Carla Minosh

It all began at a small auction in Frederick, Maryland, over 20 years ago, and a whimsical architectural feature that caught my fancy.  Surrounded by a circlet of Acanthus leaves, a trio of egrets stood among the reeds, congregating around the central stalk of an undulating canopy, with scalloped edges leading back in folds toward the center to support […]

Talking to the dead is a pasttime that many “old-house people” entertain themselves with during the many hours of labor they put into their homes, as these structures are the evidence of human lives lived.  Families who dreamed of a place to call their own, who worked hard, planned, saved, and designed.  Laborers who toiled,

Our first encounter with the home at #878 Main Street began through the foront doors and took a quick left into the front parlor.  A spacious room with a beautiful bay in front with 10 foot tall windows that started at the floor, the amount of light was impressive.  A glorious 6-arm crystal chandelier, converted

The grand formal rooms in our house, while spacious and imposing, almost become dulling to the senses once the peeling wallpapers have been removed, the plaster repaired, and the ceiling cracks secured, filled, and sanded to a smooth white finish.  Even with the twelve-and-a half foot high walls and sprawling ceilings, the blandness of the expanse

Everyone who restores old houses understands that it is inherently an addiction that we feed.  For some it is the rich textiles and draperies that they adorn their historic homes with, researching historically-accurate patterns and fabrics.  For others it is the furniture that they seek, picking period pieces that fit exactly into the time period

One of the challenges we have found in our otherwise quiet life in the City of Danville has been to navigate the complicated footwork of the rules of the Historic District and the City itself.  People who simply live and work and mind their own business have no worries, but as soon as you start to

One of the most beautiful architectural features on our home used to be the front porch.  Over the years it had degraded, rotted, and rusted out, so that only a ghost of its former self remained.  We didn’t realize what a sad remnant the front porch had become until one of the sisters who grew

One of the classic sayings we’ve developed about contractors in Danville started out as “the third time’s the charm” and has evolved into “the fifth time’s the charm.”  We have come to realize over the last 10 years that in too many cases a “contractor” is anyone in Southside who happens to be unemployed and owns a

One of the unexpected consequences of fixing up an old house has been the human connections we collect as we paw through salvage yards, answer advertisements, browse antique stores and click on computer links.  The biggest surprise to me, as we proceeded in our great undertaking of restoring the Sublett-Miller house to its previous glory, was not the hard work, the

The year of 2007 was in full swing, and our various house projects were staggering forward in their own fashion.  The kitchen was finally starting to resemble a “Reformed Gothic” folly, and my new washer and dryer were installed in the master suite, so that I no longer had to haul all of the laundry two