This Old House #5: Labour Day and Wood Floors.

Labour day and we be labourin. Here's the front room- our first project.  Some before pics:







The trim, while it looks really cool, is NOT actually a wood grain. It was all hand painted with a roller to look like wood grain. I like it a lot, but after some discussion it needs to go. The trim will be white to brighten in up a bit and add some contrast to the wood floors under the carpet. We'll keep the yellow for now. Spent the day sanding and painting. Still have to tape and paint all the little edges everywhere, but its starting to look good.



Peeled back some more of the carpet. We had pulled a little corner back and were excited by what we saw- floor looked to be in pretty good shape. Of course, you KNOW it couldn't be that simple... Right!?





Yeah, the wire there by the door... Not too impressed with that.

  Haven't talked with Mrs. Punch yet, but the carpet will probably get rolled back in place while we finish the painting in here and then redo the dining room. The floor is definitely salvageable, but its going to take some elbow grease. I think it would be best to get the dining room done and any other room downstairs that we plan on having as a wood floor, so we can rip all the carpet out at the same time and sand / seal / stain / whatever we decide on the floors all at once.

Suggestions?

This Old House #4: Deep, Dark, Dungeons!

Okey Dokey.Believe it or not, this one of my favourite parts of this house.  Creepy things are behind this door...



Don't mind the mess in the kitchen. We haven't really unpacked as the plan is to (hopefully) have all new cabinets installed in the next couple of months. Anyways, lets head downstairs.



Yup. Thats dirt. Kinda neat how you can see the different layers as it goes down,



And if you look close you can even see the grass / roots from what is probably the virgin desert sod.



Apparently there used to be a boiler in the second floor as well as the basement- well, here's the remains of the boiler that used to be in the basement. This was not its original location. Not sure why it's partially cut up- but my guess is someone attempted to get it out of the basement, got it partially cut up, ran out of steam and just dragged the rest of the shell into this corner.



Remnants of knob and tube wiring. None of it's currently hooked up. Don' think there's even any wire left, just a few of the knobs.



Crawlspace under the front living room. Bricks are holding up a pipe that is supporting the floor joists. I believe this was an attempt at making the floors less saggy / creaky, and a successful one at that. Home inspector was impressed with how "solid" feeling the floors were.  If I remember correctly, Bishop Adams helped put this and a few others up.  Fitting- he sure put up a lot of support to everyone around him in his life, and I'm proud to have a reminder of him here.



Here's the utility room. Not too big. I was thinking it would be a great spot to set up an indoor pistol shooting range shooting into the dirt, but wife wasn't too keen on that idea.



The brick mixed in with the lava block is the base of a currently extinct chimney. Don't know how far up this one goes.

Some interesting wiring here.



The only ventilation in the basement comes from this window.



Furnace isn't too old, and the water softener is maybe 2? years old.



I just love the lava block foundation.



Rough cut floor joists and underside of the wood flooring. I believe its Red Pine?



Old plumbing that may have gone to an extra sink when it was an appartment? Also another chimney base in the foundation. This one goes all the way out, and the pot bellied stove in the upstairs library is connected to it. Going to give that one a try this winter.



Fun fun! Need to start researching vapor barriers. Soooo many things to do.

This Old House #3: Hidden Treasure.

So on top of this wicked awesome house, the people we bought it from left us some "hidden" treasures. I'll be throwing them in randomly to help keep this going a bit, especially as I start school tomorrow.

Here's the first hidden treasure. This giant armoire(?). No info, no markings, have no idea when it was brought in to the house, just that it looks fairly old but not ancient. I say that because I doubt a *really* old armoire would have had any type of glass, let alone a mirror this size...





There was some serious head scratching about how to move it... We wanted to put it in a different room. I noticed it was kinda shaky- when you open the door the whole thing shifts to the side. I got to looking an it turns out the whole thing breaks down into much smaller pieces rather easily. Loosen a couple of "nuts" on the top, and a couple more on the bottom, and viola.

The whole top pops off.





The sides could easily come off too, but this made it short enough to fit through the doorways.



Has some pretty cool carvings,



And dovetail fittings.



Has a wooden "lock box" inside behind the door, and then the drawers on the front. The lock box looks like it was added later but still has working skeleton key locks.

Any ideas on age or manufacturer?

This Old House #2: History Lessons.

Okey dokey. Hows about a history lesson?

Like I said, the house was finished in 1903. Since then, it has (supposedly) been a home, apartments, a school, a museum, CONDEMNED, and then a home again. I'm hoping to dig up some more info on the history of the house from when it was built to about 1975, but from 1975 to present I have pretty darn good info. We are purchasing it from a daughter that inherited it from her mother I think somewhere between 1995/2000. The mom had bought it in 1976, supposedly saving it from being knocked down to make way for newer houses. So for the last 40 years it's belonged to the same family, but everyone around here STILL refers to it by the name of the original builders. Kinda funny.

Pic of the house supposedly from around the time it was finished in the early 1900's.



Couple more from between then to maybe the 60's?







And a pic when it was a musuem.



Here's where it gets fun. When mom bought it in 1976, she started this.



Which has these.









She has hand drawn maps for the yard, where she planted all the trees, drawings of each floor and then individual rooms detailing what she changed and how she went about doing it.







And she even has a bunch of pics from who knows when. Apparently, the house had been painted white at some point, and then sand blasted back to original brick. Don't know if she was the one who did the sandblasting or not. Notice the lack of the porch and the cupola? on the roof.



Porch is back, still no cupola.



This is the back of the house. Now there is a carport attached to the bump there, and lots and lots of trees.



There were also a couple of interior pics but nothing that really shows much of what was going on.






Now its our turn to start / continue the story!

This Old House: dorkpunch Edition.

Y'all thought I was dead, didn't ya?

So, not to jinx anything (knock on wood and all that) but it looks like we are set to close next week. We have been working towards purchasing this house for over a year.

A bit of back story: We've been looking to "upgrade" for a couple of years now. We knew our price range, we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted, but there was just nothing that fit the bill. We *love* our teensy little community. I got to thinking about an acquaintance who mentioned they were going to be retiring eventually. They have this gorgeous old house, that oddly enough I would see ever time I pulled out of our driveway- it was 2 blocks away at the end of the "T". I called him and one other acquaintance who also had a home a couple of blocks away the same day, explained our situation, and asked them to let me know if they were ever interested in selling. Well, we got a call back saying yes, they were planning on retiring in the next year or two anyways so why not come over and take a look at the house to see if its anything we might be interested in.

Lets just say its about as close to love at first sight as you can get. Both my wife and I (and the boys) *loved* it. The boys took a while to warm up to it but warm up they did! We worked out a deal giving them time to get retired and figure out what they wanted to do with life and also giving us time to sell our home and get our ducks in a row.

The best laid plans...

Didn't have any luck getting our house sold. Through a series of small miracles, we have been able to liquidate some assets (er... sawdust some timber?) and find renters for our house. So in the last 3 weeks, We've moved out, moved in, spent a week at Scout camp, unpacked, hauled more stuff, cleaned the old house, still working on a few other items over there that need attention, got the renters moved in, hauled more stuff, etc etc etc...

I'm pooped. School starts in a week and a half.

Anyways, without further ado- here's This Old House.













Some random specs:

Started being built 1897/98, and finished in 1903. Has had a very interesting and storied life, of which I hope to chronicle here. Sits on 1.3 acres, has a wicked awesome 30x60 shop and lots of space and one of the best parts- LOTS AND LOTS of BIG trees!

Wish us luck in getting all the i's dotted and t's crossed next week!