History of Piedmont & the Campbell Mansion

This picture was taken about 2006 before we bought it. It has suffered since due to too many  'band-aid' repairs. It needs a complete overhaul which is our intention.

Do you know anything about this house in Piedmont? I would love to hear stories about a prior owner of my house, known locally as the Campbell mansion, if you have one to tell! Do you know any family members of the owners? Do you have any vintage pictures of this house?

Have you some information or a story about Piedmont's history when it was a thriving place to go? Pictures of Piedmont in the past, a funny story, any history of stores that are long gone?

Please shoot me an email, just click on the vintage typewriter on the right side of this page! Your stories are welcome, I'm looking for stories or information for this blog about Piedmont!

This is the sign you see when you enter the east end of Piedmont. No offense to whoever was responsible but it needs to be spruced up a bit. I would love to!

Ripley's Believe It Or Not once pointed out that the Kenny House hill in Piedmont, WV was the only street in the world that you could enter all three stories of the same building!

Just a peek at Piedmont! Let me hear from you!!

Remembering Mommy

Today is the anniversary of my mother's passing. It's 19 years today. This is always a sad day for me until I remember that I am a Christian and I will be seeing her again! Do you have a loved one that has passed and you don't have a recording of their voice? It only dawned on me the other day that I can't really remember her voice. I'm sure that if she were to call me (that would be the most fabulous blessing ever) I know I would know her voice. The sad truth is that I can't imagine it in my head. Please, make recordings of your voice for your loved ones! That will surely help to keep your memory alive!

Our Master Bedroom Closet * Circa 1940's

This is the view from the bathroom.

 As I told you before I love the era of the 1940's! Even though this is a Victorian house, I have many things from the 40's. As with the sewing room and the laundry room, the master bedroom (shown in another post) and the bedroom next door are connected. They weren't originally when the house was built. As with most houses of the day, the closets are not very deep and the one that used to be the master bedroom was no exception. A previous owner removed the closet and opened the master bedroom to the bathroom next door. Another owner later opened the bedroom next door to the bathroom so now the master bedroom has a larger bathroom and it connects to that bedroom next to it.

So, when we moved here we decided to make that bedroom next door into the master bedroom closet since it all connects. (A suggestion by my daughter.) I wanted it to have the feel of a 1940's store. I don't have the before pictures to show you now as they are on that crashed hard drive. :( As soon as I can retrieve them, I will post them here.

This is the view from the main hallway.

We bought chrome store fixtures on Ebay, Craigslist and a local store that sells used store fixtures. The floor is commercial flooring. The original wood floor in here was pretty bad and I wanted that 'store feel'. This flooring's not bad to lay, again like tiling and putting a puzzle together. I found out that you can heat it slightly with a hair dryer so you can cut it easily with a razor knife. John put down the underlayment and I layed the tile. Easy to clean and I love the colors! Tons of pictures on that hard drive to show later!

I love the room in here, no cramped clothing in the back of the closet and functional too!

 I like things to be organized and it's so easy in this closet! Room to get dressed and a mirror on the door!

These racks came from Bed Bath & Beyond. I love vintage hats and have many throughout the room. The Boutique sign was left here by the previous owner. I keep my shoes on the rack on the right, t-shirts and shorts on the left.

Got to keep track of those pounds, er, well at least once in awhile. ;) Those old scales are pretty darn accurate too! Another thing made back then that was built to last!

This shoe fitter was missing a part and the man at the retail store display place gave it to me. Works for me!

 I have vintage Lorraine advertising as it is a family name, several family members have this name.

 This waterfall china cabinet was bought at an auction in Lonaconing, Md for $35.00. It houses our sweaters on the top and my husband's shorts on the bottom. I love seeing the colors behind the door.

 I collect vintage Djer Kiss advertising. They had the most fabulous ads! Quite well known artists like Maxfield Parrish did art work for Djer Kiss in the day. Most of it is circa 1920's. I also have pictures of my mother in the 40's on display.

 Got to have a chair in here so you have a place to put on your socks! Inside the closet which is not very deep we built shelves on the left and the right side is much deeper, we have a rack for winter coats, etc. I want to put a rack or something over the hamper for belts, scarves and ties. Just haven't found what I want yet. You can see some of my dresses and skirts have hanger covers on them that I made out of vintage pillowcases so they protect the clothes from dust. A cute way to recycle those vintage pillowcases!

I found this neat vintage rack at yes, another auction for $10.00. I knew I wanted to put my hanging purses on it, my flat purses are in containers.

 
 This gal came from an Ebay purchase. I love fairies and vintage jewelry. I made the sign for a vintage store display stand. You can find really neat display pieces at stores that sell used store fixtures!

I purchased this deco chandelier at an auction for $4.00! The ceiling medallion is yet another vintage clock that I turned into a ceiling medallion. It was bought at the same auction house for $5.00 and I painted it white. I had wanted to do a horizontal stripe for a long time and so I did it in here. Alternating soft blue and green stripes. I'm going to put window valances in here, I just don't know what I want in here yet. The trim in this room was already painted a beige color so I painted all the trim white as I hate can't stand rather not have beige trim. It gives it a clean crisp feeling. Yes, the chandelier has no ceiling cap, we forgot to put it up so that's another project, I'll be getting to that someday tomorrow real soon. ;)

This is the door that goes into the bathroom.

If you have a spare room in your house, you might give some thought to turning it into a closet, you'll feel very luxurious and you don't have to spend a lot to do it! Just keep a watchful eye out for those bargains and use your imagination!!

Our Laundry Room....a converted bedroom

When we moved into this house there were 9 bedrooms. Five were left as bedrooms, the master bedroom on the second floor and four on the third floor are guest rooms, those four being the original servant's quarters. This room is on the second floor and we brought the plumbing up from the room below to make this our laundry room instead of another bedroom which we had plenty of already. The laundry is much more convenient on this floor. We had to stack our washer and dryer since there was a window to the right of them and we didn't want to block it. It works out just fine for me.

The wood floor was pretty nasty in this room and I knew I wanted a tile floor in here anyway. I LOVE black and white checked floors and by the grace of God I went to yet another auction and gasped when I saw 12" black and 12" white ceramic tile squares piled up at the auction! There were a ton of them (almost literally! These things are heavy!) I made sure when the auctioneer got to them that I was ready to bid! I got the whole pile for a whopping $5.00! Hooray!! Thank you Lord!

We had to buy the backerboard, thinset and the black grout but the $5.00 for the tile brought the cost down considerably! My husband John does the job of laying the backerboard down and I do the tiling. I used black grout because it's great for not showing stains. I even have left over tile if I ever need to do a repair! If you have never done tiling, don't be intimidated! I taught myself years ago, I watched videos and read how tos and just dove in there and did it. It's like putting a puzzle together. It can be great fun and the only drawback to doing floors is it's hard on the knees but you survive and have a beautiful long lasting result!

If you don't know what this is, it's an Ironrite  ironer from the 1940's, sometimes called a mangle. It opens up and you iron things operating it with your knees and hands, fun once you get used to it! Very chic in that era! At yet another auction, years ago, I went there and this beauty was there and to be honest, it was closed up and I had no idea what it was but I knew whatever it was I HAD TO HAVE IT! Not letting it out of my site and frankly a bit concerned about the fact that my husband would be left with the loading of it, it is heavy, I got it for a whopping $1.00! The pad and cover had to be replaced but I made them and it was like new again! I show below what it looks like below. Ironrite was the top of the line ironers back in the day. I was fortunate enough to score a NOS vintage lighted sign for Ironrite on Ebay for about $110.00.

While we were running the plumbing up the wall for the washer and dryer we had the baseboard off so we ran plumbing pipes to the corner so we can put in a sink. The cabinets were a local find on Ebay for $40.00 (I painted them white) and the sink was rescued from a junker at an auction for $6.00. It is marked 1947 on the back and was in great condition! I had bought 10 boxes of new white ceramic tile at another auction for $30.00 and have been able to use it for many applications. I tiled this as well. Hubby does the plumbing and the building of the platform for the sink and we installed the cabinets together. The faucet was new and was a real find at a yard sale for $5.00. I made the curtain in front from Mary Rose fabric I bought on Ebay from Urbangardens, she has gorgeous fabric! I made another skirt on the other side of the room and I believe that I have about $60.00 in all the fabric, it took quite a bit.

I love vintage irons and have many of them in the laundry room along with other vintage laundry items.

I made the curtains from 2 new sheets I bought at an auction for $5.00. The leaded glass was originally a new sidelight for a door and I bought it at a discount salvage place for $45.00 then we cut it off the bottom to be able to hang it in front of a window.

I bought the chandelier at an auction for $9.00 and painted it white. The shades came from a thrift store for $2.50. I actually got 10 for $5.00, it was half price day so I have five more for another project. I stripped off the fabric and recovered them using leftover Mary Rose fabric and purchased the clear beaded trim on Ebay for about $15.00 along with the white ostrich trim for about another $4.00. The ceiling medallion was a vintage clock that I purchased on Ebay for about $5.00. I've made several of these and I look for the ones that they say don't work as I take the clock out anyway. I sprayed it chrome to match the faucets and we mounted it to the ceiling with a nail gun.

This roses rug was a NOS piece of rug bought at an auction for $1.00. I cut this piece off of a huge piece I sold on Ebay for $200.00 so I actually didn't pay anything for it! It's not old carpet, it's commercial carpet which works out great in this room!

I bought the porcelain top at an auction for $4.00. When was the last time you saw a pink porcelain top table? Never had seen one before or since. It had a base when I bought it but was not original and not what I wanted. I wanted it to be tall enough to be able to use my stools I keep underneath as I use it as a craft table. I also use it as a folding table for my laundry and I don't have to bend over! This was my first attempt at building something as my husband was out of town and I had the creative urge to do it then so I built the base out of 2X2's and it came out great! That's my Mom on that bulletin board, my best friend ever and a great inspiration for me in everything I do. Can't believe that she has been gone for 19 years on October 6. The only good thing about getting older is that it is getting closer to seeing her again!

It's hard to see but Mommy kept the first button I ever sewed, I was five. I get my sewing skills from her, she was an impeccable seamstress! I can only aspire to be like her!

I made this clothespin holder using a vintage embroidered pillowcase. I have a vintage pull out clothesline that is great for those dainties I don't put in the dryer.

I love old advertising and have much of it throughout the house. I collect vintage White Rock soda advertising and this Maidenform bra ad was a find on Ebay that features the White Rock fairy in a bra!  I thought it fit well in the laundry room.

A lot of the rooms connect to each other in this house and the laundry connects to my sewing room, this is the view from my sewing room.

Lastly a new sign purchased on Ebay which adorns the door where you enter the laundry from the hallway. Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Yes, I know it's Fall, but!!

I am so happy that Fall is upon us BUT I am still holding on to summer flowers! Just a small post of one of my favorite flowers Streptocarpela, commonly called False Violet. You don't see a whole lot of greenhouses fooling with this flower as it needs to be pinched back about 5 times during the winter growing season which takes time. It gets leggy like a petunia if you don't and you don't get this huge mound like in the picture. This beauty can be pinched back and stuck in the loose potting soil and will root. Easy to do and these plants can be held over for next year or you can pinch shoots off and start all new plants for the next Spring. Love it!!

Yes, our house has orange brick! The brick needs a lot of pointing and it WILL be painted when we can afford it! LOTS of outside projects but that will come later!

The Yellow Room - another guest room on the third floor

This is another bedroom, a guest room, on the third floor which was the original servant's quarters in our home. They must have had quite a few servants as there are four bedrooms up there! I have had contact with several relatives of the original family that built the house about 1900 and also the family members of the couple that bought the house in about 1917. The house remained in the possession of the second owner until 1982.

Actually the second owner, Nannie Campbell was in a nursing home for twenty years prior to the 1980's and the house sat empty all those years! Amazingly, the house was never vandalized all that time! My next door neighbor was born and raised in Piedmont and he was a teen during that time and he told me that everyone was afraid of the house! It's very tall, large and imposing and on a hill and the caretaker would come sometimes at night and have a light on and the kids around here were frightened! Guess that was a blessing as the house suffered no damage during those years other than weather related issues.

Dr. Henry Louis Gates is a well known author, literary critic, documentary filmmaker and geneologist to people like Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep, Yo Yo Ma and many others spoke in his book 'Colored People A Memoir' about this house and Mrs. Campbell. He grew up here in Piedmont and it was a house that everyone spoke of as 'The Campbell Mansion'. Dr. Gates spoke of it in the 1960's as 'needing a complete renovation.' The inside is in much better condition needing only cosmetic fixes, the outside is another story but that's another post or two! Actually the house owned by that neighbor next door to me was purchased  by them from Dr. Gates' parents, it was their last family home here in Piedmont.

Getting back to the Yellow Room, of course named so because of the wall color. Clever huh? ;) A very simple pair of items spawned the choice of the yellow wall color. I went to an auction and found the pair of lamps discarded by a buyer that didn't want them. I loved the shape of the lamps and the chenille shades in a soft yellow color! They were in great condition and free! I painted the lamps white and kept the shades as they were. At another auction I bought three identical quilts, new! for $23.00. I only needed two but the third one gave me extra fabric to make the matching shams since they didn't come with shams. I covered the chair seat too.

The beds and mattresses I had bought the year before to sell in a shop I had before moving and when I did move, I closed the shop as it was 100 miles away. I purchased the two sets at an auction for $60.00 for everything! The nightstands were made from a vintage vanity that the previous owner of the house left here so they were free! Just the cost of the paint!

I used the shape of the headboard and footboard for the window valance bottom. When the bed was apart I actually traced the design onto the fabric laying the bed down into the fabric, it was the easiest way to get that exact shape! The battenburg back was the one I had left over from the Turret room. I quilted some 2" squares together together to form the shape above and sewed them on the yellow fabric. The bottom edge binding was one of the fabrics in the squares.

The adorable little stand was another piece of furniture that was left in the house by a previous owner, it has lovely detailing! I have elephant planters there as one of my grandsons loves elephants and when I saw one at an auction, I bought it. I painted this floor in a 16" yellow and white checkerboard and then painted the center of each square with a 2" square in the opposing color. The checkerboard is done on the diagonal.

I bought the luggage rack for a dollar at an auction (I go to a lot of auctions!) and made the top from a piece of vintage fabric and some vintage crocheted trim that I already had. I wish the floral bouquet was centered more but I had to use what I had and it had to work out like that. The print over the luggage rack is adorable! It's a Buzza Motto print from the 1920's and again, a dollar find at an auction. When I bought it the frame that came with it was broken so I used a frame that I had and used a piece of the curtain fabric for a mat. The saying is hilarious! Just love it!

We found the light on the wall above in the basement, it makes a sweet night light! I need to make a more decorative switch plate, the white ones are so boring and drab!

Several years ago I bought a darling book from the 20's I believe (could have been earlier) for about $5.00 and if I'm not mistaken, it was a Hans Christian Anderson's children's story book. Not positive about that, I think it's still in a box upstairs but the memory does fail occasionally! Anyway, it was full of these gorgeous old children's prints! I bought inexpensive frames with mats and the prints fit perfectly. Total cost for everything, about $21.00.