Living On Curry Road: From February to September

Welcome to the Adventures of Living On Curry Road

Rye, Arkansas is located eleven miles north of Warren, AR, fifteen miles west of Monticello, AR and approximately thirty miles south of Pine Bluff, AR. Rye has been the home of the Curry family for over five generations. This family has farmed this land producing cattle, chickens, timber. The area is beautiful and the family culture is equally impressive with its generations of family that continue to live by the standards that made America a great country.

Rye, AR and the Curry family are a story of strong American values and the building of personal character, the love of God and a lot of very hard dedicated work. Donald Curry and Kay Curry are the current owners of most of the original farm land originally developed by the generations of Curry family. Kay Curry is the daughter of Jimmy and Hazel Baker and married Donald over fifty years ago. Both have continued the legacy of the farm life on Curry Road. Donald and Kay have raised a family of two daughters and one son. Mark Curry currently operates a cattle operation as well as four chicken houses on his part of the property. Lisa Tooke, wife of Dennis Tooke of Lake Charles, La and Donna Curry, of Little Rock, AR plan to retire back to the farm land when thier retirement time comes.

Jane and I were asked to help in a restoration of the 104 year old house shown above. We are so blessed to be allowed to have input as well as provide a labor of love to help restore this house to its original beauty for Donald and Kay Curry

As Jane and I came into the property with our RV, we came down the gravel road leading to Curry Road. We came down this gravel road and had to stop and take a picture. We are including that picture with this overview so you too can see the beauty of this area.

It reminded us of the book “The Painted House” by John Grisham and we hope you will get the same response.

Jane, Carl and Charlie Pierce

Saturday, September 25, 2010

From February to September

From the left side to the right side and a lot of hard work. We finally got the windows rebuilt, installed and painted.
Looks like a new house too!

New tin roof, new paint job, rebuilt windows, partially rebuilt porch. We have to paint the south side of the house and the back. Pray for us!

As you can see, we are building the porch columns back and they too will be painted to finish out the front porch and the entrance of the ole house.

In case your interested in "how", heres the process. We had to remove the old windows completely, piece by piece and square up the opening. This all took place about 15 feet above the ground so it was a little "hairy" for this ole fat boy. Once down we rebuilt them "piece by piece" back to their original condition or as close as we could get them. Remember, these are custom built windows and are not "pre hung" windows of the modern day.

Thanks to Donald and "The Ole Big Red Massey" we were able to lift the windows back in the bucket and I could install them with a safer and more sturdy platform to work. These windows should be here for another couple of decades at least.

Once up there and in position it was just a matter of putting up with the 98 degree September 23rd typical fall day in Rye. I think Donald was sleeping while I worked. (No not really)

Anyway, its getting there and we are getting closer to being ready for a show and tell in person. Maybe we'll meet our Thanksgiving Day goal. Jane and I are blessed to get to do the work and we enjoy every minute of it. From February 8th till now we have not had a bad day here. Not many people can say that, anywhere in the world.