Our humble little home has lived a few different lives before coming into ours...which is the nice way of saying it has its fair set of challenges. Our city and much of our state was primarily mines and mining infrastructure at turn of the 20th century. This property is no exception, with sinkholes in the neighborhood collapsing streets, yards and driveways - we did some property research after a couple problem spots of our own. As luck would have it, we are indeed part of the same mine that collapsed just three blocks over and caused a sinkhole. The DNR website can bring significantly detailed maps outlining the mines and their components as well as the topography in relation to the map. The city and DNR both came out to inspect our concerns a couple years ago and lo behold they are only shoddy previous construction and not anything catastrophic (this becomes the theme throughout this renovation) There are existing timbers in the house and on the property that are undoubtedly original to the mining structure. The mine also housed a brickyard as many do, afterall strip mining involves terraforming the clay out that is above the layer of shale. The brickyard is now where our garage exists and extended to the east to the end of the block. Many of the cedars that were planted to hide the blight of mining are still standing almost 150 years later. You can see many of the mines outlines simply by looking at tree lines. A large clay deposit still remains on the property inside of the retaining wall made of the railroad ties pulled off the property. The mine opened in 1912 and ran until 1923 when it closed.
That brings me to life number 3 for our home - AC/DC conversion station for the Des Moines Trolley system Just on the edge of the Sevastopol and SE 5th lines and governing the SW 6th and Fort Des Moines. The area was largely undeveloped in the 1920s as it was mainly farmland and industrial or mining on the south side. As the city grew, it developed a sizable and impressive trolley system to accommodate commuter needs. Our hilly neighborhoods with winding streets, existing cast iron rails and charming herringbone pattern brick sidewalks still lends itself to some of the yesteryear nostalgia if you look in the right spots. The trolleys went to curb liners in the later 40s and early 50s and then to buses. The trolley structure was mostly buried and just well...back filled and built on top of. Neighbors familiar with the area recalled the previous structure here to be a service garage or something that had burned down and the city just left to the new development coming in. Our back patio - an old platform. During landscaping projects we’ve unearthed trolley tracks and electric strips, cast iron tubes with wires in them and still greasy from the lubricant used for the trolley electric lines. The east side of our property along the fence runs the our stairway with the iron handrail and the crumbling steps that led to the platform. During demolition for the back deck, we even found where the cast iron tubes ran into the foundation. Speaking of foundation - ours is different from all the others in our neighborhood. When our housing division was made in the early 50s, cinder blocks were the cheap easy and quick way to build the ever expanding Atomic Age Ticky Tack Houses. 🎶and they all look just the same 🎵 Not our house though, it has small red bricks with slightly rounded edges (obviously haste and choosing function over fashion) and an imperfection about the home I happen to love, but alas, previous renovations and bandaid style fixes have decimated the original beauty and we won’t be able to restore it. (Notice this is about renovation and not restoring because I just don’t have the time, money, experience or patience for that) Here is where I will really give a serious complaint to the previous renovator - Why?! Just why would you ever remove bricks and patch it with just cheap cement in some spots, visible MDF board haphazardly painted and cemented (my family as plasters I can’t in good conscience call this plastering) and then the piece d resistance is fucking expandable spray foam as a filler with nothing covering it - just ugly orange foam exposed to the wicked Iowa elements. Wtf kind of quarter assed shit is that?! Ok...ranting done and back to the house story. I mentioned the railroad tie retaining wall that holds back the huge clay deposit right, those are also from when this was an AC/DC converting station and a nod to the history we are eager to maintain, as well as a commitment to renovation for the stairway to the platform. The sidewalk to the stairwell still exists and we will incorporate that as well. In a dream world, we will also get to do some landscaping this spring and highlight the other platform that’s approximately 100 feet north of the one that’s our back patio. I would love to see it used as an outdoor sitting space a grill area! This home needs the vibrant traffic and bustle it once had. Did I mention one of our driveways used to be the alley? Yeah, traffic
Life 4 began as most homes - huge housing booms. The 50s ushered in the biggest of them all. The former coal mine/brickyard/trolley station had adapted and grown with the times. This was a chance to be something more loved than a job or an industry though, this was the true rebirth...a home. It was a yellow aluminum siding with the white aluminum window and door awnings with the scalloped edges. There was the industrial exhaust piping still proudly standing out of the west side of the house under where our deck is now. There was a single car narrow garage attached on the east side where a sad slab blocks progress. While the two and a half detached garage and double drive is nice, Iowa winters make one long for the convenience of one that’s not a hundred and fifty foot trudge down a steep grade but we’re going to get to that issue too. The living room was originally the enclosed front porch with a window that was in the stairwell after the door was taken out. We’re going to remedy the window and put one back in when we do windows, siding, roof and gutters in the spring. While we won’t be able to afford to attach a garage to the east again, a carport and shed are very likely to compliment the full shade, low maintenance gardens to the east. Interior wise, it was a very standard one bedroom 50s boom home. It’s missing the craftsman style windows that were removed from the east side of the bedroom and the large bay window that was originally in the front. Not sure how we will be approaching those two issues just yet. One owner until the 1990s. That’s when the house changed for the better and for the worse. Some things we’re grateful for like the finished attic space, other thins like the expandable spray foam leave us cursing like it’s the only language we know. Now here we are, the 4th family to own the home.
We’ve lived here almost 8 years and in that course of time our lives and needs have changed. We’ve decided that homeownership is no longer for us. Our kids are all teenagers and have started moving out of the home. My health has taken a few downturns and I’m no longer able to maintain my gardens and our double lot like I used to. We like having conveniences close. Here’s one that won’t surprise anyone - shoveling feet of snow in Iowa for two driveways and a sidewalk really sucks and I feel awful for my husband out there in the cold. We need to be close to hospitals, my husbands employer and the charter that my homeschool kids have block class at, libraries, restaurants for times when being chronically ill means I don’t have the spoons left to cook. Never ever did I think we would want an apartment but we do. In order to get to a luxury apartment downtown, we have to do what’s right by this house and make it amazing for the next owners. We’ve already made a one bed, one bath into a 5 bed 2 1/2 bath and we’re a physically disabled couple. We’re excited to share our progress with you in our DIY blog of Disabled Does It! If we can do it, you can too
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