Colrain Archives

Day Three of spiffing up the barn saw Sarah, Jade and Nina hard at it in the Center Room of the Pitt House barn.  We moved the furniture around to make the space more functional, swept a hundred years worth of cobwebs of doors and walls and ceiling—not to mention at least a decade’s worth of fallen leaves—and vacuumed up enough powder-post beetle frass to build a new piece of furniture.    An unused cupboard was hiding in plain sight, which Sarah wiped out thoroughly. Mildew had completely transformed its color—it’s now back to off-white and is waiting to be pressed back into use.   The organ got a wipe-down too, and jade thoroughly windexed the big glass display case right next to the door.    Finally, we moved piles of yet-to-inventoried small items to glass case #2 in the Exhibit Room, which will make it a snap to inventory everything when we get to that point. ***** On to the remaining two rooms! ******

The old shelving in the pantry has been removed so that we can finish off that room for future use. It could be used for museum display or for storage. These are Friday's "after" pictures. Belden would like to see this room plastered and painted soon. However, we should probably discuss several issues before plastering. SEE BELOW. The window wall and the west wall are exterior walls with no insulation. (The west wall is the porch). I did not remove the frame around the small serving window (below) between the kitchen and pantry because it is a cute feature. There is a sliding panel. Here are some questions we may want to answer before plaster/painting: 1)  Should we insulate the two exterior walls first or just repair plaster? 2)  Should we remove the serving window? 3)  Should we install an overhead light? 4)  Should the door be changed to open out so we have a larger pantry? The Building Committee should be involved in this discussion as well as Curatorial. This is a bu

 Colrain history has it that the oldest tavern in town was the Pennell tavern which existed on top of Chandler Hill on land now owned by David Nims. That building, long gone, was known later known as the Lyons tavern after its 19th century owners. There is an 1870s ?? photo of a large building with a couple standing in front. * Can we use this photo to reconstruct the building's footprint and floorplan? **... Maybe ... We have what appear to be two buildings joined together.  A family note on an old deed refers to this property as containing the "Lyons Hotel and Tavern".  Is the taller, more decrepit building to the right the tavern? Anyway, since we have a fairly complete front elevation (facade) perhaps we can, with some professional help, come up with building footprint and a possible floor plan. To make analysis easier we traced most of the important lines on the photo and then transferred them to a simple line drawing (below). This sketch could probably be used to ge

 Nina and Jade did a major cleanup up the Exhibit Room in the barn (room closest to road) on Friday the 11th. All floor, walls and ceiling were vacuumed and the window was washed.  Some floorboards near the doorway were noted to be in need of replacement. The three hour effort included thorough cleaning of the two smaller glass cases so they can be used for temporary storage as we excavate various objects from the barn. Glass case #2 (left) got some objects. The small bookshelf was wiped down. Stacks of exposed books were sorted and packed into storage boxes (right side in pic).  An uncovered box of Town Reports was cleaned, sorted and put into a single covered box.  A listing was made of all the Town Reports so this batch can be compared with the large shelf of Town Reports in the library,   These "book" boxes should probably be moved to the main house.... This stalwart team had another crack at the barn today, the 18th.    News to follow ....  WOW ! D. Allen

 Last Friday, Oct 4, Sarah and Nina "attacked" the two front rooms in the barn as part of our inventory project.  1) There are numerous items in the barn which have not been inventoried, and 2) we need to add numbers to the items that were inventoried 2014-2018... Their first step was to re-arrange objects so that the "front room"  (whose outside has the Museum sign)  had more room. Bags of insulation were moved upstairs. The large glass display cabinet (left) was not full, so as Sarah and Nina did the  number-matching/inventory, they put about a dozen small items into the cabinet.see below. The thinking here is that the items will be protected from dust, and that they now have a "home". The database will report that item # xxx is in glass display cabinet #1.  This "home" is more exact than "in the barn north room". **************************************************************** Of course, if we resurrect the front room for museum disp

  Update on Pitt House improvements Oct 5 2024 - Dehumidifier etc This week Nina and Sarah installed a dehumdifier in the basement of the Pitt House. The unit has a pump to move the water outside. It is working - note the drain tube & water stain on the concrete just outside the window. This, in addition to the window fans installed last month, and the plastic sheeting laid down this summer, should lessen moisture problems at the Pitt House. ============================================================== Also, Nina installed a temporary strip light in the Booth Room, which has very poor lighting. This inexpensive LED light hangs from the moulding, and has an inline switch. We will add two more later so we can finish the Booth Room inventory and clean it up!