paul Coons said, brushing his hand against the buildings wooden front porch pillars. We got the lumber from an Amish saw mill. Well finish them here so they match.

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Clifton park - couples partner on restoration project

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A builder's mission to turn a derelict former Victorian schoolhouse into his family home will be featured on Channel 4s Restoration Man.

For years the Old Schoolhouse on Braxted Park Road, Great Braxted - where workers of the neighbouring stately home schooled their children - had been unloved and unlived.

But now it is enjoying a new lease of life just 18 months after changing hands into the ownership of Jim and Bee Goody a renovation that attracted producers of the TV show, who sent presenter George Clarke to visit the project several times, while film crews were at the house more than 20 times during the revamp.

OnWednesday (January 14), Jim and Bee will be seenreliving the mammoth task as the episode featuring their new beloved home was aired to the nation.

Jim said: It was wrecked inside. We had to do everything, refurbish the whole lot; it was re-plumbed, had new electrics, was plastered and redecorated. Everything.

The Goodys, including Bees stepson Lewis, 22, have relocated from Chigwell after their 288,000 bid for the property, built in a Tudor revival style popular at the time, was accepted in September 2013, before work began in April 2014.

We didnt know what we were looking for until we found it, said Jim. I went to view the property and saw the views around it, so I text my wife a few photos of the fields around the place.

So we thought lets do it, we put in a bid three days later, and the rest is history.

The project was perhaps not as daunting to Jim, who specialises in home refurbishments, as it would have been to other property developers.

Read this article:
WillWatkinson published Old Schoolhouse on Braxted Park Road to feature on Channel 4's...

By Marina WilliamsJan. 13, 2015, 9 a.m.

An 1880s Victorian house in the Macedon Ranges becomes the 'ideal home' for two keen renovators.

A Victorian house in the Macedon Ranges is lovingly restored. Photo: LIZ FLEMING.

A rundown Victorian property in the Macedon Ranges has been given a new lease of life thanks to the deft touch of a retired Melbourne couple.

Situated well off the main highway and nestled on a high spot on the southern side of the ranges, the historic house had good bones. But it had been untouched for decades by the previous - and original - owners when these keen renovators took it on as their latest project.

The oldest house we have fully renovated was from the1820s in Tasmania - now you can't get much earlier than that, says one half of the couple, who are a renovating powerhouse after having restored multiple homes in Victoria and Tasmania.

Family photos and artworks adorn the walls of the original hallway. Photo: LIZ FLEMING.

Family photos and artworks adorn the walls of the original hallway. Photo: LIZ FLEMING.

An original archway, door frames and lead light windows were in good order. Photo: LIZ FLEMING.

A wall of windows transitions the old to the new in the Macedon Ranges farmhouse. Photo: LIZ FLEMING.

Excerpt from:
Heritage home renewed on Macedon Ranges: photos

Renie Clark, right, and Sally Walling, left, look over one of the teddy bears that Clark knits at her home in the Cala Springs Mobile Home Park on Northeast 14th Street in Ocala, Fla. on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015. Clark crafts dolls and teddy bears and gives them to people in assisted living facilities, at the domestic violence shelter and other locations.

Renie Clark views her doll restoring efforts not as a hobby but as a ministry. The dolls are given to residents of local health care facilities and women at the domestic violence shelter.

The concept is reinforced by Howard Speights, activities director at Ocala Avante Nursing Home, one of the recipients of Clark's talents.

Those dolls do something for my residents like nothing else I ever have seen, Speights said. These are long-term residents who can't step outside of their rooms to socialize. The dolls take them back to their childhood, it opens them up and brings broads smiles to their faces. It brings my residents a whole lot of joy. They hold their dolls with a real sense of ownership as if they were their most treasured possession. The dolls then become a focal point for our staff to relate to those who before had very little conversation at all.

The Cala Springs home Clark shares with her husband, Harold, is a doll paradise. A tiny clothesline hangs above the washer and dryer to hold the clothes she makes and repairs on her state-of-the-art sewing machine, a gift from Harold.

I wore out two others, Clark said of the sewing machine.

One bedroom is devoted to brightly colored materials, yarn and other items essential for repairs. Dolls in various stages of completion are displayed throughout the home.

When asked how her husband co-exists with the large number of dolls, Clark grinned and said, I'm very happy when I am sewing and a little cranky when I am not; he wants me happy.

The value of using dolls to reach nursing home residents was further explained by David Huckabee, who provides area residents with programs, education and support services from the Central and North Florida Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.

No matter whom you are, what your age is, what your limitations may be, everyone wants a purpose, Huckabee said. A purpose in life can enhance the quality of life. The restored dolls being donated can serve as a reminder of when these resident women may have cared for their children, and may be a way for them to offer attention and nurture to something else.

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Woman's doll restoration efforts are a ministry to others