An Introduction

PICTURE

Here is M Street, on New Year's Day, 2011. You can see the Ryan House there, on the southwest corner of ninth. It's South Ninth Street, technically, though South became So and then just S as the years went on. Nobody much bothers with the "Street" part, as Tacoma is a city that switches between Streets and Avenues with no discernible pattern.

Anyhow, there at the corner, that's us, as of April 2010, a day before your humble narrator's twenty-eighth birthday.


What strikes me the most is how similar this street would have looked, twenty, fifty, nearly a hundred years ago. The Ryan house went up in 1914, and it's the newest of the lot. Even the little 700-square-foot cottage that's for sale down the road is from 1890. That may not be so old to those who live in, say, Europe, but for the West coast, this is a decidedly aged neighborhood.

No, my name's not Ryan, but Yours Truly is the first resident in ninety-six years not to be so named. When the deed passed to me, it had Charles Ryan's name on it, and was dated 1901. Mr Ryan was something of a figure in the neighborhood, back that century ago, but we'll return to that later. (note -- though the names of his descendants who also lived at the house are a matter of public record, we will not name them here out of respect.)

What of these pages, then? Having recently read Bill Bryson's excellent At Home, and enjoying Heather's 1912 Bungalow blog, on behalf of the Ryan House, we'd like to invite you to have a look around.

We'll go on a little tour, with a few stops on the way to show you what we've changed, restored, broken, discovered, and what have you. Occasionally I'll take a step back and talk about the history of the house and the neighborhood. We'd also like to share the tips and tricks we've discovered about what has worked well, and what hasn't, to go along with the thousand other home improvement publications to which you doubtless subscribe.

Shall we, then?

Welcome.

Come on in.



That's the living room, as seen before move-in, in April, and the previous homeowner's stuff therein.





Really, it looks pretty good, at least from here.

Some of it, though, is "interesting."































There's certainly a lot of work to do. Overall, the place was kept pretty much original inside. In most cases, this is good, but it also means there are century-old pipes, century-old wires, and what have you. Around 1950, there was a major "renovation," in which exterior siding was replaced, the kitchen was redone, et cetera.

The strange dark picture above is from a part of the house labeled "the ham shack" when we arrived. There is also the curious corner of the house that goes by "the toilet room."

Depending upon how off-guard you've taken us today, you'll find quite the array of tools strewn about. I think we know what most of them do.

This is new to me.

Yours truly remembers the claw hammer at his house growing up. And the adjustable wrench, and screw drivers. The phillips mostly drove screws; the flathead mostly opened cans of paint.

After almost a year in the Ryan house, we've learned to use a whole lot more of them.

Where to begin?