Those three words kind of epitomize the environmental movement. I’m going to take a short journey down this road that’s a little different than prior blogs. This time, we are going to focus on the “reuse” portion of environmental stewardship.
In May 2019, we helped our son purchase a 1907 shotgun style house in the historic Washburne District of Springfield, Oregon. As you can see from the above pictures, it was a major fixer-upper. However, the “bones” of this house were good. The foundation seemed pretty solid (at least there WAS a foundation!) and most of the work seemed largely cosmetic.
Often, people will tear down old houses and simply build new. It’s often just easier. But it also comes with a much higher environmental cost: new lumber, new materials, plus the disposal of the existing materials has an impact on our world.
Aptly dubbed “The Onion House” by our son, we started by removing the wallpaper. Layers and layers and layers of wall paper. Up to SEVEN layers in many parts of the house. But the reward was the very first “layer,” which was beautiful, fir shiplap. Throughout the entire house, except for the bathroom and utility room (which were added some time after 1907).
The bulk of the time spent by our son (and my wife and me) in this initial phase was taking down the wallpaper. We literally touched every square inch of the house. And in many places, we touched over and over. Untold numbers of small brad nails, staples and glue were removed.
The results were incredible and I’ll show those in future blogs. But I wanted to go through our process of the “reuse” of such a character-filled house. While it is not on the historic register, it does have historic significance. And it was certainly worth saving and not just razing for a new home.
So sit back and enjoy a little bit of our journey in the renovation and Reuse of The Onion House.