No People Under the Stairs
It was Africa hot here the other day.
Temperatures were in the upper 90s.
(I moved away from Florida to get away from this crap!)
Apparently it was a freak occurance. Nobody was ready for it.
Tina and I decided we had to go get an AC unit so that we could leave the dogs in the house while we were at work.
In this beautiful house of ours we have no insulation in either the attic or in the crawlspace. This is a problem. We are also unable to insulate either attic or crawlspace because we have some exposed knob and tube wiring. Once the wiring has been replaced, we can insulate.
Not only do we have no insulation, we also had ancient wood shingling with no plywood or tarpaper beneath.
So basically there's no way to keep the heat out, and once it gets in it likes to stay.
We ran around all over (about 5 different places) until we found the only AC unit we could find that would fit our 27" windows - a tiny AC unit rated for 100 Sq Ft. We popped it into the window of our 600 Sq Ft living/dining room/office area and crossed our fingers.
It fired up and is actually enough to take the edge off of the heat!
For this we were very thankful.
Now the previous owner left us a lot of stuff, not all of it documented here yet.
When it got hot, we discovered another thing that she left us - a helluva flea problem.
As a result, we have decided that tearing up the carpet is now priority.
We decided to look around and see if we could find some inexpensive laminate beause we want to get the carpet up but don't want to damage the floors we found beneath. So we went out the other day and went to Jerry's (Which is like Home Depot but less expensive, they carry nicer stuff and their employees know the difference between a ball peen hammer and their pensu) and found some laminate on sale for $.99 a Sq Ft.
It's not the best in the world, but for that price you're lucky to get any at all.
Tina likes it quite a lot, I'm not so sold on it. It's honey oak. I would have preferred something darker and more reddish, but you choose your battles, and I recognize that the carpet has to go.
We borrowed the neighbor's pickup and went and picked up 29 boxes of this stuff.
It's odd that our neighbors here are so willing to lend us their Ford F150. It's not a junker and we've only lived here for a month now. I would be reluctant to let people I've known for YEARS borrow my car, and they just do it in the interests of being neighborly. They literally just handed us the keys and told us to get it back to them whenever.
Have I mentioned that I love Oregon, especially Brownsville?
We lugged the laminate back to the house and to a big pile in the living room.
While I was lugging laminate, Tina was finishing up with the tearing out of the carpet and pad and weird rubbery vapor barrier crap.
So we currently have a room waiting to be floored once we get home.
We are also going to do the living room as soon as possible. We just need to get all of our crap out of there, tear up the carpet and get all of the laminate laid down. We bought more than enough and even over-estimated the amount we need, just like they say to in all of the books! We're such good little renovators.
While Tina was pulling up stuff she happened across a spot beneath the stairway which has been converted into a closet. There was a board blocking what would have been the last 4 steps or so. Over the board is carpeting. Yes, they carpeted the underside of the steps in the closet. Because I am a big burly guy, it is my job to investigate anything potentially creepy, spider infested or otherwise disagreeable to Tina's delicate sensibilities. ;)
So I crawled into the closet and yanked out the board and the ton of weird "plain brown wrapper" type paper that seems to be behind every surface of the house we have opened up. I hoped to find something neat. I hoped someone had either left something under there on purpose like a time capsule, or at least on accident like the over-the-kitchen shoe fairy from earlier.
I ripped off the paper and what did I see? Mouse turds and an old oil can that someone flattened and used to patch a hole or something on the wall.
No gateway to the world between the walls where the bad kids live. No gimp suit and shotgun for me.
I do have to leave something there when I seal it back up. I'm just trying to figure out what.
In other news, while all of this was going on, we also had 2 guys crawling through filth and scum and gravel and Odin knows what else under our house. They were replacing a beam that runs across the front of the house under the bay windows.
While they were there, they also replaced another beam and fixed a plumbing problem we had, basically just because they're good guys.
They are Cascade Construction, both the nephews of the guy who was contracted to do the work which he subbed out to other people.
They were both born and raised in Brownsville and shared some interesting stories and factoids about various things about the town.
They had good attitudes and senses of humor, despite the incredible heat and general unpleasantness of the work they were there to do.
They may get more work from us in the future.
The other group that was subbed the remainder of the work was High Mountain Cedar Roofing.
The team at our place was a ton of Mexican guys and one white guy. All day long we had Mexican guys on our roof, listening to salsa music and going bugshit with nailguns.
It was almost like we were back in Florida!
Those guys busted their asses and have gotten a lot done in a little time. They have also been INCREDIBLE about cleaning up everything as they work. We made sure and let them know we needed them to clean at the end of the day while they were working because we need to be able to let the dogs run in the yard once we get home.
I couldn't imagine that they would actually keep it as clean as they did. This is not something I've ever seen out of any roofing team in FL.
I've been very impressed with all of the guys working on the house. Based on what I've seen in a lot of other houseblogs, I'd say we've been extremely lucky.
Next post should be about the town's star historian coming to check out our place, and some of the weird shit she told us!
Progress we've made and stuff we've found!
Where to begin...
We've been busy busy busy.
Let's start with the Kitchen...
Here's the kitchen before:
With Dogbutt!
And here is the kitchen after:
With under cabinet lighting, "cuisine cart" (the black thing, which is actually quite nice. Purchased at Fred Meyer's. That place is cool) and toaster oven shelf built and installed by Tina!
Me, standing in the kitchen.
Oh yeah, and Dogbutt!
(I can't wait until I see people pulling this page up after doing a websearch for dogbutt. HA!)
Lit by under-counter lights alone, this almost looks like a modern kitchen!
Tina did a bang-up job on the shelf. My wiring job underneath is a little less good. It's only temporary!
That kitchen took a lot more time than we expected, but we actually have a kitchen we can stand to be in now.
We busted our asses freeing up the two windows above the kitchen sink. Like nearly all windows in the house, they were painted and nailed shut. The PO also stuffed cotton in any cracks or nooks around the window and painted over that.
Since we got the windows open but did not have screens to fit them, we had to improvise.
I'm sure my neighbor appreciates our white trashiness. (After what they did to their poor house, they have no right to criticize ANYTHING we could possibly do. More on that another time.)
Of all the stuff the PO left, I think I like this little thing the best. And the picture is pretty neat too! I take full responsibility.
One of the first thing we did when we actually took posession of the house was changed the locks.
I installed an electronic keypad lock on the french doors that go out to the side porch. It is incredibly convenient to be able to open the doors without fiddling around with keys!
It's not exactly period, but it can't be seen from the front of the house and the cool and convenient factor wins out over historical accuracy.
Ever since we bought the house, Tina and I have debated things like "Why the hell is that electrical outlet on the ceiling/floor/medicine cabinet?!" and "What's under that panelling?" and "under the carpet: Wood or nothing?"
We have an electrical outlet in the middle of the living room floor.
We thought that this would be the perfect place to get a peak under the carpet, in the hunt for real wood flooring.
We took a box cutter and opened up the carpeting autopsy-style.
Being the classy folks we are, repairs were done with duct tape.
When we looked beneath the carpeting, all we could really see was carpet padding, followed by this weird egg-crate rubbery crap, followed by linoleum and beneath the linoleum was particle board.
At this point Tina was convinced that the floors had all been ripped up.
Because all the rest of the work in the house was done on the cheap or on the lazy, I assumed that they didn't rip up the floors, but simply covered them. Tina thought I was just being optimistic for no reason.
Finally I was able to talk her into really exploring it a bit more.
We started in the corner of the office, right by the French doors.
With much wincing and nervousness, we took prybars to that damn particle board.
Underneath we found what may be flooring, or may be subflooring. The only thing that we were sure of was that it was wood and that it had been painted.
Subfloor or floor? You make the call!
Whatever it is, it's sure ugly!
A little sanding later, we realized two things... 1) We probably should have worn masks before sanding since we have no idea how old the paint was. and 2) We have some gorgeous flooring beneath all that crap! One of our neighbors said it is fir, but I don't think so. It looks like pine to me, but I'm no expert.
And another shot:
Finding wood flooring under all that crap is like finding sunken treasure. SOOOOO HAPPY.
Speaking of finds... Tina and I got up in the attic and found a shoe! I don't know who it belonged to, but they had good taste.
Inside the shoe you can still see the maker's mark:
I'm pretty sure this was made by the Hamilton Brown Show Co. I'm not positive, because it's tough to make out. But that company was huge at the time, so I think it's them.
Along with the shoe we found an empty box of earplugs! (eardrums?)
They were apparently made in 1923.
We're not sure why they were in the attic above the kitchen.
Look deep into my eyes... You are getting very very sleepy... You will come help us to restore the house... When you awake, you will not remember anything that happened here...
Tina spent painstaking hours unearthing the original sidewalk that ran along the side of the house. It was half covered with dirt and grass and such. It's in pretty bad shape, but we're going to research and see if there's a way to preserve it. It's pretty neat looking concrete. It was so bad that when she hosed it off it took some of the rocks and mortar along with it. Our lovely neighbor suggested to her that she was wasting her time digging it up, since it was put there sometime in the late 1800s. Ugh.
HEY YOU KIDS!!! GET OFF MY SIDEWALK!
Watch out - you might get what you're after...
Last night Tina and I ventured further into the space between places, the floor between the 1st and 2nd, the doorway to a dimension of dust and spiders and bad wiring.
The Attic!
Acutally getting up into the original attic and looking in with a ladder and a flashlight, we don't see a whole lot of anything up there. Still lots of bad wiring but we couldn't see if it was hot because my touchless voltage tester is dead. We need a new one of those.
Tina was able to see the 2nd (missing) chimney as well, although I didn't see it while I was up there. The house originally had two chimneys - it shows this in the pictures we have from 1890. Now the house only has one (not apparently connected to anything!). We wondered for awhile where the 2nd damn chimney was. Now we know.
We also noticed random bits of fluff here and there, and what may have been insect pods. Along one wall of the attic we did see some insulation, but for the most part it's completely uninsulated. We have to fix that, but not before we fix pretty much all of the wiring. The wiring is in such sad shape, I think we're going to have to literally rewire the entire house. Unfortunately I don't know if we will be able to afford to do this before winter, so it may be pretty damn cold in the house this year. As it stands, we plan to get a few baseboard heaters to offset the cold.
The most disturbing thing we found in the old attic was a good deal of fire damage!
Up in the corner of the house - pretty much IN the master bedroom, there are a lot of blackened charred beams and board under the roof. We haven't heard any mention of any fire by the PO, so I'm assuming it's older than that. No way to tell really.
It looks like it burned awhile because the damage is pretty extensive and the wood is more than just soot-blackened. I'm not sure if we'll have to get in there and replace it (maybe when they do the roof?) or if it's been that way for 100 years and would be fine for another 100.
The fire is definitely intriguing to me. There was a fire in Brownsville in 1919 that destroyed a lot of buildings in the downtown area. We're only about 2 blocks away from downtown, so I wonder if our house was damaged by it. We may never find out, and I'm not even sure where to look. The Fire Dept in it's current incarnation has only been around since 1932 and I don't know if they would even have a record of their calls. The neighbor who has been there the longest has been in the same house in Bville for 30 years, so I'll ask him if he knows anything about a fire in the house.
Other than that, I'm completely out of ideas about where and how to find out what happened. Any suggestions are definitely welcome.
The new(er) attic was a little less traumatic, and we actually found some STUFF!
We found a good amount of wood up there, most of it looked like original siding and maybe even flooring. YAY!
There was also some newer crap wood mixed in.
We also found a coffee can that looked like it was from the 20s or 30s. I didn't pull it out and look for a date so I can't be sure.
Above the creepy inside hole/tunnel/alcove thing was a wall. I shined a flashlight into the holes and was sure I saw something back there. I was pretty sure it was a shoe. I sent Tina in to investigate - she's smaller and more flexible than I am. :)
She pulled out a shoe that appears to be from the early 1900s, maybe even 1890s.
It's in pretty bad shape, full of dust and grime and who knows what else because it's been more or less exposed to the elements every time the roof has been neglected for any period of time. There's a big tear along one side. But the inside of the shoe and one side that was covered is in suprisingly good shape! We're almost able to completely make out the name of the cobbler and something else as well. We plan to photograph and post that soon. Also going to research to see if we can pinpoint a date and where it came from.
Also back in the wall was a box of what we believe to be earplugs. The label on the box says they were patented in 1892. That's only 2 years after the house was built, from the info we have so far. Neat! Picture of that is on the way too. The box was empty, in case anyone wondered if they were still good. :)
Finally, we found a piece of broken glass. Tina thinks it's the base to something, but it looks to me to be the top piece of a lamp, probably an oil or gas lamp. The glass is hand made, (you can tell by the imperfections!) and about the size of the top of a modern glass light cover you'd find on a chandelier.
Not terribly exciting, but somewhat neat. I'm still excited to see if we find anything else in the attic once we actually get in there to do the wiring. I'm also wondering if we'll find anything once we remove a wall or two.
The weirdest thing about the finds in the new(er) attic is that the shoe, glass and earplugs were directly above the ceiling of the kitchen. WTF?
We are also still not sure when the addition to the house was added. Even from up in the attic, it's hard to tell. Part of me is beginning to think it was part of the original house, because there's floorboards and siding up there along with that weird hole/tunnel/alcove bit that match what's on the house now.
I think we're going to have to get a contractor in here to tell us shit like that.
Hope this was entertaining. Back to work!
Two days, two days we said....
It should only take 2 days to paint the kitchen, cabinets and all. Last night I finished the trim work and tonight Mike finishes spray painting the stove. Then I finally get to put away the kitchen! It's only Wednesday...only 3 days late...only more than 2 1/2 times the original estimate that I thought was beyond generous. This makes me a little concerned about the other projects we want to do. *shudder*
-Tina
House of Mystery...
So last night after I finished the weedwhacking and Tina finished taping off the trim in the kitchen, we decided to get the step stool and flashlight and do a little poking around in the still unseen and spooky parts of the house - the attic(s). Yes, there are two. Sort of. There's an original attic that is over the upstairs stairwell and there is another attic/big empty space over one of the add-ons. As far as we can tell, they are not in any way connected. We have yet to determine who added the add-on or when. The outside of the add-on was done using the original siding for the house, so it's harder to date. Long story. More on that later.
I'm afraid of heights, so attics aren't real high on my list of fun places. We also have a spoooooky attic. You can prop up the door (ok, well the board that keeps the insulation and critters from overflowing into the house) and peek in, and all you see is spiderwebs, old wood and dark.
I grabbed a mini-maglite (Biggest flashlight in the house at the moment) and poked my head in up there.
The first thing you see with light is a maze of wiring. Some is new, but most is the old knob and tube stuff. There was a good amount of exposed wiring, which I hope is not hot, but the weird thing is that not only is there a single hanging bulb with a pull string switch - there's also 2 more modern inside type light switches. I have no idea what these switches are supposed to be controlling, nor do I know why they would put them in the attic.
Looking around, we also see a good amount of wood. Some of it looks like original tongue & groove flooring! I'm hoping there's enough there to fix some of the other areas of the house where it's either missing or damaged.
There's also some newer 2X4s and a bunch of other misc scraps... I guess this was as good a place to store it as any?
We're going to have to get up there and get an inventory and see what we can come across.
Finally, the weirdest part. If you look toward the main part of the house, you can see that this portion has been added on. The original outside wall is still visible, complete with attached siding. You can see where they cut through it and attached the add-on. Even weirder, there's what appears to be a tunnel or a box of some sort hiding back there, and it appears to be finished complete with ceiling and floor boards. This isn't a room, because it's maybe 3 feet high.
It also doesn't look like new construction and it doesn't look like something that would have been there when the house was in it's whole, unaltered form.
I have no idea what this is or why it's there, nor do I know why there's a 3-4 foot gap between the downstairs ceiling and the upstairs floor. And check out that spiffy knob and tube wiring!!
More pics of creepy attic stuff here:
Tina's photo albumFor now, the attic has to wait so unless someone knows why this shit is the way it is, you'll get no answers out of me!
-Mike
Here is the progress from the weekend...
1. Weed whacking and mowing the jungle that is the yard.
I tried getting this done, but ran out of weed whacker thread about 2 minutes after starting. We picked more up so that will be done tonight dammit!
2. Making something to hold the firewood and moving the wood from being scattered across the driveway to one neat spot near the house.
Not a damn thing done on this. It's in the works for the week.
3. Prime the kitchen and paint the trim something quite obnoxious. This is not the permanent, this is just to amuse ourselves while we work on the rest of the house. We have to get at least one room de-old-ladied just for sanity’s sake
We've primed and painted the entire kitchen at this point. We have some cut work on the trim left to do tonight and the kitchen is done.
4. Also in the kitchen, get rid of the disgusting under counter coffee maker from 1972 and install a temporary shelf in that area to put the microwave on.
Ok, this is done and slightly different. Coffee maker is gone, shelf is installed but the microwave doesn't fit on it due to restrictions from the cabinets that it is attached to. So the toaster oven will live there with the microwave on the counter underneath.
5. Final item in the kitchen, move the credenza I used to put the snake on into the kitchen for more counter space and paint it the crazy color to match the temporary kitchen.
This has been put on hold until we get the livingroom slightly organized since it's almost impossible to get to the credenza at this point.
6. Put plans together for the shoring up of the living room wall and built in entertainment center including pricing out the materials and tools.
We actually have a good game plan for the livingroom. We spoke with our across the street neighbor and he's going to help us get that done either by going through the subfloor and putting the beams into concrete footers in the crawlspace or if we get lucky, the original joist that the beam was connected to is still there and we can attach the support beams there.
7. Get washer and dryer working. Washer is finally working after getting some new hoses because our old ones decided to be leaky bastards. We got the exhaust tube for the dryer last night only to come home and find out the plug for the dryer does not match the outlet. We’ll need to get an adapter this weekend.
We had to get a new pigtail for the dryer and after much calling around and bugging the neighbor behind us, I finally got the new pigtail installed. We finally have a working laundry room!
8. Take inventory of the entire house
a. where outlets & light switches are
b. what windows need to have the weights fixed
c. what windows need to have the locks replaced
d. what windows need to have nails and/or paint removed
e. what windows need to have storm windows
f. what windows need to have screens
g. what wood we are saving/removing paint
h. measurements of each room for floor plan
This hasn't been touched yet, on schedule for Tuesday.
Tonight we should be able to have the weed whacking and kitchen done to the point where we'll take some more pictures so everyone can get a good look at what we've done so far. The best part of the entire project this weekend?
WE HAVE 2 WORKING WINDOWS!!!!!!!
That is all.
-Tina
And we are starting with this why???
There is a monster list of things that we need/want to do to the house but prioritizing them has been kind of difficult. We've already gone a little off plan (not bad for only 1 week in the house).
Here's what we've done so far and what's in the works for weekend:
- Weed whacking and mowing the jungle that is the yard.
All complete sans one section to be completed this weekend.
- Making something to hold the firewood and moving the wood from being scattered across the driveway to one neat spot near the house.
To be done this weekend
- Prime the kitchen and paint the trim something quite obnoxious. This is not the permanent, this is just to amuse ourselves while we work on the rest of the house. We have to get at least one room de-old-ladied just for sanity’s sake
To be done this weekend
- Also in the kitchen, get rid of the disgusting under counter coffee maker from 1972 and install a temporary shelf in that area to put the microwave on.
To be done this weekend
- Final item in the kitchen, move the credenza I used to put the snake on into the kitchen for more counter space and paint it the crazy color to match the temporary kitchen.
To be done this weekend
- Put plans together for the shoring up of the living room wall and built in entertainment center including pricing out the materials and tools.
To be done this weekend
- Get washer and dryer working.
Washer is finally working after getting some new hoses because our old ones decided to be leaky bastards. We got the exhaust tube for the dryer last night only to come home and find out the plug for the dryer does not match the outlet. We’ll need to get an adapter this weekend.
- Take inventory of the entire house
- where outlets & light switches are
- what windows need to have the weights fixed
- what windows need to have the locks replaced
- what windows need to have nails and/or paint removed
- what windows need to have storm windows
- what windows need to have screens
- what wood we are saving/removing paint
- measurements of each room for floor plan
- Breathe
Mike will probably be posting later with photos and witty commentary. I'm pretty much the dry get it done type of person.
-Tina
Piccies to tide you over
Later today I should be finishing the last post.
In the meantime, MORE PICTURES!!!!
Where to begin?
So much stuff has happened in the last few days, I don't even know where to start.
We finally signed on the house on Sunday.
We were supposed to take possession at 5pm PST.
We showed up at the house after checking out of our hotel at 7PM PST.
The PO was still there, and still packing her stuff with the help of her grandson.
She still had stuff in the house and she still had stuff in the locked shed, for which she had lost the key to the padlock...
So here it is Wednesday and there's still a locked shed. It should actually be empty when we get home tonight. *crossing fingers*
Once we moved in the few things we had with us, we crated the dogs and left for Home Depot!
At Home Depot we got a metric fuckton of stuff:
4 wheeled wheelbarrow because Tina is a klutz.
Garden claw thingy.
Mulching lawnmower, gas powered.
Weed eater, electric.
uhhh... Work is over. Time to go. TBC tomorrow.
Ugh
This sucks. Despite taking something to help me sleep I'm completely wired up.
I'm so excited about tomorrow (today!) that I could puke.
Tina's in there all cuddled up sleeping like a baby and I am having to keep myself from pacing.
I can't wait to be in our house. I'm excited about things I haven't cared about in years.
Today we signed papers...
Today we signed the papers on our house.
After some research in the local museum, we discovered that the house was built in 1890 by Francis Marion Jack.
The house hasn't changed much since the 1890s, based on the photos we saw at the museum. We are supposed to be able to get copies, and the current owner has also set aside a history of the house for us along with some photos as well.
We took some pictures when we stopped by to look at the house today.
This is the view from the front of the house.
There is a couch on the front porch with a for sale sign. We bought the couch too. $35!!!
This is part of the garden and the fire pit.
This is more of the garden, the pond, the storage shed and the side porch stairs.
This is the side porch of the house, mostly obscured by trees. You can also see the front door and a wide view of the garden and yard.
This is the left side of the house.
This is the back of the house.
We should be taking possession of the house this Sunday. I'm so excited.
Unfortunately we don't have any money to jump in and start doing the myriad of things that need to be done, so for now we're going to have to focus on planning and preparation. When planning is sufficient, things go easier anyway.
More information and photos will be posted to these pages as we get it! I'm hoping that we'll be able to get some of the historical stuff up here soon too!
