Welcome back everyone! We want to write about the outside of the J.W. Houston House or The Manor as we lovingly call it. We have had a lot of ideas for the outside; however, at this time, most of them have been put on hold in order for us to get the businesses open! We have done some of the ideas, but nothing like we wanted before opening the door. In these first two pictures you can see that the flooring of the front porch has been replaced. We hated to see the old lumber go, but there was just too much damage to be able to salvage it! Also, in these two pictures you can see that the old girl needs a fresh coat of paint. The Midnight Star/Café Eclipse crew did not tear up the porch flooring or replace it nor did we paint the outside of the house.
After waiting for the weather to warm up and stop raining so much, another crew came out to work on the Manor’s outside. This crew not only replaced the wood on the front porch, they also repaired squirrel holes, replaced rotten wood on the ramp to the back door, and gave this old beauty a fresh coat of makeup. We just knew that this old girl was going to look even more lovely than she did when we first found her! And with that being said, her makeover began. She was getting a fresh coat of white for the house and green for the new shutters that were built for her.
After the outside makeover was complete, we started to mulch the flowerbed around the front porch. We used two or three loads of mulch for those flowerbeds. We could have used more; however, there were others that need mulch and we didn’t want to be greedy. We can always get more as we go along.
Now she is looking so much better. We love it and we hope that Collierville loves it so far. Time for a little break.
Now let’s talk a little about our back entrance ramp. The crew that painted the house only painted the railings of this ramp. So, we decided to paint the floor of the ramp the same color green as the front porch and the shutters on the two front windows. This paint job happened in the middle of the heat in August. Yes, bad idea, since part of the ramp is not shaded at certain times of the day, but it had to been completed. After that we worked on mulching around the brick sign area when we could.
In early September we received our sign. We couldn’t wait to get it up, but wait we had to do. The Saturday after we received our sign, Victor hung it. He then took the solar powered lights and placed them to shine on the sign. Just having the sign up made us feel so good about all that we have done. Now don’t get us wrong, we feel very accomplished with what we’ve been able to achieve, but the sign, we think that made it REAL! We hope you can understand what we are trying to say.
With the sign being up, numerous people started pulling in and knocking on the door thinking we were already open. That made us realize that we needed a “Coming Soon” sign. People can’t wait to get to come in the house to see the inside, and we can’t wait for everyone to see it as well. Just a little while long guys! We have enjoyed meeting everybody so far! The first few days of November we noticed that we had a new visitor. We are glad that we could gets some pictures of him, but we are also happy that he moved on just as quickly as he showed up at the house.
As many may have noticed, we have started decorating for the Christmas holidays. And with these last two pictures we will leave you until the next blog post. We have one more blogs to write to be caught up.
We thank you for taking the time to follow our journey. Thank you, Collierville, our friends, our family, and our employees for your time, support, and your love! Please like and follow us on our social media for other updates.
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