Haven't we all so looked forward to Spring! A few weekends ago, I realized that the pile of old bricks and leaves in the corner of the bulkhead and back addition of the Foster house needed to be moved...or the painters wouldn't even be able to access the lower clapboards and foundation.
It was a beautiful day, warm in the sun, cool in the shade, a gentle breeze. It felt good to be performing some manual labor, moving bricks in a wheelbarrow and pulling vines and raking leaves. I worked diligently until this mindless project was done, and felt pretty good about it. That night I was a little achy, but in that good kind of way.
By noon the next day, my feeling of accomplishment became a feeling of burning and itching as angry welts covered my forearms. The vines I thought were bittersweet? Not so much. Clearly, they were poison ivy vines.....or something of that genus. No telltale leaves, the vines were sort of orange colored and weren't going to let me escape unscathed.
A week or a little better of cortisone cream and nightly Benadryl got me through it but, wow, it was miserable! I remember as a kid being exposed to poison ivy and nary a bubble. What happened?
So gardeners and weekend warriors tackling yard work, beware. A Tyvek suit might come in handy.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
House Restoration Roller Coaster
I would have written sooner; I have had whiplash from the careening roller coaster that is named "Old House Restoration Project".
We got the well in, hit water at 240 feet but had to rather inconveniently relocate it near the front walkway. Yes, there is a camouflage plan.
The work on the house has been a fascinating look at circa 1770 house construction. The post and beam skeleton is as strong and supple as ever. The sills needed only some relatively modest cleaning up; they are still solid. It's been heartening that a number of old house experts have looked at the basement and marveled at the perfectly straight dry stone foundation, dry timbers and enormous chimney base. That being said, though, wavy floors abound, as in any old house, and we attempted some leveling as much as practical without dismantling the entire structure. Probably the most impressive feat was bringing the rear wall of the house back about 8" to where it should be. If you know anything about old post and beam houses, you know that between the posts, there is often vertical planking, not used for structural support but as an anchor for exterior clapboards and interior lathe and plaster. Well, the vertical planking wasn't attached to the plate anymore and the wall had just sort of waved outward. Not really a serious structural issue but now it is as straight as it can be; the interior wall was studded the new-fashioned way and the exterior wall was brought in flush with that.
This house has always been lived in, and the inhabitants over the years made improvements, some of them unfortunate. The second floor is close to original, with two feet wide chestnut planks, and an original cove ceiling in the largest room. The first floor was once divided into a duplex; original fireplaces were traded for parlor stoves, and the original buttery gave way to a bigger kitchen in what was probably once a bedroom. Some old pumpkin pine floors remain but others are more newly installed wide pine boards, and there are some narrow oak board floors, too. Simply put, there wasn't anything much very original to the house. And therein the dilemma was what to do: try to return the interior to the long ago past, or embrace a more contemporary style -- the latter very foreign to me. Yet, that is what we have done and I have to give our contractor and his design consultant (the Mrs.) kudos. I never thought this old house would be clean, streamlined, and as a friend of mine said "contemporary with a vintage feel".
We took a wall down between the kitchen and old sun room and that created an open space from the hearth room through the kitchen and all the way to the new windows overlooking the back hill and fields right down to the Ponaganset River. New windows (yes, I acquiesced) were next, then a lot of carpentry work, sheet-rocking, plastering, new plumbing, electrical updates.....we are finally almost on home stretch. Most of the interior is painted. The exterior was power washed for paint -- new color scheme! -- but that was during the warm spell a few weeks ago and you all know what is on the ground now! It is not painting weather, alas.
Finally last week I breathed a big sigh of relief because it finally hit me: this old house is saved. It has a new lease on life and here's to hoping for a devoted and deserving new caretaker.
We got the well in, hit water at 240 feet but had to rather inconveniently relocate it near the front walkway. Yes, there is a camouflage plan.
The work on the house has been a fascinating look at circa 1770 house construction. The post and beam skeleton is as strong and supple as ever. The sills needed only some relatively modest cleaning up; they are still solid. It's been heartening that a number of old house experts have looked at the basement and marveled at the perfectly straight dry stone foundation, dry timbers and enormous chimney base. That being said, though, wavy floors abound, as in any old house, and we attempted some leveling as much as practical without dismantling the entire structure. Probably the most impressive feat was bringing the rear wall of the house back about 8" to where it should be. If you know anything about old post and beam houses, you know that between the posts, there is often vertical planking, not used for structural support but as an anchor for exterior clapboards and interior lathe and plaster. Well, the vertical planking wasn't attached to the plate anymore and the wall had just sort of waved outward. Not really a serious structural issue but now it is as straight as it can be; the interior wall was studded the new-fashioned way and the exterior wall was brought in flush with that.
This house has always been lived in, and the inhabitants over the years made improvements, some of them unfortunate. The second floor is close to original, with two feet wide chestnut planks, and an original cove ceiling in the largest room. The first floor was once divided into a duplex; original fireplaces were traded for parlor stoves, and the original buttery gave way to a bigger kitchen in what was probably once a bedroom. Some old pumpkin pine floors remain but others are more newly installed wide pine boards, and there are some narrow oak board floors, too. Simply put, there wasn't anything much very original to the house. And therein the dilemma was what to do: try to return the interior to the long ago past, or embrace a more contemporary style -- the latter very foreign to me. Yet, that is what we have done and I have to give our contractor and his design consultant (the Mrs.) kudos. I never thought this old house would be clean, streamlined, and as a friend of mine said "contemporary with a vintage feel".
We took a wall down between the kitchen and old sun room and that created an open space from the hearth room through the kitchen and all the way to the new windows overlooking the back hill and fields right down to the Ponaganset River. New windows (yes, I acquiesced) were next, then a lot of carpentry work, sheet-rocking, plastering, new plumbing, electrical updates.....we are finally almost on home stretch. Most of the interior is painted. The exterior was power washed for paint -- new color scheme! -- but that was during the warm spell a few weeks ago and you all know what is on the ground now! It is not painting weather, alas.
Finally last week I breathed a big sigh of relief because it finally hit me: this old house is saved. It has a new lease on life and here's to hoping for a devoted and deserving new caretaker.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Old House Chronicles: Well, well, witching well......1/13/16 #2
Tomorrow we close on the Foster house. Today was a flurry of activity and last minute details before the rehab work starts. And a banner day, because we got an almost definite A-OK in the new well placement.
I figured the new well could be dropped right where the dug well is....a good vein of water that only dried up in August. The dug well is about 16 feet deep; when it's dry, you can see the dirt at the bottom. Another 100 feet or so in the same location would be perfect.....right?
Not so much. This house is in a little linear village, originally settled in 1720. Over the years, and a lifetime before there were any water or septic regulations, the village inhabitants graduated from outhouse to cesspools. Some modernized further with septic systems. Most private wells were eventually drilled deep but some houses, like ours, have dug wells. Old school country stuff. Unfortunately, though, modern regulations call for those things to be a certain amount of feet apart and therein is the issue. Old well is too close a placement to the neighbor's septic. So the new well has to be moved to the northeastern side of the house. It's going to be a real challenge for the well drilling truck to fit where it needs to go. Power feed needs to be disconnected and I have to get a tree guy out ASAP to trim some branches.
My neighbor there, an 85 year old walking fund of all matters country, called me a few nights ago.
"You know, you've got to witch that.....you might not hit water." She reminded me that all the neighbors to the north had troubles finding water, but she had hers witched and it serviced two houses, never an issue at less than 75 feet. She had the same person witch the well at the restaurant she once owned, and same thing, hit water right off. It's funny how one spot can yield access to a great vein of some underground stream, but 20 feet away is just ledge.
In case you town and city folks don't know about witching a well, it is using a person, known as a douser, who has the skill, the special magic, to use a live twig or branch to locate water sources. Here is a link to a great article that appeared in Mother Earth News a few years back: http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/witching-for-water-zmaz70ndzgoe.aspx
I haven't found a douser yet and I'll ask my well guy what he thinks. I'll bet he knows someone who does it and probably believes in it, too. I'll keep you posted. Fingers crossed. I figure my odds of hitting water are a lot better than hitting tonight's Powerball drawing.
I figured the new well could be dropped right where the dug well is....a good vein of water that only dried up in August. The dug well is about 16 feet deep; when it's dry, you can see the dirt at the bottom. Another 100 feet or so in the same location would be perfect.....right?
Not so much. This house is in a little linear village, originally settled in 1720. Over the years, and a lifetime before there were any water or septic regulations, the village inhabitants graduated from outhouse to cesspools. Some modernized further with septic systems. Most private wells were eventually drilled deep but some houses, like ours, have dug wells. Old school country stuff. Unfortunately, though, modern regulations call for those things to be a certain amount of feet apart and therein is the issue. Old well is too close a placement to the neighbor's septic. So the new well has to be moved to the northeastern side of the house. It's going to be a real challenge for the well drilling truck to fit where it needs to go. Power feed needs to be disconnected and I have to get a tree guy out ASAP to trim some branches.
My neighbor there, an 85 year old walking fund of all matters country, called me a few nights ago.
"You know, you've got to witch that.....you might not hit water." She reminded me that all the neighbors to the north had troubles finding water, but she had hers witched and it serviced two houses, never an issue at less than 75 feet. She had the same person witch the well at the restaurant she once owned, and same thing, hit water right off. It's funny how one spot can yield access to a great vein of some underground stream, but 20 feet away is just ledge.
In case you town and city folks don't know about witching a well, it is using a person, known as a douser, who has the skill, the special magic, to use a live twig or branch to locate water sources. Here is a link to a great article that appeared in Mother Earth News a few years back: http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/witching-for-water-zmaz70ndzgoe.aspx
I haven't found a douser yet and I'll ask my well guy what he thinks. I'll bet he knows someone who does it and probably believes in it, too. I'll keep you posted. Fingers crossed. I figure my odds of hitting water are a lot better than hitting tonight's Powerball drawing.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Old House Chronicles: The Foster House, #1
Once upon a time, decades ago now, I lived in a very old house in Hopkins Mills. It was a house with original clapboards, spaced closer together as they approached the barge boards, wavy in spots from centuries of settling, and old wooden windows. The house was painted white, like all the houses in the historic village, and was perched on a hill overlooking the Ponaganset River. The interior had been largely altered over the years as its residents made sequential changes to "modernize", but it still had a cove ceiling in one of the upstairs bedrooms, and steep stairs to the second floor. I always worried about the girls taking a tumble on those stairs, but they never did.
So now the house had fallen into disrepair, and was for sale, but no one was intrepid enough to take it on, what with its overgrown acreage, deteriorating structure, and 1980's fixtures. I started driving by, worrying that the old house would inevitably be bulldozed. I think you know where this is going: we bought it. To save it. And hopefully find someone to love it.
And there isn't an inch of it that doesn't need to be touched. The last few weeks have been busy finalizing financing, lining up contractors, and struggling with what is going to be restored vs. renovated. There is a difference. Being somewhat of a purist, I'd prefer saving the old 6/6 wooden windows and the narrow stair treads, but I am trying to think of what a buyer might want today. Maybe some added elements of safety and convenience might work to save the house for future generations to appreciate.
I can tell you, no vinyl siding will be on it! But some interior walls will come down, anything rotted will be replaced, there will be a new well, land will be cleared, and the kitchen and baths will be sparkly new. That is it in a nutshell; the detailed specs are almost 20 pages in length.
I'll be posting regular updates on this old house adventure. Coming next, everything you want to know about drilling a new well to replace the dug well that went dry every August.
So now the house had fallen into disrepair, and was for sale, but no one was intrepid enough to take it on, what with its overgrown acreage, deteriorating structure, and 1980's fixtures. I started driving by, worrying that the old house would inevitably be bulldozed. I think you know where this is going: we bought it. To save it. And hopefully find someone to love it.
And there isn't an inch of it that doesn't need to be touched. The last few weeks have been busy finalizing financing, lining up contractors, and struggling with what is going to be restored vs. renovated. There is a difference. Being somewhat of a purist, I'd prefer saving the old 6/6 wooden windows and the narrow stair treads, but I am trying to think of what a buyer might want today. Maybe some added elements of safety and convenience might work to save the house for future generations to appreciate.
I can tell you, no vinyl siding will be on it! But some interior walls will come down, anything rotted will be replaced, there will be a new well, land will be cleared, and the kitchen and baths will be sparkly new. That is it in a nutshell; the detailed specs are almost 20 pages in length.
I'll be posting regular updates on this old house adventure. Coming next, everything you want to know about drilling a new well to replace the dug well that went dry every August.
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