For interested and distant friends and family, here is the write-up on our house for the Old West Side Homes Tour. This story appeared in the September Old West Side News.
The write-up gets my current profession wrong even after I corrected them, but otherwise it is a nice summary. Probably not a good idea to forward this to Dave’s grandparents…
The Old West Side homes tour has been stirring up a few things at our house. For one, we’ve had good motivation to complete a bunch of “to dos” that have been neglected. This includes recovering the chair that I’ve been hiding underneath a hideous plaid blanket for the past few years. And fixing the chipping wall near the shower….mundane things, but nice.
The best result from the tour was getting us back in touch with the home’s former occupants and learning more about the home’s history. The house was built in 1912. Before we purchased the place in 2000, the home had been in one family since 1917. The tour historian tracked down Kathy, whose grandfather owned the house, and she, her father, and her son and daughter came to visit tonight.
They revealed a few secrets: what chewed the window in the mud room, why smoking a cigarette in the bathroom isn’t as secret as you might think, what sound chestnuts make when fed into a hot coal-fired furnace, and how to communicate with the neighbor through a tin can.
We also heard how much of her own work Kathy and her family put into the place: refinishing the woodwork, the floors, custom-engineering the amazing bathtub curtain rod, and many other details. We got some garden tips: Salvia does great in the bed next to the front door. We reminisced about some funny things that are now gone: the octopus furnace, the beautiful old electric stove that looked like a car, and changes in the neighborhood.
Parts of the visit made me melancholy, as I thought about places I’ve left and ways my own family has changed. But, it was nice to feel some continuity as well. We learned we appreciate many of the same things–sitting on the front porch while the rain beats on the roof, waking to the tempting aroma of donuts from the Washtenaw Dairy, sharing dinner with friends on the back deck, and of course the beautiful and funky details of Ann Arbor and this particular place.
So, we got a phone call several weeks ago, asking whether we’d consider showing our home on the Ann Arbor Old West Side (OWS) Annual Homes Tour. We agreed.
After a brief rush mixing panic and euphoria, I now have about 12,000 little projects I want to do before the tour (Sunday, September 17). Repaint study, fix paint problem in bath, reupholster living room chair, revisit some of my garden work, repaint porch, refurbish front door exterior frame…..
One of my jobs is to find “hosts” who would be willing to act as kind of pseudo-docents on the day of the tour. There would be 2 shifts
These hosts would hang out in our house for a shift during the tour, answering questions, directing traffic, and watching over things. In addition to the adulation and respect of many 10s of happy tour-goers, and in addition to our gratitude, hosts get a free ticket to the tour and will not have to wait in line at any of the other homes (hosts can go in through the back door of the other homes).
If you’d consider doing this, let me know. We’d need ~10 people total (!).