Because I needed to make it more complicated

I owe a huge apology to everyone for not updating this. So many of you are interested and asking me about the progress, and I just haven’t been doing what I promised. To be honest, the job is much farther along than is represented in these photos, but I want to do this justice, so I will make you wait a bit longer for the final photos.

My last post was Nov. 11, just after the hardwood floors were completed and the electrical update was ongoing. Next was the kitchen demo. All of the cabinets were being removed and the former owners were taking the stove and refrigerator but I was going to keep the dishwasher. We had discussed the layout of the kitchen at length and I polled everyone who came to the house.

existing kitchen cabinets

side wall with refrigerator and 12" deep cabinets. The refrigerator placement was moved to the wall on the left with the wallpaper

Ultimately we decided to move the refrigerator to the pantry wall and not replace a wall of small 12” cabinets, but keep the rest of the layout. I won’t tell you what the contractors found behind the cabinets, but suffice to say I’m glad they got rid of it, and the thing that ate it (partially). The crew took off the vinyl floors in the kitchen and laundry rooms, but left the plywood so they could place the new vinyl on top. I arrived home as they were taking off the final pieces of vinyl and just didn’t like leaving the plywood. The kitchen had had a funky smell, and I suspected that it was in the floor from the leaking refrigerator. I worried that if we left the plywood, the smell would remain. So, I asked Dustin about replacing it, and he told me it would (of course) cost more. Joe, the flooring contractor had been pretty sure that the wood floors did extend through the kitchen, so I took another notch out of the budget and insisted we take out the plywood and see what we had underneath. Lo’ & behold, more wood floors!  Unfortunately, refinishing them would require me to leave the house again since they have to dry overnight with two coats of polyurethane.

So, this leads me to my next tangent. As my friends will attest, I am a homing beacon for stray animals. If you recall, I had been living at my friend’s house for a month before I closed on this house. My 2 dogs and 3 cats came along too. I can’t tell you how great my friend was. The dogs, as we discussed stayed in a pen outside, but the cats went on his small sleeping porch. So, you see what’s coming, right? Just a week into my stay, I found a kitten. I was walking the dogs by the Ball Ground library and heard a meow in the bushes. It was raining and this poor thing kept crying, but wouldn’t come to me. It took about 2 hours of coaxing but I finally got her out. She was only about 5 weeks old, but fortunately weaned. Of course the last thing I needed during all of this was another cat. But she got to me, so she joined the other 3 on the sleeping porch.  

New kitten Sophie the night she was found

Anyway, the real reason for this tangent is to explain that I really didn’t want to leave my house again to refinish more floors. It was a huge imposition on my friend, not to mention dragging the dog beds, litter boxes, etc. back & forth. Since we had closed off the doorway from my bedroom to the living room, the only way to get from the front of the house to the bedroom & bathroom, was through the kitchen. So, resourceful Dustin rigged up a ladder from the outside to my bedroom window.  I can’t imagine what my neighbors thought seeing me climb in & out of the window in my pajamas to go let the dogs out. But, I only had to do this for 3 nights and it was better than displacing us all again.



Living room with old doorways framed off.

Right about this time we were examining the budget trying to see if we could find some room to replace the carpet upstairs. I think the Holcomb family added this room during their residence for their sons. It’s lined with nice thick wood paneling, not the flimsy stuff you see now. They added the stairway in what (I think) was the original hallway & added a closet under the stairs. The carpet was old, and red, and now that we’d opened up the doorway, we agreed it had to go. 


new filled in stairway. We used the extra tongue & groove flooring to fill in the old doorway so it matched the boards in what was the original hallway.



Upstairs room

Unfortunately, when they arrived with the new carpet, they were short because they forgot to measure the closets outside the bedroom. It’s not entirely their fault, because the electricians hadn’t gotten around to adding a light up there yet and it was really, really, dark, so they just didn’t see the closets. So, it’s one Friday evening and they are installing the carpet and then notified me about 7:00pm that they didn’t have enough material and were going to have to leave it unfinished. Again, this is where the pets come in. The cats had been staying in the upstairs room during construction because it was the only place I could lock them out of the way and keep them from the dogs.  My dogs get along fine with my adult cats, but they just wanted to eat the kitten. She was small & furry and very much resembled their chew toys. So, when I first moved in I had to find a room to lock in the cats. Except, none of the doors would close and we were missing a few. The house had settled, or the doors became loose, and they simply would not latch. That certainly added to my stress the first week as I tried to block them with boxes (which didn’t really work).  But, finally, I had rigged up the upstairs bedroom for them, and now the contractors were saying that I couldn’t use it because there were tacking strips on the stairs and they didn’t reinstall the upstairs doors because they no longer fit with the thicker carpeting. So now the only room that I could close off that the contractors weren’t working in, was the back bedroom where I was sleeping. I love my cats, but I’m not sleeping with them.  Honestly, I don’t remember what I did that weekend, but I do remember stomping around the house and saying not very nice things to the poor workers. I’m not sure how much English they understood, so maybe I didn’t hurt their feelings too badly.

A closely-monitored Jake eyeing his new chew toy

The kitchen demo was moving along and Dustin had to balance everyone’s schedules to do the floors and install the appliances. The dishwasher had been moved outside while the floors were done, so the morning the plumber is scheduled to reinstall it, they noticed that it was damaged. Apparently the critter that had been found behind the cabinets had been feasting on the dishwasher too. So after a flurry of phone calls, we located an appropriate dishwasher from Lowe’s (apparently Home Depot doesn’t keep any stainless ones in stock) and the plumber picked it up on his way to the house. 

new cabinets (but before floors refinished) with stubborn wallpaper on the soffits

After the new cabinets were installed, I started work on removing the wallpaper from the soffits above them. Again, mainly due to cost, we had decided to keep the soffits because it was cheaper to leave them and have Dustin’s crew patch in the stippling (a plaster finish like popcorn) on the ceiling.  There were two layers of wallpaper up there, and even though it all had come off on the walls earlier, the earlier blue layer just would not cooperate. I would have to sand it off. This would take hours, and so I justified that I would rather spend those hours taking down the stippling and it would make me happier to have the soffits come out. So, Dustin gracefully accepted the change, and took the soffits out. Now, had I known how much work it would be to take down the stippling, I might have made a different decision. I spent about an hour on the ladder working before I decided it was a better job for my handyman, Ovidio. He worked hard, but after a day’s work it still wasn’t finished. And the mess, OMG. We put down plastic tarps but the dust got everywhere and tracked through the house. After we cleaned up that day, and I vacuumed the floors & carpets, I started dinner. Unfortunately, we forgot to clean on top of the appliances & cabinets. So for the next week, every time I opened up my freezer or cabinets, plaster dust rained down. Just when I thought (again) that I had things cleaned up, I turned on the microwave vent one evening and a volcano of debris came flying out of the top.

 

 

The job still isn’t finished, even though the contractors are now gone.

 

Ovidio taking his turn on the ladder

 

new kitchen with soffits removed, but ceiling & painting not finished 



But other than that, things were moving along smoothly and I started enjoying a number of firsts. The first time I had an outside light to greet me when I came home after dark, the first time I could really cook in the kitchen, the first time I could use the new bathroom, and the first time I could lock my front door. When we removed the family room that was now the porch, we removed the outside doors that the Holcombs had used. They didn’t use the original front door, which could only be locked using a skeleton key (same with the back door). In fact, all of the interior doors are original and have this locking mechanism, along with original glass doorknobs. As a historian, I find skeleton keys kind of charming, and will use them on the interior doors. But I don’t think they are the best solution for the exterior, so I was happy when Dustin’s crew installed deadbolts! 

I promise I won't let too much time lapse before I post again! Happy Holidays everyone!

The original front door in use again (although more paint scraping to be done) and a glimpse of one of the "after" photos coming soon...

 

 

 

 

Original Hardwood Floors

View of closet floor showing laminate installed over original hardwood

One of the first things I wanted to do when I moved in was remove the carpet. I suspected that there were hardwood floors beneath the coverings, but I couldn’t do any demo to find out before I purchased the property. The former owners did pry up a corner of the carpet in the living & dining rooms before closing and confirmed that there was hardwood there. The kitchen had vinyl, there was laminate in the hallway and middle bedroom (new master bath), and carpet in the back bedroom & new master. After I moved in and started exploring, I found that they had probably installed the laminate over hardwood. I could see the hardwood (in good shape) in both of the hall closets. When they started the demo in the new bath, we could see that yes, the hardwood was intact. Dustin was concerned about the shape it was in, as was I. It didn’t make sense to me that you would choose to install wood laminate over hardwood, but again, maybe it was for convenience.  I talked him into taking up the laminate in the new bath, promising we could be put in vinyl or tile if it was not salvageable. If it was good though, we agreed to move forward and take out the laminate in the hallway too. When Joe, the flooring contractor came, we did some more demo in the carpeted rooms and tried to get through the many layers of material, but really couldn’t get a definitive answer. Since the carpet wasn’t staying anyway, we agreed to get it all up and see what we could find underneath.

The rest of the furnace in the basement.
 It was disconnected when newer units installed

Joe discovering the floor furnace

Back in the dining room, we got a surprise. Right before the entrance to the kitchen in the floor, there was a newer (about 2’x3’) patched-in piece. Not sure what we’d find underneath, we pried it up and found the old furnace! I had seen this apparatus from the basement, but honestly had not given any thought to how the heat was piped into the house. Turns out it was a gravity floor furnace, manufactured by the Empire Stove Company in 1946. It used natural gas and we could see the burners on the bottom of the unit. Since it wasn’t in use, I took lots of photos to document it and we started thinking about how we were going to patch the floor. My floors are the same material as the walls – 1” thick, tongue and groove heart pine, not to be found at Home Depot. Fortunately, Dustin had an uncle who collected such things, and he was able to get enough to fill in this spot, and the place in the new bathroom where the closet wall had been.  

label showing the company and serial number for the furnace

 

Of course during all of this demo, I have been living in the house. At first it was like camping, and I didn’t mind using a flashlight when I was in the living room or upstairs. Then, as they were working on the electric system, I would never know what outlets or lights would be working when I got home. I charged my laptop and digital camera in the kitchen, because those were the only outlets with 3 prongs. Ditto on the vacuum cleaner, with a very long extension cord. Not that I cleaned too often, there were just too many people coming and going to keep up with it. There were times when I dried my hair in the laundry room, got dressed in the dark, or arrived home to find the water to the toilet shut off because the plumber didn’t want a shower if someone flushed while he was working in the basement. The worst was when I came home one night after going out for drinks with my friend, Meghan. They had worked on the floors that day, and left the grate off of the a/c return vent. I’m not fond of this vent. It’s a regular size return, about 2’x3’, but it’s just outside my bedroom door, so you have to step on it, or jump over it to enter the room. It’s also loud, and dirty with years of dust. So I came home, maneuvered my way through the dark house until I got to the hallway, where the light has always worked. This night it didn’t. I’m standing in the dark house and then noticed that the return grate was missing. In my margarita haze, all I could think of was that I was going to step out of my bedroom in the middle of the night to use the restroom, and fall into the yawning, nasty hole in the hallway.  I had to apologize to both Jody and Dustin the next morning for my panicked phone calls the night before, demanding the location of the grate and that the hallway light be reconnected. It was not my finest moment, but I blamed it on the tequila and tried to keep my after-hours phone calls to a minimum. Didn’t quite feel that way about texting, so Dustin continued to be bombarded as thoughts came to mind during very inconvenient hours.



But, back to the floors…I got lucky. Not only were the same hardwood floors in both bedrooms, but

Back bedroom, scraping off old
carpet & glue
 

also in the hallway too. They had to go through some pretty old material to get to them, but they turned out beautifully. As Joe said, “these floors are freakishly beautiful.” He also noted that he’s never seen old floors turn out this well; the joints were tight and there was very little damage. The only piece that needed replacing was right in front of the fireplace – it had some termite damage. Although Joe indicated that there was probably hardwood in the kitchen & laundry room too, Dustin and I held back about pulling up these floors, mainly because of the budget and knowing that there had been some water leaks so they might not be in as good of shape. We decided to stick to our plan of replacing the vinyl in those rooms.



sanding the master bedroom
 

living & dining rooms after sanding

finished hallway
(with wallpaper yet to be removed)

finished master bathroom



dining room after polyurethane

We have a porch!

master bedroom with closed wall to outside

After the electrical panel was installed, things started happening! They started the demo on the new bathroom and original porch. My new master bedroom will be a former space that we think was an office for Dr. Schofield, a doctor who lived and practiced in the house during the 1940s. When we began the project, it opened up to what was the original side porch, so the crew framed in that wall and I could get a sense of what the new bedroom would be like.

former porch with new closed wall

new bathroom looking into bedroom

 
The guys also tore out the two closets in the middle bedroom that will become my master bath. We had decided early on to expose the brick chimney stack between the two closets in this room that was probably originally used for a heater or wood burning stove. When they tore out the closets we got our first surprise – a roof leak. The leak is probably because the flashing around the chimney wasn’t done correctly, but it’s not a bad one. We briefly discuss taking down the chimney stack, but find out that the new furnace is vented through here, so it stays. They cut a new doorway from the bath to the bedroom, and we continue talking about the bathroom layout. We have spent hours discussing how to best fit in a master closet – should it go into the new bathroom space, or should it be a bump-out in the bedroom? I hate bump-outs so I’m rooting for the bath option, but we just can’t find a way to get a closet big enough & still have plenty of room for the bath. We finally agree to cut into the hall closet from the bedroom side, preserving all of the space for the new bath.

During this time they are also working on the porch; this is the part of the project I’m most excited about. I love porches, and it’s important for me to have outdoor space. I know how it will look, because my good friends Kathy and Marshall Day supplied a photo of when Marshall briefly lived here as a boy.

original clapboard siding exposed

When the vinyl siding and ceiling come down we get another surprise – but a good one! The original bead board ceiling is still there, as is the original clapboard siding – in good condition. People often think that vinyl siding was added to many of these older homes because the original siding was damaged, or in poor condition. In many cases, it was done for convenience and alleviated the need to repaint the house. Everyone is surprised at how good the clapboards look and we discuss taking the vinyl siding off the entire house. I would love to, but as Dustin, the contractor, points out, you never know what you’re going to find when you remove a layer. To be honest, it’s just not in the budget to remove it all and paint the whole house, so we compromise and decide just to do the front of the house and paint it to match the siding. 

enclosed porch before renovation

beadboard ceiling & windows removed

 

 

Renovation begins...

I woke up on day two feeling much better, eating the muffins that my new neighbor, Genevieve brought over, and enjoying the views outside my now unclad windows. The windows are one of the main reasons I bought the house. In addition to the 3 French doors in the living room, there are 29 windows throughout the 1800 sq. foot house. Luckily there are storm windows on most of the historic ones, so that will help with energy efficiency.

I will admit that as I’m writing this, I have been in the house for about a month but haven’t been diligent in documenting my journey.  However, I have been taking photos, so I hope that will help to jog my memory so you can follow along as I will try to catch up over the next week or so.

When I moved in, I only brought a few pieces of furniture, knowing that everything else would be in the way, so it all went into storage. Unfortunately, I also found out when I moved in that I only brought summer clothes and shoes. Apparently, when I was packing at the end of August, I didn’t think ahead to the fact that the closing and renovation would take this long. So, it’s now November and I’m still walking around with flip flops and my summer purse. 

But for my first days in early October, it wasn’t too bad. Since I didn’t have power, I didn’t have A/C, but luckily I had all of those windows! Since my closing had been delayed, I had to wait a bit for my contractors schedules to clear. While I was waiting on them, one of the projects I could do was to clean up the yard. Since the house had been empty for a few years, many of the plants in the yard were overgrown. I have a great person who helps me with yard projects, and he got busy with the chain saw & clippers and I could see a pattern emerge. However, one of the projects that will take a lot of time is my kudzu forest. If you live in the south, you know how prolific it can be. My

 

property is about an acre & ½, and I would say ¼ of that is wooded. At the edge of the woods the kudzu had taken hold and covered the trees. Or, I assumed they were trees; the kudzu grew in mounds and bumps so I knew something was under there. As he got further and further into the “forest,” it turned out most of the mounds & bumps were just more kudzu. Apparently, the vines would just wrap around themselves and form trees. Other than that, so far he has uncovered a huge satellite dish, a burn barrel and other yard debris. But, now that the tree leaves have changed colors, it’s easy to see where the trees are compared to the kudzu. There’s also an old tractor-trailer parked in the woods, but the former owners are going to have that removed in the next few months.

Luckily, I do have some beautiful dogwoods along the front, and I think native cherry trees on the side where my fence was being installed.   

Obviously, the most important thing to begin the renovation with was the new electrical panel. I was very anxious because I couldn’t get a new hot water heater until we did. I was also living without power in the front part of the house, because that’s where the hot wire had been. I was super excited when Chris showed up to put in the new panel. He and his partner, Wesley, were very precise when cutting into the walls and I have to admit I didn’t realize it was going to take as long as it did. Most of my interior walls are 1” thick tongue & groove heart pine boards, so it wasn’t easy for them to cut through the walls. Once they were done setting the panel, it took about four days for the inspection, then a week or so to get the new meter set and outside power line buried. Then the plumber could install the new hot water tank. Luckily, I have a very generous friend who let me come over and borrow their shower.   

During this time the fence was going up in the side yard. I have two dogs, named Toby & Jake, who had a very large yard at our old house, but had spent the past month in my friend’s 4’ square concrete pen during the day. However, it wasn’t really for their comfort that I made the request to put this in first, it was for my own & because I was tired of walking them 5x a day. And this included my coming home during lunch every workday. My thought was that once the fence was up I could leave them at home while the renovation was going on. For obvious reasons, this didn’t work. For one, Jake is a great watchdog and doesn’t like anyone on the property and it didn’t take long for him to feel at home. Two, Toby barks at everyone and I would soon have had very annoyed subcontractors. And three, when Toby gets out, he doesn’t come back. This happened the first day the fence was up and I was meeting a guy from the power company. We started to go into the fenced yard, but changed our mind, and I didn’t fully latch the gate. Toby was off like a shot, with me yelling behind him. Admittedly, one of my many faults is that, at times, I curse like a sailor. And that day my mother would not have been pleased at the words coming out of my mouth. I also met a new neighbor that day, apparently drawn by my yelling and cursing. He helped me lure Toby into the car, since the only way to catch Toby is to make him think that he’s going on another journey. The new neighbor soon left, Toby was back in the fence, and power company rep still stunned by the turn of events. With an escape artist like Toby, the dogs were safer in the pen during the renovation. But they do enjoy the new fence and their yard in the evenings, and I like the fact that I can just let them out in the morning and go enjoy my coffee. 

The First Day...

Project: Circa 1920 Craftsman Style Home Renovation, Ball Ground, GA

Time Estimate: 6-8 Weeks

Project Budget: $58,000 plus $8,700 Contingency

Project Scope: Remove addition that closed in original side porch, update kitchen, all new electrical, add master bath, refinish hardwood floors where available, turn office into master bedroom.
Potential Georgia State Tax Credits: $12,500

General Contractor: Dustin Arnold, Arnold Building Group,LLC
Electrical Contractor: Jody Waldroup, Wesco-Electric

My name is Stefanie Joyner and I am the Executive Director of the Cherokee County Historical Society. As preservationists, we are always telling others the importance of saving buildings. We advocate for their rehabilitation and talk about how economically feasible it is to reuse, rather than demolish older buildings. Well, now I am the owner of a house in need of renovation, so I’m practicing what I preach and putting my money where my mouth is! It’s not easy, I’ll freely admit. Mainly it’s the fear of not knowing what you’ll find, or what’s...underneath the dingy carpet, underneath the outdated wallpaper, and definitely what’s underneath the house itself. So before you commit your money, you do the inspections to make sure that the foundation is solid and the floors don’t feel “spongy.” Most importantly, you bring in the professionals to verify that information. Because despite my Master’s degree in historic preservation, I rely on the craftsmen who do this for a living, and have their hands in old walls or galvanized plumbing all day.  My good friends Steven Thacker and Glen Bliss tell me that I’ve bought a good house. They have renovated dozens of houses in the area and this is the third house that I’ve dragged them to look at for me.  It’s in Ball Ground, on Old Canton Road north of the 4-way stop near the intersection of Commerce Drive. It’s a craftsman style home and I think it was built around 1920.  I still have to do the research, but I bought it from the Holcomb family and it was where Bessie & Grady Holcomb lived for over 50 years and raised their family. It was important to the family that it be preserved; I will be making changes such as adding a bathroom and redoing the kitchen, but I will keep some of the mementos left from their residence including the children’s names written on shelves in the hall closet. I will also be applying for the 25% Georgia State tax credit, and the 8 1/2 year tax assessment freeze for my renovation expenses. Fortunately, the house is in the Ball Ground Historic District and qualifies for these benefits. Unfortunately, Steven & Glen are already committed to another job, so I am fortunate to find another great renovation crew.

I closed on the house September 28, a Monday afternoon. It was not an easy closing. I applied for a 203(k) loan, which is a purchase and renovation loan put together. I thought that this would save me money rather than doing two closings, but as it turns out the fees for this loan probably equal what it would have cost to do an outright purchase and then a home improvement/equity loan. But that Monday afternoon I was happy that I could move in after living at a friend’s house for the past month.  As I took a walk around my new, old house, I got this sick feeling in my stomach accompanied by the thought of “What did I get myself into…” As you can see from the photographs, the house is not in bad shape, mainly outdated. My plans include turning the middle bedroom into the new master bath, the former doctor’s office space into the new master bedroom, taking off the enclosed addition to open up the original side porch, update all of the electrical, redo the kitchen and restore the hardwood floors where possible. The renovation plan seemed reasonable to me, but contractor’s eyebrows rose when I said I was going to live here during the process. And that first night as I walked through the rooms, I was overwhelmed.

To feel more productive, I began by removing the drapery from the windows. The former occupant had made custom drapes and while they were nice, they just weren’t my style. The house had also been empty for 4 years, so they were quite dusty. To help combat my nerves, I turned on most of the lights, cranked up the a/c and got to work. I made good progress, but turned in after a few hours and tried to get comfortable on my air mattress. At about 3:30am I woke up and smelled something burning. It was strongest at the a/c return right outside the bedroom door, so I turned off the thermostat and grabbed a flashlight since the unit is in the basement and the only access is from the outside. There was no sign of fire & smell wasn’t strong in the basement, so I headed back upstairs. I’ve seen many historic buildings go up in flames due to old wiring, so I decided to call the fire department. They arrive about 20 minutes later and agree that it smells like burning rubber. They check the basement, then head upstairs to the attic where we find the smell is stronger. Strangely enough, the smell is strongest outside the house. The firemen go over each rafter in the attic and open all the closets, but can’t find anything. They leave about daylight and tell me to call again if the smell persists. I’m still a bit nervous, so I call my electrician, Chris (his boss, Jody was on vacation). He tells me he’s on his way to Big Canoe but will fit me in between his other appointments.  About 15 minutes later he arrives & said he thought he’d better come by my house first. I’m definitely relieved, but don’t really expect much so while he goes up to the attic I’m puttering around downstairs. All of the sudden I hear him yell, “TURN OFF THE POWER NOW!” I freak out and run down to the basement and stare at the electrical panel and realize I don’t know how to.

It’s not like the breaker panel I’m used to and I don’t want to get electrocuted. Of course I don’t want my house to burn down either so I run back upstairs & meet him on the way down. He goes to the fuse box and begins pulling out the tubes.  He tells me that the electrical wiring in the attic is basically wrapped in cloth and covered by loose insulation, and that the smell was from the insulation burning. Chris shuts down my power, but comes by twice more that day just to make sure everything’s OK.

I find out later that day that I need a new hot water heater, and we can’t get one installed until we get the new electrical panel. After working all day I’m covered in sweat so the thought of a cold shower doesn’t bother me too much. Unfortunately, all I get out of the showerhead is a drip. I’m exhausted since I’ve been up since 3:30am, so I just go to bed, determined to figure it all out tomorrow.