Renovation

Flashback Friday – Our first renovation project

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I thought I would share a few old posts over the next few weeks.  It will help give me a little perspective.  These posts were migrated from another blog spot so I apologize for how wonky they look in WordPress.

We are about to begin one of the biggest restoration projects to date (and our first in Rowe). By big I’m referring to area. Without measuring we figured this room is about 28′ x 15′ – I think that may be a conservative guess.

The barnboard on the end wall is going to stay – Dad told me it was put up originally because the plaster was falling off the wall. This kind of repair seems to be the way it’s been done in sooo many of the old houses we’ve worked on (or visited).


As you can see the ceiling is coming down in the far corner – it’s been like this for a couple of years but there are other points in the ceiling that are really beginning to sag so we’ve decided to gut the room, insulate and drywall. If it was a true restoration we’d be mixing up the plaster but it seems to be a lost art (and we don’t have the time or knowledge to do it). The window that is closest on the left actually has a deep ledge, almost a window seat. That whole window is being removed and replaced to bring it back flush with the wall. It overhangs the patio with a small roof and the whole structure is rotten and looks like its ready to fall off.

Of course this is the kind of help Bill will have for the week – they look better earlier in the day. God help him is all I have to say.


I’ll post next week on the progress – I will at least have shots of the demo – 200 years of dirt. Everyone will be in respirators, fun is.
We began the living room project in June of 2008.  It took us 3 years to finally finish it (these kinds of projects seem to stretch out when you are only working on them on weekends).  We had a lot of help along the way from people that know what they are doing.  It’s good to have friends like that.  Here’s a shot of what it looked like after the floor was finished.
Amazing
We are thinking about another room restoration and I have to keep reminding myself what a long, tedious thing it is to do.  But with every room you learn.  You gain skills that make the next job easier.  We’ve done 2 bathrooms and many bedrooms, halls, etc.  The next project will be a room upstairs, a rather large one.  It was once a bedroom but the plan is for it to house my looms, sewing machines, fabric and fiber.  It’s been in boxes too long and having it have a place of its own will only free me up to be creative rather than looking for what I might want to do next (or shopping because its too tedious to search).  I wonder how many duplicate tools I will find when the unpacking begins?

Family Flat File

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131027 File (1)

There is a flat file in one of the old workrooms at the house in Rowe. It is probably 3 feet wide and 20+ inches deep ( I haven’t measured it yet).  The room that it has been in for as long as I can remember has a tendency to be pretty damp in the spring and summer.  Not having a dehumidifier has caused a lot of strange molds to grow in and on things that have been around for an extended length of time.  When my brother and I were cleaning out the room I laid claim to this particular piece.  It was used by my father, grandfather and I would hazard to guess my great-grandfather as well.

I decided that I would repurpose the box itself as a table in the living room.  It will need a base to bring it to height, that in itself solves one of its problems.  You see this was a utilitarian piece and was “modified” over the years.  It was filled with nuts and bolts, manuals and instructions, tools, spare and used parts.  It also had a collection of my father’s elementary school papers.  I cleaned out each drawer, everyone having its own story to tell.  Electrical in one drawer, old pocket calendars and date books from the 30’s in another.  There were probably 2 drawers of tools and parts for looms which seems to be an ever-present theme in every work room or shop on the property.

I kept what I could in a couple of boxes and set them aside.

The entire unit smelled of mildew so I pulled out all of the drawers and decided to let it dry and air out.  It’s been doing that for over a year now.  This past weekend I started cleaning it up. It cleaned as well as can be expected since it has probably close to century’s worth of dirt and grime on it.  It no longer smells.

I’m in kind of a quandary about my next move.  This thing is splattered in spots with paint (what looks like white paint in the photo above is actually a really reflective silver).  There is some green paint splattered on the side of the cabinet towards the back.  To strip and refinish or to leave it alone other than a bit more clean up.  I could just redo the top making it a little smoother (the varnish is crackled at this point).  I am more inclined to leave it the way it is and make up stories about what has happened to it over the years. All kinds of stories were in my head as I cleaned the stuff out of it.  If there wasn’t so much mold and mildew I might have just left some of the drawers the way they were. It felt as though the ghosts of generations past were still in there.

Bill thought if I was to strip it I could bring it to people we know who refinish furniture and have them do it. I told him the little secret that really made this piece special to me.  There are greasy fingerprints all over the bottoms of each of the drawers and I didn’t want them to disappear.  They are the prints of three generations of working men in my family and that spoke to me more than anything else.  I don’t want anything to happen to that aspect of it. The amazing part for me it the fact that no one will know about that little secret unless the drawers are removed.  For me this is what has made a piece of junk into an heirloom.

131027 File (2)

Slow and Steady

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131016 Moonrise

I arrived late to Rowe on Wednesday to see that the shed was being worked on.  Most of the paint was removed and there was a window in the west wall.  The opening has always been there – there was a screen in that spot in need of repair.  A hinged shutter, a door of sorts, covered the hole year round and has been there as long as I can remember.  It’s always interesting to walk into an interior space where there is light that has never been there before, you feel like you’ve been missing something.

It was still light out as I unloaded my car but fairly clouded over.  I started cooking a little supper on the stove and walked into the living room where the light coming into the east windows was this amazing color, and bright for sunset.  I looked out, grabbed a camera and this is what I saw.  The light reflecting off of the clouds from the west with the moon rising in the east.  It was stunning and there for less that 10 minutes.  Of course Mr. Photobomb was in every shot.

I woke up out of a half sleep Thursday morning to Chester growling – softly (he’s kind of chicken).  I got up to see Mike , my brother-in-law and Jim, his work partner working on the shed wall.  The dogs went out to happily greet them and we took a walk to the back forty.  When I returned Mike and I talked about the condition of the clapboards and where we were going to go with this.  He also told me Jim had found the window at the dump.  Jim works at the dump part-time which gives him access to the good stuff.  He’s always thinking ahead to where he might recycle something.  A bonus for both of us.  I left them to their work and assume that it will look wonderful in the next week or so.  They do really good work.

131017 Paint

Exterior painting is not something Bill and I are interested in doing.  We have done it at the house in Enfield but the house in Rowe is just too tall.  Mike has been painting for years.  When he paints you know he will do whatever he can to get the paint to stay on for years to come.  He repairs, replaces and caulks where needed then primes and paints.  He is meticulous.

We haven’t been able to do more than a side a year because of the size of the job and the expense.  It will be another two years probably before the house it completely painted so for the time being I just photograph the good sides.  They finished the front a few weeks ago and I have to say the house is looking quite beautiful. I am hoping to build a new storm door before winter.  The strap hinges and thumb latch were made at Williamsburg Blacksmith quite some time ago and that aluminum door really needs to go.

131013 Front of House

Of course when you look at the photographs there are more things to add to the to do list.  Antennas and dishes have to be removed, lightning rods reattached.  Every once in a while I look at a photograph like this and in my head just pretend it’s all done.

What Were They Thinking?!?

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Homeowner’s ADD

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130512 Heat Gun

 

I’m not fond of this time of the year.  I’ve come down with a bad case of homeowner’s ADD.  I have a theory that everyone has Attention Deficit Disorder but for me it’s really apparent at certain times of the year.

Part of the problem with the home owning part is the house in Rowe does not have heat upstairs (or power for that matter) so any projects that I want to do have to be done in spring, summer and early fall (or just bundle up while you’re doing it).  Last week I had a conversation with brothers-in-law Mike.  He’s working on a house just up the road from ours and swears that whoever built the one he’s in built ours.  There is the same intricate woodwork. We talked about stripping paint.  I have used all kinds of methods of stripping paint, all involving some rather harsh chemicals but he’s been using a heat gun.  Hmmmmm . . .

I had Bill get a heat gun because I have a small room that once had carpet glued to it.  The carpet was removed years ago but the mastic stayed.  This room is above the living room and I had visions of using a chemical remover and having it leak through the floor onto the new ceiling below – not good.  I tried using this head gun to get the mastic off and it was BRILLIANT.  You can only remove a little at a time but once you’re rolling it goes fairly quickly.  The disadvantage is that I have to sit on the floor in order to do it.  It’s hard on the back so I can only do it for an hour or two before I have to give it up.

The weather this past weekend was really not conducive to working outdoors.  When the sun came out I tried to pull weeds in some of my flower beds but the black flies were so thick that it wasn’t pleasant at all.  I would come in out of the clouds, both rain and flies, and run down my mental list of the wants and needs indoors.  Most of them run into the wants like the floor upstairs but then there is the matter of turning what was once a bathroom into a pantry.  This involves removing the toilet and sink and all respective piping (after removing all of the junk that’s accumulated in there for the past year).  That little project is rather pressing at the moment because we will soon be coming into preserving season and I want that finished before it starts.  I need an inventory of canning supplies as well as making sense of a large closet that’s been used for a pantry for a number of years. Making sense of it is being kind, I can’t find anything in it and every time I cook something I waste a lot of time digging around looking for that special something I KNOW is in there somewhere.

The wood shop has been cleaned up in the past week and I was thinking about that side table that I really need to make for the living room.  That sounded like more fun than stripping floors and moving toilets.  I restrained myself because I knew if I went out to the shop I would never come back in and those inside projects would be still calling my name.

The thing is that I also spent a good deal of time weaving and rug hooking this weekend – going from one to the other.  I think I need medication.

130512 Floor StrippingBut does this look like fun to you?  Good thing it’s a very small room.