This cOld House

This cOld House 40~14July2010

2010-07-14T11:54:00.003-04:00

Bacon. Is there anything it can't do?

I made beans three days ago. Before I put the bacon in the crock pot, I trimmed off some of the fat. As per usual, I was sidetracked before I finished the project and some time between my comings and goings, before I returned to clean off the cutting board in the kitchen, one of the cats made off with trimmings. I know this because some time in the afternoon, one of the kids came downstairs telling me there was 'bird poop' on the stairs. I went to investigate and found a small dollop of semi-congealed bacon fat (now nicely sweating at 80 degrees or so,) on one of the stair treads. I passed it, fully intending to go into the bathroom to get a paper towel to wipe it up but I was probably preoccupied by having to go pee, then, grabbing a load of laundry on the way down, I didn't see the bacon and completely forgot about it when I returned downstairs. I didn't make it back upstairs again, and while the kids probably passed it 40 or 50 times, they are basically useless and didn't think to clean it up. Dan found it after he got home from work. (And was none-too-pleased to find it, I might add.) So he grabbed a Kleenex to wipe it up and this is what we found:

Look at that color and shine restored! So now I'm thinking that bacon grease is the way to go on the interior wood restoration. Lay bacon on the stairs, tack it to the door jambs and window frames, leave it there all day and then remove and wipe. What could be easier?

Upon further consideration I began to visualize the drawbacks:
First, I believe it would draw every dog in the neighborhood to break down our screen doors and stampede through the house like that scene in "A Christmas Story". Second, my Chabad friends could never come to visit. Third, the stairs might get a little slick. Dang it... back to the drawing board.

This cOld House 39 ~11May10

2010-05-11T14:11:00.006-04:00

As we move into planning phase for the kitchen we realize how fortunate we are to have enough space in the existing footprint to expand and modernize the kitchen to 21 century standards. We will be incorporating the early 20th century servants' quarters into the space, that is two 7X11 bedrooms and a 5X8 bathroom. This will give us the space we need without messing with the original footprint. As we are working through the possibilities, we are looking at the dining room, and how it will blend with the new space.
We don't feel like we need a 'formal' dining room, but wonder how resale will be effected. (Yah, right, like we could EVER afford to sell this place.) So the only thing holding us back there would be the abandoned incinerator. That's 4 floors of masonry, starting as a roughly 6X6 squarish foundation in the garage and ending as a 3X8 double flue out the roof. There's a nice picture to the left of what the chimney looks like when we get down to the old garage. The front side pokes into the laundry room, where the iron doors for the incinerator are.

It somehow splits between the third floor and the attic, (possibly why the hallway outside the girls' room is just barely seven feet tall,) and then joins over top the attic again (probably poured with concrete,) into a massive rectangle maintaining two flues. Taking it out? Piece of cake, right?
So I called our good friends at Durable Slate, as they do this sort of thing, and more importantly, can patch the gaping hole that will be left if the brick were removed. I spoke to Wayne and told him that we might want to remove the little chimney. Adam called me back a couple of days later to make an appointment to come take a look.

Adam shows up and says to me, "Wayne said it was the little chimney - are you sure? Because I just remember you having a large chimney and a humongous chimney. Did I miss one?" Um, no, Adam, we are speaking in relative terms, I suppose if you wish to quote absolutes, we're interested in removing the large chimney. Let me guess, that will be extra, right?

This cOld House 38

2010-04-02T13:47:00.010-04:00

As with most things connected to this house, the small chore of putting up the front screen doors has exploded into an all day ordeal.

So I get into the garage and haul up the doors. I wisely left the pins in the hinges over winter so I wouldn't lose them. A few taps with a nail setter to push them out and I was in business. Or so I thought....

On the right door the middle and bottom hinge slid in but the top was no dice. I finally had to start over and force the top hinge in and then keep hitting the other two together, hoping that the hang would torque enough length out of the door to make up the 1/16 inch difference. I got lucky with a well placed shove and Naomi was able to drop the pins in.

The left door did not go as well and after several bouts of yelling/swearing, I finally gave up, taking off the bottom hinge on the jamb in order to get the top and middle to seat. Big mistake, because not only did I realize, (too late) that it would be easier to pull the door into place by leaving the jamb hinge in place and taking off the door hinge, but once the @#$%! jamb hinge was off I found the wood rot underneath.

Alrighty then....

So down to the basement for the trusty wood rot hardener. I have to find my pick (a nice set of dental picks I got on ebay for the myriad of surgeries we routinely do on the house,) and a small brush. Back up to clean out the wound and squirt/paint in the hardener. Hmmm, how deep does it go? I'd better drill in some slanted holes to get to the bottom. OK, pour in the hardener and use the paint brush to sweep it around and into the holes. Oh, yah, it needs to sit overnight now.

Tomorrow I look forward to applying the wood putty, letting it cure and then re-drilling and screwing the hinge back in. Then I can have Dan push against the door as I screw the opposing hinge plate into place on the door, hopefully undoing the warp that has made it impossible to hang the doors in the first place.

Great, so now what do I do while I figuratively wait for the paint to dry? Well, my mail carrier can attest to the crappy latch on the screen door, so I took it apart to see what I can try this year to help it work properly.

Hmmm, that's an awful lot of rust on that puppy -

in part because the guys who worked on the exterior restoration last fall took the screens off and left them sitting out, on their sides, in the rain, allowing the latches to fill up with water. So now I'm wondering if the graphite treatment I usually do twice a season is going to cut it or if perhaps it's time to move on to WD40 and lithium grease. I opted to sand down all the rust on the spindle and catch, the springs and thingy-do I have here in the picture. Hours later, I had the rust off all the bits and it was put back together with a fresh shot of graphite. My mail carrier came by to inspect and gave me the thumbs up - so I have THAT going for me.

Just another case of the torment this house frequently puts me through.

Just an update to my last post. Today the handyman I hired to finish up the punch list from the bathroom remodel we started last fall, has finished. Sort of. There's still some stuff that isn't done but I can't wait around for this guy to finish it up. This would be the punch list from the massive three bathroom remodel with which for the most part we are quite happy. The only part we are not happy about is the part where the general contractor took the money, failed to pay any of the subs nor finish up the job. But aside from that it's all good. Oh, yah, except for the stuff I had pay for twice in order to get the job finaled, and the stuff he didn't do that I paid for and did I mention the thousands in legal fees we've had to pay to defend against liens that subcontractors slapped on us? OK, so where are we at???

I don't think we'll restore any more windows this year. We are talking to a carpenter about storm windows and screens, (again) and hope that this guy is more professional than the guy we went with a couple of years ago who decided he didn't want to do the job after all.

The pool house/pool/shed is pressing. We've opted to put that off until next year in part because we still don't have an adequate plan in place. No sense moving the pool equipment and re-laying the lines when we know the whole pool house need re-built.

We're still struggling with the right way to address the kitchen. The plans just aren't coming together, in spite of a number of different people working on them - three builders, an architect and one or two kitchen designers. I'd rather wait than get it wrong.

Finishing the exterior restoration has to wait for the kitchen remodel, since we know we will be moving and replacing windows.

The panels (where the tyvek wrap is apparent in the first pictures) will be returned and installed within the next couple of weeks. We are thankful we found someone to do it. We think they will continue to weather, but our restoration work will keep them stabilized for some time.

This cOld House 37

2009-10-29T16:50:00.001-04:00

Octobrrrrrrr 29, 2009

This summer we bit off a big chunk of the outside, kind of by accident. We really just wanted to paint, but once started, it became glaringly apparent some restoration work was in order.

The wood had never been painted and we made the heartbreaking decision to paint it with a good protective coat of latex. The semi-opaque stain just wasn't enough to preserve the 85 year old oak. It was taking a beating. On top of this, the carpenters removed an obscene amount of latex caulk that had been used over the years to stem the rot. Unfortunately when rot is not properly addressed it just keeps on keeping on. In some areas the gap between wood and foundation/wood/stucco/metal window frame was over an inch. We used putty in some places and structural epoxy in others and are confident that the restoration work that was done will give the house another 85 years. (With proper periodic maintenance.)

We now have a door from the yet-to-be-remodeled kitchen to the new patio. Now we have no excuse not to be dining al fresco every wonderful night... except that the kids are scared of all things natural... flies, bugs, bees, dirt, spiders etc. And we are part of the minority in this country who do not own a barbeque. And the entire summer we had scaffolding all over the place. (See picture above.) But we are looking forward to next year when al fresco is definitely on the menu.

The door kind of hosed up the room I had been using as an office, so the computer et al has been relocated to the newly rearranged living room. Added value from the door, more
light, less cold or hot than the original single pane steel casement window we replaced and a tax credit for buying the super insulated Pella door.

So now we are thinking about the kitchen, (with the office cleared out it's a lot easier to picture the space with the walls blown out.) And it would be lovely not to snake our way through the labyrinth of doors, halls and chambers that makes up the original 'service' part of the house.

While I am eager to knock out the walls, I am loathe to start a new round of improvements hot on the heels of the work we had/are having done this year. I feel as though there has been someone else in the house for the past six months, (um, I have,) and I'd like a little down time.

This cOld House 36

2009-01-18T19:51:00.002-05:00

OK, we've done a little bit this last year, but not nearly at the pace we'd historically worked when we'd first moved in. The good news is that most of the triage has been done, so we can work at a slower (and less costly) pace. The other part is that we kind of ran out of funds so we had to slow down, adjust our expectations and live with the house as-is for a while.

Our big disappointment this year was not getting any storm windows done. We had something set up, but the carpenter backed out and left us in the lurch. On the bright side, we had the floor in the master bedroom fixed up to the point where Dan no longer feels like he's going to fall through. I can't say I pine for the past when he bitched about it every day. We also fixed the pitch in the floor of the girls bathroom, and replaced the sink and commode, so it is finally all done. We even got the medicine cabinet re-installed, after a lengthy absence.

An aside, when we pulled the toilet and flooring up, we found an open electrical splice, in the joist cavity where the main drain was! Yah, that was a bit of triage. The electrician I finally coaxed out to fix it was pretty blown away by it.

We also got 7 of the 10 master bedroom windows restored, and the sills wrapped which has made a difference in the warmth in the room. We can still smell fresh air when the wind blows, but it's not as bad. We also had some of the bad patchwork on the other restored windows re-done and they look much, much better.

The side yard worked out great and we planted a few trees at the end of the season. We are looking forward to maybe putting in a little veggie garden next season. Probably the best thing we did all year was taking out the catalpa tree. I had been leery of it since we moved in and I discovered a five foot wide hole at the base where an animal (Norris, the giant woodchuck, we believe) had taken up residence. I'd had a couple of tree guys look at it and pronounce it sound with the caveat that it could last another 50 years or come down in a storm tomorrow. It was over 100 years old. When I finally convinced Dan that it had to go we discovered that the trunk, a good four feet in diameter, had a two foot wide hole in the middle from the base up to about 10 feet or so. Given the damage that Hurricane Ike did in September, we are confident it would have crashed through the girls' bedroom ceiling, taking out the attic with it and landing in the dining room. Another disaster averted.

We're moving forward on master bath plan which is taking a loooooong time. Dan and I can't agree on a floor plan, much less fixtures etc. But with the big freeze we had this week we learned something valuable - even 'though the supply pipes for the master are in an interior wall, they FROZE solid because there's no insulation between the stem wall where the pipes are and the outside wall. I had a bit of an epiphany about how the get the wall insulated as well as solving the HVAC problem in that room... we think. And we had the opportunity to use the girls' bath in a dress rehearsal of what it will be like while the master bath is 'all tore up.'

We also had some plaster/stucco work done including getting the stairwell ceiling from the kitchen down to the basement done. It had come loose after generations of people taller than 5'10" knocked their heads against it. (Dan included.) Our plaster/stucco guy is fabulous and we're looking forward to having him repair the bulk of the water damage... eventually.

Dan bought a hammer drill and we've been feverishly putting up stuff on the walls in the basement/garages. We had the cabinets from the house next door that we salvaged, as well as some old cabs that were in the house when we moved in. We still have more to hang.

We discovered some more water/bug damage on a major structural beam, this time in the furnace room and had a steel beam installed to shore it up. When we finally did the clean-up from that Dan was intrigued by the texture on the floor, as well as the hollow sounding places when you thumped it. So he began excavating a few of the places and he's now becoming quite talented at applying hydraulic cement. There is big scar on the floor, approximately 5 feet in diameter that we always thought was where the old boiler sat, but our new working theory is that it was where the cistern was and it was probably never filled and capped correctly which is why it always leaks around the edge of the circle when it rains. (Even 'though it's right next to the sump pump.)

So in spite of still having much to do in the house, we are biding our time until the next big projects. The kitchen, (of course on hold until we sell the house next door,) and the master bath until we can come up with a plan that makes the three of us happy.... me, Dan and the budget.

Sorry no photos this post but it's too cold to be in the basement or outside to take pictures!

This cOld House 35

2008-05-29T10:53:00.003-04:00

I started this post a couple of times in the last 6 months, and I'll add those thoughts first so you can see where we were/are.

Oct 10
My posts are becoming fewer and fewer as our work, 'though barely dented, is winding down due to economic forecasts. We are finally coming to the end of the saga of the roof... 9 contracts and 11 months from our first estimate. The Durable guys have been really busting hump on it, and they've been able to with the dry spell we've had the past couple of months.

Durable does mostly slate. When I asked them about the shape of the roof when they started, they commented that they've pretty well seen it all... but generally not all on one roof, until our place. Aluminum substituted for felt as underlayment. Mismatched slates. Slates installed sideways in order to get more run out of it to cover more area... even though it had been pre-drilled for proper installation so the holes showed. Aluminum gutter straps instead of copper slate hooks. Slates with tar, mastic, Great Stuff, mortar, and caulk... what, no duct tape? Slates screwed in with deck and drywall screws. Slate installed with the seams matched, (instead of staggered.) Cracked, delaminated, chipped and shattered slates. Squirrel nests in the ridges. And a 14/12 pitch to boot. Yep... this job had it all. So now, with 12 weeks of work and for the price of a bungelow in any midwestern state, we have a roof that looks much better, stops water from getting in, and will last for about another 70 years. (Or longer with proper maintenance.)

Dec 10
I really haven't much to report. I am happy to tell you that we've been holding water, (on the outside, for a change,) since the roofers got done. We are still waiting for them to finish up the stucco work, but that will probably be hanging out there until spring now.

The new roof does look very nice, and certainly the fact that it no longer rains inside is a bonus. It was an expensive endeavor, slate being more akin to a lifestyle than just a roof, but ultimately it should last another 75 years or so which makes it a worthwhile project.

Rob presented Dan and I with some 'Jahn-wear' last week, part of their frequent buyers club. Larry and Rick have been working in the white house for a couple of weeks. It's starting to shape up. It'll go faster next week after the asbestos abatement is completed and we can get the guys down into the basement to start plumbing, electrical and HVAC.

OK... so that brings us to today, 29May08. I have much to tell but let's start with the fun stuff.

Last weekend Dan and I spent all day Saturday picking up debris around the yard from various projects we've had going. We had quite a lot of fence panels sitting around from where we pulled it all out for the landscaping project this spring, as well as roof and gutter debris to clean up. Also, back behind the pool house was a mess full of weeds, ivy and rotting tree stumps. We were able to clear a lot of that out, and stacked the fence panels back there, out of the way yet accessible for when we figure out what the hell we are going to do with them. By the way, this is the pool house. It's probably only got another year or two before we have to take it down. There is a saddle in the roof and the walls are bowed out from the weight of the slate roof, (for which it was NOT engineered.) Also it sustains a little more water damage from the bottom each year. And we have the problem noted below. We will eventually replace it with a masonry shed to house the pool equipment, wood pile, garden tools and outside toys.

We were pulling nails out of the panels when all of a sudden Dan was in a cloud of what looked like large gnats. We looked around and discovered it was a swarm of termites coming out of an old stump. Termites swarm when the nest becomes too big. Half the colony grabs a queen and splits. I ran for the Raid while Dan smothered the stump with a bag of mulch. The last thing this house needs is a loose swarm of termites looking for a place to nest.

We had already been dealing with a ton of bumblebees around the pool house and I finally got curious and looked up the species on the 'net. Lo and behold our pool house is infested with Carpenter bees What fun! They chew 1/2 inch holes into wood, go about an inch deep then make a 90 degree turn and tunnel another 6 - 10 inches. So now we have termites, Carpenter ants, wood chewing squirrels and Carpenter bees on the property. And our house is made of timbers!

This cOld House 34

2007-09-09T22:33:00.000-04:00

This post has been languishing for the past MONTH.... waiting for pictures. I finally decided to put it up without, as I have yet to shoot, organize, find the proper accompaniments. My apologies for words alone. - R -
======

Well what can I say? The roofers have been diligently hand-soldering copper on my roof for three and a half weeks, it rained cats and dogs all last night and we have NO LEAKS!!!!!!!!!

We got seven windows back from Dayton Art Glass today and Bob's teed up to install on Tuesday. In a spectacularly bad turn of luck, it appears that most of the damage done to the lead on the attic bedroom windows was from a squirrel who must have been caught up there. Dick actually found a tooth embedded when he began cutting out the lead to replace it. I wonder if the squirrel ever got out, and if he did, whether he died a dismal death of lead poisoning. (I can only hope...)

I had curtains made for the girls' room and bathroom so those rooms are really starting to come together.

Now for the bad news...
The new garage has this troublesome leak. Rob et al have been caulking, sealing, and waterproofing to beat the band but they just can't get it to stop.

The electrical installations done a couple of weeks ago are sub-par and need to be re-done. (that's the second bunch of electricians I had to fire.) Rob's still looking for replacements.

Dan finally hit his head hard enough on the kitchen light to knock it off. Up until now, we've managed to avoid it coming down by placing a butcher block and the kids' small table underneath it so Dan wouldn't continually hit his head on it. Still he managed. This is along the same vein as the dent in our closet ceiling, (the sloped part under the stairs, where he inexplicably crushed the plaster with the sheer force of his thick skull,) and also the cracked plaster on the ceiling of the kitchen stairs. The guy has been close to six feet tall for the past twenty years or so, you'd think he'd have a pretty good idea what the evelation of his head is at any given moment. How can one not know where one's head is? But I digress. The kitchen light in question was a marvel of Johngineering so mediocre that it rivals the inane 14 gauge wiring of the entire room. (12 gauge being code and anything else just NOT.) This massive low-hanging fixture located in the middle of the room was attached to a mounting strap which was bolted to another mounting strap which was screwed into only one side of the electrical box, which was not flush to the ceiling. That's akin to tying two ropes to the front of the boat, looping them around a tree on shore and hoping it doesn't swing around and hit the dock or run aground. We went to Lowes this afternoon to purchase a flush mounted ceiling fixture to replace the pool table light that was there, rather than buying a hard hat.

This cOld House 33.1

2007-08-22T16:18:00.000-04:00

A slight post-script.

We've pulled six more windows out and Dayton Art Glass will pick them up on Friday. We are hoping that's it for the year, but the guys will be addressing the rest of the window pans in the coming weeks and if there is substantial rot, it will have to be taken care of before they can wrap the new copper around the frames. So the window restoration project is actually ahead of schedule, (it's only money...) having done 18 of the 76 leaded sashes this year.

This cOld House 33

2007-08-21T17:00:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted, partly because I've been busy with other stuff, and partly because work has slowed to almost nothing being done.

Congratulations are in order. That is my car ACTUALLY PARKED IN THE NEW GARAGE! Wooo-Hooo! The new garage is currently in a holding pattern. All that remains is for the electrical work to be finished up. We have outlets stubbed out but no wire pulled or fixtures attached. We also need to re-configure the temporary lights that were installed and add some to the old garage so we can walk in without tripping in the dark. (The only switch for the current lights is currently located at the top of the interior stairs.) Rob has the punch list for the other items - trim here, clean up there etc.

We've elected to pull the rest of the windows (three sashes) out of the girls' bedroom and have them restored so we can go ahead and have some interior storm windows fabricated for this winter. They were leaking enough to have drips coming down the interior wall beneath them. All in all a good decision.

Durable started today. We have had a pretty substantial leak on the stairway the last few downpours and we are eager to get along on that project. We signed the initial roofing contract with Durable last November. The first window pan they pulled revealed substantial rot underneath, so Bob's back on the job, (down at the lumber yard right now cleaning them out of 4 x 4 oak and some cedar facing,) replacing the window frames in the attic bedroom.

We've been working with a kitchen designer on the plan for the back half of the house. We'll start that project next spring after we take a breather over the winter.

The landscaping looks great out front... not a day goes by if I'm out there where a neighbor doesn't stop to tell us how fabulous it looks - what an improvement, etc. We are really very pleased with how this project turned out. Our biggest fear was that the new garage would stick out like a sore thumb and ruin the look of the house. Our careful planning, (and substantial budget,) created an integrated space that is barely noticeable from the street. We gained a large patio, (that will be accessible from the kitchen when we redo it next year,) an ample garage, and some usable basement space as well. A great improvement!

We close on the house next door on Aug 30. We are petitioning the city to move the property line so we can absorb the entire driveway onto our property, and then move the neighboring garage and pour a separate driveway for them. That should clear up the muddy 'shared' driveway problem for good. Along the way, we will fix up next door and either keep it as a rental property or sell it (if the market improves.) A woman must have a hobby to keep her busy, and apparently, this is mine.

This cOld House 32

2007-07-12T07:25:00.000-04:00

Doors, doors, doors.

While we were on Vacation, Bob got most of the doors finished. The pictures are (left to right, top to bottom,) The screen door for the back hall, the double doors from the old garage to the driveway, the walk through from the new garage to the old garage, the back hall door, the dining room patio doors, and the front screen doors.

I met with a geotech/soils engineer this week and we will be having some testing done to try to pin-point where the water seeping into the basement is coming from. (And more importantly, whether it can be mitigated through some manipulation of the land - swales, drains, etc.) This is really the first step towards addressing the rest of the landscaping. We want to get rid of the bunkers, and while doing so improving the water profile of the property. No question adding plants and trees back will help, but if we can do more, now is the time to incorporate earth movement into the plans.

The work that Durable Slate did before we left, particularly the flashing and copper work around the main chimney, failed to hold water while we were on vacation. We came home to water damage in the attic bedroom, Master bedroom and even some in the living room. That is to say that the leaking, worse than we'd ever experienced, went down through three floors. They sent a guy out as soon as I reported the problem but he was unable to do anything about it because it was raining... (Duh.) A crew will be out today to either finish the work up there, (I was under the impression it had been finished as we'd been charged in full for it,) or to dry it in properly.

We now have a way up to the new patio as Dave has finished the steps from the front porch. I'm eager to get the rest of it completed, which is minimal. (Soldering the seams in the copper counter-flashing, general clean-up including power washing the adjacent brick, and re-pointing said brick, trimming out the electrical and maybe restoring the powder room window.)

I've bugged the new landscaper about getting me a plan this week, which he has promised, but I don't really think it's going to happen. The property is still a mess, the weeds exploding while we were on vacation, and the grass growing tall in spite of my request for mowing.

The pool seems to be holding it's own... although with the prodigious rain it's within an inch of overflowing... (into the laundry room.) Like I keep saying, this house has some seriously bad water mojo.

Rob and Co. are working on Dan's Manspace, (the old garage.) They are building a plywood floor over top of the concrete. There is a 6 inch difference from the bottom of the steps to the house over to where the floor drain was. (The one we capped which went directly into the storm sewer.) This will now be flat, although it will still have some slope to it.

And what's up with THIS place????

This cOld House 31

2007-06-05T14:35:00.000-04:00

It has been almost a whole month since my last blog and we are moving right along on a number of projects.

Since last month, Bob has been working diligently on several wood projects, the biggest being the posts out back. We removed and refurbished the windows in the girls' room and they look/work great! We have been really pleased with the restoration work Dick at Dayton Art Glass did. Aside from his very competitive price, we get the sense that he enjoys this type of work and puts a lot of care and skill into it. One of the windows needed a complete re-build, but they were able to salvage the glass and match the lead almost perfectly. The good news is, yes, we found the yellow jacket nest. It was located inside the post Bob removed. The post was so rotten that it was almost hollow. Here's an example of what shape the wood was in that Bob removed.That's some fine looking hardwood there! We were unable to find a piece of oak big enough replace the posts, so Bob improvised with two 4 x 8 cedar posts, and then he trimmed on the inside, where needed, with oak to match the original design.

We also had the main gas line replaced, and the new meter mounted on the front of the new garage. It's better than in the basement, but ugly as sin and we're planting some boxwoods around it as soon as possible. All the interior gas lines were replaced at the same time, so now we can actually pass the HVAC inspection. The bad news, (of course) is that none of the fireplace lines held test so they had to completely disconnect them to pass the gas inspection and we now have no gas to the fireplaces. We'll address that at a later date, once we get an assessment of the chimneys.

The other big project this month has been the 'Great Wall' which has taken about all month. The other day the mailman asked the wall guys if they wanted him to forward their mail to here. I told them another week and I'd start charging rent. They are doing beautiful work and we are very pleased with how it looks. Initially we wanted a rock wall, to replace the one that the backhoe split apart, but it was infeasible, (read that - way too expensive in this day and age!) so we settled for a landscape block and were relieved to discover our misgivings about the institutional look of the block were pretty well dashed. They had to haul off about half a dozen trucks of fill and we ended up with two full tiers. It's been slow going, and we've had some set backs, not the least of which was Mike digging up the brand new gas line, not once, but TWICE! I noticed when I did the pictures for this post that Mike was wearing the same shirt both times he hit the line (a week apart) so I told him to get rid of the unlucky t-shirt and bury it when they backfilled the second repair. Thank goodness he doesn't have far to go to be finished - I'd be worried if he were going to have to be digging around the line again!

Before

After

And last but not least... the pool is in the process of filling as I type. The garden hose has been on full-bore for the past 35 hours and we are about two-thirds full. I'm estimating the water bill at around $500 to fill that sucker. It's not a large pool but it is a good 8 feet deep. As we had suspected, the lines were bad - both the skimmer and return lines need to be replaced so we are going to hold that thought until next year... The pool guys will lay lines overground for this season and next fall or next spring we will put permanent lines in when we move the pool equipment off of the platform that's sliding down the hill and over towards the pool house that's falling down. (Another story.)

This cOld House 30

2007-05-08T16:40:00.000-04:00

It's slow-going, but we are making progress.
The patio really looks like a patio. The parapet walls are essentially done. When we had them laid out, they looked too tall, so instead of scalloping them, we elected to make them about 6 inches shorter than code and we'll finish them off with a 2 1/2 inch diameter pipe railing. We can continue this railing down the new steps and along the front walk, (replacing the decrepit one currently there,) and it will all tie in nicely.

We have made some decisions on the work that needs to be done on the back of the house. Bob Sr. says he can save the frame around the dining room windows, (pending no ugly discoveries during removal of the adjacent posts,) but the news on the windows above wasn't as good. The bank of five windows in the Girls' room has to come out as the sill beneath is rotted through. He'll get to that in the next couple of days and the windows will go to Dayton Art Glass for restoration. Again, the good news here is that we will definitely find the yellow jacket nest in the process, and block the ingress to the house for all sorts of creepy crawlies when the window frame gets tightened up.

When Bob took out the living room doors last week, he found (no surprise here,) termite damage under the threshold and had to replace the joist, subfloor and floor. Thankfully, he was able to make the new threshold just wide enough to cover the parts he had to cut out so we don't have any floor patching to do. Picture is of another shredded board. Those termites were very well fed. Bob has also taken out the dining room doors, and Dayton Art Glass picked them up today to start restoration and size adjustment to fit the new oak frames Bob made.

We have the roof estimate. Sort of. I need to go through it with a fine-toothed comb, but I should be able to do that in the next day or so. Our new strategy is to 'fix' the stuff that needs to be fixed sooner or later, even if it's not leaking right now. This means pulling off and replacing all broken, damaged or poorly installed slates, (with salvaged material that matches,) replacing all the worn out copper, (essentially all valleys, window pans and dormers,) and replacing the johngeneered metal ridges with clay tile as they originally were. Did I mention that Sean, (the slate installer,) found squirrel nests up under the incorrectly installed ridge? (That would explain the squirrel poop in the attic.) It will cost a small fortune, but aside from routine yearly maintenance, (inspection and replacement of worn/broken slates,) we shouldn't have to do anything else for 30 years or so. We needn't replace the whole roof, nor use new slate. The pitch is sufficient enough that we should get another lifetime out of the current roof as long as it is PROPERLY maintained.

This cOld House 29

2007-04-30T10:53:00.000-04:00

What's new this week? We met with Dick about the landscaping last Monday and although we lined out where the retaining walls were to go, the ensuing rains washed out all our work. Back to the drawing board.

We finally saw the roofers. They came last Monday and Tuesday and then disappeared. As bad as the concrete crew have been about showing up, the roofers are even worse. To compound this problem, when we first got the estimate (in December,) we were told that the roof was essentially sound and we were not advised to replace it. Instead we were told that it could (and should) be repaired using re-claimed slate to match. However, when the installer came out last week he said we should replace the whole thing and we should NOT use salvaged slate. So I called the office and said what gives? Your estimator and your installers are giving me two diametrically opposed opinions. So on Friday we had TWO estimators show up. We came up with a modified plan and I'm waiting on numbers to make a decision.

Bob Sr. is hard at work on the doors. It's beautiful weather now so working outside is wonderful. He's making the new screen doors (which he built from scratch,) fit up front today. It's a bear to get them in right since the opening is neither plumb nor square, and they have to swing, too. Still no decision on the back half of the house, (whether we have to take out the windows upstairs as well as the dining room,) and materials are looking to be a problem. 10 X 10 oak beams are hard to come by. We may have to use pressure treated and wrap it in oak or cedar.

The new garage is looking like a new garage. Dan piled a bunch of junk into it last weekend. The lift door was installed last week. They guys doing it didn't inspire a lot of confidence. The door weighs about double what a regular door weighs. They assembled it like they usually do but with the garage being brand new and no power in it yet they failed to secure a way out. There was plywood screwed from the old garage side in the cut opening between the two and the door was too heavy for the guys to lift up manually so they essentially locked themselves in the garage and had to break down the plywood to get out. All I heard was a bunch of cussing and hammering but when I saw the mess (and damage) in the old garage I figured out what happened. The blue pipes in the front are part of our elaborate drainage system that we hope will end our water problems in the garages and basement for good.

This is the final sand coat on the stucco where the old garage doors were. The guy doing it was having a heck of a time matching the texture of the existing stucco until I explained that the existing was original to the house and began its life as a smooth finish. When I described the ivy we've heard covered the place he finally understood. I told him to go ahead and just do a smooth sand coat. Dan and I both love the color of this stuff but sadly it's a little out of the vernacular for our house. But seeing this color has galvanized our decision to go with a slightly warmer cream color than we currently have. And we may use this terra cotta color somewhere on the inside... I was thinking the dining room.

Last but not least, we have a mason diligently working to build the parapet wall on top of the garage. I picked brick last week and found a hand made brick that mimicked the age and condition of what we had. The color was close, only a couple shades lighter. I think it'll work out ok. We are still deciding about what to do on the top of the wall. I wanted it scalloped, and it will be stucco, but we don't want to have to paint every year, which is what will happen if we stucco the top. Rob suggested limestone on the top and it's pretty expensive. We're still looking at options.

This cOld House 28

2007-04-20T11:49:00.000-04:00

Since my last post we've had little completed, but some forward movement on several projects. Most notably, we finally got poured so the new garage is totally enclosed, (except for the lift door which will go on after the driveway gets finished, since concrete guys are not known for their finesse and we don't want to have to strip and sand and repaint the door.) The guys poured the slurry on Thursday and it looks great.

Something else popped up this week. Remember Dan's desire to address some of the outside beams? I had Bob Sr. take a look at them just in case it was too much for Dan to handle and guess what - it was! The first picture is of the bank of windows in the dining room. There are two rows of five sashes, one on top of the other. This whole unit is flanked by two massive 10" x 10" posts that go all the way up to the roof. These had been jongineered with caulk and a 4x4 piece of pressure treated with a strip of aluminum (painted to match, of course) and when we pulled off the metal strip, lo and behold ROT straight through and through. The second picture shows the base of the post on the right - the 4x4 isn't actually sitting on anything, the wood behind continued to rot beneath the patch job. (That's my foot for perspective.) While we had noticed some water damage on the post on the inside we were kind of hoping it was from condensation or window leakage. No such luck... the wood has actually rotted all the way through to the inside. That's 10 inches of wood! Oh, and that's not the bad news. The bad news is that these posts are structural. We will pull out the entire window unit and both posts all the way up to about a foot above the adjacent roof lines (since the rot extends up from the gutter line about that far.) Bob will then build a whole new post and beam structure and stand it up, marrying it god-knows-how into the remaining posts that hold up the roof hip over top the girls window above. The good news is that we will probably finally find the yellow jacket nest in the the process. Small victories.. that's our saving grace.

This is a picture of the guys lathing the new walls in the old garage door openings. We should be stuccoed today and Monday. Bob Sr. finished the window openings and ordered the windows yesterday and they only take a couple of days. We are still waiting on hardware for the walk thru door but Bob rigged up a handy cross bar so we can get in and out without having to walk all the way around the house and opening the door with a drill-driver.

I sort of finished my part on the girls' bath windows... I got the sashes out of the frames and Bob and I will meet with yet another art glass guy on Monday. He'll give me a bid on doing the windows one by one, (important since we have the ten in the dining room in the pipeline now.) We aren't sure if we want the art glass guy to do the whole restoration or if we want to take the steel frames to a metal shop to be stripped, primed and painted. I was thinking there's no reason why we can't use a marine grade or automotive grade paint on the suckers and never have to paint again. I refuse to paint windows every five years - with over 80 of them it's just ridiculous!

This cOld House 27

2007-04-05T02:17:00.000-04:00

I haven't blogged for a while which is more of an indication of the pace around here than my schedule... it's going pretty slow these days.

Steffan (the bug guy,) came out to spray for the yellow jackets in the girls' room. We spent some time staking out the back of the house to find the entry/exit of the nest, but came up short. We did find one hole where they were going in and out but we were not confident it led to the nest that is troubling us. There are so many gaps outside big enough for a yellow jacket to get it! All the beams have shrunk and pulled away from the stucco. And then there is the problem of rotting wood in the beams adjacent to the windows where we think the yellow jackets are nesting.

This is another one of those jobs that keeps popping up. Dan had been interested in restoring the outside timbers but after he punched a gaping hole indicating substantial rot, I had the big man (Bob Sr. - Rob's Dad) take a look. Because it was the first beam we decided to restore, and because it was so very rotten, and because it is a major STRUCTURAL element, (no, not decorative,) I felt we should have the professionals handle it while taking notes for future forays ourselves. We will be using a hybrid solution, part epoxy, part pressure-treated lumber, part white oak overlay to match the original beam. What you can't see in this picture is the perspective of depth. The beam is about 8 inches square, and the little hollow you see from this side is about 3 inches deep. Bob just kept picking away at it until he found solid wood. You know you're in trouble when you can remove structural elements with a dull soup spoon.

So along with the beam project, while we have the big guy working with us, (freed up from Rob's other job-in-perpetuity, a total remodel they've been working on for two years,) I asked for a bid to re-do some doors. The patio doors from the living room and dining room are in kind of rough shape. The metal frames have corroded and they stick, making them difficult to open. With the leaded sashes being so large (and old, and brittle,) they've sustained damage in the form of bowing, cracked panes and loose supports. New metal frames would have to be manufactured from scratch to match (since they don't make 'em like that anymore,) so rather than go through that expense we've decided to re-use the leaded sashes in a custom built oak frame instead. And he'll refurbish the existing screen doors and build us some for the front door (which are missing.)

Rob and Co filled the gaps in the flexicore with cement this week, as well as various other nit-noid stuff that needed to get done to prepare for the waterprooofing and final pour for the garage. the concrete guys cut the existing driveway to make way for some piping to carry storm water away from the house. We've been a little concerned about the down-spout situation in the back as all that water eventually shows up in the basement after seeping under the house.

And last but not least, the garage lift door is finally framed. Rob is eager to install it as it is taking up quite a lot of space in his shop. Some progress was made on cleaning out the garage space last week with Larry having at the large slabs cut for the walk through door to the old garage using a hand percussion hammer. There's still more to do before it's all gone - (the back hoe couldn't reach it when it back-filled a couple of weeks ago so it has to be removed by hand.)

We've had a cold spell hit again so the concrete guys can't do anything. Hopefully next week we'll get waterproofed so we can pour the week after that. I'm thinking we may be finished by June.

This cOld House 26

2007-03-19T22:05:00.000-04:00

It rained Monday, so the roof leaked and the roofers are behind another day. The masons are scheduled to come first and fix the chimney, before the roofers replace the slates or metalwork, presumably because masons are not so light on their feet, so whatever damage they do can be addressed by the crew after them. I got a call from the scheduler late last week indicating that I may actually have some work done this week, provided the weather holds. The good news is that I am the very next job on the list. The bad news is that they since they are in Columbus, and they don't send the weather-dependent crews out-of-town unless they have a level of comfort that they will be able to work a whole day, and it's scheduled to rain all week, we won't see them until next week, and I'll be moving the buckets around for the next little while.

The garage door arrived today to be sent off for painting. There is nothing to attach it to in the new garage yet so I guess it's just as well. I am eager to get it installed to secure the space now that we have the cut out done between the old and the new. Rob met with the concrete guy to pin him down on when we will begin to move forward on the top and back fill. I also got him to move the 'bridge' (plank that stretched form the front porch to the top of the garage, over the eight foot drop,) that was such an attractive nuisance to Naomi. (Pic is of said bridge, not garage door.)

We are quite happy with the sump pump and drain system we've been working on. The drain in the laundry room appears to be working pretty well. It's wet, but at least it doesn't run all the way around the room to the old drain anymore. The new drain keeps the stream out of the way against the cracked wall where it enters. Tommie likes it, as he'd rather drink from the floor (or toilet) than his bowl. And the sump kicks butt. A couple of weeks ago, as Rob sheepishly fixed the downspout pointing into the hole in the side of the house, he was perched on a ladder in front of the discharge. It throws about 2 gallons in a second or two of 55 degree ground water. It nailed him good!

Remember Dan's irrational desire to build a conservatory over the patio linking the living room and dining room? (His rationale: it would give us water-proofing around 17 windows, take care of the leakage down the outside basement walls in that area, give us a nice buffer to the rooms without sacrificing light and - this is new - act as a corridor to the new guest cottage for when the girls are in college and we are running a bed and breakfast. (Don't get me started... ) Well if we had more money than God, I suppose this would work. Rob found the link. I often accuse that whenever he's on the job site, the bill goes up by $4,000 (something always pops up, like another leak or some additional work,) but this time it's more like $104,000!

The floor guys put the last coat on the girls' bathroom floor. This now makes the room fully functioning, and tomorrow the girls will take their inaugural dip. (Tonight's date night.) We still have some issues up there - the window, the medicine cabinet/mirror, and the challenge of fitting a shower curtain to the oddly shaped opening. Rob and I think we have that one licked, although you never know until a theory is tested in practice. He needs to do some cutting and gluing, and I need to do some cutting and sewing.

The hole between the old garage and new garage looks good, although it's few inches shorter than we'd like because we were getting a little too close to the old window which was filled in with concrete. The wall is very thick. You can see the slab that they push out of there... it's about 10 inches. We need a little caterpiller to lift it out of the garage.

I hope to have pictures of the roofers, or the concrete guys soon. No luck today.

This cOld House 25

2007-03-14T09:56:00.000-04:00

I'm happy to report that we've turned off the furnaces for a couple of days. It was 76 degrees here yesterday, which worked out wonderfully as the floor guys showed up to do the girls' bath floor, and the concrete cutter showed up to re-fit the flexicore panel and cut a hole through the front wall from the new garage into the old garage, for the entrance door between. When sanding floors and cutting concrete, it's best not to have a blower re-distributing the dust throughout the house. Yup, that sure is a big honkin' saw that guy's using to get through the 10 inch wall.

When the flexicore arrived, it was cut wrong for the angle next to the house, they re-cut it to fit better and after that was done they needed to shift it back 8 inches. Did I mention it weighs 6,000 pounds? Rob, Bob Sr. and Larry made like Egyptians and jacked, wedged and rolled the slab into the correct position. The first picture shows them jacking it up with a manual screw jack. You can see the temporary wall they rocked it back on. They also used steel rods as rollers. Clever. The second shot shows how much they lifted it. It didn't take much to get it going, although it got caught on the steel bracket on the other end so they had to move the jack and do it all over on the other side. Dan and I were pretty impressed (and pleased) that they were able to shift it without having to get the crane guy out again. Now that the lid is properly set, we can finally move on. They will get ready to pour the top, and then backfill around the walls. I'm a little nervous about the 8 foot drop with the girls wanting to get out and play in the yard.
The bathroom floor turned out better than Dan or I imagined possible. The commercial sander kicked butt up there and the resulting surface was near-new. 85 years of wear gone in 60 minutes. This bodes well and gives us great hope for whatever is underneath the painted linoleum tile in the master bath. We have two coats of urethane to go, and then the plumbers are back to re-set the fixtures, then one final coat of urethane and I think we'll actually be pretty well done in the bathroom. (Except for the window, of course.)

Still no news from the roofers. They did send a crew out a couple of weeks ago to dry us in. Unfortunately, they were unable to do so, leaving me to move the buckets around until we finally get the actual do-the-work crew out here. The good news is that we were moved on to the 'priority one' list. (Like that means something?)

Tommie has begun to venture out into the yard. Apparently he only goes out when it's above 60 degrees. He's still gaining weight. One of his favorite things to do is sit on the pedestal sink in the master bath when we are washing up for bed. He likes to drink from a small stream of water out of the tap. He's done this almost from day one, but lately he's been having a little trouble balancing his bigger butt on the side of the sink. He wobbles - not a very graceful sight!

This cOld House 24

2007-03-07T13:06:00.000-05:00

Why?

This is a question I often get from worried friends and family when I post our trials with this house. Why on earth are we doing this? How can a house be worth all this time, energy and (especially) money? Is there nothing right with the place?

You have to realize, (and I did mention this early on in the blog,) my blogging about this is really a therapeutic exercise, as well as a record for posterity. And for the record today, I will describe some of the positive things about our home.

Let's start with the woodwork. This is one of the beams Dan cleaned last weekend. We have many of these in the house. The major structural beams are these huge 8 by 8 inch or 10 by 12 inch solid oak beams. Sadly, the ones on the outside of the house are very damaged. It will take more than a cleaning to restore them, but on the inside, Dan has managed to do a bang-up job of bringing them back to their original glory thanks to Milsek (Thanks to Rob for putting us on to it.) Dan is giddy over how beautiful the wood is, and he is obsessed with cleaning every inch of it.

Moving along the same lines, here's a sample of the random width tongue and groove oak flooring. It's in excellent shape for its 85 years, (no matter what Dan says.) This flooring is old growth, wide plank and about an inch thick. It has been nailed and plugged. It's gorgeous. The gaps between the planks simply cannot be avoided, it has shrunk some over the past 85 years, and it will swell come summer's heat and humidity. It has some squeaks, however our floor in our house in Lexington squeaked more than this one. These floors cover the majority of the lower house. In the upstairs, the planking is narrow and uniform. And still in pretty good shape, save the bathroom which we are restoring.

These are the amazing stairs. Yes those are two inch thick oak planks... on the run AND the rise. And again, they are in excellent shape. Some of the planks have warped, (can't be helped with the age,) but they show virtually no wear. Also in this picture you can see the original hand-wrought-iron railing, which is very cool. All the stairs in the house are made of these oak planks, save the attic. (And the turret.)

And finally, every door in the place is like this. Random width, tongue and groove, solid oak plank, with original wrought iron hardware. Even the cupboard doors to the storage spaces under the eaves are made like these. They are really unique. Again, they need some work, and we will have to be choosy on which ones we want to restore to total working order. The original hardware is in rough shape, so some will close, but not latch, and on others, the jambs are no longer plumb and square and so they don't even close. But they are pretty solid suckers.

Let's move on to the pro/con items. For instance, the windows, which are giving me such pain. It's only painful because they are so worth restoring. We have 76 leaded glass sashes inthis house. Yes, that is right SEVENTY-SIX! They all need restoration work. They are also in pretty good shape for their age, with the majority still operable and probably only 10 or so that will need to be completely rebuilt, (as opposed to refurbished/restored.) The windows add a boatload of character to the house.

As does this sucker... the bane of my existence... the slate roof.
For those of you who know nothing about slate, (like me, six months ago,) let me illuminate you. Rather than being the archaic, outmoded material that modern roof manufacturers would like you to believe, slate remains one of the most durable, beautiful, ecologically friendly roofing materials available. Unfortunately, unlike some new-fangled materials out there, it takes some skill to install and repair correctly. If you can keep the neanderthal monkeys off of it, it will last a hundred years or more. Especially with the pitch that we have. It is a crying shame our roof has been neglected and poorly patched for so long, but we are working on a little at a time to restore it. Our biggest issue isn't even the slate... it's the copper used on the window wells and valleys that has just plain worn out. The serviceable life of copper is about 75 years.

Here are a few fun things about the house. (Sorry no picture of the turret staircase... it's still under winter wraps to keep the draughts down.) This is the original incinerator. Most of the old houses here have had these ripped out of them. We are still playing around with ideas of what to do with it. Laundry chute? Recyclable chute? Using the flue over top of the big fantasy Wolf stove when we re-do the kitchen? Brick fired oven? It's so cool we still have this.

This is the hearth in front of the main fireplace in the living room. The other fire places are in the master bedroom, the room where we have the girls, and the attic bedroom. It needs a scrub, and I'm hoping Dan will take an interest in doing it.

This is the limestone patio outside the dining room and living room. It's where Dan had delusional fantasies about putting a lovely copper and glass conservatory over top. Those limestone blocks weigh a few tons a piece, prompting my contractor to scratch his head to try to figure out how they were originally laid. Dan and I just figure they did it like they built the Pyramids, with ramps and ropes and logs.

This is the original zinc sink from the butler's pantry - that's where the dishes were kept, so I guess that's where they were washed. The sink is joined out of pieces. It doesn't drain like it used to, because it has been bent somewhat out-of-shape and the pitch is funky, but it does not leak, the original fixtures still work and it fits beautifully into the surrounding original copper counter top. I am using it to start some trees we will be planting to take up some of the @#$%! water in the yard - big thirsty curly willows.

And finally, probably one of our favorite things about the house...
a lousy picture but it will have to do to illustrate the size of the dining room. That's the 72 inch round table that seats 8 comfortably, dwarfed in the distance. The dining room is huge, as are most of the rooms. We have less rooms and more space so we actually use most of the house on a daily basis. I could have counted on my fingers and toes the number of times we actually ate in the dining room of our old house. We eat in this dining room every day, enjoying our sizable investment in the furniture. The living room is the same - no frilly can't-sit-on-it in this house. There is no family room, rec room, media room, or rumpus room. We live in the living room. It's a lovely change from our old house where the formal rooms went to waste.

Now that I've shared some of the good, perhaps our mindset will be easier to understand. When it warms up, (outside, not inside,) I'll get some pictures of the yard and you'll be able to understand a even little bit more.

This cOld House 23

2007-03-02T08:50:00.000-05:00

It rained last night. When I was searching for a witty quote about water to open this entry, I couldn't find one that adequately described what was going on. However, I can relate to this one, (at least the first half of it):

I hate water ~W.C. Fields

(Actually the whole quote is, "I hate water - fish f*ck in it." ~W.C. Fields)

Status report. I have been told that the roofers are supposed to come today to dry-us-in. That is, they won't actually fix anything yet - we are still about a month away for that, but I have been advised that the chimney and the valley over the art room will be temporarily stanched. They will also look at the tarp over the window in the girls' bath and see if they can seal it. (Still leaking there.)

This is the leak around the chimney. I didn't bother to go up into the upper attic to show the leak on the backside as well... basically, the chimney, embedded in the corner where the two wings of the house meet, is functioning as a hole in the roof. God knows it doesn't actually function as a chimney.

This is the leak in the art room. We poked a hole in the plaster ceiling because it was so close to the light and we didn't want any build up around the fixture that would lead to short-circuits and death by fire. It has worked pretty well, because not only are we not dead, but the light still works too.

This is the leak in the basement. While it is much much better than it was, and the seepage from the old boiler platform and the crack in the floor has been stopped, it seems that the sump pump has not completely licked the problem. We are still leaking out of the pinholes in the concrete steps down to the lower basement. (We also have the leak coming from the outside wall of the coal bin, but are confident that when the new garage roof is finished, that one will be eliminated.)

Here's a new one. When Rob set the lid last week, he kind of pushed the downspout snake out of the way, which ripped it open. When they knocked off the flying buttress on the corner of the front wall to make room for the new garage wall, they left a hole. These two holes are in very close proximity, allowing the cascade of water off the roof to be directed into the hole in the side of the house. I know there is a Socratic chain here, but I can't put it into words... maybe hole in downspout + hole in house + water in downspout = water in house.

And finally, the sump pump did NOTHING to improve conditions in the laundry room, which flooded much worse last night (thanks to the melt as well as the rain) than it did even in the record breaking downpour we had in January. Korrect Plumbing will come take a look at adding a new drain, or another sump pump at this level. I think our choices will be either a sump pump for $1,500, or trenching the back yard and adding a french drain (like we did around the crawls space,) for $15,000.

Update on the pool: Phil the pool guy stopped by to take a look. He remembered the pool from when the Messicks lived here, (PJ - pre-johngineer) and said the pool is in pretty stable shape. We will have to have it drained and cleaned in the spring, and also have the broken valve replaced and the lines pressure tested to see if there was any damage other than the cracked valve from the freeze. That's kind of good news to us.

Tommie-Cat is getting fat. He used to free-feed at his old home, but there were 7 cats there and from what I understand, he wasn't very high on the totem pole. The vet told me to limit his food and it's been problematic. Because he likes to party all night, I've been locking him into the kitchen. When I got up Wednesday morning I found he had attacked the challah bread that was on the counter and also yarked all over the kitchen. Yesterday he helped himself to a good portion of the ground turkey I had just browned when I went to change Naomi. The vet warned me that a heavy cat is more prone to health problems but I'm to the point now where I feel like I'd rather have a dead happy cat than a live nasty one. Besides, I figure he'll trim down once he gets outside in the spring/summer, like the rest of us. Eat on, Tom!

This cOld House 22

2007-02-28T14:54:00.000-05:00

This house has some seriously bad water mojo. I'd best be finding me a Feng Shui expert pronto.

Leak of the moment:

The pool equipment has a cracked pipe, which is now draining the filthy, mucky, highly malodorous biology experiment which is the pool water into the area around the pool pump and heater, saturating it. This would be bad enough, if it weren't for the fact that the pump and heater sit precariously perched at the top of this:

This would be the eroding slope that is in the space between the steps from the backyard and the back wall of the old garage. It is actually on our to do list since the equipment is already sliding down the hill down to the level of the driveway, about 10 feet below. As if THAT weren't bad enough, the whole thing is on the other side of this:

This is the foundation crack in the garage. As you can see, it has been 'repaired' using an epoxy that holds the moisture well enough to start mildewing. (Before it lets the stinky water leak all over the garage floor.)

I have a call into my sweethearts, Korrect Plumbing, who are trying to find me someone to get out here today. I'm not sure how the pool pump system works, but the water level is already below the level of the intake, which leads me to believe that the water is coming out of the pool via the main drain... you know, the one at the bottom... meaning if the pool drains all the way, in addition to having a small landslide and a garage that smells like a petri dish full of bacteria, we'll also have a cracked pool. And yes, the pool equipment was winterized... Johngineer did it himself before we moved in. Is there anything he can't do?

Enough of that.

Here's the weatherproofing on the girls' bath window. (Since we are supposed to get that big bad-ass storm blowing through tonight.) We had a leak on the brand new unstained frame last weekend with which we were quite annoyed. Rob was, like, uh - oops.

No sign of the roofers. I do have a call in to their scheduler to get an idea of where we're at. I imagine the bad weather has pushed everything back a bit.

I want you all to know that I am through all the main phases of grief, (you know, mourning the death of Dan's and my savings account.)
Denial - "it's not that bad....
Guilt - "we shouldn't have bought this house...
Anger - "that son-of-a-bitch lied to us...
Acceptance - "I'll call (INSERT CONTRACTOR NAME HERE)...

This cOld House 21

2007-02-24T13:24:00.000-05:00

The lid arrived yesterday. It came stacked on a truck and a big crane loaded it off the truck into the yard and then worked placing the slabs in order from the south side to the north. Unfortunately, I had a baby sitter scheduled so I could do some errands and while I was able to see them put the first piece in place, by the time I got home it was done! There are 7 slabs of pre-cast concrete spanning 24 feet and weighing about 3 tons each. Next we need to weld and anchor it in place, (as if the 6000 pound slabs are going anywhere,) and then pour a 2 inch slurry of concrete on top.

Here's something (finally) we did right! We've put that shrink-wrap plastic up over the windows in the girls' room and thank goodness we did. All of a sudden this week we found a yellow jacket in the girls room. We knew that there had been a few last fall, but as the week wore on, all of a sudden there was a flurry of activity from the nest in the wall and we now have over 50 of them in various stages of demise trapped behind the plastic. Stefan, (the exterminator with whom I am now on a first name basis,) said there's nothing we can do until we can pinpoint the entry/exit from the outside. With the ground still covered in icy snow, he couldn't get his ladder out to do that. But we are first on his list once we get a good thaw.

Dan says it annoys him when I do posts with no pictures so I have added some pics to my last post. I'll endeavor to put at least one in from now on.

I've discovered Tommie's new 'office'. (As you may recall, when the walls were open in the girls' bath, he would climb into the eaves and crawl under the floorboards, staying all day long, emerging covered in dust and dirt around supper time.) We closed up the bathroom wall this week. Coincidentally, the cat has been waking me up at night wanting to party and so at night I've been putting him in the back half of the house (kitchen, with access to his litter box down in the laundry room,) where he promptly found another ingress to the bowels of the house. He went down this morning and I haven't seen him for the past 6 hours. There is a large opening in the laundry room wall for what used to be the ducting for the original coal fired furnace. We found it when we tore out the rotten root cellar shelving after the last flood. I was doing laundry this morning when Tommie skulked in and jumped into the hole.

This cOld House 20

2007-02-22T15:53:00.000-05:00

Update on the gas bill pool. I've canceled the contest since I had the dates wrong for the billing cycle and didn't want to be accused of any impropriety, (Pop,) and also, I had virtually no takers! The gas bill for January 11 to February 9 (29 days,) was $641.22.

We are still crawling at a snails pace on the other open projects. Dan gave up on doing the walls ourselves, so we had Rob get his drywaller over to tape and mud the cracks. Daylight (yup, that's the name embroidered on his shirt,) did a very nice job taping up and patching where the new window frame went in as well as going over the tape job I did on the cracks and filling in some other bad areas. We will be ready to paint this weekend and will stain the floor next week with an eye on having the bath complete by the week of March 5.

Rob and Co. came by this week to build a temp wall and set a steel beam over top to hold the flexicore panels which are supposed to be installed tomorrow, (I'll believe it when I see it,) and finish off filling in and drilling through the old window openings to hold the angle iron against the kitchen wall to which the ends of the flexicore will be welded/bolted. And they shoveled out the ice and snow so they would have a nice work surface, instead of an ice work surface.

We discussed door options and Rob and Co. will be building a set of walk thru doors for the old garage where we are taking out the lift door and building a solid wall. We'll also remove the original sliding carriage house door (now fixed in place), build a wall and put a high transom window on the other side. That should go a long way in improving the temperature in the garage and kitchen/office/art room on top.

We are not looking forward to having the opening cut between the old and new garage. Concrete cutting produces a dust so fine that it's like smoke and seeps in everywhere. We know that even with measures in place, we won't be able to stop the dust from seeping in all over the house and then settling everywhere. That will happen in about a month once the inside of the garage is trimmed out and the lift door hung.

The cat finally caught a mouse (with proof) this week. The mouse was getting pretty bold considering Tommie's been on board for a couple of months. He must have lulled him into a false sense of security. I was up in the middle of the night on Tuesday and was presented with the rodent. It was fresh! Thanks, Tommie. The cat has also figured out another way into the walls/floor as he turned up filthy again this morning, with all the usual holes still blocked. If only we could train him to administer a shot of that foam sealant wherever he's finding these holes.

We have a meeting with the landscape architect on Saturday. We are going to take a look at the side lot as well, working towards a master plan for re-foresting it. (Dan wants to plant a labyrinth, complete with reflecting pool/gazing ball in the middle - I guess this goes along with his grand plan for the conservatory over top the limestone patio outside the dining room.) We hear that Seibenthalers (the go-to nursery/landscape co. in these parts,) has a kick-butt tree sale in the fall and the more you buy, the more they discount. We'll be waiting for that one.

I'll be ready with the camera tomorrow should the crane and panels show up.

This cOld House 19

2007-02-09T07:48:00.000-05:00

This morning as I was making Cocoa for the girls, I saw our mouse. Rather, I saw a streaking blur out of the corner of my eye darting from under the fridge to under the stove - I couldn't really see it as it was going about 240 miles per hour. I called to Tommie-Cat, disturbing his breakfast. He looked at me like "whatever..." and went back to his 'cat beans' (as Naomi calls his food.)

We have contracted for storm windows for the dining room and living room. It'll be six weeks, just in time for spring!

I'm headed to Lexington this weekend with the girls, Dan is staying put to work on the bathroom. (We're responsible for painting it.) If he doesn't get it done, I'll release Rob to get on it next week. I am eager to push it along since the tub in the master bath (which we are NOT re-doing any time soon,) kind of blew out this week. Korrect Plumbing (my heroes) were able to get it back together, even 'though Dan, who harbors a secret desire to be a plumber, got to it first and essentially trashed it. Thank goodness we saved the tub valve out of the girls' bathroom - the plumber stripped the seats and stems off of it to make our tub work. But that valve won't last for long so we need to get the other tub up and running for the girls. Dan and I can survive without a tub since we have the separate shower, but the kids really need one.

I finally got a plan out of one of the landscape contractors. It wasn't at all what I wanted, so it's back to the drawing board. (Not that I can even fathom doing yard work in this cold.) Looking ahead... looking ahead....

Dan and I came across an article about retro fitting insulation in older homes. After the weather this week, we are intrigued by it. I'll point it out to Rob for his opinion when I next see him.

I've only had one taker on the gas bill pool. (See my last post.) Let me know if you are interested!

This reallyfreakin'cOld House 18

2007-02-06T15:29:00.000-05:00

The mercury has dipped in this part of the country. It has dipped and stayed close to record lows. We have a few more days of the bone-chilling stuff ahead of us. In spite of our new HVAC system, and the flurry of window and door taping we did this weekend, the furnaces (all three) have been going non-stop for over 72 hours and the house is just above 60 degrees. Dale stopped by and did a couple of adjustments, including speeding up the blower on the basement unit but we are losing the battle. The storm window guy is coming on Thursday to quote the girls' room, and I'm just going to have him do the living room and dining room at the same time. When we put the plastic over the dining room windows, it BILLOWED. So much so that we couldn't even get it taped. We just slid the window seat cushions over it.

Walking past any window in the house, even the ones well taped and covered, the drafts are keenly palpable. The cold air is seeping THROUGH the front door. Not, not around the edges, but actually through the jointed panels. It's so cold, Tommie-Cat just snuggles deeper into the bed, the mice run rampant in the kitchen all night, their little frozen turds left like caraway seeds on the counters and stove, greeting me in the morning.

I'm starting a pool: Guess our gas bill for February!
Rules: Entrance fee is $5.00 The closest guess (over or under) wins one half of the pot, the other half going to pay a portion of the gas bill. In the case of a tie, proceeds will be split 1/4 each winner, half to the house. To help you out, December's bill was $354.41.

Rob and his crew have retreated to an indoor job. They were able to almost get the steel bracket attached to the garage wall where the concrete lid will be welded and bolted, but it's not quite finished, and we have to wait a couple of weeks for the roof to come anyways.

Dan and I will continue to prowl around the house with a roll of duct tape and tube of caulking targeting baseboard cracks and holes. Remember, this house has NO insulation, so the outside walls are icy on the inside, and wherever there is a penetration, a draft spills through.

The girls haven't bathed for four days - but hopefully, with the space heater going full blast all day in the bathroom (to keep the pipes from re-freezing) we'll get them in tonight.

This cOld House 17

2007-01-31T12:25:00.000-05:00

It has been a couple of weeks since my last post. Progress has slowed considerably on the open projects and things have calmed down. Thankfully, after three solid days (and 4 inches) of rain, we froze solid. While the water under the house is unaffected by this, at least we no longer have to deal with runoff from up the hill. (It runs into the back wall of the house, seeps down along the wall to underneath the various levels of the basement, and then percolates back up from the hydrostatic pressure through minute cracks in the the floors and walls.) Also, the dusting of snow we've been getting almost every night tends to blow/slide off the roof before it melts and leaks into the house. So we are relatively dry inside. Here's where we stand:

ROOF - we are about 3 weeks out on the roof repairs. The copper around the big chimney all needs to be replaced. We are also doing the flashing on the back dormer and the window pan for the girls' bathroom. Additionally, we are mortaring the chimney cap and re-pointing the really badly deteriorated areas, and then sealing the brick and mortar to help arrest any further water damage on the chimney. Also, we've begun to lose slates on the south face. This is the loooooooong side of the roof. Once one pops out, all the others around it get loose and it's just a matter of time, (or a big wind) before a whole lot of damage is done. We are doing a total tear-off of a square and a half, (a square is 10 feet by 10 feet, or 100 square feet,) and replacing it all. We had planned on doing a section at a time starting with the worst looking areas, but the leaks and damage that have surfaced are necessitating a rather large portion to be done this year. We'll continue as planned next year, doing one copper window pan and replacing individual damaged slates on the front hip.

We added a sump-pump in the lowest level of the basement. (What a messy job that was.) There was so much water under the house that when they jack-hammered through the slab, a small geyser erupted. It was only a one day process and judging by the amount of water we see being continually pumped out, it was the right move. This has stopped the leaking - we think. We won't be able to tell if it works until the spring thaw, when the water begins to move freely again. Also, because the sump-pump piping will eventually be tied into the drainage system around the new garage, it's just a pipe sticking out of the basement wall that dumps the water at the base of said wall. Dan thinks most of the water keeps making a round-trip. Time will tell.

I was able to chip all the glazing off one of the bathroom windows and get the leaded sash out of the steel frame. Rob has the frame and is working on replicating the wood for the girls' bath. We also got a the estimate for re-glazing the windows in place. This won't allow us to refurbish the wood frames but it is a quarter of the cost and should stop further water damage as well as tighten up the air flow. We have pretty well decided we will stick with the old windows. We just have so many options for improving them - total re-furbishing at $1000 per sash, glazing for about $250, a hybrid of us versus someone else doing it for peanuts, and then adding storm windows in areas where we feel we need them. Between all of these solutions we can tailor our choices to match each windows' requirements. (Some are worse than others and need total refurbishing, others just need glazing and a storm window.) I'm satisfied it's the right decision.

The girls' bath has come to a screeching halt waiting for us (Dan and I) to get it painted. I thought I was close but then the Paint-Nazi got involved last weekend and decided to rip out the medicine cabinet, re-sand and tape all the cracks, and generally make the 85 year old walls 'perfect.' We didn't get the prep done last weekend, this weekend is a guard weekend, next weekend I'm off to Lexington to do some visiting, and so we are at least another three weeks out.

The concrete guys showed up early on Monday morning and poured the floor of the garage. Then two guys spent ALL DAY working it. When I looked out at about 9:30 AM it was pretty flat but those guys kept working it for 7 more hours. I didn't understand what took so long until I read about it. Then they covered it up with blankets and I haven't seen them since. We are still a couple of weeks out for the flexicore roof.

It's pretty cold here this week. We have ice on the inside of the windows in the morning. The house is chilly and it has urged us to move forward on the storm windows and putting up the shrink wrap plastic. We found some Johngineered storm windows in the basement and have installed them. I'm taping around doors that aren't being used. The furnaces seem to be going non-stop. The girls are wearing slippers without me nagging them to do so.

We ordered some carpet some weeks ago - a nice commercial grade to be bound into a rug for the dining room. The floor is taking a beating from the chairs scraping across it and with some of the joins between the planks having opened up more than a quarter inch in the last 85 years, enough food to feed a large family of rodents routinely gets trapped. (Getting down on my hands and knees after every meal to pick it out with a butter knife is not in the cards.) When we were shopping, I had one criteria - can I wipe yogurt off of this surface? And we splurged for a nice, warm, cushy cut pile for the living room, again, to be a bound area rug. They should arrive tomorrow.

My tree guy is in the neighborhood today and so we are going ahead with some maintenance. The Hackberry Trees need the deadwood out and we'll start on Ivy mitigation before the spring growth spurt. Same with the Catalpa, although we'll leave some of the massive Ivy roots attached, just pulling the leafy, weighty parts off the top. As far as we can tell, the Ivy trunk, (which is a good 4 inches in diameter,) is actually helping to stabilize the tree. We are hoping to keep the Catalpa for a few more years. It's about 70 feet tall and losing it will really scar the yard. You can see it dwarfing the house in the picture of the south face above. Its lowest branches are peeking into the picture on the right side.

Water, Water, Everywhere 16

2007-01-15T10:48:00.000-05:00

It is so hard to write this post. I feel like I've been ranting for weeks with no end and none today since we are at a particularly low point. I wish I'd never seen this house and that we'd bought the charmless house in Wisteria that looked like it had an overbite.

Water is running down the chimney flue in the attic on three sides. I have four garbage cans stationed up there and have pretty well given up capturing it since it changes course every few minutes.

Windows are leaking in the girls bedroom, bathroom, the guest room, the attic room, our bedroom and then I stopped looking.

The basement has water running all over the place, every floor at every level is wet.

I just need a quarter acre tarp. Maybe one of those big tennis court bubbles.

I wonder if Dorothy Lane Market delivers Killer Brownies?

I am cursing Johngineer, knowing that he had to have been lying through his teeth when we asked him about the water worthiness of this house.

This Wet House 15

2007-01-14T15:52:00.000-05:00

This is Dan's civil engineering project - a small canal set to drain the moat around the new garage.

It has been raining for three days straight.

We have been taking on water for two and a half days.

I went up to the attic bedroom to clean Tommy's cat box and discovered it full of mounds of clumps. I thought "Wow that cat pees a lot," and then I saw the tell-tale holes made from a drip-drip-dripping action. Sure enough the beam and ceiling above was wet. The good news is that the cat box and litter pretty well caught all the water. We have a garbage can in place now.

We have at least two roof leaks and water is seeping in the cracks of the floor/walls on three levels in the basement/garage. We discovered another leak at the bottom of the stairs from the kitchen to the front hall, but that will be fixed when the new garage gets a roof. Likewise on one of the two leaks in the old garage.

The big chimney has copper all around it and it looks (from where we were standing,) as though the seam is cracked. If this is the case, it's a quick fix, if not it means a bunch of copper work, and either way the entire chimney will need to be re-flashed. That is not very bad news, since it means that the actual slate is still holding and so far the only problems we've had are copper related.

The basement is also somewhat easy to fix. This house does NOT have a sump pump. That's rare for the age/location. We can add one fairly inexpensively, (under $500,) and it looks as though that is what we will be doing. What I'm not sure of is if one will do the job or if we will have to do two or more since the ground water is seeping in on three different levels.

Our true problem is that the house is built on a hill and the whole back and side yard slopes towards the house. So all the ground water runs to the house, then hits it and goes down, creating hydrostatic pressure, which then forces the water up wherever it can manage to go, such as minute cracks in our basement floor, walls etc.

Adding an element of danger is the fact that the swimming pool is located fifteen feet outside the dining room and although it was drained at least a foot down when it was winterized, it is now within an inch of overflowing. If it overflows, the water will go directly into the basement. Since the pool currently looks like a biology experiment, Dan has taken it upon himself to set up a siphon with the garden hose this afternoon to take the level back down out of the danger zone. We hope.

The electricians left on Friday after a very long day where they were pushing to get everything done. They got kind of sloppy near the end and we have a long punch list for them. Glen finished the tile in the girls' bath, but there are a couple of spots where the grout looks low - I'll ask Rob's opinion on Tuesday. Rob started replacing the drywall in the bathroom and even got a good coat of mud on. He'll need to put a couple more on and then sand the floor and then I think we'll be ready for paint. We are holding off altogether on the window until we make a decision on replacing or repairing. The plywood is on the inside of the frame and there is water leaking in underneath the damaged sill. Not sure what we'll do to weather proof that until the roof guys come out and lay the new copper in a month.

I've had a reminder in the last couple of weeks about verbal vs written instructions and I'm going to have to be much more careful about documenting stuff.

I'm getting irritable from having subs traipsing in and out all day every day. We aren't expecting the flexicore (garage roof) to be installed for another month and we are about done with plumbers et al for the inside project so I'm expecting some peace and quiet in the next few weeks. And I'm looking forward to it.

This cOld House 14

2007-01-10T12:52:00.000-05:00

True to its name, the portion of the house heated by 'furnace 2' got down to a chilly 49 overnight as Dale was unable to get the part he needed to fix the brand new furnace in the basement which quit yesterday. He returned this morning and was able to correct the problem and we had gained about 10 degrees in the first hour after it began working. We are back to normal now, and cautiously watching the others for additional citrus signs. (Lemons?)

The concrete guys stopped by long enough yesterday morning to drop off blankets and tuck in the walls. With temps dipping into the twenties over night they needed to keep it hot enough to cook (cure.)

Glen is moving along on the tile. Tommy happily crawls into the floor every morning when Glen arrives and I don't see him until the house is quiet at 6:00 pm.

The electricians, (bless their hearts,) are hard at work completely re-wiring the kitchen. They've been here three days straight and have still some more work to do. It's taking much more time than I anticipated but as an added bonus, they managed to fix the call button box when they were fixing the doorbell. They work a bunch in Oakwood, and while they had seen call buttons before, they were quite excited to see that they were still operable and hooked up to the original mechanical box. They'd never seen that before.

Payne and Co., (the drainage people,) have their liliputian equipment stationed out by the living room and are making good progress on the excavation there. Their back-hoe is so cute! Rob's guy will be patching the holes in the foundation with some hydrostatic cement, then the whole thing will be water-proofed, gravel and drain tiles installed, all the drains and down spouts tied in and then back-filled to grade. Again a bonus, the arbor vitae I dislike had to be torn up to facilitate the excavation.

When Rob took out the windows in the girls' bathroom, he fitted the hole with a 1/4 piece of bead-board plywood. It was over 85 degrees in the bathroom this morning, testament to the amount of heat we are losing through the darn windows. Dan says we have a solution... just cover them all up with plywood!

I did meet with a storm window guy yesterday and that option looks better and better. More on that later.

This cOld House 13

2007-01-08T12:23:00.000-05:00

Well, happy birthday to me!

Right now at my house I have a tile guy, a plumber, four electricians, a whole crew of concrete guys, my G.C., his carpenter and the drainage guys are on their way. To paraphrase Steve Martin in The Jerk, "Things are gonna start happening here now!"

I was not expecting the electricians today, and had I known they were coming, I probably wouldn't have worked so hard to remove debris on the floor this weekend. They have a couple of days work so I really shouldn't clean up until later in the week. The wood floors are taking a beating from the rubble, (plaster dust, sand and chunks,) and we are trying to mitigate damage by wiping up every night. It is, however a Sysyphian task.

The good news is that we can now plug in them modrun new-fangled thangs (like a DVD player) in the girls' room. Also, I should have plugs that work without kicking off breakers in the kitchen, light switches that control only the lights, not every outlet in the room, power to the pool house, more than one phone outlet, and the ability to use the lap-top in the living room by the end of the week.

With lath and plaster houses, the metal mesh they lay over the lath strips to hold the plaster wreaks havoc with wireless signals. The cordless phone only works in half the house, the computer's wireless router only reaches to the dining room, and when the guys are working in the basement they have to turn their phones off or they go dead in an hour from frantically trying to find a network.

Tommy Cat has broadened his domain to include crawling in behind the walls in the bathroom we have all tore up and getting up under the eaves, where he has discovered a loose floor board leading to the 10 inch space between the girls' bedroom floor and the ceiling below in the dining room. He disappears for hours at a time and emerges a completely different color than when he went in. We have a black smudge on our bed cover from his nocturnal forays and returns. When we pet him, our hands turn black. We did attempt to block him out of the bathroom but he meows like a fiend when he can't get in and has actually found another way to get there. Rather than fight it, we are letting him go. He also found his way into the pipe chase in our bedroom to the master bath, but we've managed to dissuade him from there by leaving the other bathroom open. The mouse poop in the kitchen has been diminishing all week and I did not find any this morning.

The concrete guys passed their inspection this morning and they are pouring walls right now.

Rob managed to pull the girls' bathroom windows out, so we now have a clear look at how bad the water damage on the sill is. It's BAD! We will be pulling the whole window frame out and rebuilding it to the dimensions of the not-yet-discovered solution to the window problem. I have another window guy looking next week - a restoration specialist from Cinci.

I will post now because I'm so excited, and add pictures later when the electricians stop cutting power indiscriminately.

This cOld House 12

2007-01-03T02:39:00.000-05:00

Today was a pretty significant day. The concrete foreman, Doug, showed up to check progress and we got a big gravel drop. That makes the mud pit look a little more like the beginning of a garage. The hole has dried out a bit after the buckets of rain we got over the weekend and Doug said his crew would be by tomorrow by noon with forms to start the walls. Yippee.

They started tearing up the girls' bathroom today. Rob said they'd break up the tub to get it out and I mistakenly figured they'd be cutting it into pieces. The process was somewhat more violent and involved Larry, a ten-pound sledgehammer, and porcelain shards raining down through minute cracks in the kitchen ceiling.

The rodent abatement system is installed but is not working exactly as planned. The first couple of days Tommy hid upstairs in the attic room where we deposited him upon entering the house. The night of the second day he meowed to get out of the room and we let him start exploring. He seemed to be getting comfortable but when we turned in for the night he had some trouble settling down. We figured he'd just start investigating the myriad of pests currently residing with us but instead of eradicating them, he's an audible alarm that sounds all night whenever he hears something, which is constantly. We aren't quite sure what the problem is, as we were assured the cat was well behaved and a good hunter. It's entirely possible the cat is suffering from target saturation. We are torn - we dislike the mice, but we are rather fond of sleeping, and while we would like to keep the cat and lose the mice, if we can't correct the situation we'll be keeping the mice and losing the insomnia.

I met with the first of the replacement window guys. (As opposed to the repair/refurbish window guys I met with several weeks ago.) The refurbish bids came in higher than I had hoped. Every window in the house needs work. Some are worse than others, but all need re-glazing, and when I say that I'm not just talking about re-glazing the sash in the frame, rather, the material between the individual glass pieces, (diamonds) and the lead came has deteriorated to the point where the panels are no longer air or water tight. This involves first getting the window out of the oak jamb, removing the panel from the frame, pulling the entire panel apart, cleaning the glass pieces, cutting new came, fitting it back together (with the new glazing between glass and came,) and re-soldering the whole she-bang. Then stripping the frame of 85 years of paint and rust, cutting out the metal that has rusted through and welding new pieces in, painting or sealing the frame, fitting the leaded glass panel back in, re-glazing it and putting it back in the (hopefully) re-milled oak jamb. It's about a $900 process and at the end of it, we'd still have a single glazed window that needs some kind of a storm window custom fitted. Oh, and did I mention that we have 76 leaded sashes? (And 10 additional steel casement windows.)

I've submitted a request to the This Old House television program website. Gosh, I hope they find my witty inquiry worthy of investigation.

This cOld House 11

2006-12-26T07:43:00.000-05:00

We will see what this week brings. As of last Thursday, we've had a big muddy hole in the ground and not a body around. The concrete cutter showed up for a few hours on Friday, lopped off the two slabs which the backhoe couldn't remove and disappeared. Chance of rain today is 90% so I can assume that no one involved with concrete company will show up. Likewise on Rob and Co. since there's not much for his crew to do.

Dan has had a nice long weekend off and we've gotten a little more organized - even taking care of some stuff he's been wanting to get put away since we moved in. We've moved the bed out of the art room, (where my Mom slept when she visited,) and have re-arranged the furniture to avoid the leak in the ceiling. The roof guy will take a look Wednesday. Our bathroom is a little better organized, the laundry room is mostly cleaned up and put back together after being decimated by the plumbers and electricians. Dan even cleaned up a bit in the garage.

Last night as Mim played in the kitchen, she claimed to have seen an animal scurry across the floor and go under the fridge. She was sure it was a raccoon, although just hours earlier I had found mouse droppings on my bottle of 409 in the back hall closet. We investigated but did not see anything and assume it's a mouse. We still haven't gotten a cat yet but are feeling more of a sense of urgency to do so.

We also have what I am sure are Indian Meal Moths - and I haven't had the heart to clean out the food cupboards yet. It's a near impossible job the way the drawers in the kitchen are built, and we'll probably have to use traps. Dan thinks I'm nuts but I do have a little experience with these pantry pests.

The weather forecast indicates we may have a break in the rain Wednesday/Thursday. If so, we can expect some forms to be built and if it doesn't get to cold we should be poured early next week. Keep your fingers crossed.

This cOld House 10

2006-12-21T14:08:00.000-05:00

The big dig went very well yesterday and we now have a double garage sized hole in the front yard. The neighbors are going crazy!

The guys had virtually no trouble digging although they did come up against a previously unknown massive tree stump which took a little doing to get out. Also, the wing walls on the old garage corner and the corner by the front door are proving quite stubborn to remove. Concrete that has cured for 85 years is pretty hard stuff and when the backhoe started slipping off the hill when the operator tried to pull it down, they backed off and got out the saws. Two saws later, we still have wing walls and with the rain moving in, the digging crew gave up and left.

Speaking of rain, I was working at the computer and Mim was in the art room next door and I kept hearing a tinking sound, then Mim walked in asking if I wanted to play with her in the living room and I realized with horror that she wasn't in the art room and the sound I was hearing was not being made by her. Fearfully I investigated and confirmed my deepest darkest terror. Tink, tink, tink went the rain into the sopping spot in the carpet, like a stake into my heart.

The light at the end of the tunnel has officially been extinguished.

This cOld House 9

2006-12-19T17:11:00.000-05:00

Oh I have a little backhoe
It's sitting in my yard
They backed it off the big ol' truck
It wasn't very hard

It's black and gray and yellow
It's not so very big
And come tomorrow morning
The guys will start to dig

They have to move the logs off
And salvage stone and bricks
But all the guys will be here;
Rob and Bob and both the Ricks.

I'm glad they're finally starting
To dig and pour the walls
Because it's getting colder
Than the old brass monkey's balls!

So hopefully quite soon
I'll have a place to park
That's cozy and well lit
Instead of cold and wet and dark

This cOld House 8.1

2006-12-14T21:36:00.000-05:00

Yep, you guessed it.

Drenching hot rainstorm in basement, discovered on the way out for date night. Had the babysitter field the house call of the profusely apologetic plumber. Did I mention they poked a hole through my new laundry basin earlier? Drank heavily while on date.

Plumber appropriately contrite, due in no small part to witnessing the firing of the electrician this morning.

Thinking of moving the pool indoors, to the basement that likes to be wet. Failing that, perhaps planting a rice paddy.

This cOld House 8

2006-12-14T11:11:00.000-05:00

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Dewayne, Electrical Inspector for the Neighboring City to Pleasantville, (who does the Pleasantville construction inspections.) Unfortunately, he had nothing good to say about the power in my kitchen. He had deja vu when he pulled up to the house to inspect the new panel we put in last week, and when I got to talking to him about some apparently open issues that the City of Oakwood cited us on our property transfer inspection, he started to recall the disastrous inspection he carried out here when the kitchen was redone. (And that he was never recalled to final the stuff, presumably because it was never corrected.) I am currently awaiting a copy of his laundry list.

Tim and Troy and Matt are wreaking havoc in the basement, pulling out galvanized pipe to beat the band. Tim said there was a LOT of pipe, like three times what we actually needed. This is good news since we opted to NOT install the recirculating pump on the hot water heater. So while it currently takes about 2 minutes for hot water to make it up to our bathroom, it should be cut in less than half when we replace the pipes with a more direct route.

The bid came in for the new gas service/pipes and it's a go. We'll do that as soon as we have a front wall on the new garage so we can attach the new meter.

The concrete guy happened to show up at the same time Mark came by to grind out the stumps from the trees we took down Tuesday and they had a meeting of the minds, so we are all set to start digging TOMORROW or Monday. I'm so excited! By the way, watching the 'lumberjacks' take down the trees was a thing of beauty. It was like a ballet the way the guys all knew their moves and jumped in and out to get it done smoothly and safely. And today the stump grinder kicked butt! I want to grind stumps when I grow up. Mark has one of only 2 in Ohio and 340 in the entire country, a stump grinder that just freakin' ATE the tree. It was like a 20 inch circular saw on the front that swept back and forth decimating anything in its way. The teeth on the blade were about 3 inches long! Very cool to watch.

I got the bid on restoring the windows and was NOT happy. I called Rob to get the Pella or Andersen or Marvin guy to come over and discuss replacement options. I also got an e-mail from the garage door guy and am awaiting a bid for that.

By the way, I fixed our garage door that was broken. It was a four dollar and eighty one cent personal victory after thousands and thousands of dollars of defeat this week.

This weekend I believe we get to test drive our squirrel abatement system. I hope Kitty is mean when it comes to wildlife because she has quite a lot of established residents to show who is boss. There is a rotund woodchuck that lives under the pool house, dozens of gray squirrels, (some as big as small cats,) a raccoon, and a hedgehog looking thing that wanders in the dark. Go Kitty Go!

This cOld House 7

2006-12-05T14:46:00.000-05:00

It's been a slow couple of weeks with Dale working in the attic on the new HVAC and nothing much else going on. I met with the plumber and electrician to go over what all our wants/needs are. I had a sitter a couple of afternoons so I could head on down to the tile showroom and pick out something small (and cheap) for the girls' bathroom.

The bid came in for the garage project and it was WAY higher than expected. I keep underestimating most jobs, I suppose because I haven't worked in the industry for a decade or so. I met with the GC and Architect to do some expense control, as well as with our real estate agent to get some guidance on what price he feels this house in this neighborhood can support. He has sold it twice, and knows the area well. I want to pick his brain on what feedback he got from other folks who viewed the house when it was on the market. I'm hoping that the boring stuff we are fixing, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, etc. is the kind of stuff that scared other buyers away, and that we can expect some recompense from these outlays. (Slim chance, but hope springs eternal.)

We did get some nice bids for the girls' bath and the rest of the plumbing. It's a go ahead. And with the temperatures dropping in to the 'teens in the past week, I'm VERY eager to start work on the garage, budget be damned.

I had to fire the electrician today. I was satisfied with neither the work nor the service and he pissed me off one too many times. Back to the drawing board there, with no really good alternative available.

We will be starting on the basement pipes tomorrow. The HVAC is all done except for the A/C which we won't be needing any time soon.

Today the tree guys are here razing my front yard. It will start the neighbors talking for sure! I'm trying to get some good picture in between doing laundry, blogging and keeping the kids fed. I tell 'ya, there's real beauty in watching pros do what they do best.

Last night the garage door jammed. We managed to get it closed, but there will be no more ingress/egress through that route until we are able to either fix it inexpensively ourselves, or replace it altogether with the new wall and double walk thru door.

This cOld House 6.1

2006-12-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

As is often the case, I spoke too soon...

As I was blissfully blogging a few short moments ago, Dan was enjoying a glass of scotch, watching TV and listening to the soft pitter-patter of rain, er, hang on, that sounds like a small stream, is that the TV?? (mute the TV) uh, that sounds awfully close, is there water running somewhere?? er, are the windows leaking?? HOLY SH*T!

There was in fact a steady flow coming in under the wall in the corner of the living room, draining to the crawl space underneath. It was POURING into the house, creating a lovely water feature, splishing and splashing this way and that.

I donned a raincoat and proceeded with flashlight and umbrella out to the suspect area to find that the downspout was CLOGGED and the entire front southwest quarter of the roof of the house was draining into our crawl space.

NOTE: Yes, the gutters were cleaned TODAY!!! I'll be following up tomorrow to check if they also say they did the downspouts.

Dan and I returned with a pair of pliers and unclogged it, reattaching the snake that pulls the water four feet away from the foundation. That slowed the interior stream to a fast drip.

We saw signs of this problem when Rick fixed the floor a couple of weeks ago. There is a sill plate, (piece of lumber) between the poured foundation wall of the crawl space and the brick and stucco wall of the living room. The sill plate had completely rotted away. At the time we all just thought, well, the wall isn't moving so I guess there's not much we can/should do about that.

I'll be needing a bid from Rob to excavate the entire exterior of the living room and waterproof it. Particularly the gap left where that lumber has rotted away.

Dan and I, drenched from our impromptu repair, stood dripping in the living room, laughing hysterically. I believe we are going mad.

This cOld House 6

2006-11-30T21:30:00.000-05:00

The last couple of days have been very very busy around here. Dale started on the attic HVAC unit, cutting through ceilings for duct work and hauling the hardware upstairs to the attic. Hey did you know there's not a scrap of insulation between the attic and the the living space below??? There's a quick fix for some efficiency. I'm waiting on Rob's insulation guy (Rob - my general contractor,) to get me some numbers. Dale was missing today, working on fashioning ducts in the shop which worked out terrifically as the power (and water) was off in the house for most of the day.

Rick,(the carpenter who fixed the living room floor,) Larry and Bob Sr. have been tag-teaming on the beam in the garage. Rick and Larry built three support walls to hold up the cantilevered room over top and then mid-way through the second day Rick and then Bob worked to remove the beam that was all ate up. There were three 2 x 8 planks and a 2 x 4 involved, with one 2 x 8 remaining pretty solid. They replaced the remaining two and the 2 x 4 with three more 2 x 8 planks and hung the joists on hangers. The sub-floor was pretty ate up as well, but we can't really get to it as it is under the wall from above. Bob was confident that it wouldn't be an issue.

Tim the plumber was able to get all the water pipes out of the way, shutting down the downstairs bath until the project is done. He had to move some valves and add a couple to get it isolated and shut off, and then cut and capped the pipes. The electric remained in the way.

Right when Rick was getting down to the nitty-gritty pulling out the beam the electricians showed up. These were replacement electricians as the original guy was too busy to get to the panel to meet Bob's schedule. So Tom and crew swarmed in at noon and cut the power, ripping out the old 200 AMP panel, moving the meter and installing a new 200 AMP panel over by where the new A/C condensers will sit outside the old garage. Then they added a new 100 AMP sub-panel where the old panel was, and hooked up the rest of the house back to it. All of this took care of the main line which had to be moved out of the way of the beam replacement project, as well as various and sundry fire hazards discovered when we ripped down the drywall ceiling in the old garage. Tom is coming by tomorrow to see what all else needs to be done. (Making the plugs kid-safe, fixing the code issues in the kitchen, running new clean power to the A/V and computers, adding a phone jack so we can answer the phone in the living room.) Dan also said something about running some CAT6 (ethernet) around as well.

Rob and Co. (That's the two Rick's, Bob Sr. and Larry, so far,) will have no more to do once the beam is done until I get a firm bid on the new garage and the bathroom remodel. As it is we're about 2 good man-weeks into T & M (time and material) stuff and that makes me nervous. The living room floor had a price tag on it but they found more damage than anticipated, and I have only my own estimation on what the beam will cost us.

Tim the plumber had some good news for us in that we now have a pretty good plan on how to clean up the miles of pipes in the house. The girls bathroom is now a must do, for several reasons, but once it is done, we will have over half the house re-plumbed, (correctly and legally,) including all the supply in the basement. It will be great to get rid of all the old galvanized piping down there as it's corroding as I sit here, waiting to spring a leak. (Not to mention the 17 rusting valves in the laundry room alone.) He managed to replace the main shut off valves, install a pressure regulator and baffle, several angle stops and bring the kitchen gas valve up to code. Unfortunately when he reduced the water pressure from 115 PSI to the recommended 85 PSI, we lost all pressure to the upstairs fixtures. (The cold lines are almost completely corroded shut, which is why doing the girls' bath has moved up the priority list.)

I met with a landscape architect to work up a proposal for the front of the house when we tear it up to put in the garage. He seems to be right on track with what I outlined and I'm sure if he watches his spending, he'll do a bang-up plan for us. I meet with a different landscape architect tomorrow to do it all over again.

My other landscape guy dropped by today, (the one who did the clean-up on the yard) and I grabbed him to talk about the stretch of mud along the back of the house. He's working up numbers for me for putting flagstones down. Dan wants to get a second opinion on the catalpa tree, so I'll be calling around tomorrow to get someone out. It is not an immediate need - we can probably wait a year or two before we have to yank it down.

Today the gutters were cleaned for the last time this season. All the trees are now bare so we no longer have to fear a gutter back-up, (provided we don't have a problem with an ice dam.)

All in all we've had a pretty good week with no real surprises. (Although when Tim grabbed an old recirculating line to indicate it needed to be removed, it broke free of its moorings and fell on his head. He had to temporarily tack it back up.) As it turns out, once the termite-beam was removed, the joists were found to be solid, so we didn't have to replace any of them. I haven't had the heart to tell Rick we still have a soft spot in the living room floor behind a duct that he probably didn't see. (He is nursing broken ribs from a car accident last week and I can't imagine shimmying around my crawlspace would be very good for the ailment.) And Other Rick, (the one who worked on all the doors earlier in the week,) appears to have glued my back door shut, which will have to be freed. That back door really needs to be replaced, but we are holding off on frivolous stuff like that. It works just fine for now, (if you put your shoulder into it.)

I'm actually starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, this tunnel is a detour I was forced into on my way to building a garage. Still, it's good we are taking care of these things in such a manner that they shouldn't bother us for another 30 years or so. I'm really quite thrilled that the plumbing has presented itself to be a short term project that won't be nearly as difficult as I had feared. And Dan, who is the voice of reason (budget,) also agrees.

This cOld House 5

2006-11-28T14:05:00.000-05:00

We are really starting to move along now that my general contractor has freed up on his last job. He cut loose his uncle (a finish carpenter) to work on our place, and as we speak he is making the doors open and close with a fluidity not seen in decades in this place.

Dale the HVAC guy replaced two furnaces last week, and is heading up to the attic tomorrow to start work on installing our bad boy up there. We took out a 60% efficient 113K BTU unit and a 92% efficient 115K BTU unit and replaced them with two 96% efficient units, a 60K and a 40K. It has evened out the hot and cold rooms, and although we haven't installed the new upstairs unit, the house is essentially comfortable. Our gas bill should go down substantially. I am eager to get the attic unit up and running as once that is done, we can start storing stuff up there with no fear of having to haul stuff out of the way again.

Dale also ripped down the ducting in the garage that we need out of the way to replace our termite-shredded beam. When he got it down, even more damage was visible (if at all possible) and it looks like we'll be replacing some joists as well. (Yippee.) They guys will be building walls to hold up the main floor so they can replace the beam sometime this week with a nice solid laminated one.

I've met with a couple of window guys. The first guy confirmed our fears, while the second one allayed them. I have yet to see numbers out of the second guy but he says he can RESTORE the existing windows, (leaded sash, steel casement, new glazing, etc. plus custom storm windows that fit the existing notched frames that hold the summer screens,) for less than retrofitting new Pellas or Andersons. If so, it's a no brainer - it would fit our budget and our aesthetic sense.

I also met with a tree guy. The gigantic, enormous, humongous, ancient, stately catalpa tree that dwarfs the house has a bit of a root rot problem and may have to come out. He's also given me an estimate for removing the two trees that we will lose when we build the garage. We have a guy who has a portable sawmill that can handle the smaller trees, so we may have the oak stock that Dan needs to re-work the living room floor currently growing in the front yard. Wouldn't that be cool?

Met with a painter this afternoon to get an evaluation of the problems. He reassured me they were minor and normal and probably mostly due to cheap paint and poor prep/application, as Dan and I had suspected. He said most of the stuff I showed him his guys could handle and so it's just a matter of me talking Dan into letting someone else to the painting and us working on other items.

Most of the outside wood is still in pretty bad shape, thanks to years of neglect and a band-aid approach to the decay. Our carpenter says he can get Dan started on what needs to be done and then Dan can work on it at his leisure next summer. It will be time consuming and tedious and will ultimately fix the problem in a much more permanent way instead of just addressing the symptoms of decay. I sense that buying scaffolding is in our future.

My family's visit was great. There was enough space and beds and bathrooms for all. The universal observation, however, was that it isn't a quiet house. The floors creak and groan in the night with midnight trips to the potty and with no carpeting to speak of, it echoes something fierce. It did not disturb me, so perhaps I've adjusted to the volume. Or perhaps I was just too tired to wake up.

This cOld House 4.1

2006-11-19T18:25:00.000-05:00

The Southern Flying Squirrel made a return visit this afternoon while the girls were playing in their room with a new babysitter. Dan and I managed to trap it and he let it back out in the front yard whence I am sure it will make its way back into the chimney and house again. I had wanted him to drive it up to the top of Lookout Drive and let it go there, but after reading about it in Wikipedia (the above link,) I understand it wouldn't have done much good - they home upwards of a kilometer, (half a mile for you Americans.)

Dan stuffed the hole in the chimney with paper, (yah, that'll stop it,) and I will be heading to Lowes tomorrow for chicken wire. By the way, Becky, tell your Mom we want the cat.

This cOld House 4

2006-11-19T05:40:00.000-05:00

Dan and I were awakened by a presence this morning shortly before 5:00 am. "That's a squirrel in the gutter," he said confidently. "Or the fireplace" I replied, hoping I were wrong. We both got up to use the bathroom and then I crawled back into bed with Naomi and he got up to read the news.

(Miriam was, THANK GOD, sleeping over at Aunt Sue's.)

I was laying awake, deciding if I should get up to do something, and my decision was made for me when something climbed up my armpit. I called for Dan, scooped up Naomi and retreated to my bedroom. Dan met me at the head of the stairs and I told him to go do his husbandly duties.

Instead he followed us to the master bedroom and I had to shoo him out. Donning protective gear, (jeans and gloves,) he ventured back into the girls' bedroom and started turning on lights. He found the culprit leaving his mark on the girls' toy shelf, and when the culprit saw Dan he scrambled back whence he came, through the fireplace and up the chimney. Dan said it was a baby squirrel, no longer than 6 or 7 inches nose to tail. The good news is that the hole sucking the heat out of the house is much smaller than we anticipated.

While in his heightened state of awareness, Dan approached the dresser in front of the fireplace and encountered the gargantuan rubber cockroach Mim received from the visiting entomologist at her school. Needless to say, he came unglued. The keenness of his fight or flight response kept his heebie-jeebies active for quite some time.

I joined him shortly after he moved the dresser and fetched a mirror and flashlight to assess the situation. (And a couple of Clorox wipes, to clean up the aforesaid mark left behind on the girls' toy shelf.)

On the list for Lowes: chicken wire.

An update on the roof. As some of you know, we had a couple of roof inspections when we were deciding to buy the place and (foolishly?) bought it anyway. The roof is original, slate, and 85 years old. It has been patched in a less-than-elegant manner throughout its life. We were quoted for a complete tear down and new slate put on, $500,000 to $800,000. Yes, that's the right amount of zeros, and no, there's no decimal missing. I was TOTALLY bummed out about this for weeks, and shortly after moving in I called a larger, regional company whose specialty is slate for a second opinion. The second estimate came in on Friday at a fraction of the cost of the first. The only explanation I can think of is the first guy just didn't want to do the work and was unable to speak the truth.

That kind of game-playing is so far off my radar screen that I am at a loss as to how to deal with it.

I spoke with a leaded glass guy on Friday and he's coming on Monday to assess the window situation. We have several leaky windows that need to be rebuilt. I'm hoping I can learn how to do it myself. Rather than lead, the muntins are zinc, which is inherently more difficult to work than lead. Additionally, the steel casement frames have deteriorated, and I'm not sure what can be done about those. We are just starting to explore our options at this point. It will be difficult to find a hybrid solution that meets our competing aesthetic and economical goals.

The coal bin tear down went very well, as did the repair in the living room crawl space. We've got the book cases in place and loaded up. The built-in case will need some major work down the line but it's not a priority. We'll be putting only light objets d'art on it for a while.

Dale the HVAC guy shows up Monday to start working on changing out the furnace in the garage. Nothing else (except for Turkey,) is scheduled for this week.

This cOld House 3.5

2006-11-15T13:20:00.000-05:00

Many of you have shared sympathy and even concern about our trials and tribulations in our home. Please understand that I am writing about our plight merely as a means of expression. This house has been a very emotional choice for us and I have to have somewhere to put those emotions. Rest assured that we knew we would have a number of issues and that we currently remain sanguine about the situation, even with our latest discoveries.

Really, what can one do when a major structural element is discovered to have been reduced to sawdust? (Call the general contractor and hope for the best.)

I am sad to report that as much as I wanted to believe, (and believe in,) the former owner, he did turn out to be a bit of a spiv, (loosely translated, that is) as he certainly sold us a bill of goods of dubious quality and origin. Having said that, once I abandoned respect for the guy and started to take everything he said with a grain of salt, I am finding it much easier to approach the house as more of a wounded child than a money pit. We are still in contact with the guy and he has proved helpful in that he knows where all his duct tape is. I don't want to ruin that relationship until we too know where it all is. And pending other discoveries, we will decide whether legal action is warranted.

I have begun taking some pictures, and once I settle on a site I'll transfer all of these e-mails to a blog. Unfortunately I didn't get a before picture of the sinkin' living room. You'll have to take my word when I say that walking towards the corner it felt as though I were sliding off the face of the earth.

- Robyn -

This cOld House 3

2006-11-15T13:17:00.000-05:00

The temperature has dropped the past week and as such, my missives will be written under a new Subject: 'This cOld House'. Mim was complaining about it a couple days ago - how she doesn't like our new house because I make her wear slippers all the time because the floors are cold. Both the kids still run around in bare feet and it makes me cold just looking at them.

Dan and I spent an illuminating weekend working in the garage, which has been kind of a catch all for us since moving in. Aside from all of the tools et cetera that came out of the basement in the other house, we have other junk that is still awaiting a final resting place. We at least were able to tackle getting the last of the basement/garage boxes unpacked, which means I now have all our tools out so I can start to actually work on some fix-it projects.

It was a little nippy yesterday, so instead of opening the garage door to let some light in, we hauled out the halogen work lights. These are the lights we use when we paint, since they are so bright all flaws are apparent. Evidently they work the same way on decrepit areas. We aimed them up at the newly exposed ceiling. When we bought the house it had been freshly drywalled since the building code dictates that with living space right on top, there has to be an impermeable barrier. Dan was suspect of it and once we got into doing some stuff, (like stringing new cable which took the poor installers 10 hours,) we realized it was going to have to come down to access the utilities. We found all sorts of stuff, including insect damage in the floor beams, duct-taped electrical work, holes in HVAC ducting, and what appears to be a levitating back stoop. At least we think it's levitating, since it's a concrete slab poured between two joists with no visible means of support. I discussed most of this with my contractor on Monday.

Also on Monday, I got a bid to rip out the super-structure in the coal bin, where we had the small scenic waterfall last week. We'd do it ourselves but Dan's gone all week on a business trip and we can't get a refuse bin delivered from the city until the end of leaf season. It will be moldy and attracting wood boring insect before you know it so it's gotta go this week. So Dan will get a jump start on his wine cellar - his vision for that space.

Speaking of leaf season, 4 landscapers showed up on Friday and worked all day weeding, cutting brush and dead heading. They got about two-thirds of it done, and returned on Monday with reserves. We'll be working on a phased plan to simplify the garden so we can work it ourselves. I'm imaging a lot of weed cloth and gravel - at least behind the pool house and along the back wall where the trees and weeds grow tall. Naomi loves gravel... she can play with it for hours. We don't know what we're going to do with the wild area outside the fence - I'm thinking Agent Orange.

My new hero is Rick the carpenter, who singlehandedly lifted the living room floor 3 inches to bring it back to (almost) grade. We are still off by about 1/4 - 1/2 inch, but we didn't want to push it with the wall full of windows above. The built-in bookcase will be shimmed the last half inch or so, and that's ok with me. Rick will be coming tomorrow morning to tackle the other side of the living room floor and so when Dan returns from Orlando at the end of the week, I may actually have the last of the boxes all unpacked and everything put away. Hurray!

I met the mysterious neighbor today. He showed up to mow the yard. At the age of 91, his Mom moved into an assisted living facility last spring, leaving him with the huge responsibility of taking care of the house. He came over to apologize for the state of the yard, and gave me his name and number, and was peeking over my shoulder to see how big the kids were 'cause he's looking for another patsy to do the mowing. (Patsy because Johngineer told us that he stiffed them on the mowing last year, and the landscaper told me the same thing.)

By the way, Johngineer is the former owner of this place. He said he's a chemical, electrical, mechanical and astro-aeronautical engineer with a doctorate who teaches down the hill at UD. (And he plumbs with duct tape.)

- Robyn -

This cOld House 2

2006-11-15T13:13:00.000-05:00

I am grateful that we have the resources to take care of the mess into which we've gotten.

I got a call from my general contractor yesterday letting me know that he should have numbers in today, and he'll give me a shout or drop something off tomorrow so we can make some decisions about what gets done and when. The landscapers showed up yesterday and blew all our leaves, (2 guys for 3 1/2 hours,) and the clean up crew should be by by Friday to do all the weeding and dead head for winter. The irrigation guys showed up this morning to blow out the system, and imagine my surprise when I went downstairs to the pit to turn off the irrigation valve and discovered a small stream coming from the coal bin.

This was not the usual pond that accumulates after a rain. I can handle that. It seeps in under the concrete wall and collects in the old coal dip, and will be taken care of when we dig down next to there to add the new garage. This new creek was coming from the coal bin, but appeared to be more of the waterfall variety, cascading through the dropped ceiling, (which Dan wants to remove,) and running off the built up floor, underneath the wall and to the floor drain in the adjacent furnace room. I removed what we had left stored in there, (a garage box and the bar stools,) and set about going into a full panic. I called two handymans and the GC and couldn't get through to anyone and settled on the plumber who did our backflow re-cert on short notice in September. Sure enough they had a guy over here in 20 minutes. We ripped down the ceiling and found a plastic pressure sleeve DUCT-TAPED around an old galvanized pipe. Except for the expletives, I was speechless.

In shutting off the water to repair it, I discovered that the entire kitchen is plumbed off the outside line that runs through the deduct meter. (A deduct meter is a device added to count the 'outside' water that is used in the house. We don't get charged a sewer fee on the water we use in the pool, irrigation system or outside hose bibbs.) This was done by the former frugal owner and is very un-kosher.

Every time we do anything, we find something like this: The disposal plumbed incorrectly, with no trap attached; the 240 volt outlet in the laundry room... no-not for the dryer - it's just a regular outlet; the aluminum gutter straps used to hold on a whole section of roof; the 115,000 BTU piece of crap furnace that is only 2 years old but needs to be replaced because it's grossly over-sized for the space it heats (and by association, cools or in its case, doesn't cool because the blower is too grossly over-sized to run A/C.)

It just keeps getting better and better.

Good news! The carpenter is supposed to be by on Monday to start on the sunken/sinkin' living room. We may be able to get the stacks of books and boxes out of the foyer by the time our guests arrive for Thanksgiving. Wish us luck at the zoning approval meeting tonight for the garage. I hope no disgruntled neighbors show up. Dan's attending in his uniform, just in case. Bad form, to pick on the military these days.

More later, I'm going to go wash my dishes with illegally plumbed stolen water.

- R -

This cOld House 1

2006-11-15T13:07:00.000-05:00

We are finally starting to settle in. I have more maintenance/upgrade projects going than unpacking these days. I've met with an army of contractors et al in the past month and have settled on a very capable general contractor to get us started on the most pressing items. I am awaiting 3rd bids on electrical, plumbing and the all important (expensive!) HVAC. We have abandoned to idea of geothermal as being less than optimal in our retro-fitted application. We will be splitting the HVAC 3 ways, (instead of the current two,) to gain some efficiency. We will lose some attic storage space but I think it will be substantially more efficient to do so, plus we will eventually be gaining some basement space when the new garage is built.

My GC originally suggested holding off on the garage project until March as he was certain we couldn't get it poured before December. He's recently learned that his concrete guy is looking for some work to close out his year, and can do our job in November (provided we sail through the city approval process.) I've got the architect going full steam ahead on construction drawings, and am hoping the council review next Thursday does not produce any substantial or structural changes. The improvement we propose enhances the property (from our perspective anyway!) so we do not anticipate any grumbling from the city.

I tackled one of the copper counter tops this weekend with a homemade recipe I found online. The uneven patina, paint splashes, and dirt are coming off ok but it is not shiny. It will take elbow grease to get the shine back. I also looked up recipes to put a quick and more even patina back on the copper. We are not sure if we want to do that or just let it age naturally. More experimentation required.

We had a gutter emergency last week. Johngineer, (the seller) had warned us more than once or twice to keep the gutters clean or we were in for a world of hurt with the roof. On Sunday I noticed they were all-of-a-sudden FULL and CLOGGED with leaves. We had been monitoring the situation pretty well, but the big oak in the front yard had moulted in a couple of days. With Dan on guard duty this weekend, we just didn't have a chance of getting it done. I had to call somebody and they were able to show up last Friday to clean them. We'll no doubt have one more big cleaning this season, but we'll probably be able to do it ourselves.

I'm glad we are moving forward (somewhat) on getting some things done. I'd rather be picking colors... deciding between a two-stage and a variable speed blower furnace is not nearly as fun. But the house is really very comfortable (if one ignores the gas bill,) and we are thankful we don't have any really major 'all-tore-up' projects on the horizon.

We hope to have the living room floor fixed in the next week or so to finally finish unpacking the last boxes (books) and put away items strewn around waiting for a place to rest. I'll write another update when something happens.
- Robyn -