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.
