Before & After: Lambert House
When we removed the aluminum siding we found the marks where old trim had been removed. From these "shadows" in the paint we were able to recreate the original moldings.
The kitchen was cramped and destroyed in a series of bad remodels. We claimed the back porch to create a larger kitchen space.
What was a small kitchen space is now a generous breakfast area. Notice the salvaged cabinet, rebuilt with glass in the original doors.
When we found the transom windows borded up, we decided to remake them in stained glass.
We saved the clawfoot tub.
A bedroom right off the front door contained a set of stairs. This weird space became a library with stained glass windows, period pocket doors, and floor to ceiling book shelves.
The Story of Lambert House . . .
Lambert was once a one-room house in the wilderness, and then was rebuilt by a Mr. Wahl starting in the 1890's, as the only house in Westmoreland and much of Sellwood on a fifty acre estate. Wahl sold off lots as a developer until he built a house in 1935 on the last parcel he had to sell.
We are only the third owner of the home. The first owner, the second owner, and the second family's children grew older in the house and went to the same retirement home, where the last of them still lives.
We restored Lambert over ten years. We then bought two of the lots around it, reuniting them with the first house in Westmoreland after 70 years. We reclaimed one of the houses from a drug house to the now handsome home of Oregonian Editor Margaret Haberman.
We have built next door to the old Lambert house to match the first established homes built in Portland. In this way, the last of the original estate looks the oldest of all.