Newborn House

We've Moved (Our Site)

2008-05-04T14:21:20Z

We have changed the way we produce our blog. You should have been redirected to this new location: http://tahogan.wordpress.com/
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Six Weeks, and Counting

2008-05-04T02:22:28Z

It's been a few weeks since we started the master bathroom renovation. As you can see from the pictures, it's been quite a job ... a total re-do from the floors to the ceiling.

Since our last post, we've:

completed the floor system, including floor joists and subfloor;

roughed in the plumbing;

reworked the electrical;

built a couple of small walls and installed the shower pan;

added rock board around the lower half of the room;

repaired , replaced and refinished the plaster;

painted the trim and upper half of the walls, and

started putting up the tin ceiling.

You can see more pictures on our Picasa site. With any luck, we'll finish the ceiling this weekend, and Andi will start stenciling the paint job next week. After that, tile the shower, tile the floor, tile the lower half of the walls, install the fixtures ... and ... take a vacation.

Stay tuned.

Master Bath Starts This Weekend

2008-03-17T01:28:43Z

Andi finishes removing remaining chunks of plaster from laths

We had a very busy weekend and made a lot of progress on the renovation of the master bathroom. This is the last room we have to restore, and it will take a lot of work to get it completed. This weekend, we started in earnest. The pre-work of removing the old fixtures and cutting off the plumbing was done a couple of weekends ago.

The first step this weekend was to remove the plaster around the lower part of the walls. This lower part of the walls will be tiled with subway tiles, and the upper two-thirds will be painted plaster. It was tiring, but the biggest problem was the dust storm we created when we made the level cut around the room.

The second set of tasks involved a lot of work to level the floor. We're replacing the hardwood floor (which had a several rotten spots) with tile. And, one corner of the room was about four inches lower than the opposite corner. So, the only real option was to remove all of the floor boards and re-hang all the floor joists. Once we cut out and nail down one more sheet of plywood, we will have finished half of the room.

View photo gallery, and stay tuned.

At left, we are just getting started removing the unlevel floor. At right, you can see the new, level flooring.

25 Years, and Counting

2008-03-08T14:56:42Z

This isn't about house restoration ... It's even better news ... We just celebrated our 25th anniversary! Candice sent flowers from college. Lots of other folks sent cards, e-mails, phone calls and loads of love this way. Thanks. We'll be sure to invite you all to our 50th anniversary party when that rolls around in a few years.

Dining Room: Check

2008-02-25T00:25:20Z

(Click picture to super-size of the composite image.)

We are very happy to share that we have completed the dining room. It turned our very nice. We had our first official meal in there today, when Karen, Dave and Shannon came over for my special sandwiches and strawberry shortcake.

The paint job is something that Murphy Brown's painter would have been proud to complete. There is a lot of trim in the room. For the wall color, Andi selected "ripe currant" (that's "red," to you and me) .... and it took four coats to get such a nice even coverage. The red is not a typical Victorian color, be we thought the space deserved a bold choice.

The other time-consuming parts included stripping and refinishing the fireplace mantle, repairing and refinishing the doors of the built-in china cabinet, and adding the plate rail around the top of the room.

The next -- and last -- room is the master bath. We'll post the "before" picture soon. Stay tuned.

PS -- When we enable comments, we get a lot of spam. I'll leave this post open for comments for a few days, and then turn comments off again. E-mails are always welcome at tahogan at gmail.com.

Super Progress on Dining Room

2008-02-03T18:56:49Z

Before and after of the dining room ceiling and main light fixture. The new, antique fixture was purchased on E-Bay and ceiling medallion came from an online site we had used before. More photos ...

We have been making super progress on the dining room. One of the major changes is the new, antique light fixture.

Like all of the ceilings, the dining room ceiling is bead board ... and it needed a lot of cleaning, patching before it could be re-caulked and repainted. After that, we installed the light fixture we found on E-Bay. This one had to be completely re-wired (below) and loaded with a new set of crystals.

In addition, we have spent a good bit of time installing and repairing the trim work. One of the additions is a plate rail around the top of the room. The new rail is built into the picture rail and will hold a collection of antique plates. The built-in china cabinet had a lot of problems related to settling and poor repairs from earlier restoration efforts.

We're in the midst of painting now. That part should be completed this week. After that, there's work to do on the mantle and hearth. If all goes well this room will be ready for a big dinner in a few more weeks. Stay tuned ...

After Two Years, Dining Room Work Begins

2008-01-12T13:57:46Z

We are now working on the dining room. Here are some more pictures.

Happy new year!

As we begin 2008, we also begin the a new year of restoration on the Newborn House.

We bought the house January 13, 2006. Work began the next day ... exactly two years ago this weekend... with a total gutting and remodeling of the kitchen. Since then, we have accomplished a lot. With the exception of the dining room and master bathroom, every room has been completely restored and refinished. We also have done a lot of work on the outside (roof, barn, porch, yard work) and infrastructure (plumbing, electrical, HVAC). This week we started on the dining room.

As you can see from the picture above and in the photo gallery the room is a big but not overwhelming project. It needs a lot of repair on the plaster walls and the ceiling. And, there's a built-in china cabinet that needs some work.Andi has already stripped the mantle, so it's ready to refinish.

When we started this project two years ago we expected it to be a grand adventure ... and it has been!

Stay tuned.

New Barn Built with Old Materials

2007-12-02T23:37:22Z

(Click image to supersize picture. Click here to view all photos.)

While we were not blogging for the past month, we also were not working on the house. Instead, we have turned our energy to building a barn. And in our usual style, the traditional route is not for us. Rather than just building a barn, we built our new barn with lumber we recycled from an old cotton barn that had stood by the railroad track in Newborn for nearly 100 years.

Above, you can see the new, nearly-completed barn. At left, you can see the old cotton barn that supplied most of the material. More pictures are on my Picasa photo-sharing site.

The house we are restoring came with two out-buildings -- a barn and a smokehouse -- that were (to be kind) in disrepair. We wanted a decent barn or workshop for our wagon, the lawnmower, my workshop and other stuff that doesn't belong the house. (As an aside, you should know that I [as any civilized person would] still plan to keep my bicycles in the house. [Don't tell Andi; we'll just let that be our little secret.])

Just so you know, we did hire somebody to help us build the barn. He and a couple of laborers would work all week and we would work all weekend. The entire project (dismantling and new construction) took about six weeks. Andi and I built and hung the doors this weekend to finish the last of the major construction. We'll try to get the final trim work and inspection completed this week. Painting and bricking around the foundation will probably have to wait until springtime.

The old cotton barn was just a strong wind from falling down, and the city had sent a letter to the property owner telling them they had 90 days to make it safe or dismantle it. Since the barn had no real use these days, we arranged with the owner to take it down for them. The exterior skin of the barn was useless, but the remainder of the heart pine lumber was in surprisingly good shape.

The new barn is a good bit smaller than the old barn, but we think it'll be just right for our needs. We have an interesting paint scheme planned, and we'll share more photos as we make progress on that front. (But it may be a while, because we may turn our attention back to the remaining projects in the house -- the dining room and master bathroom.)

We have a good bit of lumber left over from the old cotton barn. It's great wood and I'll probably use some of it to build some furniture. And, a local antique dealer is interesting in trading for some of the left-over lumber. We need about 2,000 old bricks, but might settle for some nice furniture. We'll let you know how that turns out. Stay tuned.

Pictures Reveal History of House

2007-10-22T01:15:29Z

Report #2 from the annual Newborn School Reunion:

We were very pleased today to have Mary (Pitts) Formo as one of our special visitors during the tour of homes that was part of the annual Newborn School Reunion. Mary Formo lived here for several years with her grandmother, Mary Pitts (aka "Aunt Mamie"). Mary knew that we are interested in the history of the house and shared some old pictures with us.

Above, the Newborn House as it appeared during Christmas-time in 1929 (notice the garland strung between the front porch columns. The basic shape of the house has been maintained through the years. One key feature we noticed is the railing around the top of the front porch and above the bay window in the dining room.

At left, Mary (Pitts) Formo is shown in the late '40s or early '50s riding on a wheel barrow being pushed by her father, Garland Pitts, the youngest son of Dr. J.T. (Julius Thomas) Pitts and Mary Pitts. In this photo, you can see that the stairs went all the way cross the porch and there is a shed roof sticking out over the well. We replaced a later, smaller (and more rickety) version of the wooden back steps with a set of brick steps. Otherwise, the back porch back then seems very similar to the back porch now.

Below, the picture shows one of the Pitts boys (J.T., we think) being held by one of the tenants who worked for the family. The photo shows a good view of the flower pit that was used to store plants through the winter and to start the seeds for the early garden. The basic structure is still standing, but all of the woodwork, roof and windows are missing. This photo will be very helpful when we get around to restoring the flower pit.

Reunion Sparks Memories

2007-10-21T02:09:36Z

The Newborn School opened in the early 1920s and served the local community through the mid-1950s. The school house, which had only four class rooms for all 11 grades, still stands just a stone's throw from the house we are restoring. Each fall, former students of the school return to the old school house to socialize and reminisce. This year, the former students and family members are invited to tour our home to see how it has changed since their school days.

Here's the first report from this year's Newborn School Reunion. Al Fleming, who now lives in Dahlonega, attended the Newborn School in the early 1940s. When he learned that our home would be open for a visit, he sent us the following e-mail:

"In the early 1940's when I was 11 or 12, my younger brother (about seven) and my older brother (Julian) was 15 or so, we were 'boarded' at the Pitts' house - my wonderful 'Aunt Mamie's' - during the week while our mother taught school at Porterdale, GA. (This arrangement was necessitated because there were no teaching jobs available for my widowed mother in Newborn's four-room school.)

"Living in the Pitt's home where we were treated as her own kids, we did chores and had responsibilities. Aunt Mamie had a cow in a shed on the property, and I regularly churned the milk to make the most delicious butter imaginable. Aunt M. had butter molds with fascinating designs like cows and trees and flowers. But when I went there the cowshed had no electricity and in winter the cow had to be milked by lantern - so I strung a wire, hung a light and put a switch on the back porch to illuminate the shed. OSHA, EPA, and child labor laws were far in the future.

"In the side yard below the dining room window was a 'pit' where potted plans were stored in winter. It was a brick structure with glass roof with tiers of shelves for the flowers. Seems to me I spent more time toting water to Aunt M's 'pit' than I spent in school!

"The Pitts family boys - four of them - were all older than we, but were in and out of the house frequently. At Christmas, we all engaged in stringing lights on a large cedar that grew in a stone-surrounded space beside the front walk. When adults were not watching, some of the elder Pitts boys were getting lit, too. Their father, Dr Pitts, was .a very vocal prohibitionist and anti-tobacco firebrand years in advance of his time. He once offered to buy 'Cokes' for every body on the bus he rode from Atlanta home, if they would refrain from smoking during the trip.

"On the side of the house toward town at that time, there was a big tree with limbs reaching out over the porch. We slept in the second bedroom from the top of the stairs on that side. When my older brother and his pals would gather 'downtown' some nights after my curfew, I'd climb out the window, down the limb, shimmy down that tree and sneak down to join the group. I wasn't always welcome, and got ratted on.

"Your home was a showplace when built around the turn of the twentieth century, with perhaps the first stained-glass fan window above the front door. In winter it was colder than an igloo except in the always-warn kitchen, where two stoves and the fireplace kept us cozy. I'm so glad that you're interested in it's long history. We look forward to visiting your home and the Gay-Chupp house where my grandmother Leila Gay (Stowe) and Aunt Mamie were raised."

Another Panorama

2007-09-27T19:12:23Z

I've been experimenting with a process for stiching a lot of small pictures together into a panorama. Here's the latest. It's a view of the kitchen. Click the image to see a larger version.

Upstairs Hall Ready for Furniture

2007-09-23T02:24:12Z

This composite image of the upstairs hall is a series of pictures stitched together into a single image. Click picture to see a larger version.

The restoration of our old house reached a milestone today when we finished work on the upstairs.

There are still a few minor tasks remaining -- grouting one fireplace surround, tiling another fireplace surround and hanging two light fixtures. Nevertheless, we are declaring victory and moving on to the next project.

The upstairs hall, which we are calling the library, didn't have any major structural problems. We only had to rewire, strip off the old wallpaper, repair a lot of cracked plaster, clean everything, patch and caulk, paint and stencil.

The hall, as you can see above, runs from the front of the house to the back, and is nice and wide. We are planning to put in some bookcases, a simple desk, and some nice comfy furniture for sitting and reading.

The color scheme is a continuation of the colors from the downstairs hall. The stenciling here is a simplified version of the pattern from the front part of the downstairs hall. We have a couple of matching antique light fixtures for the space. As soon as I find some missing parts and get them rewired, I'll be able to put them up.

The next project is building a barn. We've about decided to hire somebody to do that project for us. If we go that route, we'll spend the next few weeks getting that launched, and then move on to either the master bathroom or the dining room. Stay tuned.

Sewing Room Makeover Complete

2007-09-10T01:28:11Z

Before and after of the upstairs bedroom we are using as Andi's sewing room. The room required a lot of plaster repair, stripping of painted fireplace mantle, and a lot of cosmetic patching and painting. (Click picture for a larger view.)

As you can see from the before-and-after picture above and from the photo gallery, the room took a good bit of work to transform it from a big white blob of a room to something with a little panache. Major work included:

Minor repair and repaining of the beadboard ceiling.
Lots of plaster repair.
A new, antique light fixture that we got on E-bay.
Stenciling. Once again, Andi out-did herself. The border around the room above the picture rail is stenciled. And, instead of a ceiling medallion, she stenciled in a very complex design.
The mantle had to be stripped and refinished.
The walls were painted with a currant jam color that required a primer color and four coats of the top color.

The only remaining work in this room is to tile the fireplace surround and hearth. We have found a source for the tile, and that project won't take too long.

We also have finished the spare bedroom, and I don't think we've blogged about that, so I'll get to that post soon. This weekend we made a lot of progress on the upstairs hall. We're hopeful that we'll have that finished by the end of next weekend, and the entire upstairs will be complete! Stay tuned.

That's a Wrap

2007-08-14T02:53:43Z

The film crew for "Great Intentions" wrapped up filming in Newborn this evening with a scene involving star Elaine Hendrix releasing a small herd of goats and sheep from the Country Critter Corral.

I have no idea how this fits into the storyline, and, since they didn't get a copy of the script, neither did the goats. Eventually, the goats and sheep hit their marks and the crew was was able to pack up. They'll be up the road in Rutledge tomorrow for another hot day of filming.

I don't know much about filmmaking, but I now know this: It's a lot of hard work. The crew from Shadowlight Productions worked crazy long days under a blazing hot sun. I asked one of the crewmembers if movie-making was a lot of fun or just a lot of work. "It's mostly work," he said, "but at the end of it you have a movie. Does that make sense?"

Yep, I think it does.

See a few more photos.

"Good Intentions" Comes to Newborn

2007-08-10T01:37:16Z

On location in Newborn (above), Actor Luke Perry (white shirt) slides along side a runaway station wagon as it crashes into a sign, resulting in bursts of sparks. Below, Candice gets her picture taken with Perry.

Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with house restoration, but is an interesting story from next door to our house. (More photos.)

A little bit of Hollywood came to Newborn this week when the film crew for the movie "Good Intentions" filmed in downtown. The shooting location is next-door to our house in the parking lot of the Post Office and local grocery/hardware store.

The two main stars -- Luke Perry and Elaine Hendrix -- were here for the day. The film is shooting at several other small towns in the area this week and next. Today is day 18 of 25 days on location.

These folks were out in the blazing Georgia sun all day long. This afternoon, with the temperature hovering just above 100 degrees, they just worked straight through. Nary a complaint was heard. (Even now, at 8:50 p.m., it's still 92 degrees! ... and I can look across the yard and see the crew packing up for the day.)

Andi and Candice went over this morning to watch the movie-making with some of the other neighbors. The cast and crew were very busy but didn't seem to mind the spectators. Luke didn't seem to mind stopping to have his picture made with his new fans. He even came over and introduced himself to Andi and our neighbor
Katy.

I don't the main storyline, but the scenes they were shooting today had something to do with a runaway car with two small children inside that Luke has to stop. As he does, the car crashes into the sign for a fictitious roadhouse restaurant that features nude dancers and all-you-can-eat popcorn shrimp.

Here's an overview of a small part of the movie set in downtown Newborn.