Still moving in, still loving every minute!

As we mentioned, Kelbourne Woolens has new digs!

We are now the proud occupants of an 18th century stone manor house, once part of a grouping of structures and buildings that were part of a paper mill complex best known for producing paper for Benjamin Franklin that the first “continental notes” (money!) was printed on:

“In 1746, a man by the name of Anthony Newhouse built a papermaking mill on the Trout Run site….At the time, paper was made by hand, one sheet at a time, and required a great deal of pure water – something that the Trout Run provided….Franklin, a Philadelphia printer at the time, sold rags to Newhouse, who in turn sold paper back to Franklin. When the Colonial Assembly chose Franklin to print its money, Franklin chose Newhouse to supply the paper.” {source}

This lovely little sketch made prior to 1884 {artist unknown} shows the layout of the original mill and Manor House, then known as the “Miquon House”). The house is the white building in the bottom right hand corner. The train tracks on the bottom left are now part of the Schuylkill River Trail system, a large group of bike paths that, once complete, will run from center city Philadelphia to Pottstown. A new rail line has been put in closer to the Schuylkill River {in the center right of the drawing} that is part of the Regional Rail system, a large multi-line system of train lines that runs from center city Philadelphia to many towns in the outlying areas.

This photo above shows the view from our front porch looking north to Manor Road and the Schuylkill Trail. The buildings that once housed the main mill complex are now large commercial properties, but, amazingly, the structure and historical integrity of Manor House survived virtually untouched through the years. With the addition of some well-appreciated modern amenities such as a full kitchen, a central HV/AC unit, wiring for phone, cable and internet and – least we not forget – plumbing, the house has maintained its original historic charm while providing the perfect location for our new office, showroom and warehouse.

The entrance, one of our favorite spaces in the house, has a large stone fireplace (working condition still TBD) and some lovely spaces to store a few trinkets from our friend Maura. The designer behind the lovely Breda’s Cowl {rav link}, She creates handmade paper banners for…well…pretty much every occasion, and this “Really? Really?” sign is a lovely reminder every time we walk in the door of how lucky we are to be in such a great space.

After some long – and hot! – days of moving, schlepping and hauling, we finally had everything into the space, and since then we have slowly but surely found a place for all of the boxes, papers, samples and skeins needed to run Kelbourne Woolens and The Fibre Company. This lovely shot of one of our (three!) walk-in closets on the second floor is where we will be housing our patterns, both free and for sale, as well as post cards, business cards and the pattern cards we provide to shops as “take aways” for customers interested in the Kelbourne Woolens patterns. As you can see, we are this close to having the space 100% organized, but that pesky bottom left hand corner is still waiting for the perfect storage system.

The upstairs storeroom is where we keep all of the yarn….boxes and boxes of it! The large space – basically the entire floor plan of the 2nd floor of the house – is the perfect space for all of the boxes. While it is 100% functional in this condition, we have big plans and hopefully soon we’ll be posting pictures of the finished built in shelving we have in the works!

Alright…back to unpacking and organizing {and packing and shipping}…we hope you liked our little photo spread and info about our new space. Send some good vibes our way and hopefully the next round of photos will show a completely finished space!