Drum roll, please...

Ryan found some time to draft up our Phase I reno.  For those of you who have struggling to figure out what the heck our long term plan is, here is the end goal.

Looks comfy, doesn't it? 

Distressing Corner (and Heat) Update

Saturday found us down in Wareham to winterize the McShera Fleet, a trusty (and slightly rusty) Grady White and new addition this year, a sailboat Ryan acquired in exchange for architectural services.  We look forward to enjoying both these fine water crafts next summer, as this summer we were up to our eyeballs in demo.  (I don’t want to jinx us, but our HOPE is to have the downstairs, excluding the bathroom, complete by next summer so that we can enjoy a little more downtime and tackle the yard as our summer project… might as well be OUTSIDE.)

Saturday night, we had a great time with Denise, Mo, and Jim, which included a tasty dinner at the Fosters followed by a visit to the Grafton Inn to see Jim and Rick’s high school buddy’s band.  After partying down with Westborough High School Class of 1970, we stayed over in Southborough and enjoyed the comforts of home – central heat and tasty breakfast prepared by Denise in the morning!   

Sunday, we turned our attention back to the Distressing Corner.  The house was really very, very awfully cold, but that is neither here nor there.  After layering up, we began to go to work on removing that terribly low threshold to the stairwell.  As we opened up the wall, it quickly became apparent that the corner post also had to be addressed.  

In general, our posts and beams have been in very good shape, but we have uncovered a few instances of The Dreaded Powder Post.  From what we’ve read, a house of our antique is likely to have some instances of this and though the very term strikes horror into the hearts of historic homeowners everywhere, it is Not The End of the World (Dad, are you reading this?).  The “upside” is that when the wood was originally used, it already had the beetles in it.  That means it’s taken over 150 years for the damage to be done.  Other good news – if the wood is dry, the beetles won’t survive.  Over the next few years, we’ll be likely opening up every wall and ceiling in the house, so we will find any problem areas and address them as needed.  So, the best we can do (and did) is to pull out any junky wood, replace structural framing, control future moisture, and hit any pieces we can’t pull out with healthy treatment an insecticide (so not green, but we do our best here, folks). 

But back to the threshold.  After discovering and addressing the corner board, Ryan removed the old beam, added a new, higher header (using some more of our salvaged Salem church lumber), and framed everything back up.

In addition to being one less thing I can injure myself on, it also allows much more light into the stairwell.  Demo crept around the corner and into the well, and as we peeled back layers of ugly wall paper, linoleum (who puts linoleum on walls?), sheetrock, unnecessary and odd framing, and more plaster and lathe, we gained ourselves a little more room in that little stairwell.  

It’s amazing the wasted space that eventually builds up over years of just adding small layers.  We still want to pop a window in at the bottom of the stairs, but that will most likely not happen until next spring (but you never know…).  This open wall means another opportunity for insulation, and you can bet we’ll be doing that!

The first two steps into the stairwell were casualties of the day – we tried to put them back in place temporarily, but they were tippy and since we plan to reconfigure the steps, we didn’t want to put the time into rebuilding them.  For now we are doing high-knees into the stairwell.  Tela can manage it just fine and so can we.  In addition to turning the stairs into the kitchen, we might add a triangular step once in the well for a little “architectural flair.”

As we were wrapping up our work on the stairway threshold, our neighbor Bob came by.  Kathy, of Guinness Beef Stew in a Pumpkin fame, had sent Bob over with a full turkey dinner for two.  Turkey, stuffing, gravy, all the sides you can imagine – amazing!  Bob said since they knew we didn’t have a kitchen, they thought we might enjoy their leftovers.  What wonderful neighbors.  We are so lucky.  And in case you were wondering… it was delicious.  I need her stuffing recipe – walnuts, celery, and I think maybe pear???  I would have taken a picture, but quite honestly, we ate it all up too fast for that.  The house was so cold, I can only I imagine Bob going back to their place saying, “Kathy, those kids don’t have heat over there!”  Once this kitchen is up and running, we owe those two big time.

The presently balmy weather (gosh, I wish it has been so when we were working on Sunday) had made the heat "issue" not quite as pressing, though work has been steadily plugging along, albeit slower than promised.  Here's a shot of our new 82% Efficient Natural Gas boiler. Isn't she a looker?

You can see another project of ours that didn't make the blog, the addition of a couple new lolly columns under the center beam.  The pipe fitter cranked them a bit for us and out popped this wooden column which had seen better days.  The lollies are nice and sturdy and the floor above (the front rooms) also feels more solid.

All that's left is electrical hook up to the boiler and thermostat, connecting all the radiators and taking out the old oil drum.  Our basement will never be a welcoming space, but a lot of old, rusty junk will be coming out of it and we will have additional room if we are ever able to fully deem it water tight and suitable for storage (jury is most definitely still out on that one).

Which brings us up to present day... with the radiators being hooked up "very soon," tonight Ryan and I went to work on hanging the drywall that will be behind the radiator in the kitchen.  As part of it, we also sheathed in the stairwell threshold and we are just so pleased with how it looks.  Here's a few process shots and the "final" product.

Cait's Working Weekend

While Ryan was busy working on his studio mid-term all weekend, I hosted some unexpected visitors and knocked some little items off our To Do list.

My mom dropped by on Sunday with her cousin Penny visiting from Alaska. She’s lived up there for over 50 years! It was a blustery day (we were getting the tail end of the Nor'easter that regrettably forced the cancellation of the Smith Family Hike – snow and gusts up in Franconia), but we did make a trip over to Crane Beach. The news said there were gusts of 25 – 30 mph, and I believe it!

An unsupervised trip to Home Depot led to the purchase of a (much-needed) new mailbox and post, which we will need to install soon before the ground freezes up (just add it to the Honey Do list…). I also brought in a sample of the exterior paint from the window removal project last weekend and had it matched so that I could paint the new shingles.

Sunday was my day of moving mountains.

I installed a new latch on the back gate (Tela has taken to nudging it open to let herself out onto the open field behind our house) and did some raking and yard clean-up, thankyouverymuch. While raking, I noticed that the Clematis that Denise gave us which had a very rough start had persevered and bloomed, just before the hard frost.  So excited to have these again next year!

I took a wire brush to and sanded down our rusty bulkhead, treated it with Rusty Metal Rustoleum, and painted it fresh (this makes me particularly happy… it looked like our bulkhead had some sort of infectious skin disease):

And, I painted the shingles on the side of the house. The paint matches perfectly! You can’t even tell there used to be a window there. With the grapevines down, it looks like a whole new house.

Here's the before, nabbed from the assesor's report.  It was taken last March and also before we did the back roof over - I forgot how bad that looked!  8 months later, the vines had also wrapped themselves all around the roof jack and into the gutters - it was so bad!

And, the after:

We’ve left one small roof jack up for future repairs to the gutter, but the much larger and uglier one is gone.

And here is our wee house all decked out for October:

I need to PhotoShop out the power lines and crop it a bit, but just haven't gotten to it, so here is the before version.  I will post the 20-pounds lighter magazine cover version later on.  Happy Fall!

Heat update:  While we are still without heat, work has begun on removing the old boiler and oil tank, and National Grid and the gas inspector have come in and signed off on the conversion.  Our buddy HVAC Mike says we will have heat by Monday (so I am telling myself Tuesday to manage expectations).  Suffice it to say, we are ready.  So is Tela (she's been sleeping between us with a blanket over her for the past two weeks or so).

Columbus Day Weekend Report

On Saturday, out of sheer will and determination, we were able to get the rest of the sheetrock up on the ceiling.  It was tough work, but Ryan did a great job and I did my best to help hold up the other end.  The end result:

Sunday, we turned our attention to the kitchen layout.  In our wee house, exists a wee stairwell and a corner that distresses me so.  At this corner, a window is half obscured by the lower cabinets, a radiator is perpendicular to it, and above it was a top cabinet (since it couldn’t be hung where the window was and above the lower cabinet).  And between these two troubling walls, exists our only access to the staircase (with a VERY low beam which has bit me more than once already). 

Like all things in the house, we will have to triage this whole awfully distressing corner, but here is the general overview…  We are repositioning the upper cabinets above the lower cabinets (and losing some natural light out of the deal).  To compensate for the natural light loss, we will add under cabinet lighting.  Additionally, Ryan has plans to add a new post before the stair threshold, cut the low cross beam at the post (so that it extends only through the wall), and raise the header across that threshold.  I am strongly advocating for a slightly smaller bottom cabinet, which will also open up the pathway to the stairs.  That discussion is still ongoing.  We are also going to turn the stair steps into the kitchen and squeeze out one step before the well.  Finally, when we get back to the front rooms, we are opening the wall between the well and what will be our dining room and will run a banister for safety, of course.

I have attempted to show a before and after of the distressing corner/stairwell in Adobe Illustrator.  Ryan could do a much better job, but he’s just too busy with work, RMc work, and school… have I mentioned he’s taking 3 classes this semester? He’s such a rock star and a hard worker.  Gosh, I’m lucky.  But in case the past two paragraphs of design babble make no sense to you and you’d like to try to understand it a bit more, here goes nothing –

Before:

After:

So in an effort to get to that Zen Corner Happiness, we made one step toward it by closing up the window.  I looked on mostly for this project, but did document along the way.  Ryan pulled out the window, added some new framing and patched the hole with plywood.

On the outside, we had just enough cedar shingles we used on the first course of the roof project and a few saved ones for a patch job.  I’m in charge of painting it all to match.

While Ryan made the patch job, I addressed another rather distressing area of 84 High Street, specifically a vicious and invasive (no exaggeration) wild grapevine planted as a privacy screen that has run amuck for far too long.  So after trying my hand at nailing in a few shingles, I kept busy hacking away at the grapevine, tearing it off the exterior wall, the foundation, the window frames, and off the as-of-yet-unidentified evergreen in the front yard.  I then asked Ryan if we could do something about the vine up on the roof, too.  He obliged and we tore that down, as well as a roof jack that’s been hanging out up there for who knows how long. 

The owner of the rental unit next to us must have seen my attack on the grapevine because he came over with his landscaping crew (he also owns a landscaping company) later that day and took down the whole darn thing.  Ryan went out to talk with him and Tom from Joyful Noise said he’s thinking of putting in arborvitae, which I like the sounds of – for both privacy and for its non-invasivity (think I just made up a word there).

Our long weekend ended with a rather menacing knock at the front door (that pineapple knocker sure does the trick!).  I sent Ryan down, fearful of what awaited us.  It was our next-door neighbor Kathy, who’d made us Guiness Beef Stew in a Pumpkin.  Talk about presentation!  Things Caitlin still needs to get used to in suburbia: neighbors… being neighborly?   Go figure.

Back on the Train

One thing we did manage to do before our back-to-back weekend soujourns was make a trip up to Nor’East Architectural Antiques in South Hampton, New Hampshire the morning of Ipswich Ale Fall Fest.  We were after a piece of salvaged lumber to replace a ceiling joist in the front room that, after removing the chimney, no longer spanned all the way to the center beam on the other side of the chimney…  does that make sense?


Up at Nor’East, I got a little distracted by football fields of claw-foot bathtubs, beautiful stained glass windows, and the fully intact bar from The Kells (unfortunately, my memories from said watering hole nearly 10 years ago are a tad spotty, so I cannot confirm if I ever saw it in situ)…  but we also found a wealth of salvaged wood and in particular, a piece from a church in Salem.  Gosh, I do just love when things like that come together.


So fast-forward two weeks, and first on our list of to dos this weekend was to replace that joist.  Before Fall Fest, Ryan had already cut the lumber down to the right size to be standard with the other beams, and drilled holes to accommodate some hardware that we found to attach the joist between the existing beams.

While Ryan had fun with the sawzall and removed the incomplete joist, I had a little fun with spray paint outside.

What do you do when you can’t afford forged iron hardware?  Hit it with some black Rustoleum for a pretty convincing alternative.  We opted for galvanized steel hardware instead of stainless steel.  Besides being stronger (perhaps a more important consideration), it also had a little more texture to it that looks nice with the black on it. 

While the “iron” hardware dried, we kicked up the pace (what with one ceiling joist down) and Ryan knocked in the oh-so cleverly notched end of the replacement joist and after a very slight length adjustment, knocked the other side in place.  

We had two sets of hardware – the ones I painted and the ones that will be covered up by the sheetrock we’ve decided to put between the beams in the front.  We attached the first set of hardware and after the ones I painted dried, also attached those.  We are really happy with the treated hardware and how the salvaged wood matches so well with the rest of the beams in the front.  By Sunday morning, the joist and floor had come together nice and tight.

Onto (or back to?) the kitchen… Ryan finished off a bit of strapping in the kitchen, we installed a special electrical box for the fan, and we turned our attention (back) to insulation in the kitchen.  We applied the same reflective barrier that we used in the breakfast nook onto the whole vault of the ceiling.  Very spaceship, if you ask me.

After joking together before our final piece of foil if we should read the provided directions, we were forced to recalibrate a bit and ran out to Home Depot to purchase some attic insulation to stuff above the foil (lesson here: Read The Damn Directions).

Before calling it a day and after Home Depot, Ryan HAD to get one piece of sheetrock up on the ceiling.  After much thought, Ryan had devised a plan which involved a full sheet of sheetrock, super-human strength on his part, and me on a ladder using a 2x4 to help hold some of the (substantial) weight of the drywall.  Well, it worked.  And no, it wasn’t easy or very elegant.

We closed Saturday with one piece of sheetrock up on the ceiling, a POA to add some additional insulation above the foil, and intentions to hang more drywall.  

Sunday morning, work went quick on the insulation (but then again, I was on the ground and Ryan was straddling joists in the crawl space above and stuffing said insulation).  By lunchtime, we’d added insulation to the flat and on the pitched sides (thanks Dad for that leftover R11 from Vermont – it worked perfectly!), and hung another piece of sheetrock with the 2x4-slash-fingers crossed method.

After lunch and a visit to the Marini’s Farm Stand for pumpkins and fudge, we returned to the house for yard work (advantage of a small yard: mowing takes about 15 minutes for Ryan) and cleanup.

Moving mountains folks, moving mountains.

PS – While we do not yet have heat… we’ve made the big decision to switch over to Natural Gas and fear not, are on the books with our friend HVAC Mike.  Good thing we both grew up in drafty, old New England houses… it’s going to be close, but we will have heat in time before fall really settles in.