Putter, putter.

I'm still in the prep phase with a lot of things. This past weekend I finished scrubbing the dining room - The easiest room to do this to, now that the house contains stuff. This had been the holding room as I moved, and is now empty. The ceiling, walls, and floor has now been scrubbed. I removed the external phone box from the baseboard molding, and lifted the rug for an extra deep clean.

No further floor damage discovered.

I'm debating what to do with this room. It's going to get a coat of paint, likely a new light fixture/rug/window treatment. This was the wall I'd considered putting a wood or pellet stove on. There's a chimney that runs in the wall about a foot to the right from that door frame to the kitchen.
I'm kind of in a state of brain freeze about this room though, in a "chicken or egg" sort of way. I'm not particularly fond of the current light/curtains, but they are functional. Paint should complement what ever's going in the room, and I'm not quite sure what that would be yet. The ceiling will be white, the trim will probably be gloss white. (Though that will be determined by what the speed heater reveals on the trim. If there's varnish under there, I'll have to see how damaged it is.)
I have a meeting with a colleague here at work to pick her brain about interior design. Maybe talking it out will help shake this room's funk.

I spent the rest of Saturday in a full assault on the bush mound right outside my back door, carefully separating bittersweet from ivy from everything else. The mound is now a third of what is was, but all the bittersweet is out. I still need to find my saw and take care of the maple suckers that are growing in the middle of it all though.

I was going to continue washing surfaces yesterday, but wound up running a lot of errands instead. My thought being that if I do wash and repair the walls and ceilings, if I get guys banging around up in the crawl space, they are going to shake loose a lot of debris, and I will probably wind up having to do the whole process over again. I don't like a lot of redo, so I'm at a stalemate up there.

Salvage Places

I'm making a list of local architectural salvage places to check out. I've got a handle on local antiques places, but stuff like flooring and fixtures are a different beast.

Out in New York:

• I've been to Zaborski's a number of times. I've picked up a few things there. If you're looking for replacement glass light globes, or door hardware (among LOTS of other things) this is a great place. It's just a little far for me to pop around to.

• I'd love to get out to Historic Albany's Warehouse 45. I follow them on Facebook. They look like a good resource, just a bit far for me to get to.

Here in MA:

• There's Castle, out in Northampton. I could hit this on my way out to visit the folks at some point. They are open 10-6 on Saturdays. They look a little more "stuff" than "materials", but I won't know until I go.

• I hadn't heard of Old Wood Workshop until I googled it. Considering my recent discovery with the floor, I think I'm going to have to see what they are all about shortly. (Update - looked through the site. While they probably would have what I need, I don't think I could afford them.)

• Old House and Landscape might be worth a side trip. Limited info on their site. I've seen them solicit for stuff/selling stuff on Craig's List. (Or someone is stealing their pictures.)

• Down near Boston is Restoration Resources.

Working my way up the coast:

• Old House Salvage in New Hampshire looks promising, based on their website.

• Nor'East in South Hampton, NH.

• Old House Parts Co, in Kennebunk, ME. but one of my favorite areas to visit, so that's a win.

 • Portland Salvage gives me an excuse to keep going up the coast and eventually visit friends in Bangor! Likely pricey, (their website is a bit... slick...)

I'll post updates as I'm able to nose around these places.

Well, bugger.

This past weekend I went home to the farm for a few days - I had some errands to run, and it was my sister's birthday. Who am I to miss out on cake?
I'm also suffering from project paralysis. Not knowing where to start, and not wanting to spend the money doing it until work settles down.
While I was home talking to my mom, she asked about the state of the floors. Seemed like a good thing to mull over.
At this point, the first floor is comprised of tile (bathroom), linoleum (kitchen), carpet over sub-floor (porch and mudroom), wall-to-wall carpet over narrow board hardwood (living room), and area rugs over narrow board hardwood (dining room, office and hallway.)
The narrow board hardwood dates to the Victorian Renovation period. It's also found upstairs in 3 out of the 4 bedrooms and in the hallway. The only room with the original pine floor exposed is the front bedroom, where it's been refinished sometime in the near past. The pine board is evident in the eve closets off the front of the house, where they've been painted green. The other front "bedroom" (really about the size of a generous walk-in closet) has narrow board over the pine, I believe. There's a slight height difference between the hall and the room that makes me think this.
At this point, I've seen 95% of the floors that can be easily uncovered (I'm not ripping up the living room yet, so that can remain a mystery.) All the floors I've seen (95%!) are in good, used condition, and I told my mom as such. Eventually I'd like to get them refinished, but that's a ways down the line.

I had yesterday off. I had all sorts of plans, but couldn't get a good start anywhere. Finally I settled on washing the dining room, since it's the last room on the first floor that hasn't seen a bucket of TSP substitute. While I was at it, I decided to pull the heat register out of the floor and give it a good scrub.

Rather than wall to wall in the dining room, they made
a patchwork of area rugs, and cut out a hole for the heat.

I've done this to many of the other registers, sticking my vacuum down into the sharp holes while deflecting the very curious cat at the same time. It's a... production.
First things first! Pull up the rug!

What is this nefariousness?

More tape. I'm not at all surprised. Ms Mary taped down anything that moved. I appreciate her dedication to modern adhesives.
But there was white... goo, too. Caulk?
Nope! Some flavor of plaster with a decorative wax coating!

WHO DOES THIS?

At some point in the far past, there was moisture infiltration, which led to insect damage. (There is no active insect damage. I have the receipt that this property was very thoroughly treated for all manner of pests before I bought it, and what the treatment was.) I'm not sure how you don't notice insects causing this, but maybe there was a buffet over this area or something.
One thing's for sure, I can't go refinishing a floor with gobs of plaster sticking out of it. So, let's remove that plaster and see what we've got.

Whelp.

It looks like I can replace the first three planks from the wall and fix it all. This is also the area that needs some sill work, so in hindsight I can't be too surprised.

So Mom - I didn't have any areas that needed fixing until yesterday.
But I got the dining room all washed except the ceiling!

Knock Knock

It seems last night I had a visitor come calling.

Hello? Do you have a moment to talk about landscaping?
Have we got a plan to help you with your grubs!

He wandered right up to my back door. Snuffled around the edge of the house, up to the bird feeders, down to the shed, paid super special attention to the garbage can (but didn't attempt to climb it.) Then the tracks go under the shed.
For all I know he's still there.
I didn't get down to check.

Funny little hand prints in the snow.

At first I thought they were raccoon tracks (which I really don't need taking up any sort of residence. Adorable, but a pain in the neck.) On further examination I saw the funny thumbs, which leads me to think it's an opossum. If so, it's the biggest stinkin' opossum I've ever seen. But 'possums eat a ton of bugs, and aren't generally hugely pesky, so he can stay for now. They are kind of so ugly they're cute. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes from the trail camera.

This has led me to think about jacking up the shed and putting a solid block foundation under it, so nothing can set up permanent residence there, though.
I'm the only one who should be receiving mail at 107 Brigham Hill.

Quiet time

My apologies to those who swing through here regularly looking for updates. It's been kind of difficult to work up enthusiasm for house projects when I'm wading through a ton of quotes for work I didn't anticipate having to address just yet. The dollar signs are starting to stack up. While I'll be very happy when it's done, and I likely won't have to deal with most of this ever again (for this property) it's a bit demoralizing. My friend Chip sent me this book though, which looks super helpful. I'm sure I'm going to get good use out of it.

Thanks, Chip!

On top of the flood of contractor quotes, I received notification that my employer is going to be going through "divisional headcount reduction" - a fancy phrase for layoffs. I really don't know what to think of my situation, so I'm taking the tack of hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. I've got my work backed up, a bunch of boxes packed, and I'm trying to tidy up so that if I'm made to walk away I can with minimal fallout to who ever is left behind to pick up the pieces.

I did do a bit more brush clearing last evening. With it relatively clear of snow, now's a good time to pull bittersweet, and man is there a lot of bittersweet to be pulled. It's providing great cover for the local rodent population. I'm going to borrow a trail camera from my sister and try to see what's been wandering through my yard - something large-ish comes right up the front and then crosses in front of the shed to go up into the woods. The snow was too powdery to get good tracks last time.

The Roof, the roof, the roof is ...

...not on fire.

(Props to the Bloodhound Gang, who get referenced every time I have to deal with a roof. What can I say? I was impressionable in 2009.)

I met with John the Roofer this morning. He confirmed a few things - that no ridge vent will work because of the ridge beam, that there are no soffit vents because the construction method means it's solid there and unvent-able, that some sort of powered solution is going to be my best bet, and that the roof is nearing it's end of useful life.
He's going to work up a quote (itemized) that will include:
• installing two powered box fans, one in each crawl space. (He'll run the wires down, but the electrician will have to connect. Which is good, because I like Wayne the Electrician, but he's not as young and nimble as John the Roofer.)
• new roof (asphalt on top, and either rolled or metal on the lower)
• leveling out the roof over the bathroom
• run of gutter on the north and east side (he's up there anyway.)
• repointing the chimney (again, he's up there anyway. Just have to get some sacks of lime for him to use, and make sure he doesn't hit it with portland (unless that's what's up there.))

We talked about radon, electrical, and how the fewer holes in the roof the better. He suggested removing the un-used chimney, but I'm not ready to do that just yet. I will hold onto my hope of being able to reuse it somehow.

What the heck

The neighbors were setting off fireworks after the end of the game last night, so I dealt with the 2 roller shades and the curtain rod at about 10:30.
Something to note! In the kitchen, I'd replaced one roller shade (black out weight) with one from Lowe's. Then last night, I installed a new one over the kitchen sink that I got from Home Depot. At night, there's no difference. When it's light out, the Lowe's brand shade has a blueish tone while the Home Depot shade has a reddish tone. I work in print production. I know vinyl can carry different temperatures. I just didn't expect it in window shades for some reason, but I'm not surprised.
I'm going to see if I can move one of the kitchen shades to the stand-alone window in the upstairs hallway so that at least all the tones in a given room match. The whole house doesn't have to be match-y, but at least all in the same room should. My preference is for the cool tones from Lowes.

This morning I was hit with a wild hair - I wanted to know what was behind the mirror left behind by the Fords, screwed to the wall in the dining room.
I was hoping for something interesting.
A hole to access long-forgotten plumbing or electrical?
A gap to see the framing?
Buried treasure?
I got out my trusty screw gun, (let's not kid, I hadn't actually put it away), and got that sucker off the wall.

Pooh.

Nothing. Nada.
Just 4 little drywall screw holes (now).
Oh well.
I might just put it back up for now. It's an appropriate piece for the house.
But I was pretty disappointed in the lack of... anything.

A long weekend

It's been a couple of days. A lot of typical housework - cleaning the bathroom and vacuuming, etc.
There's been some seasonal work - shoveling the rest of the driveway, filling the bird feeders. Then some monthly upkeep - change the filter on the cat fountain, filter on the fish tank, putting a pack of enzymes down the drain for the septic, checked the furnace filters (it's fine), checked the water filter (it's fine).
I confirmed that the floors are only finished around the edges. (Not uncommon - The same was true of my Grandparent's house.) I found where Ms Mary had been using newspapers to pad under the carpet. Interesting, but nothing older than 2004.

She cut out the carpet pad so the basement door would clear the carpet,
but didn't want the carpet to damage the unfinished floor.

Saturday I decided to make two fakey storms for the kitchen. I sort of got sidetracked by scraping the flaking paint off the mantle, and then (since the flakes fell down the heat register) I disassembled the heat register, vacuumed the heck out of it and scrubbed the metal register housing. Then I remembered I had to deal with a crock of saurkraut that's been needing tending since November.

I eventually got to the storms.

Still not perfect, but functional

This time I found some 1x2" firring strips at Home Depot. They were more robust than the molding I'd been using, and cheaper. The width allowed me to use two screws in each corner, so that negated a lot of the rolling. Only issue is, where the molding was decently square, these firring strips are glorified wooden noodles. Doing this with hand tools, on the dining room floor, with stock that is fighting back, is proving to be a challenge.

I love that little Disston dovetail saw.

The nice thing is, by the 4th window (the second in the kitchen) I sort of worked out a system. It looks like this:

It might be hard to tell, but this shows the top and bottom, then the three uprights, then the two cross pieces next to each other. Setting it out this way made visual sense to me.

Another view - three uprights, the top and bottom, the two cross pieces.

I hammered out two more Sunday morning, so now the kitchen, dining room, and office that I'm using as my bedroom are done. Next up - the 5 windows in the living room. Then there's one window in the bathroom and the first floor will be done. The bedroom is already less drafty.
I've figured out that these cost roughly $12 to make - 3 firring strips at $2 per, 2 rolls of foam weatherstripping at $2 per, and the window plastic which comes in a kit of three for $6, so $2 ea. Then 12 screws and a nail (with the head cut off).
They aren't super pretty, but they seem to help. The bed room is already less drafty.

For some reason, when I embed links, they aren't showing up as live unless you hover, so here's the link to the place that I'm cobbing my design from.
http://www.islandinstitute.org/sites/default/files/Interior%20Storm%20Window%20Directions_0%202.pdf

Island Institute uses two layers of plastic. I'm just using one for now so I can use the supports as handles to get them in and out.

Getting better.

I picked up roller shades for the dining room and kitchen. Tomorrow I'll see about putting them up.

Brrr.

When the Mass Save Energy guy came out, I made a point about asking about the windows because they are kind of crap. Sure, they keep the weather out, but not much more than that. I could tell by the amount of masking tape Ms Mary had gobbed on the frames that there are issues. Energy Guy said that there were loan programs, but not much more - Mass Save doesn't deal with windows, really.

Well, the weather has gotten downright chilly. With the temperatures plunging into the negatives last night, I set about turning the house into a cave, hanging blankets over windows that didn't have roller shade, and even over some that did. In the kitchen, one of the worst offenders is over the kitchen sink. The window well is about 10" deep, so I took a tension rod and put a folded fleece blanket over the opening. It's not air tight at all, as you can see from the line of light coming over the top. In some places it's only one thin layer deep, wehre you see it's lighter.

Very fashionable, thanks to my dear friend Monique.

My indoor/outdoor thermometer lives on that shelf, so I can see the temps when I'm doing the dishes. It's where my parents have theirs, so it's a familiar location. This morning, I pulled back the leopard print to see what it was outside.

34.2* inside, -7* outside.
I didn't bother looking for the night time lows.

Please, tell me again about how double paned windows are better simply by the virtue of being double paned? 
Granted, I keep the house at 60 at night. But that's 34.2* in my house. Right above the sink, with pipes and stuff that you do NOT want freezing. I left the faucet dripping last night, and dripping today while I'm gone.

In other news, the breakdown of mold men looks like:
#1 - $1700 (estimate)
#2 - 3900 (quote)
#3 - no show
#4 - $1700 (estimate)

Gutter guys looks like:
#1 - $975 (quote)
#2 - $930 (estimate)
#3 - comes on 2/11 at 10 am

Now there's a roofer in play. He's going to come out when he can actually see my roof (not just snow) and not damage anything when he goes up there. Including himself. I find this approach exceedingly reasonable.

Tales of the Mold Men (and gutter guys)

Not much fun to report. Had two more quotes scheduled from mold mitigation outfits this morning. One was a no-show. The other was nice enough. We'll see where their quote nets out against the others.
After the mold men I met with a gutter guy. Also nice enough (and on time) - his quote came in at $975 to do the two long sides of the house and fix one of the short pitches. Probably very much worth the money.
Talked to Wayne the Electrician last night. While he'd have no problem taking my money and putting in powered vent fans, he suggested talking to some roof guys about ventilation first. Snaking power through this type of old house is not easy, so it would mean running conduit up the outside of the house. Not pretty.
So more phone calls. With more contractors. Half the time I don't know who to believe. Who's going to do it right? Who's just conning me? At what point do I write the checks and hope people don't suck? If I spend every minute second guessing every contractor, I'll be old and grey and nothing will have gotten done.
Or I have to start taking classes in all of these skills, and I'll be old and grey and only half of everything will be done.

One thing I did accomplish for short money was ordering and setting out a long-acting radon detector. On 1/1/20 I'll send this little puppy back to the lab and it will be able to tell me variations over the year.

Radon meter. Can't be near windows or doors, and must be at least 2' off the ground.

This weekend will hopefully see more progress cleaning the basement.

Right now the list of things that sort of need to happen in a rough list of how:
• Gutters
• Order a few yards of Rip Rap to stuff the holes in the foundation
• Pull dirt and organic materials away from foundation
• Repoint foundation
• Hit sills with Boracare
• Get sump pump installed
• Talk to roofers - deal with vents?
• Get mold dealt with
• Get insulation installed

If my income holds out, hopefully by this time next year.
Time will tell.

Bit of a pause...

My sister wanted help with the cattle for the weekend, so there was no work on the house.
A tiny sea of fuzzy cow butts though. No one wanted to pose for good pictures when there was already hay in the feeder.

Winter Coats

More mold quotes tomorrow, and possibly a gutter quote.

Mold, it's not just for old bread.

Entertained two different mold remediation contractors yesterday. It is confirmed - the attic is hosting a not-inconsiderable amount of mold.
Come to find out, there's a huge disparity on just what exactly constitutes "mold remediation". One outfit will clean it and then paint over it. The other outfit will clean it, and then fix the ventilation that let to the problem in the first place. I'm sure there's going to be lots of dollar signs involved in either. I've got a few more concerns coming out next Tuesday to give me their two cents. I feel like I have to understand what all my options are, and these two original outfits feel light years apart.

Last night the deep freeze broke, and everything started to melt. On one hand, that's awesome, because I might get the rest of my driveway back. (I only shoveled half.) On the other hand, now I know exactly where the water is getting into the basement (and evaporating, sending moisture up into the attic, where it allows the mold to grow.) It seems that the gutter downspout extenders have done the trick on the south side of the house, but the east and north need some attention. Gutters will have to be added. On a whim, I emailed a local place to see if they can come give me a quote next Tuesday while the other mold people are here. Then I can decide if it's worth doing myself or paying someone else to do it.

Onward.

Found a use for those hot air vents.

Still messing with hardware

There's just a few bits of hardware left on the first floor that haven't been cleaned. One was on the office door in the front, and one was on the door between the kitchen and the living room.
I'm pretty sure the kitchen door is from the first iteration of the house, and I'll have a whole post on it later.
The door to the office is giving me fits. It's also one of the older doors, I think. It's not as ornate as the later door hardware. Many of the screws are frozen, and one even just fell out, taking a chunk of door with it. I've tried stripper and scraping. I've hit it with penetrant to break the screws free, but to no avail. Two of the lock escutcheons just will not budge.
I was able to get the door knob plates off though. Nothing fancy, just iron, I think. But they have these four little pins on the back of them. I think the idea was that the little pins would hold them to the wood better once they were screwed down.

Two screw holes. Four pins.

That's a great theory.
In practice, if those little plates even get a little loose, they turn into spinning saw blades. This is what it does to the door.

Looks like tiny beavers lived back there for the last hundred years.

This door does have a Corbin mortise lock, much newer than the other hardware on the door. I opened it up, cleaned and oiled everything and got the lock moving, but I don't have a key for this one either. I found it in a 1941 PF Corbin catalog:

"Good buildings deserve good hardware."

As Ian is fond of saying "Things were done, no one was spared." I think this door is a collection of all the left overs. It's the only door in the house where the lock escutcheons don't match, and the door knobs are brown, not black.

Swirly. Pretty in the light, but a little scuffed up.

I hit that door knob plate with some Gibb's so it would stop rusting. I guess I'll drill off the lock escutcheons tonight so I can clean them and finally call this one done. When I sand down the door this summer, this one is going to need wood filler in those chewed up areas. I might consider filing the teeth off the back of the knob plates too.