When we bought the house five years ago, A was still working in downtown Everett. Our first anniversary was approaching, and he had the very romantic idea of, in honor of “paper” presenting me with a copy of the plat of Edmonds, and tracing the chain of title all the way back to when our lot was deeded for the first time. He spent many, many lunch hours going through records at the county assessor’s office. The home, it turns out, has not had very many owners over the last 105 years. I’ll go into more detail about other owners in a later post, but I just wanted to call out one family in particular, who owned the house in the 1970s and 1980s: the Valentines.
A and I began our asbestos abatement in March. We started with the two sides of the house that don’t face the street so that the house could remain just a little bit presentable until we knew for sure when it was coming down. The most excellent part of tearing off the asbestos siding was finding that in many areas, someone along the way had shoved newspaper into the wide gaps between window frames and the frame of the house – or, in some cases, they didn’t even bother to go that far. When the siding around the front bathroom window came off, we could see right through into the bathroom. No wonder we freeze in the winter.
So the siding came off, and then, one Sunday around the end of March, A was on his way home from running errands. He parked in front of the house and headed toward the front door. He happened to notice a man sitting in a Honda Fit parked across the street watching him. The man got out of his car and called after A. “Do you live here?” he said.
“Yes. Can I help you?” A said.
“I grew up in this house,” the man said.
From there, this man, a Valentine, launched into conversation and asked if he could come for a tour of the house. He was on his honeymoon with his new wife and they were passing through Edmonds.
He was surprised to see that we hadn’t remodeled anything – and that everything was as it was when he had lived here. Turns out it was his father who had added the freaky addition onto the back, and who had decided that pink was the best color for the house. He is also the great mind behind adding an electrical outlet to the middle of the yard – to light up the nativity scene they placed at the top of the 15’ holly bush/tree each year at Christmastime, of course. There are many funny things about this house that we now can assign to the genius of Mr. Valentine.
Young Mr. Valentine was very excited to see the house, and made a stop in every room. He asked if he could take pictures with A and invited us to stop and visit his family in Hayden Lake, Idaho the next time we drive through (they did have that kinda weird Little-House-on-the-Prairie-in-a-compound look about them). A was very obliging, and even pulled out our camera to take one for our own scrapbook. Young Mr. Valentine was so thrilled that we had kept things as they were that A decided to hold back from telling him about our future plans. Mr. Valentine said it had been more than 10 years since he had seen the house, so our hope is that he can enjoy the next 10 imagining that the same house still stands.
At any rate, there is an additional point here. About Mr. Valentine the Elder.
Our contractor called yesterday to tell us that the demo plans have been adjusted. Rather than everything happening on the 10th, they’re starting…tomorrow. They’re coming to take the roof off the front garage, then Wednesday they’ll bring in the first machine to start breaking up the garage. This will become the entrance to the site. Our contractor was calling to tell us that we needed to move everything out of the garage.
Now, when we moved into the house, there were a number of “artifacts” that were left in the garage. I never paid very close attention to any of them. But now that we’re rapidly approaching demolition, we have the responsibility of making sure that nothing is toxic or flammable. Paul (contractor) specifically called out the fact that we’d need to remove the TV from the garage before they start. What TV?
On further investigation, we soon learned that not only was Mr. Valentine a very handy man, he was also an electronic gadgets buff. It’s a good thing we extra hands over on Saturday evening, since it took two very strong men to extract the “TV of all TVs” from our little garage.
Rob, one of the two very strong men, estimated it weighed in at about 800 pounds. It is a piece of work – and must have cost a fortune when it was new. Because not only was this just a TV, this was an entertainment system. Built into the console, in addition to a TV (which you can cover with sliding panels when you have lame-o friends over), is a turntable, AM/FM radio and an 8-track player. Opening up the cubby with the radio and 8-track, we found a delivery notice signed my Mr. Valentine. Good ol’ Mr. Valentine.
Upon discovering this goodness, we set it at an angle in the front yard and – of course – plugged it into the Mr. Valentine’s nativity outlet! Genius!
So with wine in hand, we switched on the M’s game, and enjoyed a hot summer night.
I think we can claim being the most rockin’ house on the block – not only do we have tarpaper siding, but we also have the most badass entertainment system in our front yard.
Note: we will be wanting to avoid the hefty dump fees associated with this item. If you know of anyone who would love to add this fine specimen to his or her collection (most likely his), please let us know.
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