The new place - and a filled up basement!

[swestoyz]

Hey Guys,

Wow - what an amazing month it has been. This fall, I have been helping Cory out with his construction project, fiddling with the Kelvintator resto - and buying a house! Since the end of September, I have been working on purchase a house in the middle of a historical district on the beautiful east side of Waterloo (j/k).

When you pull into the neighborhood, you see these huge, beautiful mini-mansions - then you get to my new pad. Yes, it needs tons of work, but that is the beauty of being a weekend warrior. I currently have not offically moved in yet, as I am working with my family on a mild revamp of the inside of the house. I took possession of it last weekend, and I have slowly moved items from my storage units, which includes the washers!

While the Kelvinator resto is on a bit of a hold right now, I hope to complete it later this winter, when I am able to clean up the basement and get some water lines installed for some wash-in action!

I've thrown a few photos together, showing the weekend of moving appliances - wow, I'm tired! Enjoy ~

Ben

http://automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/00ShowCollectionGETD.cgi?dir=/COLLECTIONS/SWESTOYZ/

 

[tlee618]

Ben, I am so very happy for you!!! Looks like a great house. How many rooms do you have? Your wonderful collection is already looking right at home. Thanks so much for sharing and once again, Congratulations. Terry

 

[westytoploader]

Hey Ben, congratulations on the cool house! It looks very "vintage", I'm guessing 1920's or 30's? The basement looks great already, filled with all those machines. Looks like there's room for more, if that gives any indication, LOL!

 

[pdub]

Wow Ben, it's beautiful. You made the right choice hooking up the 1-18 right away. LOL! (Well, it's what I would have done anyway.) That basement looks perfect for another "Robert-style" collection. And you're so close to Minnesota, how convenient.

Would love to see more pictures of the rest of the inside of the house.

Congratulations, Patrick

 

[frontaloadotmy]

Ben

That is a real nice looking place. I bet it will be spectac-
ular when you get everything done that you want to do.

 

[drmitch]

Wow Ben, great place! Glad to see your collection all in one nice large basement!

 

[christfr]

wow it already is looking awesome ..

 

[mayken4now]

Great basement Ben.

Ok the kitchenaid question, my guess, one has "Superba" on it and the other does not?????????

Steve

 

[gyrafoam]

Oh Ben, that place looks great! It won't be long and you'll have it all up to speed.

Love those Pank 'Tags!

 

[gansky1]

Awesome! Looks like your babies are right at home in their new nursery! I recognize some of the parts on the shelves ;-)

Love the panel on the KDS-17, is that wood? The energy saver button added to the later "A" models stands out, as well as the flip-down tines in the back of the lower rack.

 

[chestermikeuk]

Basement

Congratulations Ben, on your new house!!!

Nice to see all the machines, one piece of advice from here, make sure you do the plumbing, electrics & decorating of your basement whilst you have room to spare!!!

I`m doing the "Rubic Cube Square" mode of decorating & plumbing etc....because theres no room to move!!!no fun I can tell you!!!...

Enjoy, Mike

 

[hoover1060]

Looks great Ben!

The basement looks awesome already, and you have a very nice collection!
One difference I noticed in the Kds17's is one has what looks like a paneling front, and the other is plain white. Both machines look like they've hardly been used!
Congrats to you on your new place, it looks wonderful!

 

[Unimatic1140]

Ben your new home is just beautiful! Wow, I didn't realize you were buying a house. Congratulations!!!! Please post some pictures of the rest of the house as well when you have time.

 

[peterh770]

Congrats! The house has a little arts and craft look. Wonderful!

 

[whirlcool]

I really enjoyed the photos of your new home. Lots of room to spare! Will you add more plumbing to the basement so you can run all of your machines at the same time?
This looks like it will be a wonderful place for a wash in!

 

[dalangdon]

Congratulations!

That's a nice house for sure. I always liked Waterloo.

All of eastern Iowa is nice, actually.

And yes, please post more pictures. Those old houses are so neat on the inside. I love that sunporch on the right side of the picture.

 

[rickr]

Congratulations on your new house Ben! You will love owning an older house, although at times you may wonder if you own the house, or if the house owns you....
At any rate, you just can't beat an old house!

Looks like there is plenty of room in the basement too. And I am sure that you will host a fantastic wash in party someday. Glad your pink Maytags are finally back together. (they look so familiar to me anyway) lol!!

r.

 

[swestoyz]

Hey Guys! Thanks for the nice remarks. This last week has truly been a ton of fun.

A tidbit about the house - it was built in 1914. The whole neighborhood was the snobby side of town, as most of the business owner's had established their estates in what is now called the Highland Park area, which is right off the original routing of US Highway 20 on the north east side of town. Most of the homes and mini-mansions were built during the teens through the early 20's. During the 30's and 40's, the rich kin were building their homes on the now West side of town, but most of the residents stayed in the Highland Area through the 60's. Of course, the wonderful Me generation of the 70's and 80's caused the neighborhood to hit a rock bottom low. Starting in the late 80's, folks starting buying the relics and renovated the homes, and started an association. It seems that my little early Craftsman style home is one of the last places left that needs the renovation it truly deserves.

Yes Dan, that is a sun porch on the east side of the house - I envision many a fun party partaking there! I plan to plumb up the basement to hopefully have the capacity of 10+ machines running at once. Maybe I should follow Robert's rule of a 200 amp service and have separate circuits for those Unimatics I dream of.... ah.... LOL

You guys are getting very warm on the KDS-17 quiz! Greg, I just love that ugly fake wood - so trashy! After further investigation, it appears that the previous owners slapped some fake wood laminate on the front, as I spied some plain white panels underneath. I can only imagine the way the rest of their kitchen looked - yuck!

I'll get some more photos of the house put together this evening. This restoration will be quite fun, and I'll update you guys every once in a while on my progress. Maybe I'll post a thread this coming spring when I plan to redesign the kitchen - the groups feedback would be invaluable! Fixing up old houses is one of my passions - along with vintage washers.

Thanks again!

Ben

 

[steved]

congrats

love the house, enjoy, enjoy...... and I live just off US Route 20, too, just a few zillion miles east! SteveD