The Remodeling Project
From James Donahue’s Journal
After the death of her mother, Doris decided she wanted to completely refurbish her house before we moved into it. Since I was living mostly away from home at the time, this became her project during the early stages. Her brother Jerry, an industrial electrician by trade and an experienced carpenter who built his own home, agreed to do the work. To finance the project we mortgaged the property through the Caseville bank where we were still doing business.
Thinking that this, at last, would be our final retirement home, Doris put her brilliant creative mind to work and turned that little two-bedroom house into a beautifully designed home. I watched the transition each weekend when I came home. Often my weekends home were spent taking Doris to Saginaw to shop for flooring, kitchen cabinets, and a wide variety of things ranging from drapes and furniture to carpeting. I retired in the midst of this project and got actively involved in some of the carpentry and painting and finishing the rooms. For Doris I believe it was a labor of love.
Jerry tore open the walls, rewired the house, and then set to work leveling the floors throughout. The entrance to the house originally led to a basement stairway with a door on the right opening into the kitchen. An open doorway on the left led into a closed pantry. Behind the pantry was the main bedroom. What Doris and Jerry did was convert this, opening the pantry to the bedroom and sealing off the entrance to the kitchen. The house was re-plumbed for a kitchen in what had been the master bedroom and the old kitchen was turned into the living room. This made more sense because the plumbing for the kitchen and adjoining bathroom was now located side-by-side.
The old bathroom toilet and sink were removed and we installed new fixtures. Somehow I got involved in some of that plumbing work. I never liked plumbing work and at one point got into a problem I could not solve. A young man named Adam Wright, one of Jennifer’s friends, stopped by. He took a look at what I was trying to do and offered to help. Within a short time he not only solved my problem but finished the job I was doing. I found out that Adam was extremely handy at doing jobs like this and was looking for odd jobs for some spare change. I hired him to insulate the attic. We also blew insulation into the walls.
The original design of the house had an archway separating the dining room from the living room. We wanted to convert the living room, at the far end of the house into the master bedroom. I closed the archway, put up drywall, then built a closet in one corner of the new bedroom. That was a perfect location for our master bedroom. The entrance way led to a short hall into the kitchen, the second bedroom and the bathroom. It was a perfect layout for that small house.
Doris and I happened to walk into a Saginaw store that specialized in kitchen cabinets and found an entire display of finished maple cabinets on sale. Doris thought the display would come very close to fitting the room we were making over into our kitchen. We bought the complete display on impulse and had it delivered. We were amazed to find that all but one top and bottom portion of the display fit perfectly into our kitchen. The other pieces fit in our entranceway to the kitchen. This also is where we placed a stacked washer and drier. We installed a kitchen sink with a garbage disposal unit, a dishwasher, a new gas fired stove and a new refrigerator. We had our sink and kitchen counter tops custom made in a beige Corian.
We found and bought a beautiful wood burning cook stove that we put in the dining room. I had a metal pipe especially made that fed directly into the chimney. I built a brick foundation on which to place the stove.
We bought a giant oak cabinet with glass doors from Bub’s daughter, Deborah that we moved into the living room. It became a magnificent display case for all of the antique and collectable glass that we acquired during our flea market days.
We even finished our basement. We removed the old furnace and replaced the heating system with a new propane gas-fired high efficiency heating and cooling system. This included an air conditioning unit that was located at the rear of the house. We could literally leave the thermostat set at 72 degrees and the house maintained that temperature year around. We painted the floor and I set up a tool box and bench along one wall.
Of course Doris, Jennifer and I continued to frequent the markets on holiday weekends, always searching for more of the collectables. I also was building a fantastic vinyl record collection. I bought a great stereo system, complete with turntable, and began copying the music from the vinyl recordings on cassette tapes so I could preserve the records.
After we moved into our dream house, I set up a desk and converted the small house into an office where I did my writing and kept my music collection. The spare bedroom was maintained so the place also was used as a guest house, complete with a mini-kitchen, bathroom and shower. We had the perfect setup.
From James Donahue’s Journal
After the death of her mother, Doris decided she wanted to completely refurbish her house before we moved into it. Since I was living mostly away from home at the time, this became her project during the early stages. Her brother Jerry, an industrial electrician by trade and an experienced carpenter who built his own home, agreed to do the work. To finance the project we mortgaged the property through the Caseville bank where we were still doing business.
Thinking that this, at last, would be our final retirement home, Doris put her brilliant creative mind to work and turned that little two-bedroom house into a beautifully designed home. I watched the transition each weekend when I came home. Often my weekends home were spent taking Doris to Saginaw to shop for flooring, kitchen cabinets, and a wide variety of things ranging from drapes and furniture to carpeting. I retired in the midst of this project and got actively involved in some of the carpentry and painting and finishing the rooms. For Doris I believe it was a labor of love.
Jerry tore open the walls, rewired the house, and then set to work leveling the floors throughout. The entrance to the house originally led to a basement stairway with a door on the right opening into the kitchen. An open doorway on the left led into a closed pantry. Behind the pantry was the main bedroom. What Doris and Jerry did was convert this, opening the pantry to the bedroom and sealing off the entrance to the kitchen. The house was re-plumbed for a kitchen in what had been the master bedroom and the old kitchen was turned into the living room. This made more sense because the plumbing for the kitchen and adjoining bathroom was now located side-by-side.
The old bathroom toilet and sink were removed and we installed new fixtures. Somehow I got involved in some of that plumbing work. I never liked plumbing work and at one point got into a problem I could not solve. A young man named Adam Wright, one of Jennifer’s friends, stopped by. He took a look at what I was trying to do and offered to help. Within a short time he not only solved my problem but finished the job I was doing. I found out that Adam was extremely handy at doing jobs like this and was looking for odd jobs for some spare change. I hired him to insulate the attic. We also blew insulation into the walls.
The original design of the house had an archway separating the dining room from the living room. We wanted to convert the living room, at the far end of the house into the master bedroom. I closed the archway, put up drywall, then built a closet in one corner of the new bedroom. That was a perfect location for our master bedroom. The entrance way led to a short hall into the kitchen, the second bedroom and the bathroom. It was a perfect layout for that small house.
Doris and I happened to walk into a Saginaw store that specialized in kitchen cabinets and found an entire display of finished maple cabinets on sale. Doris thought the display would come very close to fitting the room we were making over into our kitchen. We bought the complete display on impulse and had it delivered. We were amazed to find that all but one top and bottom portion of the display fit perfectly into our kitchen. The other pieces fit in our entranceway to the kitchen. This also is where we placed a stacked washer and drier. We installed a kitchen sink with a garbage disposal unit, a dishwasher, a new gas fired stove and a new refrigerator. We had our sink and kitchen counter tops custom made in a beige Corian.
We found and bought a beautiful wood burning cook stove that we put in the dining room. I had a metal pipe especially made that fed directly into the chimney. I built a brick foundation on which to place the stove.
We bought a giant oak cabinet with glass doors from Bub’s daughter, Deborah that we moved into the living room. It became a magnificent display case for all of the antique and collectable glass that we acquired during our flea market days.
We even finished our basement. We removed the old furnace and replaced the heating system with a new propane gas-fired high efficiency heating and cooling system. This included an air conditioning unit that was located at the rear of the house. We could literally leave the thermostat set at 72 degrees and the house maintained that temperature year around. We painted the floor and I set up a tool box and bench along one wall.
Of course Doris, Jennifer and I continued to frequent the markets on holiday weekends, always searching for more of the collectables. I also was building a fantastic vinyl record collection. I bought a great stereo system, complete with turntable, and began copying the music from the vinyl recordings on cassette tapes so I could preserve the records.
After we moved into our dream house, I set up a desk and converted the small house into an office where I did my writing and kept my music collection. The spare bedroom was maintained so the place also was used as a guest house, complete with a mini-kitchen, bathroom and shower. We had the perfect setup.