the Joshua Shively House

Archie by Jughead(s)

2012-01-28T22:52:00.001-05:00

Down and Dirty ... Another arch needed to be removed (there were 7 in the house when we bought it) and this one, on the stairs to the third floor, is really wearing out my patience.

Ahh ... foamy. Since I neglected to take a real before shot of the arch, here's a photo early in the process of replacing this arch. You can see about half of the curve of the arch with all that gloppy slathered on cool-whip-like spackle.

Arches here at the JS house were put in to replace the wood framed doorways that were original to the house. This one is no exception. Most of the arches were installed using a purchased metal framing kit, made up of three pieces of metal that, when fit together into the doorway, transformed beautiful wood framed openings, into "seductive, curvaceous, sirens, leaving all who look upon them wide-eyed and frightened that anything so horrific could be done to an old home. And yes, the original wood door frames were pitched out.

OK, that's just my opinion. Arches have their place, some are rennaissance-like in their scientific order, others romantically tudor or buxom-and-romanesque. These were weak ill-placed and out of proportion with the rest of the house. Somehow they make the ceilings lower and rooms smaller than their angular wooden counterparts. This one, on the stairway to the third floor, was a DIY nightmare.

Some Background

Each set of stairs in the house (there are 2 remaining of 3 original, not counting the basement) ascends up about half way, turns back on itself at a landing, then continues its ascent to the next floor. From the second to the third floor the landing also contains a door. Because of the slope of the roof and stairs, the door was not full height, causing the entrant to stoop a bit.

And Then ...

At some point, I think recently, the door was removed and a DIY arch "created," mimicing others in the house and, seemingly, to increase head room. Curiously, the head room was added by cutting out one of the support beams for the roof (stupid, stupid, stupid ...). The crafty person next wadded up some fiberglass window screen and, with the help of spray-foam insulation, filled the square corners of the doorway to create a sort-of-arched shape. Next, spray-foam insulation was heavily applied to further "shape" and "refine" the lob-sided arch, followed by a thick layer of ceiling texture stuff was wadded over that to "finish" the shape.

Imagine my surprise when I walked up the stairs the first time to start deconstructing the arch. I whacked the curved corners with a hammer, expecting it to crack open the plaster, only to have the hammer "sucked" into the spray-foam insulation. I just stood there, hammer stuck in the "plaster," wondering what the heck ... ?? ...

Another corner, some of the gloppy spackle removed so you can see the lovely spray foam insulation going on

foam insulation removed. now you can see the old door header, cut at an angle for that dang-blasted arch, painted white, in the lower third of the photo. below it is a scraped clean piece of the door jamb, immediately above the header stump is some lathe from the other side (this side of the wall is drywall.)

Yep that's right, it's not a power tool. Using a classic saw was the easiest, fastest, and most precise way to trim the old header flush with the wall so I can extend the jamb upwards.

Now, the funny thing (as if this whole thing isn't just a hilarious joy) about this doorway is that, while the person installing the other arches removed all original wood door trim and framing, this one left the trim and framing in place. Well, except the header, which was hacked out, I guess, because they didn't want to stoop to get into the third floor anymore. So the door opening was made-up of two sides of wood framing and trim, with a curved, rough-textured, windowscreen-and-foam-framed, arch top - UGH. (sad little side-note, there is another door on the third floor similar to this that has a funky panel hinged to the top of the door and if you aren't careful, it can slip and bash you in the head when you go through the door. I bet the same person did both.)

After hours of digging the tenacious spray-foam out, I found the old framing. As you can see in the following diagram, a header and two cripple studs should be above the door opening. Thos are what were cut out on this door frame. I put in a new header, situated a few inches higher than the original to gain some head room. There is no door so the slope of the roof can be ignored for door swing, which is why the door was short in the first place.

Arch gone. The header for the original door frame was cut back to square and the stumps can be seen immediately below the hollows int he wall on either side of this photo. The white, arched kind-of-shapes at the top of the wall are the remains of the 2 cripple studs that secured the header in place. Reusing the location of the original header wont work since we have furniture in the third floor that is bigger than that opening would be, so Ill need to build up the sides and increase the height of the header for the re-do.

Heres a very primary build up of a few inches to raise the header for the new doorway. The wood that you can see,where the 4 screws are visible, is actually 3 chunks of 2x4s: Two laid horizontally into the hollow of the wall, and a third vertically so the structure is stronger. This kind of structure was repeated on both sides and the new header is visible at the top of the photo.

Next Ill need to frame in the jambs, matching the existing jambs on the sides with some pieces cut to fit at the top, add some trim to both sides of the wall and fill in the missing wall (plaster/drywall) at the top. I'll post more once I get that stuff done.

Stay tuned ...

Well, Shut-The-Door !

2011-12-11T18:39:00.001-05:00

Have you ever done something, working tirelessly, struggling every minute to make something happen just to see it done and ... well ... it's just not as amazing as you expected ?

Well, for me, this is one of those times ...

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty pleased with the way this virgin adventure turned out, but I kind of thought it would excite me more. It's immensely practical, sure, its will keep out some drafts in winter and allow gentle breezes in the summer. That's great stuff.

Add to that that I had no pattern, nor any idea what I was doing the whole time I built it. I was truly winging it on this one. I just knew what I wanted and worked backward ... the forward, HA.

So here are the photos. They pretty much tell the story. Let me know if I did well.

Finished door in place from the outside. Still need to put in the knob and some locks.

from the inside.

Here's the beginning, well, after about 10 hours of aligning it to be square and glue-up and pegging the corners, no nails or screws used here.

Panel in the bottom of the door so I can put in the mail slot. I added the chamfers to give it a more period look.

The pine is shellacked and varnished. some of the antique metal hardware in place.

cool old "mail" slot. My mail people will not be happy to stoop so low to drop in the mail.

some groovy old screen door hinges, they have springs in them to "shut the door"

Sitting on the Porch, Watching the World Go By

2011-11-30T16:10:00.007-05:00

First impressions can be legendary. I'm sure you remember the first impression you had of your spouse, or a new pet. The first impression of a home is all too often tied to the front yard and porch. It's so important that those awful DIY Cable TV shows created at least one entire series to teach you how to pretty-it-up in just an afternoon (see the part about the porch's tiled floor below ... grrr).

OK, lets start this whole thing off with a "good" first impression before picture of the front porch:

The porch about 6 months after moving into the house. The cheap 1990's wicker came with the house—We've replaced it piece by piece. The swing is original.

What's your first impression? Sure it feels inviting—it's a pleasant enough space. You can almost imagine yourself sitting in one of those great, wicker chairs, snuggled into the comfy cushions with a cup of hot coffee on a crisp fall day, or enjoying a summer breeze on the groovy swing with some lemonade. Even the palm adds to the "old-fashioned" charm of this porch.

But beware ... its like inspecting a used car: the paint's shiny and the upholstery smells pretty, and you can even imagine yourself driving on the highway listening to "Flock of Seagulls," but what's the engine like ? Did someone turn-back the odometer ? Is there a kid-puke stain hidden under the rug on the floorboard ?

Things happen over time

This is an officially old house; 100+ years old. Things happen to a house during its life, and in this case, almost every surface has been altered. If you dissect the photo above, the white "clapboards" on the walls are vinyl siding that was nailed on in the 1970's. The "trim" is all aluminum wrapped and holding in any drop of water that sneaks underneath. The floor, which I initially thought was kind of pretty, is really a mess of loose tiles hastily set on chipboard plunked overtop of the original tongue-and-groove, hard-pine floorboards. And the tile has 1+" grout lines that leak like crazy. Its a mess. It smells strongly of crappy cable TV DIY show "improvements".

You never know what is in the box until you tear off the wrapping.

Here's where it all gets messy. One day, without warning, Matthew disappears.

That's never good. It means he's up to something.

I heard banging and say to the dog. "Um, it's coming from the front porch, and ... oh crap ... what in god's name is he tearing apart out there?"

Matthew on one of his weekend "architectural-digs"

I love a discovery as much as the next guy and I have always wanted to see under the vinyl. But I am more cautious than him. I plan my destruction. I strongly adhere to the tenant that once its discovered, you can't just walk away. You have to be sure you have enough time, patience, know-how and cash to repair whatever mess you find. To his credit, though, if tearing off that vinyl and aluminum was his version of "panning for gold," well then, for a change of pace around this old house, this time he struck gold.

I spent a little more time on the trim around the front door to ensure it looked as good as possible. There were a lot of things screwed into that trim that left big holes, but in this area I was able to scrape and sand down to the clear original wood. Its beautiful. This is dad-confirmed old cedar and was always painted - there is no evidence of stain or oil finish. The original "lead white" paint if visible at the top and bottom of the door trim wood. By-the-way, the red door has to go. It's the original door with original hardware (not the deadbolt) but the glass has been replaced by a sheet of plywood. The plan is to strip the paint off the door, re-varnish it, and "upgrade" the hardware to something a little more Victorian, rather than this standard craftsman style, that what all the houses on the block seem to have.

Cool things found --- Questions answered

Every story has a highlight, or should, and this is the best part of this story. In one of my earlier posts I questioned the mysterious smooth, windowless wall in the living room where there is now a window. Tearing off the vinyl on the outside of the house revealed the answer. The "window" is absolutely not original. There never was a window on that wall. There were, however, a pair of doors that opened onto the porch—just like in the dining room. In fact, the dining room doors line up with the arch between the parlor and dining room, and the doors out onto the front porch. What a wonderful breeze they must have had in the house with all those doors opened. Not sure what we'll do about this discovery. See note about having the cash to fix what you find, above ... But WAY COOL thing to find out.

Look carefully along both left and right edges of this photo and you can see the lines in the wall from the replacement clapboards, after removing the french doors that were here. Interior baseboard repair matches the width exactly in this spot. Many houses in the neighborhood have french doors onto the front porch - in fact the house next door has 2 pair in addition to the main front door. There is no evidence about when or why this was done, but the clapboard replacements are the original-type, thick, cedar boards so I tend to think this was done early. The front porch was closed-in to use as a bed room for "Dittie," the grandmother, in 1952. I just don't thing they had access to the correct replacement clapboards, then, for replacement, and assume the doors were removed before they closed in the porch. From 1948-1952 the house was used as an upholstery shop and this alteration could have been done for that purpose. The craziest thing is that there is no evidence of a threshold for the doors. The floor is clear and smooth under the window.

Demolition education

Under all that vinyl the original 1.25 inch thick, cedar clapboards were in amazing shape on the house, itself. Sadly, most of the clapboards on the knee wall—the short wall that circles around the porch and the corner posts—were replaced at some point with 5/8 inch thick pine clapboards. The wood trim looked super, thought, even under five layers of paint (originally lead-white, the trim was subsequently painted ivory, peach, white, and mint green, in that order), and the termite damage, which we knew we would find (mitigated 2 years ago), was not as bad as we anticipated.

Aluminum wrapping is nailed right into original wood. Vinyl is visible below ledge top.

Part of the vinyl and aluminum removed (vinyl still on the left - removed on the right side). The wood clapboards visible are replacements of the original, and not installed that well.

Evidence of clapboard replacement. The original clapboard's "shadow" is visible as a zig-zag on the corner board. The replacements did not hold up as well as the original cedar during the "wrapping," as is evidenced by the nail splits and cracks in the wood.

More discoveries included: Corner brackets of some kind were at the top of each "pillar" or "post", on the knee-wall there was a nice ogee molding under the top overhanging ledge, and just like the pencil notations made by so many of the craftsmen who built this house, originally, in 1906-08 (we find them on the back of drawers and window seats), the people who stuck the hideous vinyl on the house also made notations on the old painted wood. Additionally, the clapboards and shingles on the house, which were originally just stained deep brown, were not painted until sometime after 1960 (I have photos from 1959 showing the dark brown clapboards). The original stain was a deep orange-brow, and we found only one coat of white paint on the clapboards. We think there may be 2 coats of paint on the shingles on the second and third floors (none of the second floor exterior has been uncovered but they look to be dark green. I am waiting for the next time Matthew disappears - I might find him on the second floor tearing thins apart).

If you look carefully you can see the shadow of the old corner brackets and the two sets of three filled screw holes that attached it to the porch. These show up at the top of all the supports for the porch. We want to replace them with something comparable - well do that after tacking the exterior part of the porch next summer.

This photo shows the back of the house in 1958. Until at least 1960, when the owners who snapped this photo moved away, the house body was unpainted - note stained clapboards. The trim in this photo looks whiter than the original lead-white and is probably the fourth layer of paint put on the trim. Shortly after this photo was taken the whole house was painted white with mint green trim. About a decade later it was zip-locked in vinyl.

Craftsman notations, this one makes me laugh.

This is a really informative photo. Every board is original and you can see all the layers of trim color paint. The grey at the outer edge of the paint island is the original lead white. The house was originally just stained and left to weather, which held up really well till it was painted white in the 1960's. The ogee molding under the green ledge is an original feature that i plan to replicate elsewhere: this is the only place it is still intact. The clapboard immediately below the molding is an original cedar board (that's probably why they didn't remove the trim molding).

The first thing we did once all the vinyl and aluminum was gone was make repairs to the damage parts exposed. There were three clapboards that were missing on one of the corner supports. We used cut offs from a neighbors cedar fence to fix that (it looks perfect.) I scraped all the boards (that's really messy work) then filled the nail holes. Since the white paint on the house was oil-based, we primed everything with grey-tinted oil-based primer. The top coat of paint is Sherwin Williams Resilience Latex. It goes over oil-based primer nicely.

Fixing the termite damage was tedious. Thankfully, the only place where I needed to repair it was the ledge board on top of one knee wall. It would have been very involved to replace the wood, so I opted to just fill the limited damage. Getting filler into the termite tunnels was the toughest part. First, I injected a rotted wood stabilizer (it's a syrupy liquid that re-solidifies soft, fuzzy, rotted wood.) Then used a liquid nail type product to inject into the tunnels (it comes in a tube, like caulk) It holds its shape pretty well and solidifies nicely. It can take up to a week to cure and you have to put it on in layers. It did sand well, and did the job for much less than epoxy resin.

Termite damaged knee wall top ledge before. Note - the largest hole is something I created. The tunnels were just below the surface and I couldn't get into them, so I cut off the top thin layer of wood to expose it. Also, see all those tiny tunnels that look like scratches? Interestingly, they cross the grain of the wood - most of the tunnels were parallel with the grain.

Liquid nail-type product in place. I jammed the tip of the tube into the holes and filled as much as possible. then I used a plastic scraper to smooth it out a bit. Additional layers were needed to finish the repair.

just one more layer of fill to add and it will be ready for primer and paint.

The ceiling presented some trouble. The original was almost certainly bead-board, but I have zero proof of that since the ceiling was wholesale replaced. The ceiling that is up there now is, get ready ... really, really cheap, super duper cheap, plywood. Heck, it may be chipboard. I swear that last owners went to HD or Lowes and bought any low-end crap that was guaranteed to screw-up the house or last only 3 weeks. They didn't even spring for mid-range - low-end all the way. It's all crap. I'll save that rant for a whole entry. But replacing the ceiling with bead-board will cost more than $1000 and add time to our limited get-it-done-before-winter schedule. The most visible problem with the plywood ceiling was that the seams, where one sheet meets another, were warped and gaping and just a mess. So ... I pondered ... How can I make it look good super quickly and without spending any money on it so I can save my pennies for bead-board later on? What I came up with was a pseudo-beamed-type ceiling. Is it historic? probably not. Does it make it look pretty? Heck yeah. It's good for now and maybe one day well replace it with bead-board when I have enough pennies.

This is what we found: cheap ply wood on the ceiling trimmed around the perimeter with thin, cheap baseboard and pixie-sized quarter round. At least they added support blocks to the house wall to hold up the ceiling boards where there were no joists. The thin trim was incompatible with the new ceiling plan so it had to come down.

New boards nailed around the perimeter of the ceiling give a smooth flat edge against which to butt the new ceiling "beams," and it looks more appropriate than the previous whispy-thin trim pieces. If this originally was a bead-board ceiling, the perimiter would have been trimmed with a big beefy quarter round molding--about 1.25 inch radius. Neighboring houses use exactly that, but big quarter round is very difficult to find, today.

So far, the porch restoration was going well. We agreed that the floor can wait to be redone in the spring or summer. Who knows what kind of mess we'd find under that tile. Cold weather was approaching fast and we still had to paint everything.

Never ... NEVER ... turn your back

Maybe I was scraping the walls, or putting boards on the ceiling, or something, when I saw the worst thing imaginable, out of the corner of my eye ... Matthew, pulling up tiles from the floor. "I just want to see whats under them" he said. Of course I tried to stop him, but he was a machine. He yanked, he pulled, he never rested. I was nervous. I felt kind of sick-to-my-stomach. Within minutes the tiles in one corner of the porch were gone and ya know, there was a real porch floor underneath.

He spent the next 2 days ripping off the tiles. Thank god the condition of the old wooden floor is not that bad, really. There are new replacement boards that someone added (we saw them from below when we inspected the foundation.) Those are in the worst condition. They are thinner tongue and groove and soft pine, rather than the wide hard pine that the rest of the floor is. The floor was originally just oiled, not painted. There are 2 coats of paint on top of the oil finish; one green, the other gray. It's currently serviceable, but not attractive. The screws that held the chip board base to the floor were all rusted and are, for the most part, still in the floor. We trip on them occasionally. Matthew doesn't like to be outside in the cold, so I'm pretty sure he'll leave it alone till spring.

during ... crap crap crap ...

I have no idea what the yellow stuff is--it's not mold, at least. Here you can see the old, original boards (right, and wider) and the newer replacements (left, and narrower). Generally, the original boards are in far better shape than the new, which are pretty rotten. Guess that water got under the tile and could not escape and just rotted the cheap, new pine boards.

Back on track

With the clapboards repaired and the nail holes filled; the ceiling put together and the termite damage filled in; the old oil paint primed so the new latex will stick; it's finally time to paint. One option I considered was striping the whole exterior and re-staining it back to the original finish. That was another grand idea that lasted 5 seconds before a flood of potential problems replaced the pride I'd feel in a restoration of that magnitude ... I'll paint.

To clarify, this isn't just a porch restoration, its actually the front wall of the first floor of the house. The colors we paint will need to be used everywhere on the rest of the house.

You know I have to plan out everything. Since we moved here 4 years ago I have been planning the colors for the outside of the house. White houses are not my style. I prefer darker colors, or at least historic colors, which look the most appropriate on old houses.

Some houses at the turn-of-the-century were painted white. Most houses, though, were painted in fantastic earthy, rich, deep, vibrant, late-Victorian colors. Historic paint colors have pretty boring names such as red-brown, dark olive and shutter green. These are really just a description of the color, or are based on where that color was commonly used (yup, most shutters at the turn of the century were painted deep green, regardless of the other colors used on the house.) There weren't a whole massive array of colors from which to choose at the turn of the century. Nearly all paint was newly mixed on site. Buying paint premixed at a store, like we do today, was a new idea that hadn't yet fully caught on. Since each batch of paint was mixed on site, the final color varied a bit according to the person mixing the color and the raw materials available. That means that the color everyone called "old gold" was a bunch of different golden brown colors, sometimes more gold, sometimes more green, sometimes more orange, depending on the raw materials and the person mixing the paint. It stinks there is very, very little, extant evidence for us to see exactly what these historic colors really looked like, since most have been painted over, or if not, they faded from the sun.

In a collectible book about late-Victorian exterior color by Roger Moss, several pages of actual paint chips are included in the back. These paint color chips are recreated from a paint sample chart that dates to the 1880's. Devoe Paints recreated the colors by using a spectrochromograph, a technology that permits a color, no mater how faded, to be recreated based on its chemical composition rather than observation. Thereby, the colors of an old faded paint sample chart have been recreated anew by reading the chemical make up of the chart's colors, and using that chemical equation to remix extinct colors.

Williamsburg's big mistake

When Historic Williamsburg was first "discovered," the architectural colors of the town were read by visual observation, without consideration of fading. The fine anthropologists restoring Williamsburg, in conjunction with various paint companies, released collections of Colonial Williamsburg paint colors. It was groundbreaking since this was the first American historic site to be discovered, and to have a collection of paint colors for American home owners sold to the public. In the 1970's, empowered by the upcoming bicentennial celebration, everyone started painting things with this paint. The most pervasive color was that insipid, soft, dull, grey "colonial blue." Recently, using spectrochromatography, Colonial Williamsburg had the colors re-evaluated. They discovered that the colors they earlier introduced to the world were all wrong. The colors used by the colonists were actually vibrant peacock blues, loud tangerine orange and shocking mustard yellow, not soft blue green, sickly peach and dull cream. check out the new issue of Old House Interiors for some samples of the "right" colors.

What I chose for the house, and I considered things like the surrounding landscape and other homes on the block, is a dark olive for the first floor (SW2224 Caper), medium olive for the second floor (SW2222) and amber for the third floor (SW 2817) with fawn trim (SW 2814 Rookwood Antique Gold). The window sashes are white vinyl (YUK), for now, but when we do upgrade to wood windows, I want the windows and sashes to be bronze green, which is an amazing black green.

Finally, the after pictures - Ta Da!

The best part about the afters is the color change ... WOW. But keep in mind, this is now wood, not that crummy vinyl. The repairs are most important since they lend a few extra years to the house. Otherwise, these photos pretty much speak for themselves after reading the whole story above. You can see the first floor house body color (the second and third floors will be each different colors) and the house trim color. The floor is still messy, but we'll be better able to tackle that in the warmer weather (and torrential downpours) of springtime. The ceiling is looking better, though I continue to save my pennies for that bead board version.

These photos are all "after-during". I still have a little painting to do. Ill add photos of the after once spring arrives and I can really finish up the way I like.

BOY ... that red door is annoying - it will be stripped, stained and varnished and the full glass will be put back in (that's a thin sheet of plywood that the 3 windows are cut into ... its crap).

This photo shows both the color and "finish" the best. Some of the green clapboards were still wet when I snapped this. I hate the door, now and really cant wait to strip it.

same view as the very first picture at the top of this story. This is facing south. Yeah, it still looks like a construction site - thats because it IS ...

looking the other way (facing north)

Color looks really bad. But a good view of the completed front wall. In the middle you can clearly see the still wet paint at the top - That's coat number 2. Still need a few warm days to finish.

Shocking

2011-09-10T21:06:00.001-04:00

Even though this was one of the first curiosities we found in the house–it hangs right in the middle of the second floor hallway so it's real hard to miss–it took me forever to discover what it means.

This is the original electric box for the house. Just like the fuse box of old, or the breaker box you use now, this was where electricity to outlets and fixtures in the house was controlled. Albeit, everything turned off all at once by flipping that cartoon-like electric handle, there, in the top-middle of the box (I swear I remember seeing Bugs Bunny flip one of those in the cartoons of my childhood.) One electric contractor said its still hot and confirmed that there is some active Knob & Tube in the house.

One of the mysteries about this box was what the pink label meant. OK, I knew it was an inspection sticker, but was there a story to it and what was that handwriting scrawled up the middle of the door?

With a lot of time and research I found out that the Ransdell's owned the house from 1948-1951. They ran an upholstery shop out of it at that time. Someone, presumably a child, wrote their name right through the middle of the door.

The date the house was built was declared a mystery because of a fire at the records office. Well, with some additional in depth research I discovered that the property the house sits on was compiled through several purchases from 1901-1906. A portion of the total property was sold to a neighbor in April 1908. Now, I suspect that that lot of land would not have been sold after the house was built since it moved the property line to only 7 feet from the house, but immediately before building began. Assuming that the Oct. 1908 date on the inspection sticker was added during the final stages of building (when then, like now, you would have had a utilities inspector check the electricians handiwork and sign off on it). I can surmise that the house was built between April and October, 1908.

Kind of a cool finding from the old electric box. Now if I can only figure out what it means every time the ghost opens the box (yeah, while I work from home, and am home totally alone, on numerous occasions, the box would be closed and latched, I'd go upstairs to work and upon coming back down the stairs, the door would be full open. Hasn't happened in a while, but still ....

Undoing the Ugly

2011-09-01T17:35:00.005-04:00

You know how it is, you start to tear things apart and suddenly remember you never took the "before" photos. These are the best BEFORE photos I have.

a "marble-esque" plastic sink

two faux-chrome plastic sconces with creepy, blue-swirl shades

thick dripping strands of caulk slathered into cracks like a 7-year-old globbing icing onto a cake

a press-board sink cabinet so cheap it's not even worth calling it "pressed"

a sheet vinyl floor whose edges have curled and chipped, like an old woman's untrimmed toe-nails; yellowed by nicotine and stuffed with dust and crud around the edges

This was the powder room we inherited.

I know many of you faced this uglienss, too. We lived with it for as long as we could but knew that bleach can only do so much.

It was in 1952 that the Harris family ripped out the back stair case (on blustery, stormy nights I can still hear the stairs scream as they are dragged through the hall to awaiting garbage cans) and installed a half-bath for Mrs. Harris' mother, Diddie, a seamstress who was unable to climb the stairs to the second floor bathroom.

So you don't have to wait too long to see it ... Here's the AFTER ...

I debated, albeit for only 10 minutes, to reinstall the stairs and get rid of this room.

The mirror is great. I left the medicine cabinet in place and simply added a new, square mirror and frame. Of course I saved the old early 1950's arched-top mirror. Ill find a place for it one day.

The plan was to install some kind of "vintage-y" bathroom: Something that would fit in with the more formal first floor space and not embarrass us in front of our guests. The house is, or will be, very colorful: A rich green dining room, vibrant terra cotta center hall, glowing gold and deep peacock blue parlor. It seemed that a gentle-colored bathroom would be a great respite. It also would be in keeping with the history of the house, since the turn-of-the-century, known as the "sanitary period" since cleaning was a high priority, promoted bathrooms that used white tile and porcelain and could easily be cleaned.

Just another view of the horrific sink. I bet it couldn't have cost more than $18.50 when new.

I chose two different pale grey paint colors for wall and trim, and planned to use painted Anaglypta wallpaper below a high dado rail, which would be a continuation of the windowsill about the rest of the room. White marble floors and sink, a white porcelain "Victorian-inspired" toilet that didn't require 8 gallons of water per flush, brushed nickel fixtures and antique oil lamps should round out the room.

Antique (about 1880-1900) nickel-plated rod holders. These were universally used for towels and curtains. I will use them for the toilet paper roll. Something to think about ... until nearly 1920 toilet paper was usually fashioned at home from old paper, such as newspaper or left overs from school.

Yes, that's the original 1952 baseboard sitting in a pile by the door. It will not be missed.

Armed with only a short pry bar, a hammer and a small paint scraper I attacked the room one morning. I don't even think I had had my morning coffee.

Removing the baseboard revealed the unfinished plaster board that was used to line the walls (the hole is through the plaster board.) This is an earlier version of drywall which actually was made of plaster. The edges would have been filled and smoothed with a thin layer, a skim coat if you will, of white finish plaster. The wood framing is original to the house. This is a view of an outside wall that would have been under the first part of the back stairs.

The baseboards were easy -- they were attached with short finishing nails. Reaching into the sink cabinet I turned off the water and disconnected the faucet hoses. I unscrewed the "p" trap and disconnected the drain assembly so I could remove the sink and cabinet.

I carefully ran the paint scraper all around the edges of the cabinet and sink back, feeling for nails, or glue, or screws, or anything that would need to be removed to pull out the cabinet.

Nothing ...

I looked at, and then jiggled, the cabinet and sink assembly ... let me correct that ... I EASILY jiggled the sink and cabinet ... and in the process lifted it right off the ground. Ahh, thanks to some less-than-handy PO's that did nothing to actually attach it ... good job guys ... I saved a few minutes of work.

I don't shock easily in this place, anymore. Most of the time when I uncover something I grit my teeth and stomp into the basement to get another tool or drive out to Lowes to get more stuff, to undo the stupidity of the PO's. But you just gotta love the groovy Marsha Brady rug I found under the sink cabinet. "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha."

Photo and close-up, above, of the carpeting found under the sink cabinet. There were 2 layers of flooring under this. The carpet did not extend into the rest of the room, and the cream-colored vinyl was only installed up to the edge of the sink cabinet. I also found out that this room had been 4 shades of blue, the original color was that mint green you can see above.

OK, sink out, baseboards out, toilet waiting for the plumber to remove. On to the floor.

Cement board going in to lay the tile. The black glue remnant is from what I suppose is the original linoleum floor tiles. The wood is just plywood layed over the basement ceiling joists.

I took a stab at it and it was not too hard. There was vinyl over vinyl over what I think was probably linoleum over wood. I don't think any of it dated to 1908 when the house was built. Maybe, I don't know. It looks old from the basement side, but remember, this was a staircase till 1952, so if this is original wood, it was more of a basement ceiling than a floor. No matter, we got marble tile to lay over it.

The toilet came out without incident and the tile floor went in fairly well. I didn't do either since I HATE plumbing and "someone" thinks I can't lay tile ... (grumble)

Sparkling white. The new honed marble floor makes the room look better, even if nothing else is ever done.

So let me pick up after the new toilet, a model I found completely unobjectionable while checking out new toilets at Lowes, went in.

That toilet from Lowes. I do love the antique-looking oval tank and the vintage flared foot under the bowl.

Static for almost 2 months, the bathroom awaits a sink, clad in cardboard and old towels to keep the floor from scratching while I worked.

I have a beautiful white marble sink top, circa 1880-1890. It's great. It just needs a bowl. It has a few stains, a great patina, beautiful finish, soft and aged, just the way I like it. In fact, the marble floor was special ordered to match the sink. I found a "old-timey" plumber to even repair the old faucets for it. I processed how to install this sink for months. I had the wall-hung brackets and a plan, BUT, the risk of someone leaning on the front edge of the wall-hung sink, which has no legs to support the free front edge, and it falling to the ground breaking plumbing, causing a broken hip, was all too great. So after some online research, I begrudgingly ordered the pedestal sink that matched the quite acceptable toilet from Lowes (special order, 4 week wait, no problem ...).

After 2 weeks I called to see how the order was going. They tracked the sink back to the warehouse in China. It was one of 23 sinks they had in stock and it was being shipped out that week. It should only be a week or so till we had it. One week short of the month estimate.

3 weeks later ... still no sink. We called a few times in between and were told the sink was on its way. Got a little angry and called some more: no sink. Got angrier still and called and, well, here's where it gets interesting. The manufacturer no longer makes the sink. It no longer makes the sink that the warehouse had 23 of a few weeks before and was shippign one to us the next day and .... No longer makes the sink still listed on several websites for sale.

Lowes offered us an alternative, as if they had choices ... choose any sink at the same price. Hmm ...

That sink was $119. American Standard makes a nearly matching sink, albeit, considerably larger, but nearly identical in design. (I tend to think the one we originally ordered was the low-end rip off of the American Standard). American Standard's sink is about $400. Really, what would YOU do?

mmmmm ... sink ... see that the oval top matches the toilet tank and they share the same flared foot. I LOVE THIS SINK.

When we picked up the sink we got a new faucet, American Standard brushed nickel and again, kind of vintage looking. It also repeated the shape of the sink's pedestal.

Again, the AFTER shot. The brass cup holder will be replated in nickel as soon as I save all my pennies.

Meanwhile, back in the bathroom ... I was busy hanging the Anaglypta, painting the walls, ceiling and wallpaper. I applied a wash of grey paint over the textured Anaglypta, which you need to paint since it's uncoated paper, and wiped it off so it stayed only in the recesses of the wallpaper.

Anaglypta paper hung and painted. It;s very forgiving if you have less than perfect wall surfaces. It must be painted, though, and offers alot of opportunity for decorative effect. Anaglypta has been in continuous production since the 1890's and was originally developed as a less expensive alternative to embossed leather and Lincrusta, a linoleum-like wall covering developed in the 1870's.

I also had to mill all the wood trim for the room since none of the trim in the house is still manufactured. Thank god dad sent out his old Porter Cable router. I came up with baseboard, dado cap and window and door trim that I found easy enough to make, but also complimented the other woodwork in the house. The baseboard was the trickiest, but it is similar to the original baseboard of the stairs in the house. I could not find, or afford ($200), a one-inch reverse-ogee router bit, which is what I needed to match the top of the original baseboard. I came up with something similar by overhanging a 1/2 inch round over bit so it rounded off the sharp top edge while it cut a groove just below. I may like it more than the original baseboards.

A turn-of-the-last-century cup and toothbrush holder I have had for years. It is brass and had been nickel plated. I also found it for sale in the 1897 Sears Catalog.

The light fixtures are old oil lamp brackets that I wired and hung on the electric boxes using custom drilled metal box cover plates. They were tough to hang since they are really heavy.

Antique (1880) Bradley and Hubbard cast iron oil lamps. The milk-glass shades are also period and I think original to the lamps. I stay up at night worrying that they will break. I ordered the electric "burners" from Antique Lamp Supply. I just wish they were nickel, or at least a silver-ish color.

Finally, the first floor half-bath looks like it belongs in the house. I am very pleased with its timeless design and lack of color (although I have already cleaned the white floor about a million times ...).

Recent Restorations

2011-03-26T21:58:00.000-04:00

Since getting the dining room in order (for the most part) I am NOT permitted to restore a room till spring. It may have snowed a little today, but here it is, finally SPRING !! and I am chomping at the bit to tear apart another room int he house.

Since I had no opportunity for creative outlet in the house itself, I have been "Captain Project" the past few months. I have been honing my skills at Deep Buttoning Upholstery (and some other upholstery restoration work) and Antique Picture Frame restoration.

Seat looks like a foot went through it. The top "rail" of curved wicker was cracked (barely visible at the top of the photo) probably from too many people picking the fairly heavy chair up by the thin top edge

This is a Victorian Fancy Chair found in Indianapolis. It was probably a photographers prop, or maybe a little conceit for some nouveau rich family. The seat and the four legs are shaped wood and each leg ends in a large brass cap on the foot. When found it was badly beaten across the curved top. My first course of restoration was to restore the broken wicker. I used a wood epoxy and carefully realigned the wicker bits back together.

Then I had to tackle what to do with the seat. I could have it recaned, but every chair I ever had with a caned seat broke through. So I pondered this for over a year. I researched period photos. Thankfully, there were a lot of them, since this was probably a photographers prop. Tons of images of fancy Victorians standing behind very similar chairs were at my disposal. In very many of those period photos, the seat on the chair had a fancy cushion, usually tufted and fringed, or tasseled. I have been wanting a small project to learn deep button tufting (the kind that results in small diamond folds all over the surface, with tiny fabric covered buttons nestled down in the recesses) and this seemed a perfect opportunity.

Next I researched how to button. I read old musty books about it; I read new ink-smelly books about it; I watched YouTube, too much, to learn about it and finally, when I thought I had it all figured out, I read and watched some more. I opted for a wooden seat, shaped to match the chair seat frame, covered with layers and layers of Dacron batting and a little left over hunk of foam (I did not have enough traditional hair and straw and cotton in my stash to use on this new seat).

I cut out the seat shape and drew up the diamond patterns on my computer, then cut out the old cane to get rid of the dangling fray in the center of the seat. I layered those stuffing materials, drilled holes through everything to clear space for the buttons and spent 3 days working on this little seat on the kitchen counter.

It turned out fairly well, I think for a first try. I started out with about 9 inches of stuffing that was drawn down to a little over 2 inches once the buttons were in place. Keeping the fabric square was the hardest part.

The seat from above. The new wooden seat is velcroed onto the old chairs seat frame. that way I can easily remove it, with NO damage to the chair if I ever want to restore the original caning.

Another Chair that had been sitting for a long time while I figured out what to do with it was this little Renaissance Revival side chair. We bought it at an antique show in Lexington Ky. anticipating that it would "go well" with the sofa we have. It looked odd since the sofa is blue mohair and this little chair is apricot. So something had to change about the fabric on it - oh, it was stained and smelled a little, too, yuk.

So I pulled out a few fabrics from my stash of "extras" and settled on a blue that was very iridescent and close in hue to the sofa its supposed to match. It also needed a little "umph" so, with my newly learned buttoning skill, I decided to button the back of it in a typical pattern and "ruche" the seat edge. Ruching is a technique of hand-stitched tiny gathers of fabric all along the edge of the seat to add a bit of frill and drama to a plain seat. It also permits a "squarer" seat edge since the flat fabric on the seat top is stitched to the top edge of the seat, then the ruche is stitched on the side of the seat. This eliminates the rounding over of the seat edge that pulling the flat seat fabric over the edge would create.

Buttoning the back was FAR more difficult that my first attempt. I did not have the firm wooden seat frame to pull the buttons against (the back is a series of webbing strips pulled across the back wood frame) so the buttoning was not holding as it did on the wood. Also, I was using cotton and hair on the chair back, rather than many many inches of polyester stuffing and it was far harder to get smooth curves. BUT, It was a greater learning experience than the first one, since I was challenged with different shapes and materials (those vertical channels on the bottom half of the back were a "bear")

Another view of the chair int eh morning sunlight that streams into the parlor ever day (well, if there are few clouds)

Dining Room Restore (part 1)

2010-12-02T19:01:00.034-05:00

"I painted one dining room red

and I must say,

the conversation became

very heated in that room. "

-- Amanda Pays

Heated, indeed. Here's to hoping that this latest restoration will generate lively and capricious conversation, instead.

The goal for this room was to create a space that would suit formal entertaining with our goofy-old collection of silver, china and crystal—and—restore the room back to its 19th century condition. Our dining room furniture is all American Empire, or "pillar and scroll", roughly 1800-1840, and the house is circa 1900. There was a modest interest in the Empire style, a low-key neo-empire period, about 1890-1910, so that highly specific era became the target period for this room.

Click on photos to see enlargements

A Scandinavian room from about 1820 is painted a deep blue-green with bright olive green upholstery

Now, here's the thing, during the original Empire period, about 1810, and the Late Victorian Era, 1890, formal rooms were pretty much one of 2 colors, red or green (and really, we love both of these colors). Dining rooms, then, commonly doubled as picture galleries and, as most of us know, or maybe it's just me, pictures with big fat chunky gold frames look best (really, they do) against highly saturated green or red walls (note, in about 1800 an English Duke painted his picture gallery walls brilliant glossy yellow and the masses nearly drove the old boy out of town for such a disregard for tradition).

The dining room faces due-south and gets a ton-o-sun all day long, so, to keep it from looking like the freekin' Flames-O-Hell we went green, and after about 8 or 9 samples, chose a deep, golden glowing Empire-green from Porter Paint for the walls and dark ivory (Sherwin Williams Ivoire) for the trim.

Before and After Gallery

We'll start off this before and after section with vintage photos from the Harris Family when they lived here in the 50's. These photos are kindly provided to me from Jody and Frieda, sisters who appear in the photo below and have have shared amazing stories of life in this old house.

The Harris family, circa 1952. I found the screw holes in the window trim from that birdcage. Check out that groovy super-chromed light fixture.

The Harris Family, circa 1959. Note the chrome trimmed arched doorway to the kitchen in this photo. Maybe you can even make out the green tiles in the hall beyond. See comments and photo below about making this doorway square again.

Before 1 Dining room from the Kitchen doorway. We lived with that newly plastered, white primed ceiling for more than 2 years before I was able to start serious work in this room.

After 1 Dining room from the Kitchen doorway

Before 2 From the Parlor Doorway. The closed french door ? That's the one that wouldn't open (see below).

After 2 From the Parlor Doorway

Before 3

After 3

Before 4 Cold and uninviting

After 4 Oh so cozy

Before 5 Fireplace was never here, but we wanted to add the "hearth" to this room to increase its family-center feeling.

After 5 The fireplace looks like it was here for the past 100 years, now.

There are Worse Things I Could Do

The lovely, formal dining room, with a typical, Victorian, shallow, high-center-windowed bay and gracious french doors opening onto the breezy porch, was used as a dank, bland, what a honkin-huge-TV-you-got kinda tv room by the previous owners. Their thick fingered, tobacco stained, brown leather sofas, set at rigid right angles to one another, focused on the cyan-glowing mechanism, which stood pride-of-place where, once, a silver-laden sideboard sat. The walls were Cheap-Supermarket-brand-artificially-flavored-ice-cream-Mint-Green. The dog hair spattered draperies from K-mart had pink flowers printed on them. The cable connection jutted prominently out of the wall—way too high to ever be discreet. One of the sofas blocked the french doors from opening. The other, placed across the front of the bay window, made the room feel small and cramped. Even more pathetic was that the new floor they put in had the threshold installed too high so the doors would never again swing open, even if that fat-crappy sofa was slid away.

The previous owners dining room. I took this photo (this is a digital photo of a paper photo) on the night we did our first viewing of the house. You can barely see the tops of those ugly brown sofas. I hated the drapes then—I hate 'em now. BUT, with a can of spray paint, I was able to reuse the curtain rods in the guest bed room.

PO's replaced some of the baseboards in the dining room. None of the corners were mitered to properly meet at a 45-degree angle – all evidently done by someone too "stoked" on HGTV's Candice, Vern or Carter to care about sensible carpentry. Even more, the top of every door and window where original, graceful, ogee-crown moldings once were, had them torn out so now the door and window frames sit dull and frumpy and I am pissed cause I gotta shell out more bucks to stick-em back on.

Previously, the ceiling was "fixed" with blow-on pseudo-flocking junk asbestos goo that plain made me itch. We couldnt tear it our cause of the freekin' asbestos, so it was covered over with one call to the plasterer (see master bed room story for more about the new ceilings).

Not a single crack in the plaster walls had been properly addressed by PO's. I inherited a battle-scared surface that looked more like the surface of a child's salt dough diorama than a wall. The only thing that saved them was my amazing $14 paint scraper (and before unknown plaster scraper) and a few tubes of caulk (yeah, ok, I used caulk to fill the cracks. C'mon, its flexible, wont shrink or crack, smooths easily, is affordable. I mean, really, think about it before you judge)

Open a New Window, Open a New Door ...

OK, okay - There are 3 doors/openings into the dining room, 1. the French doors, 2. the door to the back hall/kitchen, and 3. the door to the parlor. All three were altered in some way by the folks who used to live here. With alot of sweat and time and some cash, I altered them all to more-or-less original appearance.

I removed the un-opening French doors by tapping out the hinge pins, after I marked their bottoms to be trimmed so they could swing open over the too-high threshold. The doors will be trimmed, scraped, sanded, cleaned, glass re-pointed, washed, repainted and finally rehung. WHEW! This time, though, the original black iron original hinges will have been safely stashed in a shoe box in the attic. I will rehang the doors with solid brass Aesthetic-period hinges and matching Aesthetic brass doorknobs and plates (they never had handles or knobs, before). for now the doors sit in the hall awaiting a decent day to drag them outside to saw, scrape, sand etc.

Hang on. Let me take a second, here, to define a door way, as opposed to a door, in my house. A door is a hunk of wood hung into an opening that can be swung into or out of the opening to allow you to close off or enter/exit a room. A doorway, usually the same size as a door, has no hunk of wood to swing around. It's usually framed by wood, or in some cases, simply plastered smooth (these smooth doorways are often topped with a curved arch, an archway)

The second doorway, the one from the kitchen/hall, remained relatively the same size, but, like so many others doorways in the house, had been transformed into a 1920's pseudo-romantic, tudoresque, faux-Victorian archway that had too many layers of metal corner beading and thick uneven plaster. In the 1950s it was lined with pale green tile and chrome trim. Many people cried mountains of tears when they heard I was tearing out the arches. "They are so pretty" one cried. "I really love those pretty arches" another e-mailed. Well, well, well, my little pretties, the oscillating saw never stopped humming when it heard those cries. Like a crazed dictator invading Iraq, I was insensitive and unstoppable. I ripped out more and more of the thick sheet metal that shaped the curve, slapped bandages onto my bleeding battle wounds, and bit off hunks of plaster and poorly placed drywall patches with my bare-teeth to reshape the door frame back to nearly its original proportions. It now stands tall and proud. An uber-masculine, custom-made (by me), wood-trimmed, so near to how it looked when built over 100 years ago, doorway.

From left: 1, OK, so I realized I needed a before photo after I tore off the first layer of plaster so what you see is the metal framework that created the arch, The framework was made of 3 parts; 2 "corners" and one center piece. 2, the pile of metal from the doorway corners. Those rusty edge "wires" are almost 1/4 inch in diameter. 3, Doorway after demolition. The original framing is visible at the top of the doorway. I reluctantly left some corner bead on the sides (the plaster would have been demolished had I tried to remove it) so the doorway width is about 1 inch narrower than original. I did all this late one Sunday night in my bare feet and 'jammies.

From left: 1. The weekend following the above demolition, two weeks after I made all the molding, I fitted the first of the two doorways with wood trim. This was the first time I ever did anything like this so it took about four hours. Here is the jamb in place. 2, the plinth blocks, custom made, dry fitting to see tightness of joints. 3, the trim molding in place, except the overly-long bead trim - I pulled it out to rout the correct size and shape, then slipped it back into place the following weekend.

The doorway between the dining room and parlor, went thru hell. It kinda makes me cry to think about it. Originally a grand, wide, wood-trimmed, square opening, it graced the wall from dining room to parlor. At some point before about 1940, the crisp wood trim was ruthlessly torn down like that big wall in Germany, and a curved archway installed in its place (note: there are 7 total doorways that were transfigured into arches in this house - when I am thru, only 1 will remain).

In 1952 the Harris family enclosed only the bottom half of this wide archway to create a wall to sit the TV set against, leaving a wide arched window above that.

Visible behind this lovely couple is the half wall arch between the dining room and parlor, 1959. The dining room at this time was mint green (layers of paint discovered during deconstruction of some walls shows evidence of 5 different shades of green and only one other wall color, pale blue

You probably figured out that the mint green view of this doorway was from the dining room side. That hot pink is the parlor color (yeah, still). These photos (again, digital photos of paper photos) were taken when we were moving in in 2007. Note the lovely textured archway tops painted white - they matched the ugly ceiling - SHEESH!

After the Harrises moved, the center of that half-wall was opened up, creating a mushroom shaped opening, so you could walk between the rooms. A pair of columns were added to each side of the arch at some point, and then the PO's right before us torn them out. I hated the mushroom - I mean, im not Alice or the Mad Hatter or anything, and this sure ain't horse manure, SO, I had the top sides closed in to make a nice, normal, conservative doorway. Then, after it sat bare and raw, with unfinished plaster edges, for 2 years, I had to reframe it in custom-made wood trim like the other doorway. Now, to all those of you who said I was flat-out insane for making it into normal-sized door way, rather than tearing out the whole wall to "open it up" ... take a looksie.

Parlor doorway. Size = 34 inches wide x 85 inches tall, just like almost all the other doors in the house.

The entire ceiling was re-plastered, smoothing out the rough, texture that was better suited to a family room or basement, not a formal dining room. Here's the newly painted smooth ceiling that harkens back to empire period garlanded circle and oval designs (circa 1810). With time (and $$) I plan to add garland stenciling (sample 1, sample 2, sample 3) and crown molding to the ceiling. Oh, yeah, that medallion - uh hu - hand painted - not easy to do and pretty time consuming ... look carefully ...

My Favorite Things: Prep work

Scraping out the old caulk was easy. I have done this one a million times. A super sharp putty knife, pull-scraper and shop vac used like this: cut through the edges of the caulk with a sharpened putty knife so you have smooth straight lines on both sides of the crappy stuff (in most cases, a corner between the trim and a wall), pull scrape it out of the corner, vacuum, repeat. The funkiest thing was where the paint stretched off the walls or trim like it was sheets of caulk. Someone told me that's cause it was poorly adheared latex paint. Probably true since almost all the paint used in the house by the POs was hastily applied right before it went on the market—just like they do on HGTV or Extreme Home Makeover (really, do they ever let that paint cure? every tchotchke must stick to the shelf it's on ... but the bed looks like a race car ... cool)

Once the caulk is scraped out the trim gets scraped and sanded. In this room that was the dirtiest part. tape off every opening: every door, every window, your nostrils, too, if you can. That dust gets everywhere. But really, what is the option - paint on top of crap only to have more crap that's a different color ? Umm, not for me. (ok, while demolishing one of the arches i neglected to tape off the room and dust covered everything in the kitchen. It took over an hour to just dust off the kitchen counter (it's sticky dust, too)

Then its onto the walls, scrape (lightly, very, very lightly, like pixies dancing on the sky ...), then sand them where necessary.

The best part of the scraping/prep side of this work was discovering things, like the original paint color of the room, the original door framing, and below, the original shellacked oak trim.

An original paint color found under removed baseboard.

Original Window Trim wood. This was the same throughout the house.

Then ya gotta refill all those holes you made. Caulk all joints, patch all nail holes and any plaster that came loose, caulk the cracks (see above).

These last 3 paragraphs took you, what, 30 seconds to read? Multiply that by about a jillion and you get real-time on this part of the job. I posted the day I started scraping this room on Facebook, July 6, 2010, and the scraping and sanding was finally done and ready to prime in mid October. (ok, we repainted the garage and rebuilt the rest of the basement in there, too, but come on, people)

Paint Your "chuck" Wagon

Unretouched photo of the intense green wall color hand applied over brilliant lime
undercoat. Note on the left side some brush strokes are, indeed, visible,
exposing the lime undercoat.

The perfect wall color, the perfect color, indeed, is so often done in the fluorescent brilliance of Lowes or Home Depot on a Saturday morning with about a million do-it-your-selfers milling about and screaming kids in every other cart wizzing past you. Choosing the right paint color took me over a year. A while back I read a book on the history of paint and saw in it a photo of an untouched painted room from about 1860. The deep green walls of that room literally glowed, it was stunning. Thats whats possible with good old poisonous lead paint with arsenic in it. Alas, I had to make due with plastic emulsion (aka, latex). I thought constantly about reproducing that color—I was obsessed. Finally, I concluded that I had to recreate it with several colors and multiple layers of paint.

Underpainting 1 Most visitors thought I was absolutely nuts

Underpainting 2 The first of 2 coats of chewing-gum green primer

Want to know how crazy I am ? I had Lowes remix my primer three times before it was the right shade of screaming, hubba-hubba, chewing gum green. No one thinks about how the primer color changes the paint you put on top of it. I wanted the walls to glow like the ones in that photo. If I used the right primer color, and hand-brushed the top coat of paint in thin washes, darkening the wall color toward the corners, I might get something of the look I was after. I undertook painting the walls like they were massive canvases. I painted out the light in some areas and let the glow of the brilliant green primer show thru in others. I wanted candle light. It's a subtle look, and the flat finish of the paint, along with hand-brushing the paint (no rollers were used in this room), give the walls the look of glowing, old, silk velvet.

Part 2, Dining Room Details, and more on trim wood, coming soon

You Light Up My Life ...

2010-11-29T14:04:00.000-05:00

Finally, after, well, I can't remember how many months -- IT IS DONE

The Dining room restoration (ok, ok, I still have small bits to complete) preview is below

A full story on this amazing transformation to follow within the week

BEFORE

WARNING

2010-10-18T16:17:00.002-04:00

You'll be mystified. You'll be dazzled. You'll wonder why in the world it took this long.

Soon, very soon, you will be able to read (ok, in about 3 weeks) a highly-detailed, cautiously documented and sometimes aromatic (sniff-sniff) description of how the Dining Room became breathtakingly beautiful once again. The names are the same cause there are no innocents and every drip of sweat and each achy body part was earned—deserved from the grueling work that accomplished these sensational vistas.

Ah, gentle reader, you may soon sit back, read, enjoy and, if you are among the few, the exclusive, revel in the elegance and impressive sparkle that is ... the Dining Room.

The Writing IN the wall

2010-08-26T19:06:00.003-04:00

When I started researching this old house I had some doubt about the previous owners claim that it was the Shively's Summer residence. Afterall, Shively is and was a fairly prominent family name in town with ancestry dating back to the middle or late 18th century. But then, as I dug through deeds, sifted through library archives and even covered in dust and grime while cleaning up and restoring walls and wood trim, some amazing indisputable facts start to shine.

While I was cleaning the built-in linen press in the hall on the second floor I turned over a drawer (these are hefty drawers, mahogany and pine and weigh at least 45 pounds) and I saw some writing - the name Shively penciled onto the back of a drawer. Now, you know this is the one time where there is no doubt the Shivelys built the home (additionally, I found evidence in the way the linen press is built that shows it is absolutely original to the home, not added at a later time, as some thought).

Along with Shively job are the words linen press and drawer back-- further evidence that this was custom built as the linen press in the Shively home and not reused timber (commonly done in pre-20th century America--they were the original recyclers).

The left sid eof the drawer back showing the words drawer back and Shively job

The job number and description -- 1246 and linen press -- seen in this shot of the right side of the drawer back

So that put me on alert - I scoured closets and shelves and things looking for writing. Another place in the house where I found written evidence of the custom craftsmanship that built this house is inside the window seat in the alcove in the master bed room.


L (left) side is written on this panel inside the window seat

I figure that 46 is the job number on this built-in. Marked seat top it identifies the fixed panel seating area between the 2 hinged lids

Discovered while I was on my hands and knees, patiently washing out the inside of the seat so we can store sweaters, this looks like its just simple handyman notation. But, I do love the look of 19th century and early 20th century script, even that of a handyman. Inside the seat you can see the original and unfinished floorboards, and the three-coat plaster, original throughout the house.

The restored dresser where a list of furniture purchases from about 1810 was found

One of the most exciting written documents I have found is not in the house. It is a tally of purchases, including prices, on the back of a drawer from a dresser dating to about 1810. Again, while I was cleaning and waxing it, I flipped a drawer and was stunned to see this list of furniture. Its a bit hard to read so I had to enhance the writing a bit, but note the $ and cents column notations at the top of the list:

Table 7 00

Dresser Stand 4 50

Beadstead (bed) 3 50

Chaises 13 50

(total) 28 50

All that for only $28.50. Its pretty exciting to know that this dresser was originally sold for just $4.50. Man, to go back in time with a fist-full of money and buy buy buy.

Written on the top of another drawer is Mary Madison 1900 in what is obviously a childs hand. She probably got to use this dresser when it fell out of favor/became unfashionable. I dont know who she is, but I do know this dresser has a recent Indiana history, so one day I may try to find out who Mary Madison was.

Masterful cursive created with care tells us plainly that this dresser belonged to Mary Madison in 1900

These lovely handwritten documents, most often hidden away behind drawers, under cabinets and inside furniture are some of the most touching and insightful records of earlier lives I have ever found. Makes you want to rip apart your old desk or closet and see who left their mark from long ago.

Dee-diddle-de-de-DEED

2010-08-11T18:07:00.000-04:00

I am so glad that University of Louisville has such an amazing archive. And doubly thankful that the son of the original owner of this house (Les Shively) was the Alumni director for the university for almost 45 years.

I found, today, a file on Les Shively in those UofL archives and in that file was the original deed to our house. Very exciting to see all that info, the signatures of the original owners (Joshua and his wife Dora) and it made me laugh since it was for $500.

More soon - but no photos this time (no photography in the archives at the university)

Doing the Foundation Strip-tease

2010-07-22T14:04:00.001-04:00

Last year the first week of September we had 6 inches of rain in one hour and the sewer systems were overwhelmed. We ended up with 2 feet of water in our basement - some people had 6-10 feet of water in theirs. We decided to do the clean up and replace the walls ourselves, and now, almost a year later, I am very glad we made that decision.

One side of the basement was left as it was built - brick with stucco face 1/2 walls, wood walls above. the other half of the basement was "finished" to create the appearance of a living space, but there is far too much damp to really live in it.


View of the finished side of the basement before we began, note the warped wallboard form the flood

In an attempt to maintain the secure nature of the basement -- in-other-words to keep out the creepy critters -- we worked on 8-foot sections at a time. First we removed the wallboard, repaired the masonry and wood foundation walls, repaired any rot/damage to the inside support walls (the wood that holds the drywall up - whats it really called ??) and added in critter bait and borax dust to kill of some bugs. One ingenious thing I dreamed up was that we put down a polystyrene brick molding to raise the drywall off the floor 2 inches -- for those days when there is a little water seepage into the basement the drywall wont get wet -- then replaced the wallboard on top of the brick molding with damp-proof drywall laid horizontally so we can remove the lower section of there is another flood without tearing up the upper part of the wall.

So here are some photos of the repair process - see the earlier post for masonry repairs.

ALSO - our big fireplace/ash pit discovery.


Here's a typical section of wall. Note the original/structural pale green painted wooden wall at the top. Note the original white stucco & masonry wall at the bottom. Also see the rotted wood at the bottom of the picture, that's the drywall support wood stuff whatever its called - its what these photos are of.

Here the rotted wood along the floor has been cut out.

The wood is removed, but we still have to cut out that nail to slide in the new replacement wood.

New wood and the white brick mold in place - the drywall sits on top of that chunky molding and is raised above the damp floor to keep it dry.

Discovering the fire place or ash pit behind insulation and wallboard. Originally this would have all been exposed.

An annoying sideways view of the fireplace area showing both the top and bottom openings. From what evidence we found, these were both always opened. There if wood floor at the top of this section separating it from the room above.

The bottom part of the fireplace foundation. I think this may have originally been an ash pit where burned ash remains were collected from the 2 fireplaces above.

Sweeping 110 years of fallen mortar dust and ashes out of the top section of the fireplace

The top and bottom sections of the fireplace are connected by a hole, this is not a fallen brick, either.

OK, call me crazy for taking a picture of this, but here's a 100 year old un-struck (?) match, dang.

History Lessons, Restoration Style

2010-05-19T12:27:00.006-04:00

It occurred to me that I have neglected something big ... the history of this little-old-house. From the limited information that is available here is what I have been able to pull together.

Above is a 1953 photo of the back of the house. in this view you can clearly see the Craftsman influence of the neighborhood, but its the front of the house that lays claim to being categorized Shingle-style.

Built by the Shively family as a summer home around 1900 in the prestigious retreat area off the Grand Boulevard, the house is in the late Shingle-style. Wealthy residents of fashionable Old Louisville summered in the area near the new Olmstead-designed Iroquois Park to escape the heat of the city. The house became the full-time residence of the Shively's in 1909 -- they previously maintained a high-style Victorian residence on Breckenridge Avenue, downtown.

The exact build date of the house is unknown because of a fire in the city records office. There are dates written inside the house (on electrical certificates and on a cabinet drawer from 1908 and 1903, respectively) and the house is listed in old directories as the primary residence in 1909.

Joshua C. was a descendant of Christian Shively who settled the Falls of the Ohio, now Louisville, in 1780. He and his wife (?) had two sons, Leslie C. and (?). Leslie, 1911-2005, was a veteran of World War II and after retiring from University of Louisville Alumni Department, spent much of his time restoring horse-drawn vehicles and railway cars. While living here, Leslie spent a great deal of time at Douglas Park, the horse race track at the end of the block that was a major competitor with Churchill Downs, and whose entrance pillars still stand near the street. I do not know information about his brother, but believe his name was Thomas and he was the older brother.

The Shively family lived here until 1946. From both the obvious alterations in woodwork and plaster and some shadows of what was there, there was a significant renovation made to the house interior before 1952. We know they were done before this date because of pictorial evidence. A new pink bathroom was installed (the sink dates specifically to 1948) which is still in place in its entirety. According to an older handyman who did some roof repairs for us, beams were added to the parlor ceiling and an odd "window" was installed in the stairway wall before 1952. The baseboards were all changed (except for a few on the stairs and one hallway that were probably too difficult to alter). After that all of the wood-trimmed doorways that did not have doors in them were stripped of their wood trim and made into curved arches. We know the order of these 2 renovations since the baseboard at the foot of the doorways, where the plinth block would have been, is pieced, and there are still shadows of the wood trim and plastering marks on the walls around the arches. Another significant alteration done before 1952 was the addition of a door to the bottom of the stairway to the third floor. I assume this was to prevent heat from rising into the third floor, which is still unheated space.

It is my presumption that these alterations were done either 1.) to modernize the house before selling in 1946 (the arched doorways seem very 1920's to me) or 2.) they were done to personalize the house by the new owners in 1946-1952.

In the photo above you can clearly see the pieced baseboards where the door trim was removed to make smooth curved arches.

Two significant alterations to the house from the 1952-1960 period are the removal of the back stairs to add a powder room, (this was just confirmed this past week by a former resident who said her father removed the stairs to add the powder room for her grandmother who could no longer get up the stairs to the only bathroom on the second floor) and closing in the front porch to make an additional bedroom for her (there were, after all, 8 people here from 1952-1960) and the subsequent removal of that room to return the porch after 1960.

Based on photos we have of the interior from 1952-1960, few alterations were done to the interior after 1960 beyond paint and some ceiling re-plastering.

It is our plan to remove the curved arched doorways and replace the wood trim in the parlor and dinging rooms, and to remove the wall and window in the stairway and open it back up. We debate about returning the back stairs, but having a second bathroom always seems to win out. other curved arches will probably remain for now.

In about 1960 a wooden deck was added to the back of the house and in about 1964 the wood siding and shake shingles that define the Shingle-style of this house were wrapped in white and mint-green vinyl. At that time the windows in the house were still the original wooden ones. The most recent previous owners removed the wonderful old wooden windows and installed vinyl throughout the house, except the basement.

Our plans for the exterior include releasing the house of its vinyl siding prison and reinstalling some wooden windows (mainly to the facade).

One intriguing mystery is that of the front parlor window. In circa 1956 photos, the front wall of the parlor is perfectly smooth in the space where there is now a window. This window fits the fenestration of the facade perfectly and seems to be an original feature, however, residents from the '50's say there never was a window in that location. It remains a head-scratcher and I bet that only pulling it out, or tearing up the wall will reveal the truth to whether that window was 1.) original, removed and reinstalled, or 2.) simply added after 1960.

the Yearlings

2010-05-12T21:02:00.000-04:00

here are some first year photos of the most recent rose acquisitions. I am very pleased with them all so far.

Coquette des Blanches

La Reine

Sombreuil

Comtesse de Murinais

Martha

Dr. Huey on the fence

Spring time

2010-04-09T10:43:00.001-04:00

Taking a short rest form working inside the house recently. Spring time hit with a whollup this year. The temperatures soared into the upper 80s for the past week and after a long dry-spell, we finally got some rain the other night. Here are some photos of how the gardens are growing.

Hope you enjoy.

Facebook and Twitter in the Cellar

2010-03-22T12:44:00.001-04:00

Now you can catch up with all of our restoration and design antics on Facebook and Twitter

Follow me on Twitter at OldHouseDesign

or

Friend me on Facebook at jrosendale123

Were heading back into the Cellar soon so be sure to "tune in" for more stories about our trials with the drywall there ...

Peaceful Dreams ... at long last

2010-03-07T12:41:00.000-05:00

As anyone who has restored (notice I didn't say renovate) an old house understands, one of the most difficult things is undoing all the "bad, evil and wicked" previous owners plopped into your house. We have fought againstminor things such as tchotchke light switches, bad wood trim additions and colors choices that I have only previously seen in my worst nightmares. Some of the major things are using spray foam insulation to rebuild the foundation and installing windows into a wall that had a crumbling main support beam (see Sunroom) . Couple that with natures inevitable drone forward, catapulting your plaster into little piles of dust or sagging those ols joists enough to crack the walls open in some places, and you always have longer than expected projects in hand. Such was the master bedroom restoration.

Within weeks of moving in we were drenched at about 3 am when the ceiling and wall above our heads gave way to a gusher of water from the roof (just like an illness or a plumbing disaster, these bad things never happens when you can actually, easily do something about it). The bed was placed against the old fireplace/chimney breast (long since removed) and the flashing around that chimney was horrible so ... in came the water. Strangely, after I was dry and caught a few more hours of sleep, I saw this as a potentially positive situation. See, the ceiling was one of those poporn things and there are these arch-like-things that span from the chimney breast out to the side walls and create little "niches" on either side of the ex-chimney breast. The popcorn ceiling makes me think of a bad apartment I had years ago that smelled of cat box and the niches are a little too cutsie for my taste. Why not have the plasterer remove them both when he comes in to fix the damaged ceiling ? Brilliant !

A few days later the roofer had the chimney flashing repaired and since he grew up in this neighborhood we heard lots of stories. In fact, he dated one of the girls who lived in this house in the fifties and confirmed that the beams in the parlor were a late addition.

OK, roof watertight ... time to get the plasterer in to fix up the interior.

Fast forward a month and about 20 plasterer estimates and youll understand how we ended up with a team of drywall-guys in the house hanging drywall on the ceiling. Who knew plaster would be that expensive (just dont tell anyone it's not plaster.) They did a fine job and even connected us with a good electrician. Meanwhile, before we moved in, the master bed room was wallpapered. When the ceiling collapsed there were bits of walpaperpaper torn off, of course. Well, you know how a tiny thread on a sweater beckons to you to pull at it, the same is true of torn wallpaper. One swift pull and the paper came off one of the niches and licked around a corner onto a full wall. Not a big deal until you try to smooth the torn edge of wallpaper - you cant. The drywaller said to pull off all the paper and he could skim coat the whole room ($$). So we did ... and he couldn't. The mud wouldn't stick to the underlayment paper that was beneath the wallpaper and we couldn't remove it either. He recommended that he hang 1/4 inch drywall over all the wall$$$$$$$$.

So the walls and the ceiling were repaired and smoothed with more drywall, and oh, those arches that I wanted removed, yeah, they were structural and hid the slope of the roof. Realizing we had to keep them, they were made straight, rather than arched. Not perfect, but it looks pretty good.

Repairs to the wood trim were minimal and I used up several tubes of caulk around the edges of the drywall. The alcove area was not changed, excepting my usual obsessive scraping and cleaning out old caulk (really, what are people thinking when they just squirt that stuff in and leave it all lumpy and gross?).

Painting was a little crazy. The original color scheme was light jade green walls, maroon trim (to mimic the color of the Chinese antiques we have) and a fleshy-pink ceiling. Painting the ceiling came first, high gloss since the walls are a flat finish. I always put on a coat of trim color since painting the edges of the trim makes me nuts (its easier to edge the wall along the trim than the trim along the wall, if that makes sense). Then I did the walls. I used Benjamin Moore paint that we got 1/2 off at a sale this past fall. It was terrible paint - like syrup. I hated it, but put on 2 coats.

Here is a funny fact. light jade green turns into awful mint green when its translated into a flat painted wall. So I panicked. I added some yellow, some brown--I mixed and trialed into the night. I painted the whole room that re-mixed color and wanted to sit in a corner of that hideously colored room and cry.It looked like old Jadite kitchen glass and made my perfect ceiling look hot pink ... what a mess.

The next day we reviewed the paint chips for Porter Paint - I had a sample of it for the dining room color and liked the consistency and the color options. We chose a dull deep olive as you can see in the photos. Its so much better with the dark color of the trim and furniture. and makes the ceiling look fantastic.

Check out the photos ... they show off how dramatic the change from bubble-gum pink to sophisticated green is ... and not only that, but the whole room feels like a big-boy room now, not a litttle girls barbie-inspired hide-a-way. Back to the basement, next, still have to finish what we left when the temps got too cold to easily work there.

Ebonized Music Cabinet

2010-02-14T12:38:00.004-05:00

Hi all. I recently found this great little Ebonized American Aesthetic Music Cabinet to add to the huge pile of furniture that is littering the parlor. I checked out a reference book I have and, well, lo-and-behold, there was my cabinet. It is only 39 inches tall and originally came in either a small size (top = 13 x 17 inches) or a larger size (top = 13 x 20 inches) - this is the larger size. It was also available in either Solid Walnut with Ebony and gilt accents for $24 or Ebonized Walnut with Gilt for $24. Check out all those super old American machine-produced Aesthetic cabinets. WOW - this is the stuff I love ... Thank goodness for the industrial revolution.

(side note - and this always makes me laugh - You know all that "hand-carved" Victorian furniture you see on eBay - MACHINE MADE ... yup yup ... how in the world could it all have been made entirely by hand. Did we all really forget 3rd grade history and the whole story of mechanization and the Victorian Industrial Revolution ? OH ... and why are we all such suckers for that term "hand-carved")

According to the book, and the reprinted catalog page, it was made by Clarke Bros. & Co. but oddly, there is no information about this company (like where they were, when they were in existence, etc...)

If anyone knows anything, please e-mail me. I love the little cabinet nonetheless, but wouldn't it be great to know more about it !

I just discovered that the Clarke Brothers Furniture Co. was located in Cincinnati OH. This makes sense since I have found three items on the reprinted catalogue pages that I have bought in the Louisville area. More info as I discover more ...

Confounded Foundation

2009-12-23T17:17:00.009-05:00

Since my last post about the Kitchen renovation we have focused on repairing the basement. There are 2 main problems: 1. the foundation wall beneath the Sun Room and 2. the warped 1960's paneling that needs replacing since the flood.

Here in photo number one you can see the meager attempt by the PO's at filling gaps with spray foam. notice it dripping from below the sil plate. One other problem was that we neglected to inspect behind the insulation - and you all know that the minute you move something to look behind it, well, the results wont be fun ...

What you will see in the 2 photos below, or I should say, NOT see, is the mortar that should be in between the bricks. In the first picture we had already removed the sil plate and the spray foam and dusted off some of the mortar for a clearer image. On the left you can see an old, not well done, patch job (note the grey colored mortar below the hand scraper)

Problem number 2 for the foundation was, ugh, termites. There were old tunnels and decayed/eaten posts, beams, etc. along the three outdoor walls that make up this part of the basement (the fourth wall is an interior wall where we have not identified any termite activity). We still wonder how the house didnt fall in every time we walked thru the back door. We got the house treated.

We rebuilt the Sun Room foundation wall in sections, not seeing the need to support anything because, frankly, so much of the timber had to be replaced im not sure what was holding the floor up above our heads- anything we did would just make it stronger. Matthew has become an excellent mason. Here are some pictures of him vacuuming out old crumbled mortar, infilling and rebuilding the wall, and of the final completed section.

This job took over a month since we had to rebuild masonry, then let it cure before rebuilding the wood above. We also addressed some outdoor trouble as removing the old bricks to remortar them showed up some gaping holes in the stucco (were not sure how old that stucco is. It predated 1950 and could be original to the house.) Here are some photos from the outside of Matthews masonry work inside.

You can see the holes best in this image since the light from inside is streaming out.

Here is one of those holes patched - to the left of the photo. Crawling under the back deck to access these holes was eyeopening to me. We plan to remove the vinyl siding at some point and seeing that there are good remnants/clues about how the wood siding was constructed hiding under the deck will really help once were ready to tackle that huge job. in the photo below you can also see the old drip edge, cut to accomodate the vinyl siding, just a few inches below the bottom of the deck joist. Its the rounded molding that hangs a little over top of the white flashing. This molding would have directed water away from the foundation when the house was all wood-clad and so we should be able to reproduce or replace it.

Finally, a small corner repair that I did from outside. Yes, that is a pie-pan you see. aluminum flashing is aluminum flashing in my book, and since its a bandaid till we tear off the vinyl siding, I wasnt worried about looks. Its a good solid repair, though, if I say so myself.

Here is a before photo of the other part of the basement that needs repair. You can see the wall we had to cut out after the flooding. We opened up that doorway in the process to connect the 2 sides of the basement together. Ill follow up with more photos and information on this repair as I get them - its in the process.

The Exterior

2009-11-18T18:59:00.003-05:00

Mange !

2009-11-02T13:37:00.012-05:00

We love to eat ... and love to have others over to cook meals together. But the kitchen we inherited was not able to supply us with anything remotely like that.

Our kitchen, when we moved in, was a brightly lit pale lavender and white, girly, nightmare.

The circa 1976 green electric stove was unusable, filthy and had to be replaced immediately. There are no photos of it.

The ochre colored refrigerator smelled so bad and was so dirty we only put food in it that was in backpacks. As we removed it the day the new one was delivered, enough dog hair came out of the bottom to build a standard sized poodle - no exaggeration. Obviously the fridge was replaced immediately. Again, no photos of this monstrosity

The dishwasher leaked during the home inspection prior to buying the house so it was replaced before we got here with a model that we choose.

The countertops were 6-inch tile laid with 1/2 - 3/4 inch grout lines that captured any crumb, spill, or goo that got on the counter and never let go. I scrubbed them endlessly, it seemed. We replaced them with granite-look laminate very quickly after getting new appliances. Look closeley at the before photos and you may see some filth stuck in the grout.

The ceiling fan worked, but was way too fru-fru for our more classic historical taste. It was low priority, but also had to go. It was replaced.

The strip of track lights above the sink didnt work. Sure there were lights and bulbs, and a switch on the wall, but there was no wire between the two. Richard fixed that and added a new, outlandish light fixture we found at Home Depot (go figure).

There was also a switch, and wire, for a sink disposal, but no disposal. We got one within 6 months.

The floor wasn't our taste, but it was nice ceramic tile that was fairly inoffensive, not broken and not installed too poorly. It stayed.

The sink was stained and the finish was dull and ruined. It was just replaced with an 18 gague stainless sink last week.

We kept the cabinets, though, repainting them more appealing colors. I would have loved to do away with the upper cabs, but we needed the storage, so I painted them a glossy color similar to the matte color of the walls. We also changed out the door handles and the handle position for some we scored on sale at Ikea.

My father and I spent three days installing that over the stove microwave. Mom and Dad got it for us for Christmas, 08. We had to install electric and build a cabinet before hanging the micro. THANKS DAD !!!

One other thing, note the huge cabinet in the last photo that overhangs the window. That was replaced by open shelving that lets more light in. (boy, did I learn alot about where the studs are from this experience ... there arent many ...)

Check out these before and after photos. They are the only 4 before photos I have, so look carefully thru the out of focus ... I tried to pair them up as well as I could so you can clearly see the change. I think our style is pretty vintage 40's meets industrial, but you can tell me otherwise ...

The photos below look like a glare on a windshield its all so white ... totally not our taste. the bright trim makes the huge windows look tiny against that pale lavender wall color.

Look to the left in this photo to see the overhanging cabinet sticking out past the wall and into the window. the table and garbage can are in the same spots in both photos, along with the red clock on the wall.

Our Second Anniversary

2009-10-31T18:23:00.004-04:00

Last week we quietly celebrated 2 years in the Shively House. It has been busy, as I think you can surmise. I am glad to have this happy reason to add another post since most of the past few months has been dreadful.

On August 4 the basement was flooded with sewage backup from the overwhelmed rain & sanitary combo sewage system. We got about 6 inches of rain in only a few hours and nearly the whole city was covered in sewage. I waded thru nearly 2 feet of crap to carry out as much from the basement as I could. The rest we toted out on a nice sunny day the following weekend and washed the heck out of it. It was pretty bad and we still have not restored the walls of our basement.

Below you can see the street in front of our house, that car in the distance is covered to its hood by water.

Just in time for Halloween, the bats came back ... so ... we got all marvel comics on them and >>POW<< •• >>BAM<< got them outta here ... again. So far no signs, but were watching like hawks.

Which, by the way, we have those beauties in droves. Here is a photo of one of them during a rainstorm, sitting in the driveway. He's a young Coopers Hawk that I caught on video taking a bath in that puddle. He was having a great time, but the video is too big for me to post right now.

As the final stage of our long-drawn-out saga of the basement flood we cleared out one side of the basement today where the drywall needs to be rehung. We also cut out a doorway under the stairs to reconnect the 2 halves of the basement (there is a non-structural wall segment that creates 2 rooms in the basement, one raw and cellar-like where I can repair stuff and woodworking and the other, semi finished by the previous owners as a playroom.) We also started vacuuming out the foundation room under the sun room that we restored this past winter. There has been a slow little leak that sometimes shows up in that room, right under where the back door is. As we vacuumed and moved some insulation out of the way it became perfectly clear that the little leak has been going on for quite some time and the wood in that area was like a crispy wet sponge.

We dug out the crowbar and a hammer and screwdriver to dig at the old wood and vacuumed till we were choking on the dust from the shop vac. It was horrible. I got aditional lights. I got hit in the head several times by the shop vac hose. We breathed dirt and fiberglass. We finally cleared alot out and saw that some serious damage had occurred. We filled in the gaps we just made with chunks of wood and expanding spray foam (we love that stuff) till we can get the repairs made properly.

Now we need to figure out what is really needed, get that master bed room painted that we begain in March of 2009, do the repairs to the structure of the house in the basement, or rehang drywall. This is exactly why nothing ever seems to get done ... even after 2 years.

I got Coal and it ain't even Christmas

2009-08-20T17:08:00.004-04:00

I don't know if others do this, but when the house restoration feels never ending and I don't see much getting accomplished, I will change plans and do a little small-scale restoration. This way I get some satisfaction of a job completed and, hopefully, don't loose too much time out of my crazy schedule.

Check out these photos of a mini-restoration of a Coal Bin.

Here are the before Photos (I am known to forget to take these, this time I remembered). The little black painted metal box is about 18 inches tall, came without feet, but had beautiful cast iron handles in the shape of flower baskets, no dents, and original painting. See how dull and lifeless the color is. All it required was some cleaning and a good coat of Shellac.

Here are some after photos. The painting is all original. I have another coal bin from an earlier shopping trip without any painting that was dented all over but had amazing handles in the shape of Pharaoh heads with Egyptian head and claw feet. Since those handles and feet were restored earlier, and this bin had no feet, I combined the 2 into one and ditched the flower basket handles it came with. That's pretty much frowned upon by antique purists, but they were both the same manufacturers - The Jewett Vase. This coal bin even had the patent info on the inside of the lid (sorry my photo is a bit blury). Its from Dec. 10, 1872. After I finished this (in one afternoon) I felt like I wasn't a total slacker and did actually accomplish something. If you ever have worked on an old house, you know that feeling - there is always a longer "fix it" list than "accomplished it" list.

More by the Garden Gate

2009-07-24T18:30:00.005-04:00

I found some before photos of the library and gardens of the Shively House that I wanted to share with you after my last posts about the library and pond.

First, the library before - quite a change, hu ?

Here are 2 photos of the backyard as we bought it - the pond sits smack in the middle of everything partially in the shade of those birch trees. Another view from the Driveway as you go into the back yard.

Finally, here are a few photos, one before, the rest current, of the front gardens of the house - we added the fence and perennial garden along the street, tore out and moved the shrubs under the porch and put in a boxwood and rose garden - Ill add photos of that as it grows in, for now those are potted roses waiting to be put in. The stones and pine needle mulch replace about 9 inches of wood mulch and a ton of termites - NEVER put wood mulch against the house - unless of course you hate your house and want to watch it slowly die.

before

after

La Isla Bonita

2009-07-20T21:31:00.005-04:00

Here are some photos and a 26 second video of the pond. For those of you who thought we were major slackers, wasting time lounging in the sun listening to Wham! and Madonna instead of diligently restoring the house (yeah, the master bed room is STILL undone), heres the thing that keeps us busy outside - but we love it. The pets are doing well, as you can see in the video. The pond is about 26 x 12 feet and varies from 2-5 feet deep. Sure, we still have more refinement work to do around the edges (ok, who am I kidding, its not refinement, it plain old sluggin rocks - rocks are heavy -- and expensive -- so its slow moving until Fred Flintstone comes to help). Notice the huge white flower in the back left next to the lantern. Thats my lotus that has the most intriquing smell ever (American yellow). More on Lotuses later.

Below is a close view of the "beach" section. This is the end of the pond that we built steps into so we can get in and out (the rest of the sides are straight vertical drops) and the slallow water is about 3 inches deep. Strangely, the fish LOVE swimming around here searching for food. I know - I do keep it netted to thwart predators here.

Below is a quick video of the Koi. Sure they are tiny & cheap (remember, I am unemployed and really cheap by nature, too), but they will grow. I guess most of them are about 4-6 months old. Check out how friendly they are. Also look at the long fins on a couple of them. These are some of the butterfly koi that we fell in love with at a local pond and fountain store. Much more on the pond later, but this should be a quick glimpse for those who havent had a chance to see it in person.

Playing Catch UP

2009-07-14T09:35:00.006-04:00

I HAVE PHOTOS. Thanks Lisa for the great little camera.

I will be adding a few posts and photos for each room we have completed to date - along with some that need some work bad ... Hope you all enjoy.

First is the Library. This room sits on the West side of the house on the third floor. It was one of the first rooms we cleaned and painted for a few reasons: We needed a place to store all our books and it had shelves already built-in, and because it needed near zero work (other than a color change and maybe some improvements in the future, they never really stop, do they ?).

There is a wall to wall/indoor-outdoor-type carpet in here with original floor boards below. We may one day strip out the carpet and clean up the floor, but for now its a comfortable room. The third floor has no heating/cooling so we use it only a few months out of the year and suffer through short trips to grab a book the rest. I have a grand scheme for some solar panels and heating/cooling unit in the attic to condition the third floor, but that's a long way and a few thousand dollars off. For now a portable heater in the winter and open windows works fine.

Here's a restored chair and an unrestored frame and easel that are in the library. All part of the Mooresque style we are trying to impart on the room. I have stencils I am playing with, but thats a low priority.

Behind the easel is a little room, its one of a couple of dormers that jut out of the third floor roofline. It has a great original-to-the-house unpainted door on it and there are more shelves built inside the dormer room. I do need clean up the contraption that was built to fill the arched doorway - the door has been hacked off on top to fit under the gable and the dormer wont allow the door to swing if I rebuild a pointed top to the door, so Ill fill in the arch with some wallboard and fit additional door surround to clear out the hinged head-banger on the door - check out the photos of it.

The BLUE carpet is pretty ugly, hu ? but it helps insulate, is in clean/good condition and is far better than ill-fitted plywood. I do need to check out whats below it and see if any repairs/insulation are needed. We insulated this room and under the eaves (access to both the left and right of inside the doorway) last fall. I use it to store cleared hardware for the house and picture frames - and yeah, thats a window air conditioner we took out of the library. It may go back in one day but till then here it sits.

Look for more soon.

Jinkies, Velma, that looks like a bat

2009-06-06T19:50:00.003-04:00

Creeking stairs, slamming doors, things that go bump-crash-kaboom in the night; we have had it all here at the big old Shively House.

It wasnt long after we moved in that the ghosts started making an appearance. My sister-in-law saw her in the bed room, staring all night but not moving or saying a word. She was a modern ghost, right out of 1957 in a typical A-line skirt and matching short jacket. We later found out it was Katie Sue, who used to live here and sleep in the room where she was seen. Then there were things that ran up or down the stairs--I never saw them, but am confident they appeared to those who did. And the Shop Vac incident when the machine kept turning itself off untill i protested to the ghost that I had work to do and leave me alone for a while. The worst was a large black cloud-like figure in the corner of the dining room and the accompanying self-moving pointesttia plant. Thankfully, I didnt see that one either.

There is a creepy little room in the basement--really just the back porch foundation--that really gives everyone the willies. Another "hidden room" lies behind a wall and was found only when we were having a termite inspection done. This time just the front porch foundation, but it gives rise to great haunting stories. And the library on the third floor causes more than one friend to have the hairs on their neck stand on-end and one visitor got goosebumps that lasted all the while she retreated to the safety of the second floor.

The latest "haunting" is more problematic and far less romantic than these--we got bats. Sure it completes the tricked-out Scooby-Doo theme we got going, but Zoinks, Shaggy, why our house? There is no evidence that they were here for previous owners, who, like us, did have trouble with birds roosting under the eves on the south side of the house. We have tried eradicating the bats from the house ourselves. netting stretched over their openings, watching the house every evening (so we know where to stretch that netting), caulk, spray foam, tape, anything but poison and wringing their blind little necks.

Maybe its time to call in a professional, or just be happy when Scooby calls me Freddy ...

Today's 2-fer

2009-05-17T19:56:00.009-04:00

OK, I do have pictures - here are a batch of the house circa 1952-ish courtesy of Jody, a woman we met last January who lived here 1951-1960. I'll do a post all about that AMAZING day, next.

also one of the house as purchased (lovely mint green siding, hu?

Enjoy!

There's always tomorrow ...

2009-05-17T19:28:00.002-04:00

My final nut-job-anal-retentive fixes brought the sun room saga to a close last Friday (I know, post a picture already, sheesh.) This past week there was no interior project to consume me. Oh, now, don't be fooled, it was still not a week of Oprah and Cheeto's on the sofa - no, no, no.

There is a new perennial garden spanning the width of the front yard against the fence we installed last Fall (about 50 feet long, mostly 4 feet wide except one corner where there is a 15 foot radius quarter circle.) Renting a rototiller at Home depot sure is fun. And the guys who work there made it all so easy since they couldn't give a crap about doing their job. The transplanted Hollyhock is not going to make it, sad. A package of seeds is only a few bucks and they do such a great job of reseeding themselves.

The pond is pumping and algae is growing. And I just want to say I seriously had NO idea that was a GFCI receptacle - I didn't know it was tripped for 2 weeks and THAT was the reason the pump wouldn't work outside (it did great in the tub.) We bought some little feeder fish at the pet store a couple weeks ago to test the water. At 10 for $1.50 it wasn't a huge investment, but if all 10, er, I mean, 9 (one jumped - he was found kinda pale and lifeless on the ground), make it, we'll have $40 worth of bigger fish. They are only rarely seen darting along full-speed just under the surface of the water. That says good things to me about the pond. They are far from lifeless and slow. I mean, really, if one was able to get up enough speed to jump out, well, there ya go. The bigger guys in the basement are going to be SO HAPPY when they get to spread their fins in the big pond.

Back to the inside: I have been in color-freak-out-mode. The color I got for the Master Bedroom walls is just going to be too dark. No, it's not a dark color at all. Fairly light; a kind of medium-pale jade color. But since we have been living with white primed walls for a year, a pale washed out bedroom is kind of growing on me. The windows face North and East so the first morning sun filters through the pale pinkish-tan silk drapes. Its really pretty sublime. I dont want the wall color to screw me out of that sumblimity (?). Alas, I already bought the paint; 2 gallons. It will take about 4 to do all the walls anyway, so I'm changing my color plan for the powder room and using the green I have already for the woodwork in there (it was going to be green, anyway, just not this hue) and mixing it for another room on the third floor.

Tonight I'm going to pour over the Sherwin Williams fan deck. Its cathartic and nervewracking all at once. I'll move all the crap out of the Master Bedroom in the morning. Whew, those sheets need to be washed anyway ... Then its back to normal, well, what is normal around here. scrapers, sandpaper, caulk tubes and ladders all over the place. This time im dropping a fan or 2 into the windows to pull out the stench of restoration.

The sun'll come up ... tomorrow.

The sun room is a little sunnier, now

2009-04-22T11:11:00.003-04:00

The Sun room is done.

This weekend, rather than socialize watching a baseball game, concerts, airshows and fireworks at Thunder over Louisville (the biggest fireworks display in the US and the kickoff for 2 weeks of Kentucky Derby-mania) we stayed home and busted our butts to finish the sun room. After 5-plus months of tools, dirt, dust and paint cans everywhere, it all came together in one day. The rug looks great, the weird pink upholstery of the settee and chair fit it really well, the furniture fit just where we planned and all the stained-glass lamps I wanted in the room really dont feel excessive.

The bluestone wall color is receiving compliments, but its still a bit off for me. One day I might have to mix up a glaze and fix it (it needs to be a bit more dirty-green) It will make me nuts, but Ill live with it since other things are more important. One of those things is the back entrance. When you walk in the back door of the house, you are in what used to be the back porch - now the sunroom and a small, 6x6 vestibule area. I still need to cut and install the beedboard around the back door in the vestibule area, prime, paint, caulk - you get the picture. That shouldnt be a long term job - I know, make no assumptions.

Once that little area is finished its on to the next big project - the master bed room. It will be great, once its done, to no longer breath in plaster dust while we sleep. Oh, and to have a light in the room (yup, took out the ceiling fan/light last spring and havent put anything up since, just wires hangin g out of the ceiling). Since all the heavy work was done in there last spring/summer, we should be faced with just some electrical adjustment (4 of the outlets and the light switch need to be replaced - I hate electrical since there is still active Knob-and-Tube in the house and am terminally fearful of screwing it up and setting the house on fire), a lot of caulking and paint. OH, and sanding, crazy sanding and scraping. Evidently the PO's (previous owners) painted all the trim in a rush and did zero prep - the uber-bleach-white paint is peeling off in sheets exposing the buff and earth colors underneath (the buff-colored paint is oil so its probably from the 70's or so?). Mentally, I already started on the room, I am toiling over Farrow and Ball's paint book, debating inside my own head what will be the best paint application for the bed room.

For now, we revel in the completed sun room - and wonder if there is a better name for it than "sun room".

The Beauty of Blue

2009-04-15T10:04:00.004-04:00

I am not usually much for overused literature, but i can assuredly say this is "the best of times, and the worst of times" at the Shively House. If you check out the last 2 entries, you can see the Sunroom has been the focus for the past 4 months. in between deconstructing and reconstructing it we had 2 major storms that tore up the trees in the yard. lost 7 in total (these are big treees, 40 plus feet tall) and the street light three doors down now brightly shines into out unprotected back yard. Maybe that's why it took so long to get ahead on this room.

After 3 failed attempts (and 3 gallons of paint) we went with a bluestone color for the walls, straw for the ceiling and that wonderful Sherwin Williams Ivoire for the trim. Ivoire is the perfect ivory color for me, just enough yellow to keep it warm, and enough grey to age it nicely. Check it out sometime. Blue is not a natural color for me, but its good in this situation - it was not objectionable to either of us.

It's crazy how much time we have spent on this tiny (6 x 18 foot) room. But now, unfortunately, I have alot more time to spend restoring this room. Like so many in this Depression (yeah, call a spade a spade) I lost my job and am one of many standing in soup lines and crying to employers for work. I have had the pleasure, though, in between bouts of severely depressing job searches, to meticulously paint the walls and trim.

So many little things have taken so long. Merely edging each siding board took me over 8 hours (over 3 days) and just getting the right ceiling bracket for the huge stained glass light pushed me out to Home Depot 2 times so far.

Maybe its my lack of knowledge, or my insistance that it be "historic" that contributes to these delays. In the end I think its worth it, even when assulted by all those "just paint it, no one will ever notice" comments. I notice. So, at least for now, I have the time to patiently make the room perfect for me (it is off the Dining room, where we will do 99% of our entertaining, so it really will be a central part of the house, and looks out to the Japanese Garden (albeit, without trees, now) so it will have a lovely view (someday)). And the added pleasure of completing it wihtin a few weeks (god help me if I hit another snag ...)

Close only counts in horseshoes - not old house colors

2009-03-23T21:37:00.003-04:00

The Sunroom is nearing completion. Yes, a little over a month since my last post, the primer is on and were going to have to buy paint really soon. We ran into some trouble that is still unresolved while making those final fixes you have to do after clearing the tools up and before you prime (like catching the last few nail holes or vacuuming in places you only thought about at 3 AM). We have a thick layer of vinyl flooring over top of some kind of thin composite wood over top of interesting 1930's linoleum over top of the original floorboards to the porch. The vinyl flooring was about 1.5 inches short all the way round - noticible since we took off the vinyl siding so it must have been put down post vinyl siding (thats alot of vinyl, hu?). Near the back door it slid under the threashold and the door frame, so I wanted to pull it back so that eventually, when we can afford to put in the encaustic tile floor, we can rip up the old vinyl and more flooring without too much damage to the walls.

Now, all of you know that the job you decide to do in your running shoes on your way out the door is the job that gets you into the most hot water. As I yanked that crummy vinly out I saw it: damp, soggy, fuzzy wood. On both sides of the door where the old sidelights used to be (in the 40s and 50s) there were really crummy aluminum "colonial" panels fitted onto the outside, or better described as ill-fitted. the gap at the bottom, that was well concealed with about 1.5 inches of caulk, had given way at some point in the past year or 2 and water was seeping in under the vinyl floor - so we never knew about it. OK, so thats drying out and the lovely "colonial" panels are re-caulked, not fixed yet, but I got in a run that day.

I take color VERY seriously, painfully seriously. I have researched and filtered so that all the colors in the house fit 2 criteria: 1. they are historical, and 2. they are on sale. I am not fond of playing the what color will we paint this room game and I have never looked at a color and said "that's it!" For me, choosing color is harder than finding a husband. With a Morris-inspired old gold and peacock blue parlor leading into a rich monochromatic empire green dining room the color for the adjacent sunroom is limited. (note: none of these colors are up yet, the rooms still need to be restored and I havent fully decided on teh perfect variation of said colors) It can't be green, or gold for that matter (we love green, everything ends up with green somewhere in it, or red, thats even better sometimes, we love red). Purple? I really cant stand purple. Most pale colors will fade to mush in the bright sunlight of the room. Can't be white, or any shade of blue (since theres so much more to life than white and the only blue room in the house is the parlor - that makes it "special"). Whats that leave us with ? Orange or red. Like I said, I love red. Interestingly the rug in the dining room is a gorgeous vermillion and crimson red. Orange got bad reviews at the old house restoration (of course, it was mixed with robins-egg blue, crimson and deep mahogany) so I am really trying to avoid that.

According to the old decorators hints books from the last quarter of the 19th century (thats the target era) tertiary colors were highly recommended. They are more interesting and were all the rage with Aesthetes like Oscar Wilde and James Whistler. So if my parlor is peacock blue and pale terra cotta yellow, the other tertiary color in the triad (on the color wheel) is crimson red. If that color were lighter (to balance the heaviness of the green dining room) it would be a cool, fleshy pink. Adjust a bit for the brilliant sun in that sunroom and the winner should be a rich, saturated but light-ish flesh pink color.

Im taking bets on what the final color will be and how long it will take to decide. I have tan in 6 months ... any others ?

One year, 119 days and a fist-full of nails

2009-02-12T12:45:00.000-05:00

Janice will be here this weekend and the sunroom is only partially done — today we were supposed to unveil it. The over-the-stove microwave we got for Christmas still sits in its box in the middle of the room. We use it to hold all our tools.

The master bedroom hasn't been touched since we installed a new ceiling, replaced the south wall and skim coated the rest. We were supposed to be sleeping in luxury there this weekend. I hope we don't toss-and-turn too much — sleeping with dust masks on.

Since moving in about one-and-one-half years ago, we have had a semi-flooded basement, been awakened to police helicopters overhead searching the yard for escaped criminals, dragged out 3 full-grown cats worth of pet hair from under the old refrigerator, replaced the ceiling in the dining room, tripped inumerable times in the dark since we keep the lights really low so we don't have to look at the bubble-gum pink parlor walls, dug and installed a small lake in the back yard, cleaned up after Ike this fall, cleaned up after the ice storm last month, cleaned up enough mouse-poop to fill a cigarbox, re-built the window in the wierd little third-floor storage room with the wild electric blue carpet, added pink insulation on the third floor, sunroom ceiling and master bedroom south wall (see above), found bats on the third floor, chased the bats on the third floor, lost the bats on the third floor (i know youre still up there, sonewhere), painted the deck, regraded the back yard (see flooded basement above), defrosted the frozen water main in the basement late one friday night (who knew there was a whole big room behind that wall in the basement?), insulated water pipes, insulated ductwork, called Sears to clean the ductwork (thanks mom), installed ceiling fixture junction boxes (thanks Richard), installed light switches and outlets into the sunroom (yep, a light with no switch for it), painted the balcony off the guest bedroom, scrubbed the tiled kitchen countertops, replaced the clean tiled kitchen countertops, painted the kitchen (ok, another coat on the window trim and it'll be finished), replaced the main water waste line and rebuild the corner of the foundation where the backyard drained thru into our basement.

Is it any wonder that after one-and-a-half years in this wonderful old house that Janice won't get to enjoy the finished sunroom?

She will get to enjoying breakfast in the sunroom, if she can bear the smell of raw wood and caulk, imagining a japanese tea garden beyond. How lovely it will be one day — sitting on the antique mauve sofa (stashed in the doorway between the parlor and dining rooms, so, for now, a folding chair to sit on and that microwave to hold her coffee and pop-tart will have to make-due) while looking out at the pond and pagodas (a view of that monster lake now totally obscured by the piles of beadboard, crown molding and 2x4s crammed into the corner, between the shop-vac and borrowed mitre saw).

So much more to do before were "done" with this restoration. but for this weekend, were going to pretend its the lovely gracious old house it one-day will be.