SUMMERS COUNTY W.Va. (Hinton News) – This week’s piece is a tad different in that it is not about a specific piece. It encompasses my love for Summers County history as a whole. As I have said before, I love local history and antiques, but when the two collide, I am overjoyed.
My parents are adding an addition to the house where I live in Pence Springs. The existing kitchen will be relocated into it, with the addition of an extra bathroom. In doing this, I get to wear one of my favorite hats, which would be my “interior design hat,” ha.
The huge antique stepback oak cupboard, which I have mentioned before that my Great Great Grandfather L.W. Thompson built for an old house in Clayton, WV, will be used in it. And that gave my mother and me numerous ideas. Now the fun begins.
My Great Uncle Buck Thompson passed away in 2016; his daughter was selling items from his estate last year. First, the yellow workbench you see is the original workbench built by my great-grandfather, O.D. Thompso,n for his business in Talcott, Thompson’s Garage in 1927. Uncle Buck moved it to his garage in Union, WV. It is being retrofitted into a workbench for the new kitchen.
The turquoise cabinet you see beside it is the “new” kitchen cabinets Great Grandpa Tompson put in his house in the 1950s. I have been restoring and painting it in the original turquoise color it was originally sold in. It has the original “Shirley” label on the back of the left center door.
Ironically, Mom already had the 1927 farmhouse sink and base OD had built for the house when L.W. Thompson built their home. It was stored in our barn in Talcott, WV. I am using it as my bathroom vanity in the new bathroom. So we have both of the kitchen sinks that Grandma Thompson used during her life in her home.
What you can’t see in this pic is one of the original 1918 pedestal bathtubs from the Pence Springs Hotel, which I have been restoring to use as well. A random piece behind all of this is one of the metal veneer door covers that was used in the hotel when it was the WV State Prison for Women. It is going to be used to cover an original window on the log wall that is now inside one of the rooms.
I could go on and on forever, just like the miniature Stock Yards Depot we did in our extra house last year, from the original 1870s lumber from the depot. Everywhere I go, I look for a history connection and think of a way it can be repurposed. Everything old is new again.
