Stumble and Bumble update

Sunday, June 5, 2005

Readers familiar with Dr. Nash's Sunday newspaper column will recall that he and his wife Ginny began to restore decrepit and unsightly old houses in the Nevada area in the late 1970's, at first with the expert help of Mr. Robert Palmer, more recently with the expert help of Mr. Steve Stafford and his sons Dustin and Tyson, and that the Nashes have incorporated under the title Stumble & Bumble, Inc. (Gosh, what a sentence!) Together they have restored some twenty falling-down-ungainly old wrecks.

Stumble and Bumble don't re-roof many old houses any more, and the reasons are simple.

For one thing, I had my right leg cut off a few years ago, and I'm afraid that if I get up on top of a roof with any kind of pitch, the leg will slip out of its socket, slide with increasing speed down the shingles, and hit some un-helmeted passer-by on the head. For another, the unevenness of Ginny's legs used to make her a perfect roofer for pitched surfaces, but now that her surgical hip operation has straightened them out, she's just not worth a damn at roofing.

Since the last S&B update, we sold our house on the corner of Ash and Maple to a Cottey faculty member and her husband. As with most of the houses we restore, I had a great fondness for it, recalling, as I do, that when S&B first bought it, the outside was painted a bilious green. The upstairs consisted of two fair-size bedrooms, and it was only after I removed the paneling from those upstairs walls that I discovered there was enormous unused space behind them, and that the western side of the house contained enough space above the kitchen and driveway to accommodate at least one more bedroom and bath. In addition to that, we walled in the carport and made from it a cozy, fair-sized family room adjoining the kitchen. We also built in a sunroof to catch the rays.

When B&B completed restoring the house, I felt as I usually do after we complete a restoration; that is, I want to refrain from renting it out, so I can come over on a Saturday morning, unlock the door, go inside, and admire S&B's work. Renters -- any renters, even the most scrupulously clean and neat renters -- usually spoil the perfection of the place. Altogether, I think we doubled the living space and restored the gran-deur of that noble old house. Every time I pass it, I admire the bright flamingo-colored roses set against the deep tan of the outdoor walls. From spring until late fall, there's always a rose in bloom there.

When we bought the 150-year-old Bowen stone house on County road BB, near the bright white Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, one of the first things we did, after mowing the waist-high grass on the 10-acre property, was to hire Mid-Continental Restoration to bring their heavy machinery and replace about eight very hefty pieces of sandstone that had tumbled to the ground from the second story of the little house. This they did as well as tuck-pointed all the stones with a product resembling Miracle Glue and virtually rebuilt the falling-down chimney with bricks I'd bought from our neighbor Mr. Bill Hartline.

I didn't begrudge Mid-Continent Restoration the $20,000 they charged, but S&B soon realized they'd have to postpone significant restoration on the interior of the stone house (to say nothing of the nearby two exterior wine caves) until its fiscal well had once again filled up (and, the wells of retired folk, don't forget, are exceedingly slow to fill up).

From time to time I write about our old stone house, so "the word is out," and, as a result, sometimes elderly folks drop by and tell us what they recall about the house and its grounds. Dr. Marjorie Goss brought us a photo of the house taken around the turn of the century; it shows a family, the northern porch of the house and gives a hint about the wood addition that used to be in the rear. This, together with the various word pictures we've accumulated, will give us a fairly accurate idea of what the house looked like, when it comes time to rebuild the interior and exterior of the house.

While we wait patiently to begin the stone house restoration project, we had Steve Stafford and his two sons Dustin and Tyson build a spacious two-story barn on the northeast corner of the 10-acre property. The siding is a lovely warm Ralph Lauren"Barn Red" which I painted row by row before it was installed on the outside walls.

On the ground floor is a vast, heated/air-conditioned workshop, where, among other things, I have enough room to build my model airplanes, paint the pickets for our rustic picket fence out front, store a kayak or two, and generally get into any kind of trouble that requires a good bit of space, all accompanied on Sunday afternoons by Garrison Keillor on radio station KRPS, Pittsburg, Kan.

Also on the ground floor is sufficient book shelf space to accommodate the million-and-three volumes in transit from our house on North Spring Street to a used-book dealer on the outskirts of Joplin. There's also enough space to hold the overflow of movies Ginny has accumulated over the years. (Remember, she once won a bid on a collection of 500 full-length films.) It's hard to say which collection -- the books or the movies -- is growing more rapidly. Either way, the barn won't fly off the ground except in a tornado, when it's anybody's guess.

Maneuvering my way upstairs via a special staircase designed and constructed by Steve Stafford, I reach our studio apartment, which (unless I miss my guess) is pretty well completed.

Its floor is a country grain, to keep it from gathering scrapes and gouges from my aluminum walker, and it contains some of the furniture bequeathed me by my Aunt Vera, when she passed away, at age 97, late last year. Every time I look at one of those old worn chairs or tables, I recall how they looked in her house when I was a kid visiting her in the outskirts of Cincinnati. The upstairs has a bathroom, a full kitchen, and the spacious living room. It doesn't yet have a color TV, and that bothers me, because it's the first living quarters I've inhabited that lacks a TV; there's nothing to do but converse and read. (Gosh!) As for the outside of the property, within throwing distance of the barn (depending on the strength of your throwing arm) lies a 2 1?2-acre pond fully stocked with fish that hold back the growth of the cat-tails. At its deepest it is approximately six feet, just deep enough to float a kayak holding a person of approximately 185 pounds (me). Last summer, daughter Jessica and wife Ginny maneuvered my carcase into the kayak, and I paddled around the pond without sinking.

The outside of this property is taking shape. Ginny has planted a multitude of flowers (to give Wal-Mart and Sutherlands a needed boost). A multitude of very young evergreens along the north side will grow to enclose the property. To keep the ground floor of the barn free of oil spills, we had Steve Stafford build a small "utility shed" to house the mowers and other farm machinery.

Visitors ask if we (Stumble & Bumble) plan to move from Spring Street in town to this property outside city limits; the answer is no, we just want it, for the quietness of the country and to relax. It ought to be ready, we figure, by the time we're 80.