The Garage Gets New Windows

We replaced the windows on the garage. There. The preservationist said it. We replaced windows. This is certainly something we don't advocate if you've got old wood windows, because they'll last far longer than most replacements you can buy. We've been rebuilding all of the old wood windows on our 1913 house, adding storm windows, and insulating and caulking around them to make them just as energy efficient as replacement windows.

The garage, however, had 1960s single-paned aluminum windows and one huge single-paned 4-panel picture window. The glass was broken on a few of the windows and most of them wouldn't open anymore. Most of the glass was frosted, which is great for the doctor's office it was, but not so good if you want to know who is in the yard. We decided to replace.

The replacement windows are actually a good example of why we don't advocate replacing windows. We chose sliding windows rather than the double hung windows that were there, mostly for cost because the existing openings were quite wide. That means that the windows went from being a horizontal element to a vertical element. Vinyl windows also have much larger trim pieces than most old windows do, making the openings appear smaller. The new windows completely change the look of the building. Maybe okay for the garage, but not okay for a historic building. It's a garage though. So it's okay. Or so I keep telling myself.

The Wall Comes Down!

You may have noticed that we lovingly refer to our latest project as "the garage", but it has no garage doors? Well, we have remedied that situation. One empty-ish wall with just a single pedestrian door in one of the gable ends now sports 2 garage doors!

This was a well-planned project. We cut out the outline for the doors with a concrete saw so we have didn't have to worry about bricks coming out that we didn't want to come out. And knowing that it would take a bit to install the garage doors and that we had some tools inside that we didn't want to move or risk having stolen while the wall was open, we installed the garage doors on the inside of the wall before we knocked it down. As soon as the walls came down, so could the garage doors - voila! Instant security!

Want to see how we got from the first photo to the second? Check out the video!

Time for Work on Our Own House

Once we got that mid-century rancher on the market, we had some time to work on our own house. Remember that 1913 American Four Square that lends its name to this blog? Well, we've owned it for almost 11 years now, and it's still not done. And once in a while, we have the free time to work on it. Since we had such a cold and snowy winter and our other projects are unheated, our house won. 

The master bedroom was nearly done, but had been awaiting a ceiling, reworking one of the windows, and the stripping and reinstallation of the doors and trim for some time. We moved everything out of the room and polyurethaned the floor one more time for good measure too. 

The result feels posh, cozy, and hotel-like. What you don't see is all the work that went into that one room over the years. The roof leaked at the chimney and the dormer when we first moved in so we couldn't use the room until we got that fixed. The water damaged the ceiling and walls so we gutted the room to insulate the walls and put furring on the ceiling to allow us to cover it with a layer of sheetrock (which was the view from the bed for a number of years). We replaced all of the electrical wires in the house so we were able to put outlets and ceiling lights were we needed them. In a house without air conditioning, a ceiling fan is crucial! The wood windows have been reglazed, the weight pockets insulated, and the ropes reinstalled. The floor was sanded and refinished....Phew! Done! Now it's warm outside, so on to the garage!

The Quick Flip: A Mid-Century Rancher

In the embarrassingly long time since the last post (has it really been 9 months?!), a lot has happened. Progress has been made on the garage, though it's not done yet. Progress has been made on our house, though it's not done yet either. But those are stories for another day. 

We spent much of the time between the last post and mid-January making an 8 hour round trip drive on the weekends to prepare my mother-in-law's house for sale. Some of that time was spent packing up the house, but the rest was spent prettying it up and fixing anything we thought the home inspector might pick up when we tried to sell it.

The house is a brick and frame mid-century rancher (historic now!) so it needed some updating. Fortunately, much of that had been done over the years. We had already upgraded the bathrooms and she had had the maple floors refinished and the outside repainted in recent years. We wanted people to see the unusual features like the sunken living room with the diagonal wide pine paneling and 2-sided fireplace and the high bedroom windows as positive elements and not as liabilities.  

We did that by modernizing as many other features as we could while still keeping the mid-century charm. We replaced the front door with more modern model, replaced the attic stairs with a less rickety model, adjusted doors that didn't close properly, repainted all of the rooms with fresher colors, upgraded the electrical panel, and many other smaller tasks.

We did a larger makeover of the kitchen. While we didn't want to spend too much money in case someone came in and redid it completely, we wanted to make it look as modern and inviting as we could while keeping the pine cabinets. We shortened the peninsula and curved it to make more seating at the breakfast bar. We added a glass tile back splash, replaced the vinyl floor, and flipped the electrical panel to a opposite side of the wall.

Our hard work paid off, because despite putting it on the market in January during the snowiest winter that part of Virginia has had in a while, the house has sold. And we're back home working on our own projects. Stay tuned!

So That's How the Birds Got In

We've started removing ceilings in the project house.  The floor to ceiling height is pretty low in most rooms (less than 8 feet), so we want to maximize that where possible.  There's some places with strapping that apparently once held, or was going to hold, sheetrock over the cracked plaster that we're taking down, some saggy ceilings where we need to figure out what's going on underneath, and some with water damage.  

We also moved the trim pile around on the third floor so we could tackle the one remaining section of ceiling that we had been putting off for months.  We had found in these ceilings, which are essentially in the finished attic space, that some critters had moved in and made a very significant nest.  They'd been gone for a long time, but they had left some less than desirable remnants of their previous home.  We never were quite sure what was there.  I think birds because there was a lot of straw involved in the nest, but there may have been some bats around the chimney too.

Removing that last part of the ceiling wasn't as bad as we'd expected.  Apparently, they'd lived in the center part that we'd already taken down.  What we did find though, was that there was a gaping hole all along the gable line of that end of the space!  It's a wonder we didn't have a new crop of creatures in there this summer, but I guess we'd made it rather inhospitable in there.  

Someone had taken down the outside trim around the gable, in preparation for what?  Who knows.  The roofer had warned us about it, but we didn't realize what he was talking about and that there was an actual HOLE there.  Since we don't have a ladder tall enough to reach the end, we fixed the hole from the inside using 1"x6"s, our trusty reciprocating saw, and a few nails.  Figures that it wasn't as easy as it might seem.  Nothing is straight and there's a vent pipe going through the roof there, but we got the boards in.  We went out side and started looking at the other ends and it looks like we've got a couple of other holes to find and fix too where the trim was removed.  More fun with the Sawsall and foam sealant to come! 

The Purgatory of Demolition

We have been in demolition phase of our newest project for far too long. We've been busy (this blog has suffered too) and have had just a couple of hours a weekend to spend on the project for most of the summer.  You'd think we'd be more motivated since we're paying monthly dumpster rental fees, but we're just not getting it done.  Between jobs that often require evening events, lawn mowing, too hot summer weather, and just life in general, we've gotten ourselves stuck in demolition purgatory. 

Hopefully this weekend we can finish the last wall and start removing the necessary ceilings.  It's high time to start putting things back together.  Two dumpster loads have left the premises already which included the old roof, plaster and lath, ceiling tiles, old insulation, and sheetrock among other undesirable trash.  We have been recycling as we can, but there's still a lot of debris.  We've got piles for reusable lumber, trim to be stripped and reused, wiring and other metal, aluminum storm windows, fixtures, hardware, chimney bricks, the old cabinets...We've still got a lot of nail pulling and paint stripping ahead of us, but we can do that without a dumpster so, at least symbolically, we'll be headed out of purgatory!

The Economy of Preservation

We spent a nice day in Lewisburg, West Virginia last weekend.  One reason for choosing Lewisburg for a day trip was that it is close to our home in Southwest Virginia, but beyond that, even though we didn't consciously make the decision based on historic preservation, all of the reasons are inextricably tied to it:

• Lewisburg has a sense of place.  The minute you enter town, you know you are somewhere special and not in Anytown, USA.  History is evident from the old buildings and the tree-lined streets.  The business district has character and draws you in.  This is a place you want to stop.
  
• Lewisburg is pedestrian friendly.  Though several main roads connect in town, all of the roads are 2 lanes with parallel parking.  The parked cars and street trees help to provide a barrier between pedestrians and traffic while also slowing the cars driving through.  Why are the roads narrow?  Because the buildings are historic and were built at a time when pedestrians and horses were the norm or few people owned those new-fangled automobile things.
  
• Lewisburg is compact, yet expansive.  What do I mean by that?  The area that comprises downtown Lewisburg is just a few blocks, creating a compact area to walk around.  No sprawl here.  But it is expansive enough that you can spend an entire afternoon here eating lunch (and maybe dinner too) at a local restaurant; browsing the galleries of locally-made and high-quality arts and crafts, antique stores, and specialty shops; and taking the historic walking tour.  You can expand your trip to the evening too by taking in a show at Carnegie Hall and spend the night at a local B&B.
  
• Money spent in Lewisburg stays local.  The majority of businesses are locally owned and not owned by a faceless conglomerate in another state who doesn't really even know where Lewisburg is.  That means that money you spend in Lewisburg most likely returns to business owners and employees who live locally.  If they, in turn, spend the money they earned from you locally, then the returns to the local economy snowball.

I don't know the logistics of how Lewisburg became the community it is today, but I do know that many small towns have used federal and state historic preservation funding and tax credits to help them revitalize and reinvent themselves after experiencing extended economic downturns due to lost industries and changes in the way people shop.  What does federal and state preservation funding accomplish for these towns?  It creates jobs.  It creates jobs for the people who restore and rehabilitate the historic buildings to be used by restaurants, galleries, specialty shops, grocery and hardware stores, office space, apartments, and a myriad of other uses.  It creates jobs for the business owners and their staff that occupy the historic buildings.  It creates jobs for tourism-related businesses such as restaurants, lodging, and gas that are needed so visitors can spend the day, spend the night, spend the week.  These may not be the large-scale industrial park-type industries our politicians are thinking of when they chant the "more jobs" mantra, but these small local businesses are important for rural economies, small town residents, and the American way of life.  And funding to help with these preservation projects is vital to our economy.  That might not be so obvious if you live in Anytown, USA.

A New Roof at Westview

In a perfect world, all fixer-uppers would have a new roof and those of us crazy enough to take them on wouldn't have to worry about that one little detail.  Unfortunately, when people give up on a house, it seems that the expense of replacing a roof is one of the reasons they give up.  The house we live in had multiple leaks when we first bought it and the remains of some really bad attempts at plugging up missing flashing with roofing tar and caulking.  We got the flashing fixed and a few roofing tiles replaced and we've been dry ever since.

At the Westview project house, we knew there were roofing issues when we bought the house.  The blue tarps were the first clue.  The old curling asphalt shingles that blew off in the mountain winds were the second.  We've had a roofer lined up for several months now, but since we're in no hurry, we told them they could put us later in the queue.  Well, this week, they finally got to us.  They took the old roof off Monday morning.  Fortunately, despite the terrible condition of the old roof, it hadn't been leaking enough to damage the oak decking so little work had to take place before replacement could begin.  As of yesterday afternoon (prior to the thunderstorms, fortunately), we had a new asphalt architectural shingled roof!  Very nice, except that it highlights the peeling paint on the attic windows. 

The other slight problem was that the power line to the house was rather precarious and the debris coming off the roof pulled the power line free from the house.  So, we called to have the power company look at it since the roofers mentioned it had sparked when it pulled free and we didn't want to burn the house down.  The power company came by, took one look at that old power line, cut it, and took the meter.  Sooo, now we have NO power.  We only had one operational outlet anyway because the wiring in the house was downright dangerous, but this sets us back a bit since we don't own a generator.  We're investigating now how to get minimal power for construction.  At least painting windows can be done without a power source!

Deferred Maintenance Strikes Again

In the center of our little town, we have an old brick high school building built in 1931.  In a story similar to many communities, the town outgrew the high school and in 1961, a new high school was built.  The old school was used by elementary school students until 1987.  It has been the town community center in the time since.  We have a wonderful recreation program that uses the old gym, the auditorium is used for community programs, and there are some town offices in the building as well.  

Unfortunately, the school is still owned by the school system who has deferred maintenance over the years.  Today, among other things, the roof leaks and has damaged the old wooden gym floors to a point that they need to be fixed before the floors become a safety hazard.  The school system wants to sell the school to the town rather than fix the problems.  The town isn't sure they want to take on the liability of a building that they need to spend a minimum of $150,000 on just to get the roof and gym floors fixed.  

The town estimates it will cost $2.5 million to fully renovate it.  That may be an inflated number to spin favor away from the building or it may be on target.  Due to this dollar figure, town council is now discussing the idea of demolishing a historic brick building that anchors one end of town, contributes to the scenic view of the duck pond area, and has lasted for 80 years and will easily last another 80 if  properly maintained.  Their plan?  Build a nondescript "shell building" for $1.5 million that might last for 30 years if they're lucky to replace the spaces the recreation program will lose if the building is demolished.  

In other words, they have a plan to replace character with mediocrity, and long-term investment with short-term consumption.  Demolition is permanent.  And it's not free. The tangible costs of removing debris and preparing the site for new construction and the intangible costs caused by the changes to the fabric of the community are both mighty expensive in a small town struggling to maintain its unique identity.

What's in the Walls?

An interesting thing about gutting an old house to add insulation and new wiring, plumbing, and HVAC is what you find (or don't find) in the walls.  Our project house is definitely a vernacular house added onto and built with whatever the carpenters had.  Some walls had plaster, others old sheetrock.  When we got to the studs, we found that none of the walls had insulation and that the sheathing was flipped over and reused painted siding from another building.  Must've been pretty cold and drafty in there with the mountain winds blowing in winter.

We've also found that you can look straight up the wall cavities from the first floor to the second.  In other words, we've got balloon framing.  Today's buildings generally use platform framing where each floor is a platform extending to the outside wall and the wall studs are attached to the floor above and sit on the floor below.  With balloon framing, longer studs are used that reach from the base of the first floor to the second floor ceiling.  The floor joists are nailed to the wall studs.  The structure will usually have some bracing and the sheathing also helps to strengthen balloon framing.

Balloon framing doesn't meet today's building codes because the open walls create a chimney that can transfer smoke and flames throughout the building quickly and with devastating results.  So, one of our tasks is to add fire blocks in the walls.  We'll be insulating, which will reduce the chimney effect, but we'll also be adding 2x4 blocks that fit between the stud bays to further block airflow.  Since we've got real 2x4s and the distance between studs is probably not uniform, we won't be able to simply use big-box-bought lumber and cut all the pieces to the same size.  It'll be time consuming, but worth it in the long run for the safety and comfort of the new occupants.

Salvaging What We Can

We're currently in the demolition phase of the rehabilitation of our project house.  That means we've been wielding our sledgehammers and have got a dumpster outside.  We're pretty selective about what we're throwing away though:  

• The old wood windows will stay and be reworked.  We'll add storm windows to make them just as efficient as new double-glazed windows.
• Some of the doors will stay and be stripped and repainted.  The front door is a new door so we'll get rid of that.  Not all of the interior doors match and we'll be changing the layout of the rooms, so we'll be visiting our local architectural salvage to buy some solid wood 5-panel doors.
• The wood floors just need to be refinished.  The old yellow spotted linoleum kitchen floor and vinyl bathroom floor will go.
• Lumber and trim will be reused in this house or another.
• The bricks from the chimneys that are no longer necessary will surround planting beds and create a retaining wall in the yard.
• The acoustic tile ceilings?  Outta here.
• Old insulation? What old insulation?
• Old metal pipes, electrical wiring with copper in it, and the old appliances will be recycled.
• The old kitchen cabinets will find new life in the shed in the backyard.
• The old blue bathroom fixtures will be donated to the local ReStore.  (Can you believe the architectural salvage place wouldn't buy them from us?!?)

It's in everyone's best interest to be selective about demolition debris.  The bottom line for us is money savings: a lighter dumpster means cheaper tipping fees and reusing materials means we don't have to purchase them new.  The less that ends up in the landfill and the more that we can reuse, the better.  Reused materials mean less energy is consumed in making new and probably inferior products.  It's a little more effort for us, but worth it in the long run.

How National Register Listing Can Attract Business

Our small town was once a bustling metropolis.  Okay, not really, it's always been a small town, but all of the empty buildings downtown used to be full of stores, restaurants, and other businesses.  Today, we have a few businesses and some traffic, but nothing like the photos of 50 years ago.  What happened?  The main road bypassed town.  Fortunes changed as employment at the chemical plant dropped to less than a quarter of its peak.  Reliable cars and improved roads made it easier to drive farther for supplies.  So today, we're left with a downtown full of empty storefronts.

In the last several years, a renaissance of sorts has begun with the old hotel reopening.  The owner has helped restore several other buildings so we now have a cafe/coffee shop to complement the well-known locally-owned home style restaurant and an artisan's shop to complement the art gallery that has been here for years.  These are wonderful businesses for a county that has embraced tourism as one of its future economic drivers.

The town has outgrown its old office building just off of Main Street and needs to either build new or rehabilitate an existing downtown building.  This is not a rich town so all expenditures undergo extensive scrutiny.  A local developer has offered to purchase the empty old furniture store on Main Street, rehab it, and rent it to the town with the option to buy in the future.  The idea is that this could bring a viable entity to downtown that could entice others to rehab other buildings and make downtown a vibrant place once again without costing the town as much as it would if they were to pay for the construction themselves.

So what is the sticking point?  The developer won't begin the project unless the downtown area is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  This makes perfect business sense.  If the building is listed or in a district that is listed, then the developer will be able to take advantage of federal and state tax credits to reduce the cost of the rehabilitation by up to 45%.  Furthermore, National Register listing can help attract other investment downtown because other developers can take advantage of tax credits as well.   

There is some concern among residents that having a National Register Historic District will limit the town in some way.  This couldn't be further from the truth.  Unless the town creates a local historic district with local zoning ordinances, building owners are able to do as they please with their National Register buildings.  Being registered encourages owners to be good stewards of the buildings, but there is no legal means of making sure that happens.  Registered buildings are eligible for state and federal rehabilitation tax credits of up to 45% and technical assistance from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources for such projects.  

A small investment of $10,000 for a consultant to prepare the National Register nomination will help us to get a new town office building, and potentially attract businesses, and their accompanying tax dollars to downtown.  The town can help its residents embrace the future through the county's tourism initiative and other local business so the next generation will live in a bustling metropolis and the empty buildings will be but a memory.

Buildings Aren't Consumables

When did Americans become so reactive instead of proactive?  Why do we wait until something reaches a critical point before we fix it rather than treating it early, before it gets to the critical point?  Why do we throw money at the effects rather than the causes?  Why do we discard rather than repair?  When did we become such a consumer society? 

What do these questions have to do with historic preservation?  A lot.  Preservationists understand the importance of being proactive with an old or historic building to reduce costs and maintain the life of the building:

• Being proactive will save money over the life of the building.  Buildings fall down or become extremely costly to restore if we wait until the roof leaks or the windows fall out or the termite damage is visible before we fix them.  Inspect the building at least yearly.  Spend money to repair the roof when damage is evident, get out the glazing putty when the windows panes are loose, and spray for bugs yearly. 

• Fixing the cause will save money by fixing the effect. Rather than just fixing the bubbling plaster wall, determine what is causing the plaster to bubble in the first place.  Is it caused by water coming in the wall?  How is the water getting in?  Is the gutter in the wrong place?  Are the window sills holding water instead of shedding it?  If you don't fix the underlying problem, the plaster will keep bubbling and you'll continually need to spend money fixing it.
  
• Repairing saves money and often lasts longer than replacing.  Your old windows are hard to raise and you need to put a stick in the track to hold them up?  Fix them!  You just need to open up the trim and attach new rope to the weights.  Add some weather stripping and new storm windows if they're drafty.  It'll save you more money than you think because you won't have to replace your new vinyl windows yet again in 20 years when they cloud up.
  
• Buildings shouldn't be considered consumables.  A well-maintained old building can last hundreds of years.  The materials and workmanship used to construct old buildings are often not available anymore.  The dimensional lumber, hand-formed bricks, old-growth wood, and other materials are far superior to what is available today and will likely last longer than most buildings constructed today of less robust materials.  Why spend the money to bulldoze a perfectly viable building built of high quality materials for something built from lower quality materials?  Rehabilitate, reuse, don't bulldoze.

Preservationists get it.  Spend a little time or money now, save lots of time and money later.  Now if we can just break the rest of America from reactive and consumptive habits...

We Need More Historic Building Tradespeople!

I may have mentioned before that it is nearly impossible to find anyone in our area that knows how to work on an old house (or new one for that matter, but that's another story).  In addition to working on our own rehabilitation projects, we are both museum directors responsible for historic house museums and their upkeep.  At home, we can take things apart, work on them, put them back together, and learn during the process. At work, it's not our responsibility (thank Heavens!) to fix bubbling plaster or make the windows functional again. But, that means we have to find someone who can.  And not just someone who can, but someone who knows what they are doing.

We may live in Virginia, but we are far from Jamestown, Williamsburg, Richmond, and the historic places where buildings matter.  We are in the mountainous southwestern part of the state that was settled much later than the east.  Our county has just celebrated its bicentennial.  The farther south and west you go, the younger the community.  And, for whatever reason, there isn't a reverence for historic buildings that translates to their upkeep.  People revere the land that their ancestors have owned for generations and will gladly point out their homeplace.  But, more often than not, that homeplace is falling to the ground.

So when it comes to finding someone to do plaster work, properly repoint brick, repair wooden windows, or replicate old woodwork, it's nearly impossible.  The trades consist of vinyl, vinyl, and more vinyl: siding, windows, porch columns...  Replace it don't fix it.  Just another example of our throw away society.  Throw away the old, dependable fixtures.  Throw away money.

Our consumptive Walmart society is one problem.   The American view that all children must go to college to be successful is also problematic.  No matter that a person who is successful at a historic building trade is likely to make more over their lifetime than many college graduates and not spend their life paying back college loans.   There is an unfortunate stigma related to the trades, that can lead high school students who would be far happier working with their hands tackling a new preservation problem to a long, struggle through college classes and an unsatisfying desk job. 

And for those high school students who might want to pursue historic building trades, they probably don't know the opportunity exists.  In our area in particular, it is likely that students don't recognize that historic buildings are different than new construction.  If their school happens to have a technical track, it is likely they will build a new vinyl house with metal studs.  A two-pronged approach requires an understanding of the built environment and different types of construction, as well as the technical skills and critical thinking required to build or repair different types of buildings.  Until we can make the preservation trades a mainstream educational track, it will be difficult to find young people to replace the older generation and it will be come increasingly harder to find someone qualified to fix the amazing features of old and historic houses.  

Note: The Preservation Trades Network preserves and teaches historic building trades and is working to develop education initiatives to keep the trades alive.

Be Careful How You Define "Old" When It Comes to Buildings

After reading Historic Preservation Basics No. 2 at Preservation in Pink last week, I was bothered by the distinction made between historic ("Listed in or eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Typically, such properties are 50 years or older, though that is a guideline, not a rule.") and old ("Referring to a property that does not possess historic significance or historic integrity. Not eligible for listing in the National Register.")   Defining old in this way seems to indicate that old buildings are not worth saving (though This Old House and Old House Journal seem to indicate otherwise).

To be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, a building or neighborhood must in general be 50 years old or more and:

1. be associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or 
2. be associated with the lives of significant persons in or past; or 
3. embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or represent the work of a master, or possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or 
4. have yielded or may be likely to yield, information important in history or prehistory.

There has traditionally been a bit of snobbery about what is historic and what is not.  Monticello?  Yes.  Mount Vernon?  Yes.  The Victorian next door?  Maybe, but they painted it such garish colors.  The American Four Square?  Probably not.  It's too new.  And well, it's just so...common.  The Ranch House?  Definitely not.  But it was built in 1959.  It's 50 years old. 

I would argue that there are plenty of traditional, vernacular buildings (and ranch houses) that don't meet any of the four criteria, but that are over 50 years old and are sturdy houses that, with some rehabilitation, can meet today's needs.  Preservation is inherently green.  That means that retaining these houses is more environmentally (and usually economically) sound than building new.  Save the dimensional oak 2x4's, old growth wood windows, and solid wood doors.  Insulate the walls and attic, replace the wiring and plumbing, add storm windows, and move some walls around.  These houses don't have the high expectations, distinctive characteristics, and architectural details of those listed on the National Register.  Retaining the neighborhood character and creating a cozy and environmentally sound home for a new family should be the goals for traditional, vernacular old houses, not the landfill.

Beware the Electricity in Your Old House

If you are rehabilitating an old house, it's a good bet that the wiring in the house is downright scary.  And, since bad wiring can cause a fire and burn down your new investment, it's best to have a professional assess the situation and give you the bad news about rewiring.  As the DIY'er, here are a few red flags that suggest your wiring is probably not up to snuff:

• The electrical panel is on the porch.  For some reason, this was really popular in our area and many old houses still have the panel on the front porch near the front door.  The panel is outdoors so it's susceptible to wind-driven rain, temperature swings, insects, rodents, and anything else that might be on your porch including someone with less than legal intentions.  Seems like an episode of CSI just waiting to happen.

•  The electrical panel contains fuses instead of circuit breakers.  This can be okay if it signifies that the house's wiring has not been changed in any way.  However, an electrician with experience in older wiring systems should be consulted to be sure that hi-amp fuses haven't been installed that could cause wires to overheat.

• There are a mixture of old and new outlets in the house.  When many of old houses were wired, electricity was still a luxury.  There is often just a single outlet and switch in each room.  Today, our lifestyles demand many more outlets for lights, TVs, computers, clocks, this gadget, and that.  Old knob and tube wiring can not be safely grounded or spliced with new wiring so if you see a mixture of outlet types, investigate further.  

• The wiring looks dangerous.  If the wiring looks dangerous, it probably is.  With the main circuit breaker off, open up one of the outlets and gently pull it away from the wall.  Is it frayed?  Is it even the appropriate kind of wire?  We found one outlet in our project house wired with speaker wire.  Not appropriate.

• There are bare wires protruding from the wall or ceiling.  Don't touch them!  It's quite likely they are live and you'd rather find out with an amp meter than by shocking yourself, wouldn't you?   

•  There's charring on the framing near an outlet.  Turn off the circuit breaker.  Do not turn it on again until you get the wiring inspected!

• The electrical wire servicing your meter hangs low over your house.  It might touch your roof or you could reach out a window and grab it.  This is an electrocution hazard.  Talk to your electrical company about moving the wire.  If it's hanging over the roof, that means it's a danger for someone roofing the house.  If you can reach it out the window, than a child may try.  Get it moved.

• You don't have any GFCI outlets.  These are code today and important for safety in kitchens, bathrooms, and anywhere else that water and electricity might mix.  They automatically shut the juice off to prevent electrocution on a ground fault.  Add them.

Don't mess with electricity yourself.  Call an electrician and have the wiring inspected and corrected to preserve your investment!

Finding a Little House in a Big House

Last week I talked about the hidden treasures you can find inside the walls of an old house and the stories they can tell of the occupants and their lives.  The walls themselves can tell a story also.  In this case, its the story of different iterations of the house and how it has grown and changed to accommodate different uses over time.

We are in the midst of demolition on the Westview House.  And yes, gasp, we are removing the old plaster.  This house dates to the early 1900s, and has absolutely no remarkable features on the interior.  It's more important to us to make the house warm, comfortable, and safe for the new occupants.  So, we are removing the 1970's paneling, old sheetrock, dirty plaster, and who knows what all else so we can add insulation, new wiring, and new plumbing and adjust the floor plan to better fit today's lifestyle.  

We knew that this house had been changed to three apartments in the 1940s when local industry boomed.  We could also tell that the stairs to the second floor was not original since it is in the back of the house and ends at a side door.  Great for apartments.  Weird for a single family house.  Lo and behold, as we demolished the walls in the front room, we found the diagonal framing for an old stairway.  Next to that was a closed in doorway that would have provided access to the stairs and the other now-closed-in front room.  We could also tell that the existing doorway was new.

 

In the same room, the back wall had several other hidden surprises.  One was that the existing doorway was once much larger and may have once had French doors.  The French doors were probably not original though because the lumber, though old, wasn't as old as the framing.  But also because the other hidden surprise was that the wall had window framing inside!  That means that this house was once much smaller (and means I need to take a trip to the courthouse and see what I can find out about the property).  We're not going to be able to tell on the first floor if there's a matching window hidden in the next room because of the doorway configuration, but we may be able to tell upstairs when we get to the rooms above.  

Looking at the outside of the house, the windows match on the upper and lower floors only one room deep: this was probably a vernacular I-house that was heavily added onto.  It will be interesting to see what else the house tells us as we move through the demolition phase.  We had already expected to find some additional exterior windows, but what else might be hiding behind the old plaster? 

Introducing...the Westview Project

We are by no means finished with our own house, but sometimes, a deal comes along that is just too good to pass up.  Our dream has long been to rehab old houses that need TLC and make them warm, comfy, and livable for a new generation.  We were browsing through the real estate section early this year and found such a house just two blocks away in our small town.  The house was a HUD foreclosure with a price tag less than the cost of a new car for about 2,700 square feet of livable space.  How could we possibly pass that up?  

The house is in decent shape considering it was built in the early 1900s, turned into 3 apartments in the 1940s (hmmm, sounds like our house), and hasn't been loved in a long time.  It's a frame house that currently has 6 bedrooms and 1 bathroom on 3 floors.  It's solid and has great hardwood floors, but needs a new roof, new HVAC, new wiring, new plumbing, insulation, storm windows, a couple more bathrooms, and some curb appeal

We're a little unsure if the house has a real style other than vernacular.   Several of the features appear to be Craftsman-like: the clipped gable, the dormer, the 3 over 1 windows, and the details of the front and side entrances.  But there aren't any Craftsman-like details inside.  The trim is just straight, squared-edge pieces of wood.  There aren't any wood wainscoting or built-ins.  It's just really simple and basic inside.  That gives us a lot of leeway for upgrading utilities, making it more energy efficient, and creating a more modern layout.

We started work on it today, gutting the third floor attic rooms.  It is a beautiful sunny space with 3 windows in the dormer and 5 more on the sides.  We removed the trim, wiring, and old wall board in there (some of which was made down the road in Gold Bond).  We envision this space as a master bedroom or a studio or a playroom space depending on the needs of it's new family.  We'll put a master bathroom up there and the eaves are high enough to make great closet space.  Dreaming and demoing - the best way to start a new project.      

Restoration, Rehabilitation, and Insulation

The Secretary of the Interior is pretty clear about the differences between restoration and rehabilitation of historic properties. Restoration "focuses on the retention of materials from the most significant time in a property's history, while permitting the removal of materials from other periods" while Rehabilitation "emphasizes the retention and repair of historic materials, but more latitude is provided for replacement because it is assumed the property is more deteriorated prior to work." In addition, the historical importance, physical condition, proposed use, and code requirements should be taken into consideration when choosing a treatment for the building.

In the area where we live, economics have never been such that large, showy houses were built.  Because we are relatively isolated, most building occurred in the late 1800s and early 1900s, with a building boom in the 1940s related to growing industry.  Most of the houses here reflect the blue collar nature of the jobs available and are simple, vernacular homes with some bungalows and American four squares thrown in.  Taken together, the houses create an interesting, varied, and historic streetscape, but very few places in the county have been nominated for the National Register.

Our house was built by the town doctor and is one of the more majestic-looking in our town.  Yet despite the exterior, the interior is very simple and plain.  Most, but not all of the trim and doors are oak, but the trim is basic and easily replicable (or findable at the salvage yard).  Our house doesn't have the Craftsman details and built-ins popular in many houses of the time.  There is just one shallow fireplace with a very simple mantle.  The walls are plaster, but not in great shape.  And our house, as were many other larger homes in the area, was broken up into apartments during the building boom of the 1940s.

For us, the lack of Craftsman details and poor plaster is a blessing in disguise.  It means that we don't feel obligated to restore the house back to the time when the details were new.  We can really do what we please inside the house to make it livable without concern for fancy woodwork, because we just don't have it.  That said, we have removed traces of the apartments, found where the original doorways were and generally restored the spaces to what they were when the house was built.  We are fortunate to have most of the original doors and trim and have been able to find replacements where the originals were lost.

Most importantly though, because we aren't restoring the house, but instead are rehabilitating it, we could insulate it without feeling (much) guilt for replacing the plaster exterior walls with sheetrock.  Now we certainly recognize that many of you are frowning at us for doing that.  However, we live in a climate with strong winds and cold winter weather and it makes more sense to reduce our heating bills with insulation than to keep and patch plain 1913 plaster walls.  Were this house older, if it were in a different climate, if the walls were more significant due to plaster details or wainscoting or other trim, or if the exterior were wood so that it could be insulated from outside, we would have considered other alternatives.  But, for our own comfort and the continuing use of this house, this was the right rehabilitation plan for this house.

Finding "the One"

All stories need to start somewhere, and ours starts with the completed rehabilitation of a 1-1/2 story bungalow. We lived there as we worked on the house, so flipping it required finding not only a new project, but a new place to live.  In our area, you can find great old houses at rock bottom prices, if you're willing to live a half an hour from your job and for us, a rock bottom price was a must.  We scoured the MLS listings for low priced houses with historic character.  We drove by houses, checked out neighborhoods and towns, and became well-acquainted with the communities in our area, but we didn't find "the one."  Until...we found a For Sale By Owner listing in the local newspaper.  The price was right.  The description was right.  The location was good.  We called.

The owners had sort of moved out already, but the door was left unlocked and we were told to go by there anytime.  We stopped by one day after work and, with the place to ourselves, were much freer to look around and say what we thought than we would have been had the owners been home.  Outside looked promising - a brick, American Four Square on Main Street in a small town, grassy yard, big shade tree, iron fence on the old concrete wall. 

We entered through the door from the back porch to an odd arrangement of two kitchens.  The path to the right took us to a room with 9 windows that smelled like dog and through to a room with two large windows and a door facing the front porch.  The door and one  window were at angles to the second window with leaded glass at top.  A door went back into the kitchen then out to the foyer with its big glass door and sidelights lighting the stairs.  The living room was on the other side of the foyer, a large arch extending the room to what was once part of the front porch.  A third front door was here.  We headed upstairs to find 3 bedrooms and a large master bath that had been added.  Downstairs again, we explored the remaining rooms, one of which featured a toilet in a very large room, all by itself.  The house also had a partial basement.

After exploring the house without saying much to each other, we came back to the foyer, looked at each other, and said "this is it!"  We saw the challenge of removing previous badly done renovations, the leaky new pipes in the basement, the 42 windows in need of restoration.  But we also saw the original hardwood floors, the original floor plan, the oak trim and 5-panel doors, and we decided to go for it.