Wednesday, November 11, 2015

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

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

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
 
 

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

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.