My favorite part of restoration projects is the research. We weren’t entirely sure how old the new One Twenty Main buildings were when we first purchased them. This is a photo of Bryson City in the 1930s…you can see the white One Twenty Main farmhouse in the middle and the courthouse in the background. The brick storefront had obviously not been built yet:

Dating the Storefront:

I went to the Swain County Geneological Society and looked through their microfiche records and I was able to track down this Smoky Mountain Times newspaper article from October 1940 that mentions the framework of the storefront being built by C.R. Browning:We found C. R. Browning’s name written under some of the old roof flashing too:

I love this big stamp on the flashing. This metal would have come in on the train from Knoxville:

 

Dating the House:

I tracked down all the old deeds to the property and was able to piece together the ownership of the property which tells part of the story. The change of property for the smaller amounts tells me that it was still just a “lot” being transferred. 

The first large increase in the property value is during the time that T.I. Hughes and his son Cassius Hughes owned the property.  As we started to remove layers from the inside of the house we found the name “T.I. Hughes” written on the oldest part of the structure. This was the Hughes family’s primary residence from 1902 until the 1920’s as shown by the census records so that dates the house to around 1902! 

As layers came off we found other names on newer pieces of the structure. This wood is between the back part of the house and the main part and reads G.I. Calhoun which would have been Granville Calhoun:

Here’s a close-up of the writing. 

Here’s Granville Calhoun is pretty well known in this area. He lived to be 103 and died in 1978. Here is an article from Asheville Citizen-Times from May 1978 (Click image to read a larger version):

The Browning family owned the house and store for 42 years before selling it to the Jacks Family. Burton and Hazel Jacks ran a jewelry store at that location for almost 40 years. Here is a photo of Hazel Jacks (at their old jewelry store location on Main Street) holding a prize tomato that won an award:

An ad from 1971 showing Burton and Hazel’s daughter Patsy in front of the new store:

I can’t even tell you how many people have stopped me out front of the new store and told me that they bought their engagement ring or first piece of jewelry from H&B Jewelers. When we cleaned out the building I found thousands of these little envelopes each representing a customer transaction:

I’m still trying to track down more photos of the house but I did find this one from the front step in 1940 right before the storefront would have been built. The building was built right up to the edge of the steps. 

Read more about One Twenty Main here!

How do I speed through the past few weeks to the big reveal? I can’t believe how fast the transformation of the store building has gone…and you guys….my little store is open!

But first…remember what it looked like before?!

Oh and then this phase:

I think the last thing I post about was the plumbing and the framing. The walls are just whitewashed pine planks but the ceiling is a beautiful birch that we left unfinished. After all that was finished the guys filled in the concrete patches and sanded the floor down as flat as possible. Still trying to figure out what was on the left side, the big rectangle on the floor, maybe where a large display case or something used to be?

Here’s what we used to coat the floor: Vivid Acid Stain from Concrete Coatings

It’s a really easy process requiring two Hudson sprayers. First coat the floor with a mist of water and then coat the floor with a mist of stain:

Here’s what it looks like freshly coated:

And here’s when the stain has taken effect and dried:

 Next up was baseboards, trim and of course lighting:

I found these hanging pendant lights online and they come in sets of two so that made them really affordable:

The window seats had to be rebuilt but we put them back just as they were before:

Jaime made the doors out of wood salvaged from the Sixty-One Park farmhouse:

We saved the original store front door for the bathroom…just put a clear coat on it. It still needs some frosted privacy glass:

And then this is my most favorite part…the guys built me this enormous 12 foot bar that I can work at and also hold classes at:

I must have sanded and stained that bar 20 times:

That cool old sign in the loft area is from the old Everett Building in downtown Bryson. You can see it in this photo from 1971:

I’ve never done retail before so I just started making it all up as I go. Like I need furniture and displays right? I saw this piece at a thrift store and drove back first thing the next morning to get it:

I made these shelves myself from Ana White’s X-Shelf plans.  I’ll be honest they took me a REALLY long time to make. And I got to know my Kreg pocket hole jig REALLY well. 

I painted the shelves a dark gray and then used a large brush to add some whitewash:

I added the white using a large brush:

Next blog post will be the big reveal of the open store! It’s located at:

120 Main Street
Bryson City, NC 28713

All the posts about One Twenty Main are located here. 

Also, now we get to start phase 2…the attached house which will eventually become a vacation rental downtown:

We’ve made so much progress in the past two months at One Twenty Main Store. I’m so excited for this to be my new shop/studio space downtown and it’s a little overwhelming to think that I have to fill it.

Before we started framing the inside a new trench was dug to update the 100-year-old plumbing:

The sewer line needed to connect to a new manhole out front so Brett literally had to dig under the foundation of the building to get a connection. Oh, and they had to block off Main Street for a few days which everyone in town was just thrilled about. 

The framing process was pretty simple since the store is just a rectangle:

The back part of the store is a small office and a bathroom. Above those two is a little loft for storage and display, there will be some kind of rolling ladder. I can already see Sienna doing her homework there after school:

Jaime and Brett built wood molds and poured concrete to make new window sills for the front:

I ordered these Outdoor Aluminum Barn Lights for the front of the building:

Here’s what they look like installed:

For the ceiling we used locally sourced birch which the guys had to spend some time planing first:

Here’s when the first piece of birch went up:

I think the guys were regretting how many ceiling lights and ceiling fans I planned for as soon as they started cutting the holes. 

We used pine for the walls and the walls starting going on as soon as the ceiling was finished:

The boards were all primed before going up and I think I’m just going to keep them that way. It’s almost like they just have a whitewash on them:

This last week we finally got the front door installed. We really wanted to use the old front door but it was just in too bad of shape for a door that will get so much use (I’ll use it somewhere!):

We also got window glass installed and the next step will be rebuilding the old display windows! (On a side note, look how convenient the hardware store is!)

Here’s a before photo again in case you forgot what it looked like (I already have):

The new windows change everything about the outside…and they are much bigger than the original ones:

I’m not the greatest at Photoshop but I was able to cut and paste a few mockups together to see what different awnings would look like:

I love the small awnings but the guys think that we need a larger awning to cover the steps of the building too. I think it will look okay either way…I’m just excited to be able to work on the inside soon!

There’s not much going on with the attached house right now. In the meantime we are fixing drainage issues and re-grading the property. Those are the old concrete steps sitting there:

I’ve started to index all posts on our big renovation projects into history, found objects, renovation and DIY categories so they are easy to find:

Sixty-One Park Farmhouse Project

One Twenty Main Farmhouse and Store Project

The Old Depot Project

 

I have a lot to share on the house too but you can also follow along on Instagram as I post almost daily @onetwentymain and @lilblueboo.