Our home has been extensively renovated in the last year. We have completely gutted and remodeled the Kitchen and 2.5 bathrooms, retaining only one cast iron tub and one sink. Floor boards from the bathrooms were repurposed to make the trim for the new bead board. All new electric and plumbing have been installed throughout the home. The 150 year old pine floors have been refinished and original trim, doors and hardware through out the house have been restored. Brick that enclosed flus for the woodstoves that used to heat the house has been exposed. Antique chandeliers, some that were converted from gas to electric, have been restored to their former brilliance. Due to the deteriorated state of the windows new energy efficient windows have been installed throughout. Our Italianate house was built in 1869 by Judge John B Helm for his daughter-in-law Kate Helm and his grandchildren across the street from his home. Kate was widowed with five young children when her husband Cyrus Helm (age 41) died suddenly of Typhoid fever. The Italianate style of architecture was very popular in the US from 1840 to 1890. British architect John Nash began the style having been inspired by the height, grandeur and artistic detail of renaissance architecture in Florence Italy. Judge Helm was a productive real estate developer and was responsible for the construction of 80 buildings in Hannibal. He was also the Judge of the Court of Common Pleas.  Before moving to Hannibal with his second wife, Mary, Judge Helm owned a general store in Elizabethtown Kentucky where Nancy and the young Abraham Lincoln were patrons of his store.  When visiting Hannibal on a presidential campaign stop, Abraham Lincoln met with Judge Helm and other leaders of the community. He declared that “Judge Helm was the first man I knew who wore store bought clothes all week, and as a boy, it was my greatest ambition to reach his station in society.”