Kitchen After

And here's the kitchen going through deconstruction. Window left is boarded up, and new window installed in the center of the west wall.

Kitchen Before

The built in hutch is a beautiful feature in the old kitchen. We kept it because its function cannot be beat, and of course it is always wonderful to keep as much of the old house as possible. Again take note we removed the window next to the hutch and replaced it with an upper cabinet.

The finished kitchen when we moved in March 2008. Ed Thompson of Pine River, a master cabinet maker made the beautiful cabinets. The wall color is Valspar "aged photo". Thanks to Dad and husband for the long long hours of deconstruction, and reconstruction for a beautiful new kitchen that really looks like it belongs to this old house.

West Wall of Kitchen Under Construction July 2007

This is the same west wall of the kitchen. The blue plaster from the 1950s kitchen was crumbling. There were 4 doors in the kitchen, one door to the summer kitchen, one door to the dining room, and one door to the bathroom. The fourth door on the west wall going out to the yard was eliminated. We needed light and we needed cabinets. The west wall became a focal point sink, granite countertops and customs cabinets. See next photo for results.

This is the west wall of the kitchen as we first saw it February 18, 2007.

We'd been interested in the house since we first saw it from the driveway in 2001. We contacted the owner Donna Osen and asked if she would be interested in selling the house. She said no.

We continued writing to Donna, and ocassionally telephoning her for the next six years. Each time she said no, but one time she gave us hope by saying "look--if I ever decide to sell the house you'll be the first person I'll call, ok?"

From 2001 to 2007 almost weekly we drove by the house on our way to get groceries in Stevens Point. Sometimes we would sit in the driveway a little while and just look at the house. Silly us! We always referred to the house as "our house". I remember telling a neighbor that my husband and I were smitten by the old house and we hoped someday we could buy it. The neighbor laughed at me and said, "yeah, you and about two hundred other people would like to buy that house".

During our trips by the old house we could see the wrap around porch was failing and the cedar shingles on the porch roof were covered with green moss. The house had been vaccant since the 1970s. The Quien daughters continued to heat the house during the winter, and have the lawn mowed though no one lived there.

The Thomas Quien Family, c1910

Barbara Osen, daughter of Donna Quien Osen loaned me this photo of her great grandparents (seated) Thomas and Maren Gurholt Quien. Standing left to right are her great aunts Bessie, Gusta, her grandfather Peter, and Ragnhild.
Her grandfather Peter Quien (pronounced Ka-Veen) married Ruth Danielson. They had two daughters Mary Jane Quien Fossum and Donna Quien Osen. As time went on the name Quien was pronounced "Queen".
Thomas Quien bought was the second owner of our home--purchasing it Dec 1917. Mary Jane and Donna kept their grandparents' home until their deaths. Mary Jane passed away in 1996, and Donna passed away in 2006. The Quien family owned our house for 90 years. We are the third owners, purchasing the house April 16, 2007.

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• In August 2008 I looked in the telephone book and found Oliver Wrolstad and phoned him. Oliver lives about 6 miles from us. I introduced myself and told him I am interested in the history of the Wrolstad family, in particular John Olson Wrolstad who built my house. Oliver said he could help me.
• A couple weeks later my parents, husband, and I met Oliver for dinner and talked about his grandfather Halvor Wrolstad and his great uncle John Olson Wrolstad who built our house. Halvor and John Olson Wrolstad were brothers.
• Oliver graciously loaned me his family photos and documents to scan. Here is one of the photos I scanned from Oliver Wrolstad's collection. It is John Olson Wrolstad in his civil war uniform. I told Oliver I've seen this photo before in a book and again on the Wrolstad his family website, but I only saw the photo. I've never seen this page written in Norwegian. There are four more pages following this one, each written in Norwegian. I don't know the book but have written to Vesterheim Norwegian Museum in Decorah IA. I'm looking forward to finding out what it says.