Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Filling Veblen House With Natural Light

Until this year, Veblen House had been boarded up for nearly 25 years. As our carpenter Robb Geores continued to work inside, and as the pandemic began to ease, we got a bright idea. Businesses were starting to take their Covid shields down. Why not get the word out that we could use any big pieces of plexiglass people were otherwise going to throw away. Mayor Freda sent notice out to the community, and we started getting phone calls and emails. End result? After the last three pieces of plexi go up, we'll have natural light streaming into every room in the house. 

Board member Scott Sillars, whose steady work on the house has been indispensable, helped me lift and install the latest piece of plexi--

a piece so long that it straddles two windows. That gets light into the stairway and the second floor vintage 1930s bathroom.

Robb cut an opening in a temporary plywood wall.


Up went another piece of plexi to allow light into the kitchen.

Meanwhile, the finely crafted windows are getting fixed up, one by one, by a skilled and generous friend of Veblen House. This one is missing some mullions from the many years of abandonment the house patiently endured until our Friends of Herrontown Woods was able to lease the house two years ago. Some of the custom windows are crafted from white oak, others from chestnut.

2 comments:

  1. Hello, I know I have photographed at this location, on Saturday 28 January 2017, before all of this work. I wanted to check if now would be a good time to make some new photographs.I live in Montgomery Township and enjoy photographing the history of the surrounding area.

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    Replies
    1. That would be great, and please send any photos you'd like to share. My email address is in the "About Me" profile.

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