Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The 'Purple Passion Room' is such a tease~!


You do realize that the patience it's going to take me in waiting for power upstairs and stairs upstairs, to finish the purple room might kill me, right?



So far, I've brought down 4 garbage bags full of vintage sheets, linens, bed spreads etc. to wash, that were just piled up in one of the corners. Like I said, there's places in the interior window wells in this room where the stucco has crumbled from sitting unloved for so many, many, years that the tiny livestock ruled the room (ewww....) There are currently 5 boxes of decon placed in the wall and I'm getting a handle on them little mice. It's the only way I know, to get the problem under control~!

For a year now, I've wondered where the little buggers are coming into the house, but I was so scared to go upstairs on that other ladder that I never really got to investigate. I didn't know the window had so much damage because the old, vintage, curtains that were hanging went untouched. The problem is currently being addressed and hopefully, will be repaired when the 'Man-Child' gets back this weekend.


The truth of it is, this house was abandoned in about the 1920's and left to its own demise. 

The doors were gone, the windows were gone and the old rock part of the house was just an empty shell, with cows using it for a barn. 


The elderly couple that owned it before moved here from California. They owned an avocado orchard (the reason I have so many old crates) And, he was a "Good Humor" ice cream salesman. They also had a little burger joint in CA they ran on the side. They moved to UT in the 60's, I think (might be wrong...) And they lived in an old Army tent in the front yard while they were redoing the house. I was told it took them 3 summers of rebuilding to get the old rock house livable again and then they brought all of the old, turquoise sheds and garages from CA in pieces and reconstructed them on this property.


The old house has a long history... Everybody in the area calls it "The Old Burkett Homestead," because the elderly couple's last name was "Burkett"...

The wife was named "Sally Julia" and her family were immigrants from Russia. The elderly people in the area call her a, "White Russian" ~ I'm not sure what the meaning of that slang is?


I have all of her old diaries that we found in a drawer in the old antique china cabinet, when we brought it in from the garage, but they're written in Russian. Wouldn't it be neat to have them translated? That would make a blog of it's own~~ The diaries date from 1913 through the 1970's...


My old, old, neighbor ~ 'The Man-Childs dads cousin (he's got to be 90...) 
Borrowed me a big, battery operated light this morning, so we could get some better pics to look at. I couldn't believe he could go up and down that ladder like he was 20 ~ lol... He was excited for the opportunity to see the upstairs of this old home. He told me Julia probably led me to the Hand Carved, Imported, Russian Pine Furniture that decorates the downstairs. My old neighbor said she loved carved wood and so do I~!

As we were coming back down the ladder with our piles of old, dirty, linens, he spotted this old plate in one of the boxes and I knew it would match this bedroom...


There are boxes and boxes and boxes of old dishes, china, decor from the 1930's + stacked upstairs. I just need some light upstairs to go through them...

The neighbor did help me move some stuff around to get a glimpse of the old closet in the room...


And, this old, vintage chest is on the other side of the window, but it was piled with so many boxes a picture wasn't possible until we rearranged everything, to take a shot. Yes, it is DIRTY ~ but that's the fun of it right now. And, yes, it's clear full of old things that will make a fun, blog post in the future, as the cleaning of this room continues, so stay tuned~!


I did open the chest to peek and right on top of everything is a taxidermy'd fox pelt that made me scream. Scared the crap out of me ~ lol... Yes, my old neighbor got one hell of a laugh, multiple times this morning at all of my squealing from things that are just kind of scary in here...

My old neighbor says the metal banding on this old chest is copper and the nail heads are pure brass...
It's going to be beautiful when it's cleaned up and oiled...



So, forward we go with the adventure of 'The Purple Room'...

3 comments:

  1. Omg, I love the diary! Too bad its in Russian! You sound like you are having way too much fun! :) Will be looking forward to this little adventure of yours!

    Melinda

    p.s. that is so neat that your furniture you got came from Russia too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It sounds fun, but it is so, so dirty... With no electricity, I can't use a vacuum... ugh...
    The big bedroom upstairs used to be the Man-Childs room, so he redone most of it when he got the house. It even has new carpet, albeit covered in boxes and stuff. I'm happy to have the old, old, turquoise / purple room though, with the old, old, wool carpet. I just don't know what to do with all the stuff in there. I feel like I'm just moving the mess to another spot and making a mess ~ lol... I open every box like something might jump out and attack me. It's kind of intimidating~!
    And, I'm so limited with what I can do just having 'ladder access'. There's a lot of big furniture up there right now to navigate around ~ lol
    In reality, I'm just frustrating myself ~
    =D

    ReplyDelete
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