If you ever find yourself on IA 13 in Northeast Iowa, you really must take a detour through Strawberry Point. This charming little town with a population of just 1,200 souls features the world’s largest strawberry, an old hotel that’s still in operation and a working soda fountain. What is not to love?!
Just as we reclaimed the original dining room doors in our American System-Built home, we also hope to reuse the original kitchen cabinets. That’s right, we still have the original cabinetry from our American System-Built home! Sitting in a corner by the garage door, covered in years of dust, cobwebs and peeling paint, these cabinets are just begging to be refinished and reclaimed.
We spent most of our weekend doing two things: cleaning up the yard and exploring the contents of the garage. In doing so, we not only learned what it takes to maintain our big yard, we also turned up some new discoveries for the house. I’ve gathered up five things we learned this weekend: two are practical tips that came up when we were raking leaves and the other three are fun finds related to the house and its history.
One of the exciting extras that came with the Dream House was the original blueprint. The framed blueprint has been hanging on a wall near the front door when we first viewed the house and we (quite wisely, I think) stipulated that it had to stay with the house as a condition of the sale. I mean, if you’re going to buy a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home, you sure as hell want the blueprint for it! We recently decided to have the blueprint re-framed, affording us the opportunity to photograph it while it was out from under the glass.
As we’re renovating our big old Dream House, we’re also looking around at the other remaining American System-Built Homes for inspiration. While most ASB homes are private residences, there’s a beautifully restored house in Milwaukee that’s offered as a vacation rental. Scrolling through the photos of the house, it’s both exciting and daunting to see how our house could look…
