Is it REALLY November 2011? Clearly, maintaining this blog did not make my priority list! And I wish it had - it's fun to re-read these old posts.
It's been a tough one, this rehab. In over our heads with full time jobs, family and other responsibilities, you know - LIFE! Work on the house happens when we're not too physically or mentally fried to tackle yet another evening of manual labor.
But - the push is on to host Thanksgiving dinner. Um - yes, 2011 - in case you were wondering! With only just two (short) weeks to go, we WILL get the first floor habitable to have dinner.
The breezeway is 95% done; just need to whitewash the ceiling but that can come later. Kevin built three coat closets, and they turned out great. Right now the room holds all of our free-standing kitchen cabinets plus appliances. It's a bit crowded to say the least, and preparing food is a pain with zero counter space. The sink remains in the real kitchen, in the main body of the house. We moved everything into the breezeway so we can tackle the real dirty work in the stone part of the house to prepare for installing the kitchen "for real."
Over the past two weeks we have been working on the drywall in the dining room ceiling. Of the four main rooms in this part of the house, three of them had the original lathe and plaster on the ceiling, plus two layers of drywall. The DR had only the plaster plus just one layer of drywall and it was in terrible, rough condition. It has been a real challenge to make it all blend with the adjoining rooms so it doesn't look as uneven as it is! Nothing is square or level in a 170 year old house. We are mastering the fine art of "feathering" the drywall mud.
Kevin has also been pulling wires for the electrical outlets and light switches for the first and second floors. Nothing minor! We also need to chose lighting for the first floor. The ceilings are low so it will probably be flush to the ceiling. Trying to keep the costs down on that too, because lighting can get very pricey.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Three dumpsters later! December 2006
12/19/2006 (yes, nine months later!) – Where do I begin to play catch up? There are so many stories to tell. Unfortunately the Lombardy poplar we ordered never came. We did get 300 evergreens planted though. Can’t remember what they are – Norway spruce? We rented a tree planter from the county and borrowed Dan’s tractor. The girls (Caitlin and Madi) had a lot of fun sitting on the seat of the planter and dropping them in the ground. We planted a double row along most of the SE property line by the highway, and between us and the neighbor’s field.
We’ve spent a great deal of time ripping things up. Someday, I’m sure, we’ll actually start putting things back together. Upstairs, we’ve taken down every wall except the ones around the bathroom; I put my foot down on that one! We also took down the entire upstairs ceiling. So far we’ve filled three 20 yard dumpsters. The last one must have been incredibly heavy with all that old horsehair plaster. All the insulation in the attic was disgusting, and we discovered that the roof leaks (of course) so it’s a very good thing we took it down.
As it turns out, the layout upstairs will end up being quite similar to what it is now, expect it will become two bedrooms instead of four. The center landing closet will be divided to become my and Kevin’s closet plus one for linens. We’ll bump out the bathroom, too – it’s just too small.
Downstairs, the dance room is in pretty good shape. Kevin spent a lot of time patching the concrete floor, filling cracks in the foundation and insulating (lots of insulating). The new subfloor is down, and the heat runs are in.
The past week or so he’s moved to the breezeway (the former kitchen). Dan and Darren came out and helped with the floor beams. A couple of them were very rotted and Kevin replaced them with new wood. He’s also making a trap door in the event we ever need to get to the plumbing. I bet he’s taken a ton of dirt and rocks out of there to make the crawl space deep enough to accommodate the heat runs and plumbing. It’s been an amazing amount of hard work.
This room has probably been the toughest. It used to have half of a chimney – that’s a whole other long story! Unfortunately, the camera disk, which was full of some classic photos of a pile of bricks, fried as we were transferring the pictures to the computer. Think of that scene from the movie The Money Pit when their chimney came crashing down!
It seems like the list of things to get done is never ending. We need about 10 guys for a full week and we could really make headway. We’ve been fortunate to have help from friends and family, but it’s a slow process and everybody has their own lives!
We’ve spent a great deal of time ripping things up. Someday, I’m sure, we’ll actually start putting things back together. Upstairs, we’ve taken down every wall except the ones around the bathroom; I put my foot down on that one! We also took down the entire upstairs ceiling. So far we’ve filled three 20 yard dumpsters. The last one must have been incredibly heavy with all that old horsehair plaster. All the insulation in the attic was disgusting, and we discovered that the roof leaks (of course) so it’s a very good thing we took it down.
As it turns out, the layout upstairs will end up being quite similar to what it is now, expect it will become two bedrooms instead of four. The center landing closet will be divided to become my and Kevin’s closet plus one for linens. We’ll bump out the bathroom, too – it’s just too small.
Downstairs, the dance room is in pretty good shape. Kevin spent a lot of time patching the concrete floor, filling cracks in the foundation and insulating (lots of insulating). The new subfloor is down, and the heat runs are in.
The past week or so he’s moved to the breezeway (the former kitchen). Dan and Darren came out and helped with the floor beams. A couple of them were very rotted and Kevin replaced them with new wood. He’s also making a trap door in the event we ever need to get to the plumbing. I bet he’s taken a ton of dirt and rocks out of there to make the crawl space deep enough to accommodate the heat runs and plumbing. It’s been an amazing amount of hard work.
This room has probably been the toughest. It used to have half of a chimney – that’s a whole other long story! Unfortunately, the camera disk, which was full of some classic photos of a pile of bricks, fried as we were transferring the pictures to the computer. Think of that scene from the movie The Money Pit when their chimney came crashing down!
It seems like the list of things to get done is never ending. We need about 10 guys for a full week and we could really make headway. We’ve been fortunate to have help from friends and family, but it’s a slow process and everybody has their own lives!
Time for enjoying the outdoors
We actually have some gardening started, too. Caitlin, Madi and I dug up the garden by the back door. The Bushongs had planted a lot of cinnamon fern, which is wonderful, but also gout weed, which will take over everything. We dug all the plants out, and pulled gout weed root until we wanted to scream. We replanted many of the cinnamon fern, plus some hostas and astilbes we moved from the house in Battle Creek. Our little area looks terrific.
It’s been great fun to watch all the plants pop up. In early March the area around the outside basement door was loaded with snow drops. Across from the driveway is a patch of daffodils, grape hyacinths, peonies, lambs ears and tulips. At the back of the ell are Star of Bethlehem and a nice lancefolia hosta. There is also a beautiful twisty-leaved variegated hosta by the basement door, some sedum and lots of lily of the valley along the north wall.
Along the stone wall by the road are hundreds of “road-side lilies.” On the south side of the house under the old maple tree are lots of Virginia Blue Bells. They are very cute and very fragrant. The three forsythia bushes were surrounded by blue Siberian Scilla, which looked so pretty under the yellow forsythia.
The magnolia tree was just spectacular. It’s so old and huge and you have to duck under the branches to get up to the trunk. Now the huge petals have blanketed the ground around the tree, and it’s just magical to hide away underneath there.
There are also many, many lilac bushes. They need shaping and pruning since they’ve been unkempt for many years but they must be decades and decades old.
It’s been great fun to watch all the plants pop up. In early March the area around the outside basement door was loaded with snow drops. Across from the driveway is a patch of daffodils, grape hyacinths, peonies, lambs ears and tulips. At the back of the ell are Star of Bethlehem and a nice lancefolia hosta. There is also a beautiful twisty-leaved variegated hosta by the basement door, some sedum and lots of lily of the valley along the north wall.
Along the stone wall by the road are hundreds of “road-side lilies.” On the south side of the house under the old maple tree are lots of Virginia Blue Bells. They are very cute and very fragrant. The three forsythia bushes were surrounded by blue Siberian Scilla, which looked so pretty under the yellow forsythia.
The magnolia tree was just spectacular. It’s so old and huge and you have to duck under the branches to get up to the trunk. Now the huge petals have blanketed the ground around the tree, and it’s just magical to hide away underneath there.
There are also many, many lilac bushes. They need shaping and pruning since they’ve been unkempt for many years but they must be decades and decades old.
Tired already - April 2006
4/26/06 – At this point Kevin and I are quite sick of it all! Gee – is that a surprise?! We are on our second dumpster of deconstruction debris. Nearly every wall in the upstairs, except for studs, is gone. All of the flooring is up, except for the bathrooms both up and down. The kitchen cabinets are gone, and they look great in Jackie and Darren’s place – much better than in this house. Many of the walls downstairs are gone, too; between the two parlors, between the north parlor and laundry room, and between the dining room and south parlor.
Unfortunately, the floors aren’t exactly what we hoped for. Since the house was “abused” for so many years, there is a lot of replacement flooring and it’s hard to tell what’s original and what’s 1920’s. More abuse came from the termites. Old paperwork from Terminix shows it was treated in the 1970s. They had quite a feast between the floor and subfloor in a couple of good sized areas in both the south parlor and north parlor.
Kevin’s sister Kathy and her husband Cory have been out a few times to help tear down walls and their help has been greatly appreciated. Kevin’s dad and a friend from church also came out one day to help. We really need man power, because there is so much to do. I’ve hurt my shoulder with all this ripping and tearing, and the doctor says “enough.”
Unfortunately, the floors aren’t exactly what we hoped for. Since the house was “abused” for so many years, there is a lot of replacement flooring and it’s hard to tell what’s original and what’s 1920’s. More abuse came from the termites. Old paperwork from Terminix shows it was treated in the 1970s. They had quite a feast between the floor and subfloor in a couple of good sized areas in both the south parlor and north parlor.
Kevin’s sister Kathy and her husband Cory have been out a few times to help tear down walls and their help has been greatly appreciated. Kevin’s dad and a friend from church also came out one day to help. We really need man power, because there is so much to do. I’ve hurt my shoulder with all this ripping and tearing, and the doctor says “enough.”
More floors!
2/19/2006 – Oh the joys of rehab! I spent a lot of time ripping up the underlayment in the upstairs landing. Kevin bought a new tool to try since the roofing shovel didn’t work like we hoped. It’s a short, thin pry bar with the flat end for pounding. I wedge the thin end between the wood floor and the underlayment, hammer it in, then lift up the underlayment. It’s very slow going.
This picture really shows a lot. Notice the roll of carpet, then under that was a carpet pad. Next, the gray and pink linoleum squares, followed by a paper underlayment! Finally we have the plywood, which was just a bear to remove. I'll give them credit for securely attaching it to the floor!
2/27/2006 – There’s been a whole lot of ripping and tearing during the past week, and a whole lot more to be done. Getting up the floor has been a nightmare. We have the landing and NW bedroom completed done, and the NE bedroom started. The special roofer’s shovel, along with the regular crowbar and the thin pry bar have been the tools of choice for Kevin and his dad, who came out to help earlier in the week. After they pry off the underlayment, someone has to go in and pull nails. The two bedrooms on the north side, plus the SW bedroom have what appear to be the original wood floors. The landing and SE bedroom have tongue and groove underlayment for flooring.
We have officially knocked down our first wall! We took out the dividing wall between the hallway closet and the NW bedroom. It was a double wall of tongue and groove boards. It has been up for a long time, because it had the old square-headed nails, but we’re not sure it was always there. We found a very small piece of wallpaper, with a narrow border, up near the ceiling under the wall. It’s probably the very first paper on the house so we’ll try and pull it off and save it. It’s very dark brown with an orange line running through it. The plaster is a real mess.
I reserved the dumpster for another week because we clearly have a lot more “deconstructing” to do.
2/27/2006 – There’s been a whole lot of ripping and tearing during the past week, and a whole lot more to be done. Getting up the floor has been a nightmare. We have the landing and NW bedroom completed done, and the NE bedroom started. The special roofer’s shovel, along with the regular crowbar and the thin pry bar have been the tools of choice for Kevin and his dad, who came out to help earlier in the week. After they pry off the underlayment, someone has to go in and pull nails. The two bedrooms on the north side, plus the SW bedroom have what appear to be the original wood floors. The landing and SE bedroom have tongue and groove underlayment for flooring.
We have officially knocked down our first wall! We took out the dividing wall between the hallway closet and the NW bedroom. It was a double wall of tongue and groove boards. It has been up for a long time, because it had the old square-headed nails, but we’re not sure it was always there. We found a very small piece of wallpaper, with a narrow border, up near the ceiling under the wall. It’s probably the very first paper on the house so we’ll try and pull it off and save it. It’s very dark brown with an orange line running through it. The plaster is a real mess.
I reserved the dumpster for another week because we clearly have a lot more “deconstructing” to do.
Ripping up floors
2/16/2006 – Every muscle hurts! So far we’ve pulled up all the carpeting upstairs. The carpet in the landing was just black powder underneath. I’m guessing it’s some type of adhesive that turned to dust. Under the carpet is 8” square linoleum tiles in a softly striped grey and pink. They were probably very happy with it when it was new! Under the tiles is some kind of underlayment of a fibrous board material. It’s a real chore to pull up as they have nailed it down every six inches. Kevin bought a special shovel that’s used to remove roofing to try and lift it up but he said it really doesn’t help that much. It’s just going to take a lot of time and muscle. All four of the bedrooms are the same way. Sigh!
While I’ve been working on the upstairs, Kevin has been busy tearing out the ceiling in the laundry room downstairs. They put in a drop ceiling to hide the plumbing from the bathroom above it. We still aren’t sure if the stairs are where they have always been. It’s going to take more ripping and tearing. He did discover that there was probably a doorway leading from the hallway in front of the laundry room going into the north parlor. We can also tell, based on the change in the height of the mopboard plus patching on the plaster where there used to be walls, that the dining room was much smaller than it is now.
While I’ve been working on the upstairs, Kevin has been busy tearing out the ceiling in the laundry room downstairs. They put in a drop ceiling to hide the plumbing from the bathroom above it. We still aren’t sure if the stairs are where they have always been. It’s going to take more ripping and tearing. He did discover that there was probably a doorway leading from the hallway in front of the laundry room going into the north parlor. We can also tell, based on the change in the height of the mopboard plus patching on the plaster where there used to be walls, that the dining room was much smaller than it is now.
Decisions, decisions!
1/24/2006 – Kevin drew out a floor plan which moved the kitchen to the space now occupied by the steps and laundry room. The kitchen would then become a mudroom/laundry room with lockers for coats and boots. The steps would move to the south parlor, and would run north-south instead of east-west as they do now.
The current office area in the ell will become Caitlin’s dance room. Upstairs in the main stone section of the house, we will convert the hodge-podge of rooms and closets into two big bedrooms, two baths, and walk-in closets with a nice sitting area/hallway.
The next step was to actually try to budget such an adventure. It wasn’t pretty! I priced out wall sconces, and knew in a hurry it was going to be costly. The ones I want are $179 each, hand-forged of course, in Vermont. If sconces cost this much, we’re in trouble!
2/13/2006 – After a frustrating month with our first lender, we ended up switching to the Credit Union, and we closed with ease. At last we are homeowners! Actually, we are the owners of two homes, two mortgages, and two equity loans. We closed on Friday and everything went extremely smoothly.
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