Claw Bath Tub Restoration

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Out in a field in Minter, Georgia near Dublin a claw bath tub sat for years on farm land with goats and minurature horses. It was found through an ad in a local paper and $150 was paid to purchase the old bathtub.

The first thing on restoring the bathtub was to grind off the rust on the bottom part of the tub.

After grinding down the tub and sanding the feet the tub is ready for priming.

All primed and ready for the top coat of glossy white.

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Done with the bottom and a little touch of gold on the feet!

Now for the inside of the tub. The porcelin finish was in really good shape on most of the tub. There were some worn areas and one in particular had a chunk missing. This is where the real fixin was to be done. A bondo type product was used to fix the area shown in the front.



Now the inside is painted with several coats of a special gloss white....




Final step to have it installed in the new bathroom. All restoration was done for about $30 of paint and supplies. To have a professional job done on a tub like this would cost approx. $1,000.



Note the attention to details on the restored tub with hot and cold handles.



Time to take a bath!

Dublin Family Connection and History

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In 1909 my grandmother, Myrtis Corker, was born in this house in Dublin, Georgia. It is one of the finest homes in Dublin. She was one of 8 siblings born to Frank Corker who was the mayor of Dublin from 1893- 1895. Frank Corker was a prominent citizen of Dublin was one of the founders of the First National Bank of Dublin in 1913.

May 2010 my mother Myrtis Bullard Hall came to Dublin and for the first time in her life had a chance to see and visit the home. Here we are standing under the widow's walk and then sitting on the front porch.

Today Frank Corker's picture hangs on the wall in Dublin city Hall along with pictures of each of the Mayor's of Dublin.

Myrtis Corker was a fine Southern Lady who married Ralph Bullard in 1930. This picture was taken on her wedding day.

Ralph Bullard was born in 1905 in Poulan, Georgia. This picture is from the Georgia Tech Year Book showing him on the National Championship Football Team in 1928.

Frank Corker's father was Stephen Alpheastus Corker. He was a Confederate Veteran who led the Third Georgia Regiment's charge at Gettysburg as a Captain. After the War Between the States he returned to his law practice and served in the 41st US Congress.

On April 26, 2017 I published a book on Captain Corker's Letters. Details on how to order are shown below.



To order a copy of Above the High Water Mark see the ad below:

See more detail in the blog post below:

Above the High Water Mark

My deep love and affection for my grandparents, especially my grandmother who we called Nana Bee, brought me to Dublin to restore the Hardy Smith House.

Power gets turned on

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Georgia Power came out yesterday 11/19/09 and brought out the heavy equipment to get the house hooked up with power.

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They dug a line from the nearest pole to the house.

Here they are hooking up the line.



The result is after probably 40 or 50 years the house now has power in every room. At night the charm of an Old South home is now a reality!

The Day The House was Bought

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The Hardy Smith House was bought from the Hardy Smith Foundation on October 15th 2007. Below are some shots of the house on this day. The foundation had saved the home from being torn down approximately 12 years before being purchased. For about 10 years work was done to preserve the home. The foundation did a wonderful job restoring the outside and some of the inside of the home. Then about two years before it was sold there was no activity. The yard was left to the elements as shown below.

A lot of debris had fallen from the trees and the yard needed some work.

On the right were wisteria vines taking over the house on the right side.

More examples of the yard work needed.

The home was almost hidden behind all the overgrown brush.

A view from the back of the house.



You could not even see the house from the back parking area of the Methodist Church.

One of the first things done to the house was yard work. A total of approximately 25 truck loads of brush and debris was removed from the property to clean the yard up!

New Construction

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Thanks to the Morris Bank in Dublin construction has begun on the Hardy Smith House to have electric service in the entire house, heating and air throughout and a new bathroom done.

Since September of this year the work crews have been showing up everyday.

The first thing done was to start cutting the floor for heating and air vents. There was no heating and air in the house. Each room had a fire place for winter and in the heat of summer you just opened up the windows or put in a window air unit.

The electric work starts with putting in the electrical outlets in each room. Previous to the electric work done the only power came from a front pole with with power cords. So it gets kinda dark in parts of the house with no power cord :P

The bathroom is going to be done in a 1920's eara look. This is the start of what will soon be...

Upstair guest bedroom was done....then came the electricians tearing out the baseboards to wire the room. Since this is the first go at restoration for your's truely I should have waited. However, won't be to hard to fix once they are done.

Amigos with the heating and air putting in some of the duct work for the house.

More to come!

Squirrels

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Along with bats, another critter made its home in the house. Tearing out the bottom of the base boards in the office room quite a bit of stuff had fallen down from the inside ceiling up in the attic. Most of the stuff was from squirels making nests over the years.

Found this body of a squirell in the wall. Talk about a mummy!

In the back part of the house is where the kitchen was and will be when the home is restored. In this room is an exhaust chimney to allow heat to rise out of the room. Upon seeing a squirel go down this chimney, the decision was made to see if the chimney was plugged by the squirrels. So a ladder was placed under the chimney exhaust and previously this was covered by a square piece of tin. Upon removing the tin cover you guessed it.......a ton of stuff came poring down....

As the hole was prodded more and more debris came raining down.

Upon clearing out the hole all of the sudden a big crash of debris came raining down...more on that below...as you can see the chimney is now open...



So much to our surprise a squirriel's nest is what came crashing down and Max the Doberman was all at attention. Crawling on the ground was a baby squirrel who's eyes were still not open even this late in the year October 2009.

It was a boy squirrel .........

So what do you do with a baby squrriel? We put him in a box and kept him warm.

This story has a happy ending. The local wild life specialist took the squrriel and we wished him God Speed!

BATS!

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Brown Bats can be a real pest when you have a home. Especially when there are hundreds. In the attic they had made a home due to years of no one living in the home. Upon first going to the attic there was a lot of noise and few showed up in the light.

Taking a camera view before cutting through one of the window dormers imagine the shock of seeing this!

Like the movie Ben which was a movie about a boy with Rats, these critters were crawling all over the attic.

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So what does it look like when so many bats have made a home in a house? Click the video below.

What is worse than having bats in your house? The bat poop! This stuff is deadly and besides the threat of rabies the bateria in thier droppings can kill you. The stuff was several inches thick in four of the window dormer areas.

Here is a shot of one of the window dormer areas.

So how do you clean up bat poop? You get head to toe with a mask to protect yourself. This was one of the hardest jobs in working to restore the home. Hot and sweaty and bats sticking thier heads out to check out what you are doing.

After the job is done the results are shown below.

So how many pounds of bat poop came out of the Hardy Smith House? Would you believe over 200 pounds? That's right and there are over 200 pounds of the finest fertilizer you can have bagged and ready to be put in the yard when new grass is to be planted. See below for the final step of dealing with our little friends.

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Now what could possibly be the rest of the story? How did the bats leave the House? Well, the only thing that will get rid of bats is to plug the holes. Bats can squezz through the smallest of spaces.

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You can try moth balls....they love the smell.....Ammonia...they just wait for the disappation of the fumes......even spray that gets rid of rodents.....are you kidding..... don't waste your money plug the holes.

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Spray foam is what finally did it....blocked the holes....bye bye bats :)

A perfectly preserved bat was found in the bat poop. Every detail down to little bones in the feet can be seen.

Now what about all the bat poop? Best fertilizer in the world going for $3 lb on ebay. Approx. 225 pounds of Hardy Smith Bat poop went into the yard!