The first floor of the house has been pretty much gutted, and the second and third are well on their way. Tomorrow the plumber comes so I can get the pipes in the basement fixed and we can finish the basement with a solid power washing. I thought I would share some pictures with you all. First up, a reminder of what the house looks like from the outside:
The front yard has already been cleaned up and the shrubs cut, so tomorrow if it is sunny I will take some new pics. At any rate, when you walk in the front door, off to your left you will see the staircase up, and to the right you will see the arch to the living room. Here they are in order:
As you can see, the flooring is beyond repair, needs to be patched and leveled, and I have made the command decision that I am going to put new flooring on both the first and second floor. I think it will be cheaper in the long run than carpeting the second floor. You see in the second picture a vent, and it has an old iron decorative grill that is currently outside being cleaned. On to the next picture, which is taken standing right in front of the arch in the second picture, looking into the living room:
This is another view of the living room, with me standing directly underneath the arch, looking to the right side of the room (you can see the windows to the front of the house and the porch:
This next picture is with me standing right in front of the garbage in the previous picture, angle across the room so that the front window is immediately to my left:
Now, panning to the right while standing a little the the left of the garbage in the previous picture, I am facing the dining room, looking through the arch that connects to it:
This picture is standing under arch #2 connecting the living room to the dining room, focused on the right side of the room. The two windows to the right are on the right side of the house, visible in the very first picture:
I am now in the same position, having panned to the left. You can see in the top of the picture the rest of the window in the previous picture, then to the left of that the entrance to the kitchen, and then the wall and a built in cabinet.
Finally, this is me standing the corner in between the back window and the entrance to the kitchen, doing a reverse view of the dining room. To the right you can see the arch into the living room and the front of the house:
Mind you, this is just the first floor, so there are two more floors, the basement, and the kitchen to attend to. And none of the pictures hanging are mine. They just walked away and left so much shit.
Dad and I are going to sit down and plan, but one thing I want to do is knock down some of the wall in the dining room and expand the kitchen- I will never use a formal dining room. I also am thining about knocking out the back wall in the dining room, putting in French doors to the deck. But that’s where we are now.
Pogonip
In a year it’ll look and smell great!
What happened w/the animal cruelty charge against the previous resident?
schrodinger's cat
Nice! I have porch envy.
TaMara (HFG)
Be still my heart. I am in love. This is going to be so beautiful when it’s done. And the french doors and deck sound amazing.
CatHairEverywhere
Even with beat-up floors and work to be done, it is a beautiful house. Congratulations!
Emma
It is going to look beautiful.
Mary G
That house does have lovely bones. Love the arches.
As a person who paid for wood floors and has pets, I testify that it’s much better than carpet for hiding hair and well worth the expense.
I’m excited for you. Knocking down walls is transformative.
JMG
This is gonna cost much time, money and sanity, but when it’s done, you will be so happy and proud and rightly so. From the pictures, this house has good bones, as my grandmother used to say.
David Fud
Your house is a classic with great bones. I hope you mean that you will be sanding and refinishing the wood floors rather than putting something over them. It looks like one hell of a project, but also an amazing home in the making.
SiubhanDuinne
John, you have your work cut out for you, but it looks as though the house has really good bones and character. Your being there will erase all the terrible horrible no-good very bad negative energy the previous owner left behind.
I second @Pogonip‘s inquiry — what’s the status of the cruelty charges? Do you (or authorities) even know where the guy is, or did he disappear?
Renie
You are going to be so happy when its over cuz the house will be gorgeous. The porch, woodwork, arches all add such great touches to the house. Believe me when I saw I am envious cuz I live in a Levitt box! (Though we did add nice molding throughout)
Elizabelle
House has great bones.
John Cole
@David Fud: I’ve had a carpenter look at it. Floors can not be saved, sadly.
Cruelty charges are in progress. I have to meet with the cop.
SiubhanDuinne
@JMG:
@SiubhanDuinne:
We may have had the same grandmother.
ETA: Also David Fud.
ETATA: And Elizabelle.
ETATATA: Plus Mary G, also too.
Helen
Wow. Not nearly as scary as I expected. It looks just like those houses Nicole Curtis does on Rehab Addict. And this house isn’t nearly a horrible as what she starts with. The transformations are stunning. The potential here is HUGE. Jealous…so, so jealous.
Kristine
Sharing the house envy. It will be beautiful when it’s done.
Suzanne
OOOOHHH I LOVE. Is there any way you can do radiant heating in the floor? If your basement is the whole footprint of the house, probably not, but warm floors are so nice. Are you going to replace the wood with more wood? I love wood floors. What about the wall base?
Might I recommend replacing the windows with double- or even better triple-pane? It’ll save you a bunch of dough over time. What about a solar water heater? Solar array? Wind turbine?
Anne Laurie
Congratulations, Cole — in a year you will have a truly beautiful place to live! (And in five years — maybe ten — you’ll have forgotten enough about the renovation process to enjoy it.) Even the chandelier in the first shot is pretty & period-appropriate, if the ceilings aren’t so low you bang your head walking under it.
Even if the hardwood floors are salvageable, if you’re going to keep rescuing dogs, there’s no shame in cleaning them off & topping them with a quality laminate or vinyl no-seam surface. Accidents will happen, so think of it as preserving the antique wood for the next generation of owners!
JMG
@John Cole: It’s an enormous expense, but putting in your own floors will make the whole project.
John Cole
@Helen:
This is after the first 30′ dumpster. I am probably going to need a second one. You would have passed out if you saw what I walked into.
raven
@John Cole: That’s a shame on the floors. We had hoped to use old flooring in our addition but it tripled in price during our two year waiting process. I would just hope the carpenter knows his stuff. Is there a subfloor or is it just 3/4 nailed to the joists? What do you think you will go with as a replacement. We went with pine over a 3/4 subfloor and it’s very nice. I hope you can get something for the old floor, if they take it up correctly there are probably salvageable portions.
Suzanne
Also, for interior paint, I recommend Revere Pewter. But mix it in Sherwin Williams Harmony.
schrodinger's cat
@Renie: When we were looking at houses this summer we looked at a house that was 200 years old, it was beautiful but had scary wiring and real tiny closets.
Singing truth to power
Super house. I would have been mightily tempted by it. It may be a mess, but it is a lovely mess. Congratulations!
raven
@Anne Laurie: NO WAY, NEVER DO THAT TO A WOOD FLOOR!
schrodinger's cat
@Suzanne: Tell me more about a solar water heater, also too solar panels.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
I was really hoping and wishing that you’d swing by with thoughts on John’s house. It is full of character, isn’t it?
AND GOOD BONES, of course!
John Cole
@Suzanne: They are already triple pane with the shutter things in the middle of the panes.
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne: If he had kept Walter he could have heated the house by burning dog shit. Not sure the neighbors would like it, though.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
It’s got a lot of character and seems to have good bones (no obvious huge cracks in the plaster, etc.).
Is that a dumbwaiter on the wall on the #9 picture? (The rectangular cubby between the window and the doorway.) I’ve never seen one on an outside wall before, and I wouldn’t think it would be deep enough, so it seems weird. It might be something that needs insulation, etc.
Since you’re redoing the floors, the gravity cold air return (giant floor vent on #3) is something you can greatly reduce in size, I think. It’ll free up floor space for other things and let you make the flooring more uniform, etc. (A friend in Ohio has a roughly similar house and reduced its size when he had a new forced-air furnace installed.)
But get an expert to look at it – there are lots of things to consider.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
mkd
John, when was the house built? Looks like a style called an American four square. Love the arches. There is a lot of potential for rehabbing. Are you interested in doing an authentic to its time rehab?
John Cole
@mkd: 1910
Anne Laurie
@John Cole:
Saw this after my last comment. Be reassured, there are some good-looking laminates / vinyl-resin products available that are extremely spill-, scratch-, and incontinent-pet resistant now available.
Soonergrunt
And I thought I bought a fixer-upper.
My project has nothing on yours.
Sarah in Brooklyn
It looks wonderful. I’m also fixing up a house. It’s really fun and really horrible at the exact same time.
geg6
John, that is going to be a beautiful home. It’s got great bones and lots of character. You’re going to love it.
Olivia
It’s a lovely house and will be wonderful when you are finished. Thanks for posting the photos. It will be fun to see the progress.
different-church-lady
Beejus that place is going to be sweet when you’re done with it!
Please don’t go Pergo on the floors — please, a place like that deserves better.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
It’s got a lot of character and seems to have good bones (no obvious huge cracks in the plaster, etc.).
Is that a dumbwaiter on the wall on the 9th picture? (The rectangular picture-frame-ish thing between the window and the doorway.) I’ve never seen one on an outside wall before, and I wouldn’t think it would be deep enough, so it seems weird. It might be something that needs insulation, etc.
Since you’re redoing the floors, the gravity cold air return (giant floor vent on 3rd) is something you can greatly reduce in size, I think. It’ll free up floor space for other things and let you make the flooring more uniform, etc. (A friend in Ohio has a roughly similar house and reduced its size when he had a new forced-air furnace installed.)
But get an expert to look at it – there are lots of things to consider.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@schrodinger’s cat: What do you want to know? They’re both pretty easy to do for a company that specializes. It is best if your roof has a sloping side facing south for maximum solar gain. One side of the gable roof here might be perfect. The water heater needs to have pipes running vertically down to wherever the water heater is, and they’re just closed-loop systems, so they heat up water in the piping, which runs through the heater and warms the water in the heater. Solar arrays are most commonly rented on the residential scale. You’d have to consult with a local company to calculate paybacks.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Sigh, my replies are getting eated with no explanation again. Maybe they’re in the dungeon?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
VETO VETO VETO! Unless you’re going to spend a fortune. Cheap windows are far worse than fixing up the originals. I curse my previous owners every time I try to open or shut one in my place. If yours are original and in good shape get them reglazed and keep the character of the house intact.Screw everything I just typed: looking at the photos again I can tell the joint already has replacements.
donnah
Congratulations! You will work miracles to make this house into a big, beautiful home. Good luck, be patient, and understand that there will be times when you want to torch it and then the times when room by room, you make it yours.
ThresherK (GPad)
@SiubhanDuinne: And my family too.
Good bones are everything in a house. I started reading a new tumblr about the opposite of good bones, and the difference is shocking.
raven
@different-church-lady: Thank you.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@SiubhanDuinne:
I was going to say that the house has great bones. Does this mean that I’m your grandmother?
cokane
new Sullivan is out: http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/09/andrew-sullivan-technology-almost-killed-me.html?mid=twitter-share-selectall
you know, occasional Andrew is actually downright sufferable
MazeDancer
Such better shape than I expected. Of course, a giant amount of work ahead, but it’s a lovely house. And you will make it a splendid home.
Having renovated four homes, I can vouch for the truism to expect everything to “take twice as long and cost twice as much” as planned. But doing things yourself, or with friendly help, does save money. Not time. But it can definitely help stretch the budget.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@ThresherK (GPad):
McMansion Hell is my favourite website at the moment. Well written analysis and very funny.
Luthe
If you knock down the dining room wall, make sure to salvage the built-in shelving. It looks like it’s beautiful.
Suzanne
@Anne Laurie: No laminates, never do laminates. Vinyls are better, especially for pet-proofing. Laminates will de-laminate over time in the presence of moisture, like spills or pee. However, both are bad on stairs, there’s no good ways to do the treads and risers without ugly transition strips that are points of weakness in the membrane. Wood or tile is better.
@John Cole: Triple-pane windows are the best. That’s a great upgrade to find in a house of that age.
@SiubhanDuinne: Yeah, it’s great. I am jealous. I live in a beige box. Not a lot around here from that era.
hovercraft
Beautiful house JC, it will be lovely when it is done. The original unpainted trim is beautiful.
@Helen:
She does great work restoring the houses back to their original glory whilst making them more amenable to the way we live today.
John as Nicole would say DO NOT PAINT THAT WOOD.
Yes I’m strident, but it’s beautiful the way it is.
stinger
What a beautiful structure — love the corner fireplace and the arches. Thanks so much for sharing pictures.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: The better windows don’t look as vintage but they perform WAY better thermally. The best windows to get are thermally broken (means the outside metal and the inside metal never actually touch), and so you lose some vintage charm but you save a metric shit-ton on your energy bills, and you typically can’t reglaze vintage windows with triple-pane due to the thickness of the glass assembly.
Poopyman
@different-church-lady: THIS! ABSOLUTELY! It’s more cost effective and just as energy efficient to rehab the old windows and add storms, plus they’ll last longer than cheap-ass replacement windows.
Now the floors: Too bad you have to replace them, but please get real wood and SAVE AND REINSTALL THAT BEAUTIFUL BASEBOARD TRIM!
I guess I won’t add another “bones” comment, but I’m impressed the walls are in such good shape. Lath and plaster?
Love the built-in, btw. And the newel post.
And as is typical of the period, it looks like the trim still has the button lac or garnet shellac finish on it. Easy to rehabilitate, and keeps the feel of the period. Hope you keep it. Did I mention that was a fairly cheap approach?
Alain the site fixer
Now that’s a nice house, lots of potential! Just don’t fancy it up too much, remember the town and its primary residents’ economics. Resale is good, having to lose money because the market doesn’t value luxury is bad.
Poopyman
@John Cole: Ah well, but the rest of my comments stand.
raven
@Suzanne: You can’t touch windows in our historic district.
Ryan
You ever see The Money Pit? Do you have weak trees? Seriously, very nice house, a lot of potential. But plan. Plan, plan, plan.
Mary G
My mom’s tenant from hell had never taken his dogs out, so like Walter they peed and pooped on the avocado green long shag carpet my mom thought was the bomb in 1969. We had to replace the entire subfloor, it smelled so bad. Also, he left thirty pounds of meat he found dumpster diving in two refrigerators and let the electricity get cut off. I can still smell it in my dreams.
ETA: testing the edit function.
Even if the wall between the kitchen and dining room is load bearing, there are still things you can do to open it up visually, like putting in a breakfast bar in a cutout that’s appropriately reinforced. I moved my fridge into the dining room and it looks wide open, even though there is still six feet of wall that couldn’t come out.
Anne Laurie
@raven:
Nah. We had the mid-50s maple flooring in our main living area & upstairs hallway refinished with the recommended two coats of marine polyurethane some 15 years ago, and it has *not* done well for us — scratches, scars & water stains from every mishap. Even if we got rid of all our cats & dogs (not gonna happen) and never wore shoes indoors (ditto), Spousal Unit & I both drop & spill & move too much furniture to keep a wood floor pristine, and that’s assuming we were better housekeepers!
Our dream is to install some of the good-looking laminate they make for offices & condo common areas… just as soon as we’ve finished replacing the furnace, after we’ve added insulation, and replaced the roof, and gotten the solar panels installed…
@schrodinger’s cat:
Massachusetts still has various incentives in place for installing solar panels (solar water heating’s a bit trickier here than in Arizona). Can’t speak for the local resources in your half of the state, but we’re supposed to be getting panels installed “free” (energy company will own them & pay us for the power produced, which should at least net out our personal energy costs). Also, we’ve been qualified by the state for an interest-free loan to add insulation to our walls, which is something else you may want to look into, once you’ve bought your house & before you’re moved in. Drawback for us is that *first* we have to get both our furnace & the roof replaced, and my Spousal Unit is being extremely nit-picky about both. Plus we’re both packrats & have lived in this house for 23 years, so just cleaning out the unfinished attic has been a months-long process… one reason I’d recommend you take care of this BEFORE you move into the new place!
Chris Whitehead
That’s a great house. You and the menagerie will be happy there.
Suzanne
@Poopyman: If he’s got triple-pane thermally broken windows, then they were far from cheap, and will be muuuuuch more energy-efficient than window rehab. Even better if they are argon-filled. I covet good windows in the $350 monthly energy bill season.
I agree on the wall base, though. It’s gorgeous and if it can be salvaged and reused, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Renie
@schrodinger’s cat: that’s the problem with old houses; the wiring and they don’t have good closet space. My mother grew up in a house her grandfather built in 1880’s and only 1 bedroom had a closet. She said they used tree hangers for clothes that didn’t go in a drawer but they didn’t have a lot of clothes like people do today. The kitchen had no cabinets just a closet but it had a long pantry room with beautiful glass cabinets. I would love to have a pantry.
schrodinger's cat
@Anne Laurie: The current homeowners added insulation to the attic just last year, using the same program.
JPL
@Suzanne: As has been mentioned, I am pleased that you are able to help John.
What a lovely house.
Suzanne
@raven: That’s a bummer. Window upgrade is probably the single most effective upgrade most residential owners can make. I know they’re not as pretty as the old ones, but it can make a really dramatic difference in the energy consumption and carbon footprint of a property, depending on the orientation of the home, number and size of windows, location of trees and overhangs, etc. Some friends of ours cut their peak use by a third by replacing the windows in their slump-block home. Paid for itself in four years.
schrodinger's cat
@Renie: We saw another cape, which had a wonderful downstairs but the bedrooms upstairs felt like you were in an attic or in cabin of an old ship with not enough head room and I am pretty petite. Plus only one bedroom had a closet.
Suzanne
@JPL: It’s soooo pretty.
Side note: I was interviewed by our local NPR station today discussing one of my buildings. I talked more about the evidence-based design aspects but I did touch on some of the environmental stuff. If we were pursuing LEED certification, the building would get silver, if not gold. Coincidentally, the curtain wall and the windows on the building are insanely high-performance.
DanR2
Saved an old dog, saving a great old house. Saving your sanity by focusing on something other than politics. Pretty good few weeks, I’d say.
Mnemosyne
@John Cole:
Aha! I saw the arched entryways and built-in cabinet and immediately thought, “Craftsman!” so I’m glad to see I was right. The exterior looks like they did some later changes to downplay the Craftsman style, but that’s where those good bones come from. Don’t try to “modernize” it too much — there are a ton of resources for Craftsman/Arts & Crafts style houses and it’s still a very liveable and comfortable style.
Anne Laurie
@Suzanne:
Thanks for the advice! This house is a dual split-level, so we can probably salvage the two short runs of wood steps, which will always have carpet strips stapled on, for the ease of small elderly dogs & stumbly humans. And the concrete stairs to the basement will just get another coat of anti-skid paint.
mkd
Love the idea of the Nicole Curtis style rehab as has been suggested. But it also should just be what John wants. I have all hard maple trim throughout my house but because it was coated (all 26 windows and the staircase and all the door frames) in a deeply ingrained and very yellowed ’60’s varnish, unless I had a ton of time and money to clean up and restore, the easiest rehab was to paint. This was a tough choice as a daughter whose father, grandfather and greatgrandfather built furniture from hardwoods and loved natural wood, so I said my apologies to my forebears as I painted.
waysel
Congratulations. That’s a very charming house you’ve got there. Maybe get a second opinion re: the wood floors? They look so right in the context, and wood just seems to have life and warmth and character. I feel happy for you. It’s gonna be a great place.
JPL
@schrodinger’s cat: Wardrobes were common during that time. Although the French Canadian Pine wardrobes were simple, they were and are beautiful. In hindsight, I so much wish I had purchased one in a garage sale. I was raised in central MA and when we moved into an old Victorian, my mom pulled out the wall to create closets. The rooms were large enough to do that. That was decades ago though.
Schlemazel
I would not have guessed that interior from the exterior. A lot of character. Character means small, odd shaped rooms that nobody seems to want any more but make the place interesting. I don’t envy the job in front of you but it will be worth it in the end.
piratedan
and nary a jar of mustard to be found….
ThresherK (GPad)
Any of you getting. Home Depot ‘replace your broken appliances’ header ads too?
Woodrowfan
whenever I see an old house like that I wonder what cool stuff is in the walls and under the floorboards. Old newspaper, photographs, old cans and bottles, toys, etc. you never know what you may find that a collector might buy..
Pogonip
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Did you by any chance mention s h o e s ?
kindness
Lumber Liquidators John. Best 3/4″ oak flooring around for the money.
debbie
I like that cabinet.
Citizen_X
I love the arches, too. They’re almost–looks around–Arab.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
Cool about the interview. Can you link us to the station/segment, or maybe there’s a podcast?
Anne Laurie
@schrodinger’s cat: Nice for you! If you have a south- or west-facing roof span that isn’t tree-occluded, you can probably get “rental” solar panels installed, too, then. I’m told the process is swift & not too demanding, even if you’re living in the house when it happens…
Poopyman
@ThresherK (GPad): I cannot tell you how much mirth * you’ve just added to my life. Thank you.
(* – and yet sorrow at all the waste)
Mary G
@Suzanne: My mother got our windows replaced, and it was horribly expensive, but we got a big rebate. I thought it was a waste, because I live in such a mild climate. I was wrong. The house stays warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer and the noise reduction was huge.
Honus
I’d ask for a second opinion on those floors. Unless they are rotten, they are oak or old pine if that house was built in 1910 and are probable 4/4 and could be sanded and refinished. There may be some stains that won’t come out but the overall effect will be stunning. The sanding and three coats of urethane or tung oil pretty much obliterates any odors.
The baseboards and window trim look to be in really good condition for a house that age, it doesn’t look like they’ve been painted. That trim might be red gum. It was used in a lot of houses of that era in West Virginia.
Are the walls really as smooth and free of cracks as they appear? If so, that’s extraordinary.
The iron floor grate was probably from an old floor furnace, which was the way most small homes were heated in the early 20th century in the Ohio Valley. Almost every house had one. The larger homes had radiators. Again, think hard before tearing out those wood floors. And foam the attic. You’ll save the money in about a year in heating/cooling costs.
Also, spend your money on the kitchen. That’s where you’ll be most of the time.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
John needs to bring Steve over to check things out. Maybe ( ::she said, darkly:: ), maybe they aren’t all skeletons.
Anne Laurie
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yeah, “we” nixed several potential homes because my Midwestern husband refused to live in a house where he could touch the ceilings — and he’s not very tall!
Also, there is so little built-in storage space in older New England homes, and the rooms tend to be so small, that it often makes sense to cut new doorways & turn the smallest bedroom into a walk-in closet, rather than trying to build closet space into each bedroom. Sigh.
Suzanne
@Anne Laurie: The problem with the laminates is that they typically fail at the transitions because there’s no way to get the joints water-tight that lasts. Even with a lot of glue, the subfloor will flex and the glue fails, and mop water or drink spills (or FSM FORBID) a plumbing problem gets into the joint over time and damages the laminate. The vinyls do better because they aren’t a bunch of different materials glued together, but you still end up with raised transitions that are trip hazards and grab dirt and look goofy. In commercial buildings, we do a lot of sheet vinyls and sheet rubbers that can be fully heat-welded so the membrane is intact. They don’t really offer that for houses, tho. I love wood, even though it has its own problems, but it holds value more than the other options since it is timeless and it can be refinished. Laminate and vinyl just get thrown out.
Jim
I see unofficial frat house coming. What will the neighbors say?
Auntie Anne
Love those arches! I looked at a four-square, but was scared off by the amount of work it required – and my husband was very ill at the time, so it was just not to be. I envy you that porch (OMG you even have a swing!) and what look like gracious, spacious rooms. It is going to be a comfortable home, I can tell.
schrodinger's cat
@Anne Laurie: Yes the house is south facing, not too many trees. There is an oak tree in the yard.
BTW how hard is it put a deck? The current one is tiny and not so great.
p.a.
It really does look like a diamond in the rough. About the pics: you have heard of video, hmm?
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: The Whitey tape.
p.a.
What’s the ceiling height on the 3rd floor? Is it tight?
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: When I hear when it airs, I’ll share!
@Mary G: Yeah, window upgrade can be really dramatic. I know they aren’t as pretty, but holy cannoli. I am a big sustainability person, so I encourage it. (Buildings consume more energy than any other sector in this country, even transportation.) John has lucked out here—a house on the MLS with upgraded windows often commands a big premium.
Honus
@Suzanne: @Suzanne: let me reiterate: it would be an abomination to put vinyl in any room of that except the kitchen or laundry.
Suzanne
@schrodinger’s cat: If you have a nice piece of south-facing roof, you can call SolarCity or one of the other companies and they can put a solar array on your roof. Most of the people I know who have one lease it. Our corporation commission are being dicks about letting the utilities charge high rates for people who stay grid-connected but have arrays on their roofs, so it’s no longer financially feasible out here for many. It’s more GOP bullshit to prop up dirty energy. Ideally, your roof will slope at the same degree of the latitude at which your house is located—that will provide max solar gain without a tracker.
schrodinger's cat
@Anne Laurie: I am currently living in the turn of the last century farm house with 7 foot ceilings and little closet space. It is very charming but cramped.
Anne Laurie
@Citizen_X:
American interpretation of the English Pre-Raphaelite interpretation of “exotic Araby” design. Despite the horrors of white-person dreadlocks, sometimes our magpie drive for appropriation produces an end result with a charm all its own!
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
The things I learn on this blog! I suppose it’s obvious to 95% of you, but I would never have thought of that.
Suzanne
@Honus: I agree. Some of the luxury vinyls are nicer-looking now than they used to be, but….eh.
Teragren bamboo is a lovely option.
Renie
@JPL: As I wrote above, my grandmother’s house had 1 closet among 3 bedrooms but the attic had a huge room that stored clothing in addition to beautiful wood wardrobes. I’m sure those wardrobes would be worth a fortune today since my great grandfather made them by hand but alas, one of my cousins talked my grandmother into giving them to him amongst other quality furniture.
John Weiss
John,
Think rugs. Forget carpet (unless you want to use really high-dollar stuff), think rugs. The floor is in awful shape. I recently tore up carpets in my house and laid attractive, very hard bamboo flooring. It’s much less expensive than, say, oak and looks much better than manufactured flooring. Good luck. jw
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
What’s the status of your new house? Have you closed? Do you have a. I’ve-in date, or window? Will you have to do much work before you move in?
And if it’s appropriate, I hope you’ll share pictures when the time comes, or put them on your Two Kittehs blog so we can link to them.
hilzoy
@Suzanne: Actually, you can get energy-efficient replacements that are gorgeous (frames made of wood, for starters), and pass at least my pretty stringent historic district’s standards. They just cost a ton of money, is all. (I had to replace a number of windows on my house for structural reasons, and one thing led to another, and so I know this. Sigh.)
schrodinger's cat
@SiubhanDuinne: Not yet. Closing is in third week of October. Right now the ball in the bank’s court. They have to do an appraisal etc.
opiejeanne
I like it, John. It will be very nice when you’re finished. It has good bones*, lots of potential. My only advice is to avoid painting too many rooms in dark colors; a bedroom is fine, makes it feel like you’re sleeping in a cave. In fact, white or off-white is a good place-holder until you decide what color you do want to paint a room.
*I have used that term when appropriate about houses for years, and I’m nobody’s grandma.
Chris T.
@Suzanne: The #1 thing that makes solar hot water tricky is freeze protection. Being in WV, the house will definitely be subject to freezing. That means drainback or glycol loop or some such.
Solar PV is much simpler, the only real question these days is string inverter (hefty DC current at 600V = dangerous) or microinverters (AC power connections at the panels, but more inverters that can fail, but less drastic if they do fail, and each microinverter can optimize power curve per panel).
At previous house I put in both, at this house I put in just the solar PV. Because this is California, the PV itself cost about $22k, minus about $7k in taxes = about $15k net, but it saves probably about $250/mo (electric bill varies from -$100 to +$100 each month, instead of varying from $250 to $400+). That gives a straight line payback time of about 5 years. I will note, though, that Solar City wanted $33k for the same size system, which would have been about $23k net = almost 8 year payback.
(In places that don’t charge $.45/kWh the payback is a lot further out.)
trnc
@Honus: I concur about getting a second opinion. It’s hard to tell from the pictures, so maybe they are more uneven than we can see, but they really just look like surface problems.
Ruckus
John
I’m one of those who have done a rebuild on a home, of course it wasn’t that old. Lot of work, lot of satisfaction when you are done. I did mine to make it more saleable rather than more livable but it did both. To the studs bath and kitchen redos, including removing walls, one load bearing, new flooring for entire house, redo a family room that needed a lot of drywall work. Only took 4 months. Of course I had quit my job and did this every day, all day for the 4 months.
Mnemosyne
@Auntie Anne:
I got slightly confused by “four-square,” but according to the link I had above, that’s a common substyle of Craftsman, so now I feel better.
When we were looking for a new place to rent, we were tempted by a bungalow in Pasadena near the neighborhood nicknamed Bungalow Heaven, but we decided to pass. There’s also a neighborhood in South Central LA called West Adams that’s getting rapidly gentrified because there are still a lot of beautiful original Craftsman homes that nobody living there could afford to turn into McMansions.
jnfr
OMG I love those arches! And the shelves. You are saving this old house.
Anne Laurie
@Suzanne:
Our house is small, though. The main floor is about a 25′ square ‘box’ with a somewhat off-center center column (containing a coat closet) cutting off one quadrant for the kitchen. So there’s not gonna be many visible seams, especially once we’ve actually brought in the necessary furniture.
And frankly, we’re not tremendously worried about resale or preservation; we’re in a residential appendix squeezed between a busy highway offramp and a major commercial office park, and they’re currently constructing two hotels & a Red Robin franchise across from the intersection. Spousal Unit & I are both in our 60s, and once we leave this house it’ll almost certainly be torn down and replaced by some kind of commercial property or entranceway.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris T.: Then it probably won’t work for a house in Massachusetts. I am thinking of replacing the oil heater with a gas one instead.
Mary G
@ThresherK (GPad): That is a great site. I might have to turn in a few neighbors.
Anne Laurie
@Jim:
Ha! I see a guy who’s going to put so much love & hard work into resurrecting this beauty, he’ll probably demand visitors take off their shoes before they come in. And will glare meaningfully at anyone who takes a drink or snack out of the Designated Dining (spilling) Zones.
debbie
That table looks like it could be nice.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Pogonip: I don’t think so, but maybe FYWP thinks I did.
(JC or someone freed my two attempts, above.)
It’s a mystery…
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@ThresherK (GPad):
What a great site! Thanks. Bookmarked, and later I’ll explore the various linky rabbit-holes.
AliceBlue
@Citizen_X:
They’re called Tudor arches. Lovely and unusual in a home of this style and time period.
Mai.naem.mobile
@Anne Laurie: go with commercial grade vinyl plank(not sheet)not laminate. It’s the stuff you see in grocery stores and medical facilities. The plank because sheet vinyl repairs are very difficult if they’re even possible in the first place. Insulation – just went through this – foam if you can afford it. It’s supposed to be much more energy efficient.
RAM
@Honus: I heartily agree. That looks like heart of yellow pine flooring. Can’t see it too good from the pix, but generally yellow pine flooring is extremely hard and can be sanded and refinished to look really beautiful. The stuff wears like iron. Our house, built in 1908 just like your Queen Anne, has yellow pine flooring everywhere except in the kitchen, where it’s 1-1/4″ maple.
Anne Laurie
@schrodinger’s cat:
Haven’t tried, so can’t answer with authority. But the Spousal Unit did waste several years attempting to redo our patio before we could afford to get it done competently by professionals, so keep in mind — every project like that is more complicated, takes more work, and ends up costing more than your estimate. (S.U. is actually quite handy, more than qualified to make judgements about other peoples’ capacities, but not quite as skilled at bricklaying as he once considered himself.)
Unless you or your Husband Kitteh are sure of your talents, as long as the current deck is not a hazard, I’d wait until you’d lived in the house through at least one outdoor season, just to see how much you actually want to change it. (Especially since there will probably be enough indoor projects to keep you busy/broke!)
Chris T.
@schrodinger’s cat: You can still do solar hot water, it’s just a bit complex (and needs auxiliary heat such as a demand heater for those times when the system has been covered with snow for a month—this really happened in previous house, the demand heater worked fine though).
The cost depends a lot on how far the solar water-heating panels will be from the hot-water-tank. With a glycol loop, you just run the glycol mix through a pump to overcome friction. With a drainback system you have to pump water uphill to the roof, and if the water heater is in the basement and the roof is 3 floors above, that’s a lot of pumping. Previous house was all one level (ranch-ish), current is effectively 2, so we used all the good roof area for the solar PV.
Honus
@Suzanne: floating cork is nice too, but not cheap.
Shana
@SiubhanDuinne: So funny. My daughter just moved into a rental house, small and cute, for grad school that’s furnished. Her cat kept going under the couch and searching like there was a mouse under there. She and the boyfriend eventually lifted and tilted the couch to see if they could find anything. Turned out to be some Monopoly pieces that a previous tenant had left/lost. Quite a relief for her, and now a funny story.
k
Looks fine. Judging your place by the condition of my house, I’d say you don’t need to fix a thing.
Mai.naem.mobile
Hey John did you do a termite inspection? I doubt you have them but I would get it done before you sink all this $$$ into it.
Shana
@trnc: About the quality of the wood floors: remember Walter was stuck in there for quite some time, so the damage may be such that, while we can’t see it from the pictures, it makes it impractical to try to sand and refinish. Pet “stains” can be pretty severe.
John Revolta
You lucked out on those windows Cole. That is a big fucking deal.
Floors are rough but don’t be in a hurry to make a decision………..get several opinions from different people. If they’ve never been sanded before I’ll bet they can be saved. And if you get the right guy it needn’t be that expensive.
My first house had horrible red paint on the floors and my second had tons of nail holes and cat piss everywhere. in both cases I ended up with beautiful floors and these houses were from the same era as yours. You just gotta find the right guys and also go for three coats of good polyurethane like Honus said, not the water based crap. DO THIS!! and you will always be happy you did.
Mai.naem.mobile
Does anybody have any opinions on copper countertops? I mentioned it to a friend and he’s trying to scare me by saying we could get electrocuted. Electric is new so everything is grounded etc.
J R in WV
I agree, the inside is really nice, much better than you would expect just looking at the outside. They didn’t mess up the walls, even if the floors are a mess. And the windows are sweet.
I disagree with people telling you not to use hardwood on the floor – we laid varied width hickory from Nicholas county down in our house in 1992-93, moved in spring of 1994. The floor has a border of walnut about a foot inside the foot of the walls, which did make the flooring more of a cabinet-building exercise than we expected. The wood is multi-hued, stripes of lighter or darker wood, and there’s even an accidental piece of ash in there, only I know where.
But we coated it with at least 6 coats of… hmm, a water-based urethane with a hardener added. Not shiny, not quite a matte finish, in between. Except for right at the back door, where the dogs often bay at a deer standing on the hill across the creek, and skid claws on the floor when I open the door, it still all looks great.
People would ask, “Aren’t you going to seal the floor?” and I would tell them, “Six coats, sanded between coats.” Really pretty wood. I would lay it right on the existing wood floor, after you get it leveled. Get it from a WV mill.
Otherwise, you obviously have professional advice on site. It’s great to work with professionals who enjoy their work, and your Dad can be the on-site supervisor. One bit of advice, we had various contractors for different jobs, and a junior Architect, still an apprentice, but he had worked as a draftsman for years before saving up enough to do Architecture school at TN down in Knoxville.
But the only person with a real interest in cost control was us. Everyone else was going to make a percentage of what we spent, except for Tom, and he was clearly not interested in keeping costs down. You can decide to let that 3rd floor go til next year, or until you need it, or just treat it like an attic, with a couple of old beds covered with drop cloths, in case you get a flood of people for a special occasion.
Enjoy, and keep us posted. I’ll love seeing that pretty house improve as you work.
NotoriousJRT
I think you will create a lovely home for yourself & the piglets. Congrats and eyes on the prize if the reno ever gets you down.
Suzanne
@Chris T.: Most of the solar systems are closed-loop, so they have glycol in there for just that reason—even here, freezing is a problem. The big issue is if your water heater is hard to get to, like in my house, unfortunately.
@Anne Laurie: If you don’t have a lot of transitions, then give it a whirl. I abhor flooring transitions. I have a house with a split entry and I have a transition at the top of the stairs down to the lower level, and it is worn and collects dirt and I have tripped on it and basically it makes me pray for death. I had a single-level house and we did high-quality laminate (Mohawk) and it was shit within three years because if you don’t mop up dog pee RIGHT THAT SECOND it gets into the seams and destroys the product. We do vinyls and rubbers in healthcare facilities a lot, but we do sheet more than the luxury tiles.
@Chris T.: We are getting fucked on solar here because the utilities decided to charge solar customers a ridiculously high fee for keeping grid connections, even if you consume some power from the grid part of the year. It’s horrible.
Honus
@RAM: given the age of that house the floor is likely some nice wood. Heart pine, oak, maple hickory or red gum. 1910 could be chestnut. And those wide baseboards and window trim look fairly nice and intact also. Most of the trim in those old houses has been painted over repeatedly and is unsalvgeable
FNWA
Don’t go for the open plan bullshit. If you don’t have a wife and x number of kids with whom you need to interact during meal prep in a small kitchen, there is no point in connecting the prep space with the eating space.
Suzanne
@hilzoy: Good to know you can find aesthetically pleasing replacements. I don’t do much historic work so I don’t always know every product line that is out there.
Suzanne
@Mai.naem.mobile: Copper countertops are awesome. Super-hygienic. They are the top of the line for a lot of hospital labs and germy spaces. I don’t know how often they have to be resealed to prevent oxidation, though.
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
I built a small house, our winter camp, about 15 miles east of Tombstone, at 5500 feet in the foothills of the Dragoon Mtns. We used structural panels, which I got for the walls second hand, unused after a development fell through in the crash, and new custom poly-urethane panels for the roof.
R-38 walls and R-42 roof, 24×48 and a tiny woodstove heats it in one corner. I just did get the shower finished last February. That was the last comfortable living thing to do. Here in WV you have to worry about moisture and ventilation so much. In AZ I know people whose dryers vent into the house, just to boost the indoor humidity!
Here that would kill your house in less than a decade…
Honus
@Mai.naem.mobile: the trouble with copper is that it is laid over something, usually plywood. So there is a space, which I always worry would be unsanitary. Copper discolors easily too, so don’t expect it to be shiny and clean. That said there are a lot of copper bar tops around for comparison. Oh, and copper is expensive. You can get soapstone or granite for less.
Suzanne
@J R in WV: Yeah, the problems here are dry rot, mold, termites, insane heat requiring insane insulation, and UV degradation. I need to replace my deck as it is disintegrating.
Isobel
Look at all that wood! And the staircase, and that arch…….be still my beating heart. This will be a house to be proud of.
Suzanne
@Honus: There are companies that do commercial copper counters that avoid the problems you’re describing, but YES they are super-spendy. Most residential interior materials are overpriced and not as quality as commercial materials, so I use a lot of commercial stuff in my house instead….but I get hefty discounts because the sales reps want their stuff in my buildings.
John Revolta
@J R in WV: No offense, mate. I used the water based finish once and was unhappy with the results but we didn’t use a hardener and probably only put down 4 coats. Also the wood itself wasn’t that great
frosty
We knocked down a bearing wall between the kitchen and dining room in a 1939 Baltimore rowhouse and replaced it with an island with the stove. It opened the place up and gave people a place to congregate, since we had an overhang on the counter side where we could put a couple of stools for friends to sit at. Something to think about.
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
We should probably have termite treatment done. The exterior is portland stucco Tomas Villas put on, builder’s paper with wire stapled to the OSB exterior of the panels, then over an inch of base coat and half an inch of top coat, the old fashioned way, troweled base coat, then sprayed the top coat,
The fascia and eves are covered with the same metal we roofed it with, so pretty much fireproof. I got all the windows and two big slider doors from a sale warehouse that handled returns to a manufacturing site, name brand double pane with argon, the whole truckload for $1300. Amazing discount.
The winter we put the panels up and roofed it was terrible, el Nino was working and we had snow and that deep freeze that killed water systems all over Baja Arizona. It took a week to get my cousin’s water back on, just finding parts was a huge hassle.
Cousin let me spot an RV in the back yard for a bunkhouse, I took friends out who worked on the house here in WV for two winters, then hired a local guy as a helper for two winters, now I’m done.
Wore my shoulders out doing it, but it was worth it, views for 50 miles in 270 degrees. Sweet. And not too bad in Jan – Feb – March.
Aleta
What a great house. Amazing you bought it without even going inside.
Surprised to see such nice walls, w/no holes. They look (maybe) painted with affection by someone who loved the place.
Excellent little bannister post. Love wood trim left unpainted. Saves a lot of work since you don’t have to keep repainting when it chips off. I was wondering about those floors, too. It does looks like older board wood, and would be great if a few rotten boards could be replaced. If it’s badly sagging in the middle then I don’t know. But a little out of level isn’t that bad. The cats can bat a marble around and it will roll back to them…. (Cats plural ? Well, they do have a mysterious way of honing in on a good place to live….)
And most of all that porch. You can just see a couple of friends sitting on the porch, and a couple in the kitchen, and then someone going through the d. r. to the back deck with some food.
What a great house for being a recluse in or having friends over, both. And the best test of a good house for a person is if it’s a good house for animals. Looks like they’ll love it.
randy khan
@raven:
I don’t know the specifics of your historic district, but I live in a neighborhood with very picky design review and also spend a lot of time in a town that’s a national historic landmark and has its own very picky preservation ordinance (and, probably most important, am married to someone in historic preservation), and there definitely are options for preserving historic windows and improving energy efficiency. My neighborhood was built with all single-pane windows, and now about 90% of the houses have double-pane windows and some now have triple-pane. Properly done, they don’t affect the look.
frosty
@mkd: It’s not a foursquare – they have a hip roof. I don’t know the style exactly but I see it all over.
I’ve got a book somewhere “Field Guide to American Houses” that probably has the answer.
Suzanne
@J R in WV: That sounds awesome. I (of course) have designed my dream desert house—double wythe concrete masonry (closed-cell spray foam insulated) and SIPs, with a standing seam roof. Now if I could just afford to build it. Of course, if I actually could afford the shit I design, I wouldn’t be an architect.
Honus
@Suzanne: we have soapstone which is really nice; there is a big vein of it here in Virginia and they used it or dissecting tables in the hospital. It makes great counters because it looks nice, is soft so it won’t ruin your knives, and it’s thermal properties make the counter top an almost instant meat thawing device. They get pitted or scarred some because soapstone is so soft but I like that. If you don’t you can be more careful, and if you do get scratches you can sand them out.
The counters I really love are the stainless steel Youngstown kitchens from the 1940s and 50s. They are one piece with the sink and drain boards built in. There are some around and they are expensive if they’re in good shape, but they look and work great and the price isn’t bad considering you are getting a sink, counter and back splashes. Of course they are stock sizes so you have to kind of build the kitchen around the unit.
frosty
@Suzanne:
When we remodeled the kitchen and went down to bare studs I looked at the walls and found that one of them was the only interior wall on the side with the south facing roof. So I had the plumber run some pipes from the basement to the bathroom above. We just did the bathroom, so I had them rip out the lath and plaster and continue the pipes to the attic eaves. If I don’t get around to it, the next owner will have an easy time with the solar hot water.
Honus
Important question: is tha baseboard heat electric or hot water? If it’s electric, tear it out, but if it’s hot water you may want to buy a modern super efficient boiler (like a rinnai tankless) and use the hot water baseboard heat. The radiators usually have copper pipe and it is the most comfortable heat there is.
chopper
I think I threw up in my mouth a little.
Suzanne
@Honus: Yes, natural stone counters (and poured concrete) are really beautiful. Definitely my favorite from an aesthetic POV. I am a bit of a germophobe, though, so I am hoping to replace mine with quartz (brand name Zodiaq or similar and a copper or stainless sink). I don’t want to reseal like you are supposed to do with stone. It is gorgeous, though.
I currently have stained pink plastic laminate, so anything is a step up. Sigh. The joys of buying a foreclosure.
Mai.naem.mobile
@Suzanne: @Honus: I read somewhere the sealing is done using beeswax and it was either annually or semi annually. I really don’t care if it doesn’t stay shiny. Dings would bother me more than losing the shine. I am going to have to give some thought to the MDF issue. I was looking at soapstone and every salesperson I talked to at stone places about soapstone was extremely negative about it.i personally think it has a cool classic look.
rikyrah
It looks good. Very promising.
I don’t have pets…so, is having a fireplace a good idea?
jame
My sister replaced her carpet with bamboo flooring, mainly because of her big ol’ dog. It worked beautifully — no scratches anywhere, not even where he took the corners! I don’t know if this is an option for you, but I thought it deserved a mention.
ps. Bamboo doesn’t need sealing, or much special care at all, mainly an occasional mopping.
schrodinger's cat
The style of the house we have made an offer on (accepted, waiting for the financing to clear) is a New England Georgian.
Suzanne
@Mai.naem.mobile: It looks awesome. All stone is porous, so it will harbor bacteria and soak up stains like red wine if not attended to promptly, so I lean away from it for that reason. I understand the sealing is needed annually unless you work in the kitchen a lot. Still more maintenance than I want to do. There are special stone polishes as well.
@jame: Bamboo is beautiful. Teragren makes my favorite bamboos.
nutella
Wow, those are beautiful baseboards. I hope you can hang on to them even if you have to replace the floors.
John Cole
@rikyrah:
Pets? The owner’s the fucking issue.
randy khan
@Honus:
When we renovated our house, we had a custom steel countertop and sink made. It was surprisingly affordable. (Actually, the metal fabrication company, which also did some of our cabinets and recut the opening in the steel surround for the cooktop, was surprisingly affordable in general. I might as well mention that it was AK Fabrication, for anyone in the D.C. area.) Also, watching 7 guys bring in the countertop, wending around the strange corners in our house, and plop it into place was a lot of fun.
And we *love* the counter. It cleans like a dream, you can put anything hot or cold on it, it’s good for rolling out dough, and the little scratches just add character. Not to mention that we were able to get a sink exactly the size we wanted so that there’s enough room to clean the big Thanksgiving turkey roasting pan.
randy khan
@jame:
A lot of the manufactured bamboo flooring is really, really hard, so it wears well. And, of course, it’s very much a renewable resource.
Aleta
Today I was at the lumber yard looking at roof shingles and hating every minute. It’s for this simple building that was going to be torn down by the town so I had it moved. It’s historical for the town (was used for music, dancing and a small library, early 1900s). I’d had the roof patched after moving where it got torn, and thought it was in OK shape but last year it started leaking. So now 3 sides need to be replaced. The guy said he only works in “Ik* brand architectural” shingles. He’s the only guy around who will roof right now. He has 8 other roofs in line to do before me this fall, too, so I have to stay on his good side and not be “difficult.” (The other guys in town are making much better money fishing right now, and as long as the fishing stays this good, they’re not doing anything else.)
So the “architectural” shingles. Something really annoys me about the way they pretend the mixed shades in these shingles makes the roof look “contoured” or “like slate” or “like shake”. To me it’s just like over obsession with what could stay simple. And the roofs I see with them–suddenly everywhere–don’t attract me. To me they’re distracting, and unless it’s a castle, what’s the point.
Also, even though the town couldn’t save the building, people still care about it, so I’m trying to be sensitive about the color. Picking out paint for the siding was traumatic enough. But now I can’t have it painted for another year because I have to do the roof instead. And probably the colors won’t match now.
Almost every color of this shingles brand that the roofer wants to use looked nouveau and patterny. He doesn’t do metal and I can’t afford cedar shake.
My plan was to just preserve the building as it was, and do it all as minimally as possible, so people could still use it for music and kid stuff and the aikido teacher. Wouldn’t you know, just like they say, it’s been way expensive. I get panicked about decisions and about money these days, and I hate picking a roof shingle color when I don’t even like most of them, and you can’t tell what it will look like anyway since the shingles may not actually be the color in their “swatches.” Today I went and looked at the bigger patches of the colors on the side of the lumber yard, and those didn’t even match the swatches. It sounds ridiculous, and I hate doing this kind of stuff, and I’m afraid to end up with some dumb color that doesn’t match the trees or something.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
Ix-nay on Nicole Curtis. She’s having trouble with her own projects in the Twin Cities.
I’d say go for the Property Brothers, Hilary Farr from Love It or List It or, if you must have a cute blond, Christina from Flip or Flop (although she may be a little too California modern for your house).
Anne Laurie
@John Cole: It makes a lovely “centerpiece” for the room, and you don’t have to set actual fires in it. Although I always console myself that we could, if we were snowbound without electricity for a week, our two fireplaces have remained purely decorative for the last almost-quarter-century.
Anne Laurie
@Aleta:
What’s the climate like in your area? If there’s strong seasonal differences (not just hot/cold, but humidity levels, and sun damage) the shingles you put up will change color sooner or later. That may be why the lumber yard has their samples posted outside!
Anne Laurie
@Steeplejack:
Uch. As Jeb Lund once referred to her, “Auction Barbie” (… and her husband “Mayonnaise Man”). We only see episodes while we’re at the gym, but she seems to have an unerring eye for the cheesiest, glittery-est, most of-the-moment/due-to-age-badly crap in every renovation. Good for flipping foreclosures to first-time buyers, but just knowing she’d picked out materials would scare me away from a house!
Only worse taste on the HGTV shows we’ve seen is that Joanna chick in Texas that wants to slap barnboard on every surface and then ‘decorate’ with construction trash… I mean, vintage architectural details. At least her husband Chip seems to pay attention to actual safe construction, though — I wouldn’t trust the Flip or Flop couple to rebuild a garden storage shed, for fear of the whole thing collapsing or catching fire a week after I paid for it.
Aleta
@Anne Laurie:
I wondered about that. My friend said the color won’t change because of their composition. (I can’t remember why, though it sounded plausible when he said it.) And no idea if it;s true, since sometimes he just makes up answers and then believes himself.
I think I’m mad because until a few days ago I had no idea that picking a shingle color had become yet another thing one must figure out. Enough already! The last time I did it, it was simple. And my life was so carefree.
Aleta
somehow made me think of this cartoon(cartoon needs to be clicked on)
craigie
@p.a.: My first thought exactly.
satby
Beautiful house John. The house I just bought and moved into had hardwood floors in decent shape under carpet that had been down for over 30 years that reeked of pet urine (it was an estate sale). They were salvageable with a sanding, and my handyman was able to match the beautiful original baseboards and molding stain, mine look just like yours. And the dark stain helped hide the pet puddle marks. If you replace the floors, go with hardwood and match the baseboards if you can, it looks so spectacular when it’s done.
HeartlandLiberal
Your house looks like a perfect shooting location for a classic noir suspense film.
raven
I just remembered that our builder said our hall floor was shot and they floor guy who installed the new pine in our addition “the hell it is”. Get a second opinion even if you don’t care what I say.
Dave
Looks like a house with great potential. How about sketching up the floor plans of the different floors so we can get a better idea of the layout?
Dana
Looks nice John. If that house was built before 1978, and you’re disturbing more than a few square feet of painted surface (and it looks like you are), you should presume there’s lead paint in it somewhere, and follow lead-safe renovation procedures so you don’t contaminate yourself and your neighbors.
Google EPA RRP.
Lead is a potent neurotoxin.
manyakitty
Beautiful! I love the fireplace, and the built-ins are SO COOL.
mvr
FWIW, that looks like 4 inch (ish) wide 3/4 inch thick pine tongue and groove flooring. If that is so, you can rent random oscillating floor sanders that will make it look beautiful with not a lot of work. 3/4 thick flooring has enough thickness on top of the groove into which the tongue goes that it will stand a good number of sandings before it gets too thin to sand anymore. If patches need to be made they are easy to make and the material is abundant to match what you’ve got. It will be a lot cheaper than flooring over it or whatever. And the look is fabulous.
We have 3/4 Southern Yellow Pine upstairs in our house in Lincoln NE. It is wonderful warm looking wood.
Blueskies
Might be able to reuse some of the flooring to make a bar for your basement. Some friends did that when they gutted an old nightclub (talk about flooring that couldn’t be saved).