So, my brother and his fiancee have been looking for a house for the last year. Last fall, when he started looking, I started on a housewarming present. He's a firefighter, so I ended up getting him a hydrant....It seems a bit tacky, but I found this very old, magnificent hydrant on Craigslist and bought it. This thing is from 1890 and weighs 200+ lbs.

I've been restoring it (with the help of my boyfriend and his dad) for the last year. It's just about done, and I'm very excited! Unfortunately, my brother's recent house deal just fell through due to the inspection, so it'll be a while yet before it sees the light of day...I've been keeping this a secret for the last year and I can't take it anymore! I really want to share it, but I can't show any friends or family lest they spill the beans! I'm pretty sure no one here know's my brother, so I think it's pretty safe

After I started restoring it, I reached out to the man I bought it from because I had gotten the sense that he was sort of attached to it. It had been in his backyard for 30 years, and he had been really happy to hear it would go to a firefighter. Well, when I reached out to him, I found out that his father had given him the hydrant 30 years ago, and his father had passed away 1 month after I bought it. He told me my email had really touched him and made him very happy! I've kept him in the loop for the last year and now I have a new friend

Before Restoration


After stripping the lead paint


Primer...



Almost done...



Now the details!


And here she is:

How wonderful!!What a beautiful job you did. And what a lovely story.
Keep the secret and glad you told us!!

That is not tacky AT ALL....it is a fantastic find and what a lovely lovely labor of love....great work and beautiful piece of history as well...

What a story, you guys did a great job on that hydrant.

that is amazing!!! i could never have kept that secret for a year. you go girl!

looks fantastic. dont forget to share with us how it goes when you finally do get to give it as the gift

Thanks everyone! Wheeew, I feel so much better letting this secret out (to TFO)!. I think it's the longest secret I've kept and it has been sooooo hard =P I'll be sure to document when I hand over the hydrant to its new owner

I love it. You did a great job on it. I too, love the story with it. It's a great firefighter gift. Heck, people that aren't firefighters love having those, even more special for an actual firefighter. Glad you are also, keeping the person you bought from on your friends list. That's really nice. Thanks for sharing. Can't wait to hear about the big debut. Hopefully it will be soon.

Wow..very nice work. Have you done this sort of work before? You took an old painted item and made it an old beautiful item. Great job...

(10-14-2012 07:48 PM)mainey34 Wrote:  Wow..very nice work. Have you done this sort of work before? You took an old painted item and made it an old beautiful item. Great job...

Oh thank you! No, first time restoration for me This project sort of evolved after we got the hydrant. We weren't planning on restoring it, but after researching the hydrant to find out its age, I saw how beautfiful restored hydrants look.