 Welcome to the Fort Report Home Makeover Edition. I'm Alicia Anderson and this week we're going to give Fort Worth's very own Van Zant Cottage a makeover. Okay, I'm thinking that first we paint all the interior walls a high-gloss robo-metallic silver and put purple shag carpet in all the rooms. Then we should install a 10-foot TV wall in the living room and oh a saltwater aquarium bar next and underground car garage and it's an historic landmark? Great. Well, there goes all those ideas. Probably would have gone over budget anyhow. The Van Zant Cottage is actually the oldest home in Fort Worth on its original location and it received a National Register of Historic Places designation in 2012 in recognition of the fact that it's probably one of the oldest restoration efforts in the city of Fort Worth being restored for the first time in 1936. With the help of generous donors, Van Zant Cottage friends have raised up to $400,000 to complete this restoration. We had to do pretty much everything from the outside in on this structure. Since it was built in the mid-1800s, it was in really horrible condition before the 1936 restoration and so by the time 80 years goes by, even though it had been repainted several times in those 80 years, the outside paint was peeling because it's old siding and so we had to replace some siding. We primed the whole exterior, repainted it, replaced the shutters in the style that they were originally built. We had to restore the windows and then we were able to move to the inside. There's area inside the cottage where we can open a hatch and people will be able to see the original joist going underneath the building. They're the logs. So we've supported the foundation over time. The inside, many layers of wallpaper had to be removed. We uncovered what we think was roughly the 1930s-era wallpaper. Tried to find wallpaper made in modern times that match those styles so we put up new wallpaper, repainted the whole interior and we are now installing an HVAC system so that the cottage can actually be used throughout the year. The Vansant Cottage is operated by Lockhaven Village, so with our existing staff that will be able to be open, maybe say for Mayfest or during the stock show or something like that where there's a traffic flow coming through the area. It's also important because this is such a historic structure being around its mid-1800s. Limiting traffic through it is one of the things that will help preserve it, so it's also important that we not have heavy foot traffic through that would further damage the building. Visit the Vansant Cottage website from LockhavenVillage.org and like it on Facebook. Here's a look at other events happening in and around Fort Worth in the next few weeks. For more listing of more events and city meetings, you always can check the calendar at the city's website.