When my daughter got a teaching job
in Grand Island, Nebraska she decided to buy her first home. I
went house hunting with her and after looking at several homes she
decided to buy a very cute bungalow-style home built in 1905. The
home needed some cosmetic work but it was structurally sound. Best
of all, the "arts and crafts" charm of the home had not been irreparably
molested by the home's previous owners.
She wanted to return the home to its
1905 charm and since I would soon be retiring I told her I would help
her with the restoration. Little did I know that my first
restoration effort would not be on the home itself but on an appliance
she likely wouldn't need for several years.
One day while "day-dreaming" about
the changes she wanted to make to the house she mentioned that when it
came time to redo the kitchen she would love to have a modern version of
an old wood-burning kitchen stove. She did a little research on
the internet and soon decided that with prices starting at $5000 these
stoves were probably out of her price range.
I few weeks later I was
talking to a co-worker about my daughter's new home and the price of
those replica stoves came up in the conversation. He mentioned that
he had an old stove that was in the basement of an old house he had
bought and that he would sell it if someone didn't mind "fixing" it up.
"Fixing" things up is what I do best so I arranged to meet him that
evening to have a look at the stove.
The stove was in his garage under
piles of the kind of stuff that collects in garages. After we go
it uncovered I was awestruck at the beauty of the stove. It was
like nothing I had ever seen and it looked to be in "decent" shape.
A little rust here and there and a few chips in the enamel but otherwise
in good condition. I struck a deal for $300 and I picked up the
stove the next day.
I figured after restoring
Maych, how much trouble
could it be to restore a little stove. Well, if you click on the
"Progress" tab, you will see just how much "trouble" it was.