As the work I do on my house progresses (yes, Dear, it really is progressing…), I still marvel at the quality of the materials that I find. Being built in 1942, and being nowhere near an expensive home (think Levittown),seeing the quality here makes me wonder how nice the expensive stuff was back then.

I removed 3-hinges from a cabinet door in my hallway and stripped the paint off them. After 60-years of being continually covered in paint, the newly stripped hinges looked very nice. They had a silver-patina that looked like stainless-steel, so I have to assume that’s what they are.

Even the old nails on this house, when I pull them out of the oak baseboards and trim, look lots better than what you find new at many of the Home-Supplier-Warehouse-Stores. I know I can’t save all of this stuff, but I save and re-use what I can.

I often find marks inside the wall cavities, written in crayon or pencil by the original builders. I’ve even found old milk-bottle caps (the cardboard kind) in the crawlspace underneath my house.

So, for the builders who proudly built this house in the war years, I dedicate this photo to you.