I woke up at 2 a.m. and couldn’t fall back asleep, so here I am writing this to you...

We are still plodding along through the third floor renovation and are at the stage where we really just want to give up. I would say we just crossed the halfway mark, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain because the end is insight! Our process up here has been to patch and repair the plaster, spackle, sand and repeat. We prime walls, strip and polyurethane the floors, and then paint the ceiling, walls, and trim with the finishing colors. We started on this project in 2018 by ripping up the carpet and we have been chipping away ever since.

There are 5 rooms on the third floor including the bathroom. We decided to split the renovation in to two parts so we could use some of the rooms as storage while working on the others. We finished three of the rooms last year, pulled the furniture and boxes over to the finished spaces, and are now wrapping up the final two rooms. We have primed the walls and last weekend we stripped the floors!

The photo below shows the wall between the bedroom and bathroom that was in terrible shape. Peter hung new drywall, but the floors still needed some repair before we could sand them. After we removed the damaged planks, I began digging around in the rubble between floors, thinking how cool it would be to find some hidden gems, or you know, gold. Unfortunately all I found was gross dusty junk, but it reminded me of when I placed a time capsule in a wall at my first home, and how much fun it was to put together. Then it occurred to me, this would be a perfect place to put one here!

The likelihood of anyone finding the capsule after we replace the floor boards is pretty slim, but the floor is also the ceiling to the guest room below...so maybe someone might find it one day! I grabbed a small rubbermaid that fits perfectly into the space and started to think about what I wanted to include in the capsule.

I knew I wanted to share the history of the home but I didn’t feel like spending the time writing it all out. Plus, I already created the blog post, “Our First Big Dumb House,” that talks about how Peter’s parents bought the house in the 70s and raised their family here. So I printed the blog post and put it in.

Peter’s Mom also ran a business on the third floor for 20+ years. She published The Fallser—a monthly newspaper for the community. I included the oldest copy I could find—an issue from November 1998, another from April 2013, and one from January 2006. The Fallser was the predecessor for our current newspaper, East Falls NOW. I also included last month's East Falls NOW issue from January 2021.

I wanted to add a photo of me and Peter but most of our sentimental stuff is packed away. I rummaged through a few boxes and the only picture I could find was taken on February 7th, 2016. I actually think this photo is perfect for the capsule because it is us posing with our “Snack Stadium” which we made for the Super Bowl that year. It was also the first creative project we ever made together and I am still pretty damn proud of it to this day! I wrote all this info on the back of the photograph.

I also included a short, handwritten note:

Hello!

My name is Hannah Benfield and my husband is Peter Camburn. We put together this time capsule to document our history in this house. Peter’s parents—Julie and Robert Camburn, bought the house in 1975 and owned it for 43 years. They raised 3 kids here; Christopher, Peter, and Devaney. In 2018, Peter and I purchased the house from them and started our renovations. It needed a lot of work! During that time, I kept a blog, www.mybigdumbhouse.com, to document all of our projects. I included a blog post in the time capsule. Peter’s Mom, Julie, ran a family business on the third floor (in this room) for about 20 years. She published The Fallser, a monthly local newspaper, and I have included a few copies. She retired in the 2000s and now there is the East Falls NOW newspaper. I included a copy from this month. As you can see by the front page, our neighbor who lives behind us is currently in hot water for building a two story garage without getting a permit first. The neighbors want him to remove the structure or alter it so it meets the required building codes. I guess you will know what happened by the time you read this (you can see the garage from the window in this room!). I hope you enjoy the house as much as we do. Adding the skylight is my favorite thing Peter and I have done so far.

Give me a call! (I included my cell phone number).

Hannah.

I figured I’ve had my cell phone number since I was 16 years old so who knows, might as well include it. It would be pretty amazing to get a call from someone many years from now, telling me they found my dirty old time capsule!

I’ll be posting more about our progress up on the third floor in the coming weeks, painting is up next!