MahamYe

Originally written Feb4

So this week we have had a bit more progress…though things are still being ripped apart and torn down. Our contractors are trying to wrap up the demolition work before they take time off for Spring Festival. The speed of their progress is on-track, and we feel they are being thorough with an eye for detail.

The last time we visited the construction site, the biggest change was the demolition of several walls around the master bedroom. As I mentioned previously, we hope to open the space in the master bedroom to give a full master suite. This involves tearing down a small room that was adjacent to the master bedroom (the space will likely become a large closet) and taking down the tiny staircase that led to the attic. The staircase was a huge waste of space of about 8 meters or so. By knocking it down, it really enhances the space. We plan to use a ladder to enter the loft and will create a second closet in with the new space. We are still finalizing design plans for the master bathroom, but will likely have the entrance through the master closet.

We tore a portion of the attic down to create a little loft and a high open cathederal ceiling above the master bedroom.

We had a great conversation with some of the neighbors who swung by for a chat. We have met them several times when we were considering the house and during the months before renovations began. She has lived in Long Men Cun all her life and her grandfather built his home (diagonal from ours) in 1928. Now her family lives in the home and she is always happy to regale us with stories about the lane’s history.

Her grandfather worked as a banker and built his “Tudor Style” home where he raised five children. She was happy to tell us that her house was better than ours becuase her grandfather was a banker, while the owner of our had been engineer(score one for class struggle). The original owner of our home had been in the railroad industry (and he was later Head Master of the Shanghai Railroad Academy). Some visitors to the home even say the décor reminds them of an idealized version of a 1930’s European railcar. Our neighbor told us that original owner of our home had done all of the design and architecture himself. He built the two adjacent homes for his sons and their families all lived there until the Cultural Revolution when the whole family was moved into the single home.
Our home, #95, was never subdivided with several separate families during the Cultural Revolution and we always wondered how the family was able to keep the house intact. The neighbor told us that the two sons moved their families into their father’s home, #95, and they all lived together. The sons watched while the government confiscated the houses and moved tenants into the homes they had designed and built. Since #95 has seen previous renovations, we are hoping to peek inside the other two homes to see if any of the original designs are intact to get some clues for our restoration. Speaking of the Cultural Revolution, there are still remnants of old slogans spray painted in bold black characters hidden under several coats of white paint on the exterior of our house.

There is a bit of debate about when our home was erected. The deed to the house says it was built in 1949, though several of the old-timer residents of the lane swear the house has “always” been there. They are certain it was standing before 1949 since they have vivid memories of it being built earlier, so we are left uncertain of the actual date of construction. Our architect is suspecting that it was built in the early 1940’s because some of the building materials were not commonly used in the 1930’s. The deed discrepancy will be an interesting mystery to solve that will probably involve a trip to the Shanghai archives. More on that later.
Melanie