Pridemore House – Our New Home – Middlesborough, Kentucky
I’ve lived many places, but never before have I had a place to call my very own home. And while for the past 15 years my career has been spent advising other people on how to care of their historic properties, now I finally have an opportunity to put all of that accumulated knowledge into practice on my own property.
About six months ago my wife, our two young boys, and me packed everything we owned in a truck and traveled to Middlesboro, Kentucky. This is a town with a very rich history. Daniel Boone passed through centuries ago. The whole town is built inside of a meteorite crater. Plenty of other exciting things happened here too, though I digress.
We got ourselves better oriented those first few months. About two months ago we ran across this gem of a house. Following a prolonged negotiation and nearly walking away altogether, we closed on the house April 29. The task then became to get everything ready for our family to move in ASAP. That involved me painting that first night until 1am. Several other days and nights like that followed, only to be interrupted by my already busy work schedule.
So far there have been many wonderful and unexpected surprises. The sellers told us during closing about some beautiful windows that were enclosed within a wall. Of course one of my first projects was to remove the paneling and expose the windows. That was quite a find! Stripping fireplace mantels has been a more recent preoccupation of mine.
We have some big plans for this house. As we progress I hope to utilize this blog as a tool to tell the stories of what we discover along the way with our renovation.