Month: August 2017

For nearly three months we worked almost every day.  I was a weekend warrior, but Randy was there every day, with the exception of his photography assignments and needed days at home to let his body rest and to catch up with his real job and life’s necessities.  Near the end of  June, Lori became available every day again, and so for the summer, it was a daily effort as a twosome again.  The list of things we did was enormous.  Stripping walls, washing walls, sanding walls, plastering, sanding, caulking, plastering, sanding, plastering, sanding… you get the gist.  We worked on one room at a time, and then worked on hallways and the stairway.  Randy taught me how to use a caulk gun (which I had used before, but now am an expert with).  There were lots of jokes about caulk.  I will spare you those details, and let you use your imagination.  On every project, Randy’s attention to detail was maddening to me, and yet, the finished products are always exceptional.  I have learned to appreciate it tremendously.

To date, we have painted walls, ceilings, floors and closets in two bedrooms, painted walls and ceilings in the bathroom upstairs, the kitchen, dining room and two additional closets.  The painting process included a final sanding, washing, priming, sanding again, then two coats of paint.  Arduous labor!

The dining room got a new coat of wax to hold us over for the moment.  This floor will be refinished later.

Wax On, Wax Off

We have updated wiring in the basement with a new “Square D” box on the exterior and a new “QO” master panel box in the basement.  Electrical wiring is being checked and replaced one room at a time, with completely reconfigured kitchen lighting designed by Randy.

Worth significant mention is the total renovation of our kitchen pantry closet which has been insulated, sheet rocked, painted and fitted with custom shelving complete with beautiful red barn board and a shiny new red floor to match.  It is a piece of art!  Some of the interior doors have been cut and waxed  so that they close once again, and the window screens have been washed and re-hung in most of the house.  A small amount of landscaping has begun, with some of our plants from Pond Eddy coming along with us to Milanville.  They have transplanted well, and offer us a start, along with a few varieties of transplanted bulbs which will give us color next spring.  The combination of a large population of deer and the old apple tree in the yard are not exactly helping.  The deer have a well worn circuit that includes the corn field across the road and the apple tree.  On their way by, they check on our plantings regularly to sample the new blooms.  Apparently they have not read the official listing of deer-resistant plants.  Thanks to the recommendation of our neighbor’s Jim and Paul, we are now using a product to repel the deer, which seems to be helping.  The chimneys have been inspected and cleaned and a new seamless chimney liner has been installed from the furnace in the basement all the way up (four stories)!  Frank from Cherry Ridge Chimney Sweep impressed us at every step, literally climbing the ladder with ease at the age of seventy, and walking on the upper roof with the confidence of a teenager.  He even offered to clean the upper gutters for us, which had not been cleaned in years.  My son Sam came to visit and helped us clean the rest of the gutters, helping out his dear mother. xoxo

In the basement, Randy and Andy Craft removed the two ancient oil tanks.  This was a tremendous process which included Randy on the phone multiple times with our oil company who finally came and drained the tanks.  Andy showed up one Saturday with a trailer, a four wheeler, a big board and some rope.  Together the two guys built a ramp up the basement bulkhead steps and pulled those bad boys out.  I secretly think they actually had fun doing it.  Andy also was kind enough to take the VERY heavy bathtub we had removed from the downstairs bathroom.

Our move from Pond Eddy lasted two weeks at the end of June, with two full days using a moving van and a team of strong men, along with many days of cleaning, sorting, burning (wood) and giving things away.  Did I mention Randy came down with Lyme’s Disease in early June?  Amidst all the chaos and work, he started feeling poorly.  He started a course of antibiotics, and thanks to modern medicine was feeling better within days.  He never missed a beat!  Now, we are settling in and so glad to be here together in our very own “Home Sweet Home”.  The work continues, and will keep us busy for years.  Hi-ho, Hi-ho…

 

 

Every new owner of an old house asks the question “I wonder if we will find some sort of treasure hidden in the walls?”  We were no different.  We found all sorts of loose floor boards, always cut in sets of three, with seemingly random numbers painted on them.  I found the first set after pulling up the flooring in one of the bedrooms above the kitchen, up the back staircase.  I called Randy to open it with me, thinking if we found a bag of money, we could celebrate together.  Ha!  Wishful thinking.  Alas, what we found were simply cut boards to provide room for the electrical wires for ceiling lights below.  Sorry to disappoint.

So with our demolition over (or so we thought), the cleanup began.  With excitement we arrived each day, with good intentions, and stayed on task, for the most part.  We started washing walls, windows and floors, and began the arduous task of removing wallpaper in the few places it remained.  We had been avoiding one room upstairs for a number of reasons, one of which included the fact that it had multiple layers of wallpaper that had been well glued beneath the top layer of wallpaper we had already removed.  Randy perfected the art of wallpaper removal using spray bottles filled with a store bought remover, one in each hand.  He imagined himself a double fisted gunfighter in a shootout in the wild west to entertain himself during what seemed to be an endless and monotonous task.  He wet down the walls and then S-C-R-A-P-E-D the paper away.  Happily he showed me how to, and so it went for days, as our wrists and hands ached so badly, we would have to stop.  For anyone who has done the same, you have my sympathy.  One weekday, when he was at the house alone, he began on an interior wall in the same room.  As he scraped, he hit a section of the wall about two feet from the corner, that felt a bit soft.  He wondered why, and before he could finish the thought… “What will Lori think if I tear this open?”, he was carefully prying open a spot in the wall to see what was beneath.  What he found was a vertical line of sheet rock at the end of the wood lathe and plaster and two original vertical hemlock beams side by side.  “A DOORWAY!”  It was sheet rock that had been soft beneath the scraper, and as he followed the line upward, what he found was not just a doorway, but an arch.  A beautiful archway, between two rooms that had once been a bedroom suite, complete with one of the home’s fireplaces.

We had wanted the larger of the two to be our master bedroom, as it had a beautiful archway over the windows that mirrored the arch we uncovered beneath the drop ceiling in the dining room.  So, there it was, a hidden archway, and two bedrooms instantly became one beautiful suite.  It did not take him long to break down the wall, deconstruct the framing that filled the space and release the house from what had closed it off for so many years.  As he stood in the newly revealed archway, a gust of wind came rushing through the windows from below the original arch, swirled around him and then raced out the front window and was gone.  It was a powerful moment, a clearing of sorts, and the house was free again.

As if that was not enough… downstairs, just off the entryway, was another room with a fireplace.  This room had been renovated by prior owners at some point, and it was our intention to tear down the chair rail and paneling below.  The walls were flimsy and we knew we would eventually need to gut this room, along with the bathroom next door. Randy began tearing out the paneling, starting at the door and worked his way around the room.  Once again, part way across the interior wall, he came to a point where the wood lathe ended, and again found the bones of a framed up opening.  With the knowledge of what might lie beneath, he tore at it with the enthusiasm of the Karate Kid.  This doorway was wider than the one upstairs, and after all was said and done, what he uncovered was the frame of an old pocket doorway.  The room now opened up into the old bathroom/laundry/pantry room.

I like to imagine the house when it was built, before indoor plumbing, and wonder about these rooms.  This first floor suite, off the front foyer, may have served J. Howard in his business dealings and entertaining.  I imagine it was his office suite, with the pocket doors opening to an inner sanctum of sorts, complete with a sprawling and stately desk.  There he would work and hold all sorts of business meetings by day.  At night, the doors might be shut, creating an outer room housing the home’s library, with books lining the walls, coal burning in the fireplace to warm the room, and comfortable chairs waiting for guests after dinner.  The rear door which enters off the kitchen would have probably been used by the servants to enter and exit inconspicuously.

When we were cleaning the woodwork and specifically the many beautiful old wooden doors, we noticed numbers mounted to many of them.  When we bought the house, there were six bedrooms.  Eight rooms in all had numbers, including the two downstairs rooms just mentioned.  It is our understanding that at some point in the home’s history, one of the owners used it as a boarding house.  This explains why someone would have done these renovations, in order to maximize use of the space, making four rooms out of two.  Although we also hope to welcome guests, we want to return the home to its original grandeur (minus the wallpaper).  So, it was not bags of gold coin, or stacks of money hidden in the walls, but we found our own kind of treasure.  J. Howard Beach, we like your style!