The Nelson House: A Farmhouse Revival

06/08/2026

Mirrors have always held a certain magic.

Today we spent the morning driving all over Washburn and Douglas County to pick up three very old, very unique mirrors. Not unique in their frames, but unique in their reflective qualities. That got us thinking. What did people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries think of mirrors? How were they made? Were there superstitions associated with mirrors at the time. The answers might surprise you.

In those homes, mirrors were more than simple household objects. They brightened dark rooms, reflected the glow of oil lamps and sunlight, and quietly served as symbols of prosperity. A large mirror was often one of the most expensive decorative items a family owned. In our farmhouse the mirrors would have been more utilitarian.

Most Victorian mirrors began as ordinary glass coated on the back with a reflective layer. Earlier mirrors were made using a tin and mercury process, but by the late 1800s manufacturers increasingly used silver nitrate to create a brighter, safer reflective surface. The glass was then framed in everything from simple oak and walnut to elaborate gilded frames adorned with flowers, scrolls, and cherubs.

Time has a way of leaving its mark on these pieces. The reflective backing slowly deteriorates, especially where moisture finds its way behind the glass. The result is the beautiful mottling, dark spots, and soft clouding often called “foxing” that antique lovers admire today. Funny thing, the two people we purchased these mirrors from apologized for their damage, and ecstatically we said, “That’s what makes them so beautiful!!”. What once may have been considered damage has become part of the mirror’s story—a century of humid summers, wood stoves, candle smoke, and changing seasons preserved in silver and glass.

Victorians also carried many superstitions about mirrors. Breaking a mirror was believed to bring seven years of bad luck. In many households, mirrors were covered after a death to prevent a departed soul from becoming trapped within the glass. Some believed mirrors could reveal spirits, while others considered them portals between the physical and spiritual worlds.

Standing before an antique mirror today, it’s easy to understand why. The reflection is never quite as crisp as a modern mirror. The glass ripples slightly. The silvering has softened. The image looking back seems less like a photograph and more like a glimpse into another time.

Perhaps that’s why old mirrors remain so captivating. They don’t just reflect a room—they reflect every generation that has stood before them.

05/30/2026

Tomorrow is the big day!!! Come see our progress, maybe learn a little bit about how early 20th century homes were built, plus there will be a surprise or two in our progress that we haven’t shared yet.

05/27/2026

There’s something strangely beautiful about stripping a 120 year old room back down to its bones.

This week we officially began painting the dining room and kitchen at the Nelson House, but before a single fresh coat could go on, we had to work our way through more than 7 layers of paint and wallpaper. Every scrape of the putty knife uncovered another decade. Floral wallpaper over striped wallpaper. Oil paint over calcimine. Patches over patches. Eventually, we reached the original horsehair plaster walls that have quietly held this house together since 1906.

One of the most fascinating parts of this process happens once the walls become one uniform color again. Suddenly, the ghosts of old layouts begin to reveal themselves.

Tiny nail holes outlining where a family photo may have hung for generations. Paint shadows and drips showing the exact spot where a dry sink once stood. Marks on the south kitchen wall revealing where open shelves used to be mounted long before modern cabinets existed. Little clues left behind by people who likely never imagined someone would study their everyday choices over a century later.

The house starts talking once you learn how to look at it.

It reminds you that old homes aren’t just structures — they’re layered records of ordinary lives, preserved one coat at a time.

05/25/2026

One of our favorite nonprofits!!!

🎵 A little love letter to ALL of our porch hosts — past, present, and future.

Siggy’s Musical Garden and Superior Porchfest exist to bring music into our neighborhoods — and that means the event itself needs to move through the community, not just stay in one place.

Each year, we thoughtfully design the event route with walkability in mind. We look at where the music can flow most naturally from porch to porch, which neighborhoods haven’t had their moment yet, and how we can help more neighbors meet each other for the very first time. That means we don’t always return to the same homes, even when those homes have been wonderful to us.

If you’ve hosted before: you are part of this story and we are grateful. If you’ve never hosted: your porch might be exactly what we’re looking for next season. 🏡

Our hosts aren’t just venues — they’re community builders. And community, by its nature, keeps growing.

05/17/2026

For most of human history, lightning wasn’t just weather — it was mystery, warning, punishment, power, and myth all at once. Ancient Greeks believed it was hurled by Zeus. Norse mythology gave it to Thor and his hammer. Across Europe and early America, people rang church bells during storms to “break up” lightning, burned herbs, hung charms in windows, or believed certain trees and metals could either attract or repel strikes. Some even thought lightning could “cleanse” bad air or carry supernatural messages.

Then came Benjamin Franklin and the lightning rod in the 1700s — one of the simplest inventions to completely change how people understood storms. The idea that a thin metal rod could quietly guide lightning into the earth felt almost magical itself. Some praised lightning rods as scientific progress. Others feared them, believing humans were interfering with God’s will. Entire towns argued over whether rods protected homes… or attracted lightning toward them.

And honestly, some of those beliefs still linger today.

People still say lightning never strikes the same place twice — even though it absolutely can and does. Tall structures like church steeples, barns, radio towers, and old trees are struck repeatedly. Some believe rubber tires protect you in a storm, when it’s actually the metal shell of the vehicle that redirects the electricity around you. Others swear certain objects “pull” lightning from miles away, when in reality lightning is looking for the easiest path between sky and ground.

There’s something timeless about lightning because even now, with all our science and technology, it still feels wild and untamed. One second the sky is calm. The next, the entire world flashes white for an instant — the same way it did for our ancestors standing in fields 500 years ago, wondering what force could possibly split the heavens apart.

On a personal note, the current owner of the Nelson House had a not so distant ancestor (3rd great grandfather) who was struck and killed by lightning while sleeping in is bed, along with his hired hand in different part of the house.

ELECTRIFYING!!!!!!

05/10/2026

Happy Mother’s Day!

Thinking today about Annie Nelson (née Novak), the matriarch of the Nelson family. Annie was of Prussian descent and married Peter Nelson, a Swedish immigrant, and together they built a life in Gordon, Wisconsin in the early 1900s. In 1902, Annie gave birth to her first child, Leonard Francis Nelson — the moment that made her a mother. By Mother’s Day season of 1903, she would have been experiencing her first full spring raising a young child in the rugged Northwoods, far from the countries and traditions they once knew. Mother’s Day as we know it today didn’t yet exist, but honoring mothers certainly did. Maybe Peter picked wildflowers on his way home, maybe there was fresh bread on the table after church, and maybe Annie was given a rare afternoon to rest while family gathered together.

Their home would have blended Prussian and Swedish traditions carried across the Atlantic and rooted into northern Wisconsin soil. Women like Annie helped preserve family values, recipes, faith, and traditions while building entirely new lives from the ground up. It’s easy to picture the scene — wood smoke drifting from the chimney, spring mud along the roads, pine trees surrounding a small farmhouse, and a young mother rocking baby Leonard while a new generation began in America. Sometimes family history isn’t found in famous events, but in the quiet strength of mothers like Annie who built homes, raised families, and shaped generations in small towns like Gordon over a century ago.

01/01/2026

✨ Welcoming the New Year at the Nelson House ✨

As we step into a new year, we’ve been thinking about how New Year’s might have felt here in the early 1900s, when Peter Nelson and Annie Novak were still shaping daily life within these walls. New Year’s Eve then was quieter than today—often marked by simple gatherings, shared meals, strong coffee, maybe a bit of music or storytelling, and the turning of the calendar with intention rather than spectacle. It was a time to take stock, mend what needed mending, and look ahead with steady optimism.

That spirit feels especially fitting as we look toward 2026, the 120th year of the Nelson House.

This year is about finishing, restoring, and preparing the house for its next long chapter. Our planned projects include:

• Installing vintage lightning rods
• Finishing the remaining electrical work
• Completing plaster repairs throughout the house
• Finishing both the front and back porches
• Beginning window repairs
• Scraping and painting the exterior
• Installing a mini-split system (don’t worry—we’ve gotten pretty ingenious about hiding modern necessities… you won’t even know it’s there 😉)
• And finally—after paperwork, permits, and patience—getting the well fully functioning

Like the Nelsons a century ago, we’re starting the year with a clear list, a long view, and a lot of respect for the work ahead. Thank you for following along, caring about old houses, and being part of this ongoing story. Here’s to a steady, meaningful New Year—one repair, one decision, one small victory at a time.

Happy New Year from all of us at the Nelson House 💙

12/30/2025

There’s a reason quarry tile shows up again and again in working farmhouse kitchens of the early 20th century—and it has very little to do with style, and everything to do with survival.

These kitchens were not decorative spaces. They were production rooms. Bread baked daily. Chickens were dressed. Milk was strained, vegetables were scrubbed, boots came off at the door. Floors needed to stand up to water, grit, ash, heat, and constant foot traffic. Quarry tile did exactly that.

Made from dense, unglazed clay and fired hard, quarry tile was tough, affordable, and practical. It didn’t mind spills. It didn’t show every scuff. It held up to cast iron stoves and heavy furniture. When wet, it offered better traction than finished wood. And when it wore down, it wore honestly—edges softened, surfaces burnished by decades of work rather than hidden under rugs.

In many farmhouses, quarry tile also helped regulate temperature. It stayed cool in summer and handled radiant heat from stoves in winter without complaint. Paired with plaster walls and simple cabinetry, it created a kitchen that was efficient, cleanable, and built for the long haul.

What’s striking now is how grounded these floors feel. They weren’t chosen to impress. They were chosen because they worked. And a century later, many of them are still doing exactly what they were meant to do—quietly holding up the daily rhythms of a household. The first photo is the layout and color that will grace the Nelson House kitchen floor.

Sometimes the most beautiful materials are the ones that never asked for attention at all.

12/27/2025

Between Christmas and Epiphany, the Swedes had a name for the quiet stretch of winter days: mellandagarna — “the days in between.”

I’ve been thinking about how Peter Nelson may have lived those days here.

Not a rush back to work. Not a full holiday either. Just time slowed by snow, short daylight, and the deep cold of a Northwoods winter. The farm mostly still. The woods hushed. Tools set aside unless absolutely needed.

Mellandagarna was for staying in. For mending and sharpening. For telling the same stories again because winter was long and stories were how you passed it. For simple food warmed more than cooked. For watching the light change on the snow through the windows and knowing spring would come, even if it felt impossibly far away.

It wasn’t a season of doing.
It was a season of waiting.

In a world that didn’t hurry, that pause mattered. And I like to think Peter carried that rhythm with him from Sweden to Wisconsin—letting these in-between days be exactly what they were meant to be.

Not empty time.
Just quiet time.

And honestly? We could all use a little more of that.

12/23/2025

The winter solstice has always felt quieter than Christmas to me.
Less sparkle, more pause. A long breath before the light turns back toward us.

For families like Peter Nelson, who came from Sweden, and Annie Novak, whose roots were Kaszubi (Kashubian Polish), the shortest day of the year would have carried meaning long before electric lights or wall calendars told you what day it was.

In Sweden, the dark season was marked by candlelight, simple food, and the understanding that surviving winter was a collective act. Fires were kept, candles were precious, and the return of the sun—even slowly—was something to notice. St. Lucia’s light would come soon, but the solstice itself was about endurance and patience.

Among Kaszubi families, the season was layered with symbolism and folk belief. The long night was a threshold. Animals were thought to speak. Bread, grain, and straw carried meaning. The household slowed, traditions grounded people to the land, and everything pointed toward hospitality, protection, and hope for the coming year.

I like to imagine Peter and Annie holding pieces of both worlds here. A Scandinavian respect for the dark and the cold, paired with Polish folk traditions that treated the winter night as something alive and listening. No rushing. No excess. Just warmth, ritual, and the shared understanding that light always returns.

This year feels especially meaningful because there is a Christmas tree in the Nelson House parlor for the first time since at least 1966. Almost sixty years without one. That fact alone stopped me in my tracks.

So last night, on the longest night of the year, the house held light again. Not loudly. Not perfectly. Just honestly. A small glow in a place that has waited a long time for it.

However you mark the solstice—by candles, quiet, reflection, or nothing at all—I hope you feel the shift when it comes. The days will get longer now. And that’s worth pausing for.