House of the Aging Artists

Lights adorn the wrap-around porch on the front of the house.

The side of the new house faces directly to the woodworking shop.

The rear porch is a comfortable place to hang out.

The arched cabinet was originally built into the old 1840s farmhouse. It finds its new home here!

Preparing for the continuing renovation of the woodworking shop, a “new” Jacques Shear and a Nolan letterpress have been acquired.

The flooring is nearing completion. Here is a view of the second floor. Railing is already underway.

Another view of the second floor. In keeping with the theme of education, an old college geology speciman cabinet will serve as storage in the future library space.

An old vanity finds new life in the second floor bathroom. Drawers will be modifed to accommodate plumbing while still providing storage.

The master bedroom flooring is complete!

The lower level apartment gets a fan installed.

A beautiful new maple kitchen is installed in the lower level.

View from the back of the house showing the two level porch. The workshop can just barely be seen on the left side of the photo behind the porch.

We haven’t given up on the dream of artists’ studios and creative places to play. As a matter of fact, for the two years, we’ve been hard at work on extending that dream to include a “house for aging artists” which sits on the site of the former farmhouse. Unfortunately, due to some serious concerns over workmanship by the original general contractor and his framing crew, we ran headlong into legal issues which slowed our progress on the ostensibly two-family house for more than 14 months. Since resolving the legal issues last winter, we have been working very carefully to make the necessary repairs, and complete the project to the standards upon which our legacy dictates. In other words, craftsmanship counts here.

Why call it a two-family house? Really, it is not. But it is. The house was designed with a full apartment on the lower level walk-out to be the home of my parents, both artists and musicians, who would be moving up to Michigan from Florida. My mother, Consuelo, who was the true matriarchal incredibly talented fine artist and vocalist, passed away only a few short weeks after their arrival to Michigan in the summer of 2016. She visited the site just once before her swift decline from late stage Alzheimer’s. Dad, aka Harold, will still be moving into the lower level apartment, attached to the upper living space by stairway and a soon-to-be installed elevator.

Nearly every day, we work two shifts, with me joining Steven and the dog Lenny on site to work on tasks like floor installations, railings, etc. While the progress is slow, we can begin to see the light of a finished home in our future. And once that home is complete, we can go back to refocusing our efforts on the artists’ studios in the building next store.

We’re excited to see the finish line up ahead and have begun to think about ways in which the studio can be better utilized. The workshop gets used nearly every day because thankfully it is an important part of our ability to get things done.

Here’s to more progress and a refocus on the woodworking artists’ studios!

Note: The studios of S.E. Fulmer Photography are operating fully in the Gallery House. Be sure to contact Sarah for your photoshoot! Or, if you are an artist interested in participating in or selling your wares in the Gallery House, contact her to make any inquiries!

Meanwhile Salvaging from an 1840s Farmhouse

Above: The farmhouse before “de”-construction began.

As the dark days of winter pass by, the workshop slumbers. But that doesn’t mean that no work is getting done at the Perry Road project. Just the opposite! Our plans include eventually building a large family home for me, my husband, and my parents. An Artist’s compound, for certain, since we are all artists!

That means taking down the original 1840s Farmhouse that was on the property. But our goal is not destruction. To take the greenest approach we can, we’re taking it down, stick by stick, and salvaging whatever materials are possible. The new home may feature these materials in new repurposed ways, and that’s okay with us!

Above: A shipping container was purchased to store the “de”-constructed farmhouse, with the salvaged materials saved for future use.

Some of the more interesting things we are discovering is how the we follow the path in reverse for the original construction of the house. From the “bones” of the house, it looks like it was built in three to four sections. The newest section, we are surmising, was probably built in the 1950s. But the oldest part clearly dates back to the mid-1800s complete with balloon walled, post-and-beam structure with notches, and mortise and tenon holding the oldest section together. The lumber in this oldest section was a mix of black walnut and some other hardwoods, possibly white oak, plus some pine. Floors, shiplap, and siding were held together with old hand-cut square nails.

Above: A view of the second floor after the front section of the roof was removed.

The next section added a new 2-story area and shifted the staircase to a new location. This section was stick built but with rough sawn pine 2x4s and 2x8s in a balloon fashion to match the post and beam in the original section. This section had the only basement under the house, a “Michigan” basement made of neatly stacked cut stone with a concrete floor and outside access.

Above: A section of the roof, a boxed hangover, is dropped down off the west side of the house. This is the “second” addition to the house during it’s history.

The third addition was a one-story section, with an area that from photos appears to have been used as a family/dining room and a kitchen with a porch. This section seems to have been roughly assembled with rough-hewn half logs sitting only on rocks or blocks just a few feet above dirt. There is very little in the way of a footing with just a roughly stacked mix of rocks and broken cement blocks with some mortar. The rafters above the family room were rough cut half logs of cedar or pine.

Above: the rafters in the “third” addition to the house can be seen from this view.

Finally, it appears that the porch was enclosed and turned into a mud/washroom, and a doorway to another porch was closed into a wall. We found the doorway hidden inside behind sheetrock. The rest of the house was lathe and plaster over 1-inch thick shiplap.

Above: This door was hidden in the walls after being covered over with sheetrock.

Check out some of the more recent photos of the crew taking down the north wall. This, of course, was after carefully removing much of the second floor.

Above: The 2 photos above show before and after a section of the walls were removed from the southeast corner of the original farmhouse.

Above: The 3 photos above show a section of the second floor with walls all but gone, then views of some of the front walls gone.

The project is challenging but also rewarding since we know that the farmhouse will live on in the new house that will replace it.

A finished retaining wall!

Although the exterior renovations of the workshop have been slowed due to winter, we’re still very proud of the beautiful retaining wall that was completed just before the cold set in.

Steve works on laying the heavy concrete blocks.

The finished retaining wall

The focus has moved towards the dismantling of the farmhouse next door to the shop. The farmhouse will eventually be replaced by a new residence for the family of artists.

Not to worry… just about every stick of lumber is being salvaged for future repurposing. An artist always has visions for new creations from old materials…

Farmhouse – Tearing down to make way for new

Once the weather warms up again, we’ll go back to the workshop renovations. In the meantime, the Gallery House and photo studio also prepare for a renewed awakening in Springtime with new exhibits and bookings.

Stay warm amid the chilly temps of January 2015.

Happy New Year!

Progress on the Workshop continues!

The large 4000 sq. ft. workshop behind the Gallery House is starting to see some progress in its renovations. The work began with just an overall cleanup! A retaining wall behind the shop is just getting underway and we got our inspection approved recently. So the stone won’t be far away!

Newly Renovated Gallery House

In Fall of 2013, with some enthusiastic helpers, the renovated gallery house was opened for occasional business. It sports a new look but with traditional Victorian colors. A reverse gable roof was added over the front porch, and corbels and gable trim was added to maintain a little Victorian charm. The house now features The Gallery House gallery and the S.E. Fulmer Photography studio.

The 1970-built Victorian style Gallery Shop

This is the condition the Gallery store was in when we bought it. Built in 1968-1970 by Maurice Reid, it was where he sold his antiques, and authentically detailed antique restorations and reproductions. Unfortunately, by the time we purchased it in 2011, the blue gingerbread along the roofline had begun to rot. My husband Keith, who had envisioned this to be his own shop to showcase his more contemporary furniture and lathe-turned art, passed away only a year later and this widow was faced with the task of renovating with more durable and less high-maintenance materials.