Historic John Work House Restoration

Candlelight tours and more!

2011-12-08T20:04:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know I haven't posted anything in a REALLY LOOONG time and that I should be ashamed of myself, but I've honestly been too busy working on the house restoration to actually sit down and write about it. It's much faster to send out quick blurbs on Facebook, so if you want to keep up with the latest news, check there. I will make a point of getting the blog caught up over the winter for those of you who demand a higher standard in your publications.

In the meantime, we've done so many amazing things that the house is hardly recognizable now. It has made a dramatic turnaround and now it's starting to shine like the historic gem that it is. Better yet, now you have a great opportunity to see it! We will be hosting Christmas Candlelight Tours this weekend and the following weekend on Friday and Saturday night from 6pm to 9pm. Come out and learn a little about the history of Christmas traditions in America, have some cookies and hot chocolate, visit the gift shop for some great holiday gift ideas, and have a good time with our reenactor volunteers and friends!

Civil War reenactment at the Historic John Work House!

2011-04-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

Come see our first living history weekend at the Historic John Work House! June 4th and 5th, 2011 are the dates for our very first event! This is a Civil War weekend complete with soldiers, battles, merchants, and much more! BSA Troop 80 will be providing food, a portion of the proceeds will go to preserving the Historic John Work House. There is a $5 parking fee which benefits both the Historic John Work House and BSA Troop 1. Come have fun, bring the family, and take a step back in time! We'll post a schedule for the weekend a little closer to the date.

Whew! We've been BUSY!!

2011-04-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

I just realized how long it's been since I posted an update on the blog. I feel very bad about it... It's been a whirlwind these last few months! In addition to regular trade fair/early event season insanity, we have also been working on two major orders for a museum and a historic site! It's also that time of year for planning and promoting living history events, including several new ones for the Historic John Work House in addition to two events I already run offsite... In the midst of this craziness (not to mention raising a 16-month-old) we have actually managed to get a remarkable amount of work done on the historic house.

Here is a picture of the West side of the house taken today. We were test-fitting one of the new dowstairs windows. This will be the first side of the house to have all of it's windows back in place. We now have sashes in ALL of the upstairs windows and we're hoping to have the downstairs windows in soon. Unfortunately we won't be able to take the plywood boards off the windows until we get some shutters made because with the warmer weather, we're also having more activity from amateur ghost hunters. Our security guards have reported suspicious activity every weekend for the last 4 weeks. Unfortunately no arrests have been made, but that's not for lack of trying to catch them, but rather from the fact that the trespassers are being a lot more cautious now. Nevertheless, if someone is foolhardy enough to get out of their vehicle, they will be caught and they will go to jail because our security guards are attentive, devoted, and ready for action any night! For those who are brazen enough to try in broad daylight, (good luck finding a time when no one is there though) there is an alarm system and digital video cameras watching their every move. The cameras have infrared night-vision as well, so they monitor all day AND all night, though the security guards at night are probably the most effective thing we've got! Anyone caught on this property after dark WILL be prosecuted to the FULLEST extent of the law!

Here is a picture of the front of the house taken this afternoon. You'll notice all of the new windows upstairs! Also, notice that the tree out front is gone. It has been dropping branches for the past year and was looking pretty rough. When we cut it down, we noticed that there was rot begining in all the main branches and the trunk. It was only a matter of time before it would bring itself down on the house! The view from the road is significantly improved as well! Look closely and you'll see that the front porch has been restored. All the old paint was stripped and it has been completely re-painted. The doorframe has also been stripped and repaired, but it is still waiting for paint. Look to the left and you'll see a blue banner. This is advertising our first public reenactment event for the Historic John Work House. It will be a Civil War weekend featuring Union and Confederate soldiers fighting a fictional mock battle and participating in living history programming throughout the weekend. BSA Troop 80 will be handling food and Troop 1 will be covering parking. The proceeds from food and parking will be shared by the troops and the Historic John Work House restoration project. If you look in the yard directly in front of the porch, you'll see a cannon! Yes, that's a cannon. It's a non-functioning piece made entirely of wood. (Looks real though, doesn't it?) This is actually an historical idea. Fake cannons were called "Quaker guns". This name came from the fact that Quakers didn't believe in violence, therefore a harmless cannon aquired that name. These sorts of fake cannons were used to convince enemy armies and enemy ships that the owner had a lot of firepower, when in fact, they didn't. This is called a ruse de guerre, which is French for "trick of war". Our Quaker gun is not meant to trick an enemy, but it is there to catch the eye of passers-by and direct their attention to the Civil War reenactment we're having in June. By the way, the date for that is June 4th and 5th, 2011. We hope to see you there!

We recently hosted a couple of living history days for our volunteers. Here are some pictures of Spencer's Company of Rifles practicing drill in the side yard of the Historic John Work House and other reenactors enjoying a historic evening in the upstairs of the house.

These are pictures of the upstairs West room of the John Work House. This room will someday be the library. Right now, it is serving as a temporary meeting and hang-out location for our volunteers and reenactors. This room is the most original part of the house, having never been remodeled and only lightly vandalized. This room has not been restored, with exception of the fireplace. As it is, it's a wonderful place to sit, play music, and enjoy the company of good friends! We hope you'll come visit us!

Don't want to wait for the next blog entry? Keep up to date with the progress on Facebook! Search for TAYLOR ROSE HISTORICAL OUTFITTERS and click "like" to add our Historic John Work House updates to your newsfeed!

Windows, Doors and Electric!

2011-01-04T18:20:00.000-08:00

We're making progress!! In mid-December, we finally got the electricity turned on! It took nearly 6 months of work to get us to this moment, but the day REMC turned on the juice was a great morale booster! Now you might ask, why put electricity in a 200-year-old building? First, there are some things that should ONLY be done by hand with hand-tools! However, there are times when precision is not necessary and modern power tools can make the job go a lot faster! Plus there are jobs that we have to do that are not exactly anything that historical folks would have dealt with. For example, scraping 200 years worth of layered -nay, CAKED- lead paint from EVERY wooden item in the house. We have a special tool that allows us to safely remove lead paint, but it requires electricity to operate! Also, having good light in the workshop helps a lot! Not to mention the help of the space heater to take the chill off while the wood stove is heating up!

Another huge plus is that we now have security lights all around the house. There are several motion-activated lights around the back-side of the house, but there are four halogen floods that stay on all night to help keep the late-night vandals, trespassers, and "ghost hunters" at bay. The lights have helped a lot because it reminds people that we are restoring the place and it is off-limits. (Speaking of trespassers, we had a nice talk with the Clark County Sheriff and the county prosecutor and they have agreed to take a zero tolerance approach to all trespassers caught on the property. For their own sake, I hope the amateur ghost hunters and thrill seekers give up the chase here because the next person is definately going to appear in court! No more warnings!)

Here is a picture of the house with the new nighttime floods:

Now that we have electric, lights, and a wood stove, we have been able to really put a lot of work into the most pressing projects. The first order of business was the windows. Here is a picture of the workshop with window restoration in progress!

On Sunday, January 2nd, we got ALL the upstairs windows INSTALLED!! Huzzah!! There are five across the front and two in the back, plus one in the west side. We also added a new period-style window where a modern one had been installed in the 1980's. This greatly improved the look of the house, made the upstairs 150 times brighter, and gave the whole house a very happy feel and appearance. We can't wait to get the downstairs windows done! Here are some pictures of the new windows:

Today, we installed salvaged antique doors in the interior of the house. There was only one doorway that we couldn't find a door to fit! The doors will still need to have old paint removed and be repainted, but at least they're in there! This not only looks good, it also allows us to heat one room at a time which allows us to work in comfort and do projects involving plaster, mortar, and paint!!

There's still lots to be done, but at least now it is getting MUCH more comfortable to do the work thanks to our improvements! If you'd like to volunteer, please call (812) 606-1264.

New fence, new WINDOWS, Scout tours and volunteer party!!!

2010-11-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

This past weekend has been a phenomenal one for the John Work House and it's volunteers. Throughout the month of October we've been working exceptionally hard on the process of getting the house situated for the Halloween weekend. First, we knew that we would have a lot of attempts to break into the property considering the particular holiday... That drove us to try to plan a holiday weekend for the property. We also knew that the BSA were hosting a "Haunted Woods" for Cub Scouts on Saturday and this would be a great opportunity to teach some history and get the kids interested in the restoration project. We were expecting 600 Cub Scouts... We ended up with 1200!!! It was a wild ride, but we made it and the kids enjoyed it!

Sunday morning found us working on a split-rail fence. Stephen, Justin, Nathan and Jay worked for 3 hours and built a fantastic fence that reaches across the whole front of the house! It was a great moment seeing that come together.

The other major accomplishment for the weekend was that we got three of the new windows installed! The other ones still need a lot of work, but with three in the front upstairs, the house suddenly feels much more happy. Justin said, "The entire mood of the house has changed just with the installation of those three windows." We can't wait to see how it feels when all of the new windows are finished.

On Sunday night (Halloween) we hosted a party for our volunteer staff. We had the house lit up with oil lamps and candles and decorated with period reproductions. It was wonderful! We had a dinner, some apple cider, and played some period music. It was so much fun that we decided we need to do something similar again soon. The other wonderful thing is that no one tried to break into the property or trespass on Halloween night. We had 3 security guards on site all night just to be sure, but they had a boring night. (Thankfully!) It seems that we're finally getting the message out that this place is not a party house, vandal fodder, or "ghost hunter" hangout. It is a historic property and it is finally being treated as such. It was a good weekend!

Great work weekend!

2010-10-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

This past weekend had a great turnout from volunteers. We got a lot of work done and had a good time doing it!

We got the workshop roof repaired, the workshop ceiling ready to hang drywall, and we got some more wiring done. We also dug a trench in the front yard through solid roots for electrical conduit which allows us to install floodlights on the front of the house. These four halogen lights will be on all night and will hopefully stop much of the attempted break-ins that we've experienced in the past month.

A BSA volunteer also stopped by and picked up some sample pieces of the stairway railing. He is going to get the wood donated and turn replacement posts and make handrails for the few pieces that are missing. He hopes to have this done by December!

We are incredibly grateful and amazed at the quality of our volunteers. You guys rock!

Soffits and Trespassers!

2010-09-26T17:11:00.000-07:00

Today we completed a new soffit for the west side of the house. The old soffit was so rotten that it was difficult to remove the nails because in many places there was nothing to brace the hammer against! What were once solid 2" by 10" boards were now easily crumbled between the fingers! We replaced the whole west side. Soon we'll tackle the east side and the back eaves. Check out the progress in the picture below:

On another note, our evening security program is working well. Over the course of Friday night we apprehended 15 teenagers that were trespassing on the property. These teens not only got a stern response from our security personell, but also from the Clark County Sherrif's Department. No arrests were made, however, they did receive warnings and these delinquents are now in Clark County's database and will certainly go to jail immediately if they are caught anywhere on our property or trespassing anywhere else in Clark County in the next 12 months. We've made it clear that we will NOT tolerate vandalism or trespassing and that we are serious about protecting this local historical treasure. If "ghost hunting", partying, vandalizing, or whatever is more important to you than getting arrested and going to jail, then guards will be waiting for you!

In response to the most common thing we have heard from people trespassing on the property at odd hours, we only have this to say... Even if you've heard stories and you think that the house is "haunted", you do not have any right OR "duty" to break into the house to try to find them. You are not ghostbusters and even if there where a ghost, it's not bothing you... Leave it alone, or you'll find yourself talking to Clark County Police!

New look!!

2010-09-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

The house has a new look! We took the old particle-board window coverings off of the front of the house and replaced them with new plywood, painted white. We also attached a strip of wood to the front to vaguely simulate the look of closed shutters. We also removed the old plastic "fake" shutters from the sides of the windows. The front door sports fresh paint, and the house has address numbers on the front now!

Just in case you don't remember how the house looked before we took over, here is a picture taken by the Historic Landmarks Foundation before we took possesion of the building:

We've also been working on clean-up inside to rid the house of all the vandalism and demolition debris. We have begun the process of patching all of the hundreds of thousands of chips and chunks out of the plaster. Some are from daily living, (little nicks on the stairwell from moving furniture) while others are from vandals, (axe and hammer marks where they tried to bust the walls) but slowly we are patching them all.

The workshop in the back is nearing completion! Only a few work days away from throwing the electricity switch! We are installing a ceiling in the workshop this weekend! We'll be wiring a few more outlets as well.

Making progress is always encouraging! We're getting closer every day!

Today we hosted our first official business meeting in the building! It was cramped in the foyer of the house, (The only presentable place that had plenty of natural light) but we met with movie producers, prop guys, directors, and more to brainstorm on the new production of a Lewis and Clark documentary for the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center. They were very impressed with the potential and the ideas that we have for the site. Meeting in a house that was built in 1811 and currently has no electric or running water gave them "a great emotional charge" and "set the mood" for the planning that must ensue. This is exactly what we want the house to be... An inspiration to everyone who comes there for work or play! Come get inspired yourself! We could use the help!

Pictures!!

2010-09-19T21:55:00.001-07:00

Here is a picture of the NEW split-rail fence in front of the Historic John Work House. It took me 2 hours to split these rails by hand out of a 14" locust log. It was actually a lot of fun and a great workout! We have more logs to split, so if you'd like to try it, I'd be happy to show you how it's done!
Here is a picture of the new side door!! It looked great, but last week someone came and kicked the door AGAIN!!! Now we're going to have to replace the doorframe AGAIN! However, you'll be pleased to know that this 160+ year old solid walnut door did not suffer. Only the modern doorframe was damaged!

Ok, so the rest of these pictures were taken DURING the demolition phase, so please excuse the mess!! This is a picture of one of the ORIGINAL walls that we got to after removing a lot of drywall and 2"x4"s. As you can see, the plaster (underneath the wallpaper in this photo) is in VERY good shape. Unfortunately the original chair rails and trim were removed. (Note the bare brick areas. That's where it belongs) There is one room upstairs that still has it's original chair rail as does the foyer/stairwell.

This is one of the FEW windowframes that were still mostly intact. This one was a little damagerd. All the glass except for two panes were broken by vandals. All of the windowframes are currently with an expert being restored. We expect to have glass in MOST of the windows and the frames re-installed in at least the front of the building by mid-late October.

This fireplace (Still bricked up in this photo) was recently hidden by an enormous creekrock facade. In our attampt to put the house back to original, we removed the creekrock and exposed this povely brick and plaster fireplace. Furthermore, we discovered the missing mantel in the attic of the house! Nails in the mantel matched holes in the plaster!! I nearly cried when I discovered this in the attic!

Whew!!

2010-09-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

Ok! So we've been really busy! Yes, I know I've been remiss in posting blogs lately! The fall reenacting season combined with an impressive amount of work at the Historic John Work House has kept me from being able to sit down and write another blog entry.

However, I felt that it was way overdue, so I'm going to try to cover a few brief points and put more in later...

Major points of interest:

1) 90% of the modern materials and "remuddling" has been removed!! We are now down to just original plaster walls in all rooms. Most of the graffiti has been either removed or painted over. (Yay!)

2) The electric is going to be turned on very, very soon! This will make the process of replacing damaged or lost woodwork much easier and faster, plus we can install floodlights for security and a much more powerful alarm system with all sorts of sensors!

3) There is a brand new section of split-rail fence, roughly 30 feet in length, that was split by none other than yours truly (Nathanael Logsdon) one cool, misty Friday morning. It was a fun experience and it makes to front yard look really cool. I plan to make more in the future.

4) Halloween party!! Since we've been having a lot of vandalism and attempted break-ins lately, and since Halloween weekend will probably be our biggest weekend for such negative activity, instead of our usual night watchmen, we're going to host a weekend-long Halloween party! Come in your period clothes and spend Fridany, Saturday, or Sunday night in the Historic John Work House! There will be period snacks, pumpkin ale, and lots of other treats! We'll also be doing some period games and other fun stuff. Bring an instrument if you play something! (We'd appreciate it if you'd RSVP so we can make sure that there's plenty of snacks to go around!) If you're going to Locust Grove, this property is only 30 minutes away, so you CAN do BOTH if you'd like!

5) We need your help! We need volunteers to help with workdays so we can A) secure the house against further vandalism, and B) so we can have the house looking good for the party!

6) Plans are in the works for a Bluegrass Jam Fest at the Historic John Work House in the summer of 2011 as a part of the 200th anniversary celebrations for the property. This will be a fun-filled day and night of bluegrass, food, and early 20th century reenacting as well as pre-WWII antique vehicles! Stay tuned for this one!!

I'll get pictures posted later this week of some of the great stuff we've been doing at the property!

Window seminar!

2010-07-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

We attended a window restoration seminar last night that was very informative and made the window repair seem like less of a challenge. Jack Patchin of Madison, IN was very helpful and encouraging.

We have also discovered lots of great new artifacts! We'll post pictures of those as soon as we can...

Speaking of which, the motherboard went out on our computer, so updates will be few and lacking pictures for a little while. This does NOT mean that we're not working on the house! Things are still progressing well!

Today, REMC set a new telephone pole to prepare for the new electricity connection! Soon we'll be hooked up and ready to get some serious work done!

If you drive by the house this week, you'll see our new banner advertising this blog! Hopefully we'll get more followers on this blog from the local area thanks to the new signage.

Also, today... I went to the house to unlock the garage for the electric crew and much to my surprise, I found a roughly 8-week old kitten inside! I think he crawled in under the gap between the garage door and the floor. I'd guess he was probably dumped by someone as he seems extremely friendly and he's all alone. He was very happy to see me and made a point of following me everywhere in and out of the house. We've decided to adopt him as the offical Tunnel Mill cat! He is staying at my house until we can get him a proper living space set up at the historic property. (And to keep him out from underfoot while we're working...) He was dehydrated and hungry when I found him, but he's doing much better now.

This story has a happy ending, however, many of these tales end in the demise of the animal either through roadkill, predators, poison, or simply people who don't like animals. Likewise, feral cats are a serious problem and negatively impact native wildlife by killing migratory and non-migratory birds, woodland animals such as squirrels and chipmunks, and can spead diseases among native wildlife populations. PLEASE!!! If you have an animal that you can't keep or don't want anymore, take it to the local animal shelter. Clark County has a great shelter that tries hard to find homes for unwanted pets. Kittens are usually not hard to place in a home and they'll have a much better chance of survival in the animal shelter than in the wild. Please don't dump your pets. They're much more likely to die or cause problems in the wild.

More updates and pictures to come as soon as I get another computer!

Major work weekend!!

2010-07-19T10:38:00.001-07:00

We had a great weekend at the historic John Work House! We rented an 18-yard dumpster to handle all the modern drywall and carpet, broken glass, etc that we have removed from the house. We filled it in no time flat!! We had a great crew on hand all weekend long including several shifts each day! When you have a lot of motivated people who don't mind getting dirty, you end up with a very successful project day! We are eternally grateful to all of our help, particularly to the reenactors and members of Troop 1 who came out both days.

Lots of youthful exhuberance!! Both the Scouts and the Reenactor kids worked hard and had a great time doing it!

Reenactors doing very dirty work inside the old kitchen. This area will someday be a sewing workshop for making historical reproduction clothing!

Our accomplishments over the weekend include: Removal of all modern drywall and framing in the sewing workshop, installation of a temporary door on the garage (allows us to lock the garage now!), cleaning of both garage areas, general clean-up, and much more! We also found a number of historically-significant discoveries. See our "Historical Artifacts" tab for more information on those finds.

The next work-day will be Wednesday, July 21st from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM. SEE YOU THERE!!

Work Begins!

2010-07-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

In June we were finally able to start the project! The first job was to STOP THE BREAK-INS!! Vandals and amatuer ghost hunters had been attacking the house nearly every night and often two or three groups a night would come in. Without surveillance cameras or any way to lock the house (the doors had been smashed down) there was nothing we could do other than try to catch the perpetrators. When we finally got the doors replaced with locks, cameras, lights and an alarm, the break-ins stopped. Trespassing still occurs from time to time, but our security cameras see all and incriminating footage is handled by Clark County police. With the house secure, the time has come for restoration!

The first project was to pull out all of the old carpet and sweep up the broken glass and drywall debris from the vandalism. Most of the clean-up was accomplished in just two days! Special thanks to all of the volunteers who have worked so hard to save this historic landmark!!

We have also removed much of the vegetation around the house, cleaned up the grounds, and covered the upstairs windows with plastic.

The house has been quite covered inside with graffiti. Most of it is people's names and dates that they trespassed on the property. (We are keeping a list of all the first/last name combos dated within the last 6 months) There was some graffiti that was much more explicit in nature... (This picture has been edited. I'm sure you can guess what has been deleted... The door in this picture is about 160 years old.)

We have since painted over all of the explicit writings on the walls and doors in an attempt to make the house more family-friendly for our volunteers.

Another major project recently what the opening of one of the old fireplaces. Of the four fireplaces in the house, three of them were bricked up. We recently opened the upstairs one! It was poorly bricked up using what appears to be leftover bricks from the original house. We managed to save over a dozen original bricks! What was remarkable about the fireplace is that it was bricked up only in the front, leaving a gap behind it. The stovepipe from the old wood stove just opened into the fireplace. Thus, ashes and soot from the stovepipe entered the flue, but would cool quickly and settle behind the brick wall. When we opened the fireplace, we found about 2 feet of ashes layered up to the level of the stovepipe hole!!

BEFORE

AFTER

Here are some recent pictures of the property as it looks today: (7/14/2010)

First look...

2010-07-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

The Historic John Work House Restoration Project is a BIG JOB!! Vandals and lask of maintenance have made for a massive amount of work that needs to be done. Here is a look at what we were up against when the project was first approached.

It's a big job, but it's not impossible!!!

Welcome

2010-07-14T09:24:00.001-07:00

Hello and welcome to the new blog for the restoration and preservation project for the Historic John Work House! I'll be posting history of the property, pictures of our restoration project, and interesting tidbits all along the way, so check back regularly!

As always, we are interested in volunteers to help with the project! (Yes, there are perks!)

Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have!