Hot Damn, Drywall Day!
Rebuilding a Beautiful, Vacant Historic Detroit Home (Episode 21)
“When I come home to Detroit, I want to help somebody, but that’s only because I had a community to help me. It doesn’t matter if it is comedy or drama, find your tribe and do everything you can to be helpful. As long as you’re helpful, they will want to be helpful to you.” — Keegan-Michael Key
The Biggest Transformation So Far
This week had to be one of the single most satisfying weeks we’ve experienced to date with our project. On most days this week we had 3 different subcontractors on site all working simultaneously. Plaster, drywall, and electrical working to get things done. Sometimes, even plumbing would be inside at the same time working as well.
Within 2 days the entire house was successfully dry-walled in. It was the first time that Brandon and I had ever seen the kitchen, breakfast nook, guest bathroom, and one guest bedroom with walls. When we purchased the home, there were no walls in these rooms due to the water damage so we really didn’t fully know what these spaces would look like until this moment. The kitchen appeared to get larger as the white drywall on the walls and ceiling along with our new window that we installed made the room so much brighter and cleaner feeling.
We also got to see our new master bath suite with fresh eyes as drywall was installed. We finally feel like we have a good sense of the space and can’t wait to see this room really take shape.
The drywall contractors also placed 2 layers of ¼ in. drywall on our curved ceiling in the breakfast nook. The thinner material allowed it to bend to the arcs Christian built and they simply doubled up the material to add proper thickness. We’ll be having a plaster worker come in soon to skim and add detailing to the plaster to match the rest of the home.
Talking to Marion Seeley Jr.
Another amazing moment we had this week was getting to speak to one of the Granddaughters of the original home owners, named after her grandmother, Marion. We spoke with her for about an hour, hearing many stories about her grandparents and the home that she grew up visiting as a young child in the 1940s and 50s.
She told us an amazing story about her Grandmother and the maid Rosie that happened on Thanksgiving Day one year. There were many guests over at the home, everyone sitting around the dining room table for a formal evening Thanksgiving dinner. Most of the guests were not family, but their local friends. Ward pressed the call bell on the floor under the table to call Rosie, and when she entered, he asked her to bring in the turkey. Rosie went back to the kitchen and returned with a lovely turkey on a silver plate, but as she stepped through the threshold to the dining room, she tripped and the turkey when flying onto the floor.
Everyone in the room gasped. Without missing a beat, her grandmother, Marion Seeley Sr. stood up and said, “It’s alright, Rosie. Just get the other turkey.” Rosie quickly stood back up, returned the turkey to the plate and stepped back into the kitchen. “”There was no other turkey,” Marion Jr. told us, “but Rosie knew what to do, and my grandmother knew exactly what to say to prevent disaster among company.” Rosie went back into the kitchen, cleaned off and re-set the turkey on the platter, and returned to the dining room shortly after with the “second turkey.”
That same day, we received a message from Marion Jr.’s cousins and brother, they were planning on having a get together in Ohio in a few weeks and decided after speaking to us and reading our blog that they’d like to take a road trip to Detroit! They asked us if they could come to Detroit to visit us and we’ve gladly accepted, so we look forward to meeting with them in a few weeks to show them their grandparent’s home once more, and hopefully hear some more wonderful stories from them. It will be the first time they’ve been inside their grandparents home in over 60 years!
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Thanks to Detroit Curbed for following our story!
