Temple Tour Homes

When we arrived here in Nauvoo last June, there were some home under construction.  The Hyde home was up on some beams while the foundation was being fixed.  The Gheen home was having 36" added to it's height, the Weeks home was being reduced to half it's size and the Hunter home was nothing more than a foundation.  Over the fall/winter/spring, I have had the opportunity to work in restoring these homes.  

This is the Edward Hunter home.  He was a bishop of the 5th ward here in Nauvoo.  He has a beautiful home with FOUR fireplaces.

The add-on is the bishop's storehouse.  This is quite a large two story home.  The most beautiful window in the entire place is in the attic facing east toward the temple.  No one will ever get to look out of that window.  Why didn't the Hunters have east windows?

Jared and I grained both of the first floor fireplaces.  He did the baseboards in the shop before they were installed.  He did the graining and I helped with the clean up and making it look less messy.  

Isn't is amazing what can be done with some pieces of rubber and Q-tips?  How about that wallpaper?  I am not a fan.  The carpets (wall to wall area rugs) have not shown up yet.  I'm told once they're here, the wallpaper will look good.  That's a little frightening.

This is the Edward Gheen home.  It's a small home where the tours will begin.  I painted the upstairs with Sisters Howard and Odum and did the stairwells mostly by myself.  The basement was also mine to make look good.

This is the Orson Hyde home.  It is not part of the temple tour but rather part of the apostle tour.  Last fall, I helped put the prime coat on the exterior.  Over the winter, I worked on painting interior walls and helping to get upstairs door frames ready for restoration.  This spring, I was back helping Jared paint on a Saturday.  I volunteered my sweetheart to help too. 

Here is the William Weeks home before we got here.  It was almost twice the size as it was originally.

This is what it looks like today.  I spent a lot of time in this place.  I helped Jared grain the doors, windows and door frames as well as the east fireplace.  I painted the entire basement and stairwell.  Then went back and repainted and fixed all the things that needed to be done before they could be deemed "finished."  I LOVE this little home.  I think because I spent so much time there.

I spent a lot of time with Jared graining this fireplace mantle.  I loved how the legs turned out but I wasn't crazy about the "swirl" in the face of the mantle.  Jared didn't like it either.  He called me one morning and asked me to come help him.  He had removed the grain and repainted it.

Here is the final finished product.  So much better!  Mary Howard spent hours and days and even weeks stripping this mantle and in the end, we found out it was faux grained underneath it all.

The west mantle was faux marbled.  There were a lot of flaws in it but Jared was able to take the paint off with a mixture of paint remover and using dental tools, he got the unwanted paint off.  He then created his own marble look. 
I'm so grateful that I was able to work on these homes.  I feel like I am doing the things that those early pioneer saints did.  I work every day to make this place beautiful.  This mission and these projects have filled me with a satisfaction I can't even explain.  I love it!