Historic Hatton House

06/02/2023

Making a last minute trip to Sioux City to hang with Steve Wilke-Shapiro, Sara Andre, Terry K. Philips, Sandra Johnson, and the other cool kids at . AND I HAVE SHIRTS! Thanks to Jenn Sullivan for being the personal assistant who actually gets the things done!

04/22/2020

We're putting a door between our kitchen and dining room. The detail shot is the textured glass pattern in the stained glass transom I made. Question 1: anyone know where I can buy glass like that in the US?

Question 2: should it have a strained glass border around the textured clear? Which pattern? Or just clear glass? (These border pattern are adapted from windows in the house).

12/05/2019

Our neighbor Sweet Tooth Farm is up to win a grant. Won't you please vote to keep fresh veggies in our neighborhood?

Links just went up! We are in the running with some great folks from all over Iowa. Voting starts December 3rd and from that day until the 10th you can vote once a day!! Please pretty please with sugar on top we need your help to make it to the top 6 and on to the next phase!
https://www.dreambiggrowhere.com/Vote.aspx

08/19/2019

Don't make these mistakes!

I wrote about this nearly a decade ago and I have some new thoughts on it. Do you know what The 5 Worst Mistakes of Historic Homeowners are? You should!

04/16/2019

This is why historic materials are important. The equivalents just don't exist anymore. You can't just run out to the field and cut down a 300 year old tree to make something.
This is an extreme example but things like this happen all the time with windows, flooring, and trim for historic homes.

07/01/2018

We had some water come in from above and below, but mostly we are fine. Wishing the rest of the city a swift clean up.

04/09/2018

It should be spring here in Des Moines but Mother Nature hasn't looked at the calendar yet. That means we get to continue the painting and corbel repair inside. After having the pieces dipped to remove the 130 year old lead paint, Arbitron, wood glue, sandpaper, and some hand tools have been working overtime.
Primer and finish coats are starting to go on so the end is in sight!

03/05/2018

Here's our neighborhood, begging you to vote YES on Measure A Tuesday March 6th.https://hattrickrenovation.com/2018/03/05/urban-blight-a-photo-essay/

When we first moved into River Bend, I owned a baby shop downtown called Simply for Giggles. We had only lived here a couple weeks when I realized I had to close my store because I wanted to spend …

02/22/2018

Our roof cost $43,000, and that didn't include gutters. Preserving history is expensive, but the end result is so beautiful. Help preserve our history, create jobs, and ask your Iowa Senator to maintain State Historic Tax Credits at the current funding level.
https://hattrickrenovation.com/2018/02/22/save-the-iowa-state-historic-tax-credit/

The Iowa Senate Ways and Means Committee is meeting today, February 22, on a tax bill that will reduce and then eliminate the Iowa State Historic Tax Credit (SHTC). This would be a huge loss for ne…

11/16/2017

Fall at the Hatton House means the mad dash to compete warm weather project runs all day and a fair portion of the night.

10/20/2017

We're doing some scary things this Halloween season! Like painting the house on a 40' boom and transporting 16' siding in a minivan. Our new look is in progress!

10/10/2017

130 year old paint is so persistent.

07/07/2017

Last year, we got a new batch of chicks and one of the turned out to be a rooster, then later in the summer we adopted a second rooster, so hypothetically, we could start having chicks. Raising chickens is funny, because you walk a fine line between not wanting hens to get broody and sit on your breakfast eggs, but secretly wanting a few new chicks too. [ 157 more words ]

http://hattonhousedsm.com/2017/07/07/baby-chicks/

Last year, we got a new batch of chicks and one of the turned out to be a rooster, then later in the summer we adopted a second rooster, so hypothetically, we could start having chicks. Raising chi…

01/14/2017

Thanks so much to Cityview Magazine for doing a feature on our home! Check it out!

If these walls could talk, there’s no doubt that the Hatton House would spin splendid tales of high society while alternating sordid stories of some unsavory faces hailing from the lowest places.

05/07/2016

Our "new" baby just turned one, so I've been making a push to finish the nursery. I used a Natart crib that I saved (clung to?) from my store, just waiting for this baby. I made the curtains from Alexander Henry fabric I found at my favorite place to shop while visiting my parents, The Fabric Corner in Arlington, Massachusetts. I even hand sewed the lining (a story for another day). [ 53 more words. ]

http://hattonhousedsm.com/2016/05/07/baby-room-update

Our “new” baby just turned one, so I’ve been making a push to finish the nursery. I used a Natart crib that I saved (clung to?) from my store, just waiting for this baby. I made t…

03/11/2016

We bought the Hatton House specifically because it had four bedrooms, in the hopes that it would one day house a family of five. We'd just about given up hope when we found out our third kid was due in April of 2015. So sorry for the lack of recent updates, but we had a good excuse. In my life before the Hatton House, I designed children's rooms and painted murals for children. [ 49 more words. ]

http://hattonhousedsm.com/2016/03/10/the-new-tiny-person

We bought the Hatton House specifically because it had four bedrooms, in the hopes that it would one day house a family of five. We’d just about given up hope when we found out our third kid …