The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1982, Blaðsíða 43

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
41
order to a learn the details of the stages of
construction.
' ‘Big Room''
After wall linoleum removed, but before
floor linoleum removed.
Work began in the front room, otherwise
known to the Stephansson family as the
“big room”. The flower-printed linoleum
which Stephansson had tacked to his hewn
log walls was carefully removed. After ex-
perimentation, it was decided that despite
its brittleness, the linoleum could be saved
for re-use. It was then rubbed with linseed
oil and stored with the furniture. Layers of
linoleum in the “big room”, the study and
the kitchen were all removed. Because of
its badly worn condition, the linoleum was
not saved. However, each layer in each
room was photo documented and samples
for type and pattern taken. When all the
linoleum was removed, the technicians
found old newspapers and periodicals,
some in Icelandic and some in English,
which Stephansson had used to insulate his
floors. This remarkable archival find was
removed, catalogued and saved for future
reference.
Information gleaned through the probing
and stripping of selected interior surface
coverings enabled Historic Sites to deter-
mine four or five different building phases.
The original log house Stephansson erected
soon after his arrival in Alberta was a hewn
poplar log home 4.6 meters by 4.9 meters.
Today, this area comprises the rear of the
house which was Stephansson’s mother’s
bedroom and the craft room. A few years
later, perhaps in 1893 when Gestur was
bom, Stephansson built a large addition
onto his home. A double row of unpeeled
spruce logs added the overall height of the
original house and a large unpeeled log
addition comprising the “big room”, the
study, bedroom and the upstairs was built
onto the south wall. At the same time, a
crude poplar summer kitchen was built
onto the east side of the house. Because the
logs were unpeeled and not chinked on the
exterior but hewn flat on the interior, His-
toric Sites believes that Stephansson
immediately clad his home with bevelled
tongue and groove siding.
The house remained solely a log struc-
ture for a few years. But, by the turn of the
century with the arrival of the last of his
eight children, Stephansson once again
undertook major changes to his home. He
dismantled the log summer kitchen and
framed in another kitchen. He added a
badly needed bedroom at the front of the
house just south of the kitchen, added the
verandah and framed in the bay window in
his study. Historic Sites believes that the
house was at this stage when the well-
known photograph of the house was taken
in August 1907. But, Stephansson was not
yet finished. At an undertermined date, he
dismantled the entire roofing system on the
east side of the house, raised the height of
the kitchen and pantry and sloped the new
roof, which covered the entire east side, all
in one direction. The results of his years of
labour and renovations was a picturesque
Victorian cottage which belied its basic log
structure.
Selected stripping of the interior gave
Historic Sites valuable information about
the stages of construction. It also revealed
many structural weaknesses. If the house
was to be open to the public, stabilization
of the structure in its existing form would
not have been adequate. The decision was
then made to begin a full restoration of the