Newborn House

(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.

Posted by Tim at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We've been recently working two big projects at the same time ... refinishing the spare bedroom and installing shutters on the windows. We finally finished the shutters today! (Photo gallery.)

Our friend Victor from neighboring Mansfield found a deal on some shutters for his old house at a building surplus store in Athens. After seeing his shutters, we decided to add some to our house. (Thanks, Victor.)

In addition to painting the shutters, two sets had to be cut down to fit one pair of windows. We installed most of the easy windows last weekend. This weekend, we installed the rest of the shutters. Most of the pictures in the photo gallery are Andi and I installing shutters on one of the second-floor windows of Andi's sewing room. Fortunately, the bay window area of the dining room provided a nice platform for the work.

Unfortunately, we couldn't install shutters on two of the windows for Candice's second-floor room ... My tallest ladder just isn't quite tall enough to safely do the work. Those shutters have gone into storage until I either figure out how to levitate or find another reason to rent a lift.

Other updates: 1) The spare bedroom is virtually finished. We've completed everything except the tile on the fireplace hearth and surround. We've found some interesting tiles and will order them this week. 2) We've started work on Andi's sewing room. So far, we've been working on plaster repair and getting the ceiling ready to paint. I'll try to post some updates on these two rooms later in the week. Stay tuned.

Posted by Tim at 09:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

To complement the new exterior paint job, last week we completed the refinishing all four of the exterior doors (photo gallery). We're not sure, but we think at least two of the doors are original to the house when it was first build around 1890.

All four doors are heart pine with either an oval or square window. All of them had multiple coats of paint on at least one side. We stripped everything back to the unfinished wood and applied a couple of coats of clear polyurethane. We replaced the locksets and deadbolts from oil-rubbed bronze hardware from Nostalgic Warehouse. We are very pleased with the results.

With the doors complete, we moved back upstairs to start work on the spare bedroom. Stay tuned.

Posted by Tim at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

With the exterior painting complete, we can now put some furniture on the front and back porches. We had collected three sets of wicker furniture ... one set from our old house, one set from a yard sale and a couple of other pieces that were reclaimed from a recycling center. Since none of them matched, we broke out the airless sprayer and spayed everything a nice, clean gloss white.

Posted by Tim at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

View photo gallery.

After slightly more than three weeks, the exterior painting is complete. John and the crew did a great job, and we've had some nice comments from the neighbors. Click on the pictues above and below to see enlarged before and after pictures.

The main body of the house is a mellow khaki color with white trim and a dark khaki color on the eaves and porch floors. The ceilings of the porches are a traditional pale blue, which, by the way, took three tries to find just the right shade of blue.

The actual painting was only about half of the work. The rest was cleaning, scraping, and replacing or repairing damaged or missing woodwork. We also had a glass repair guy out to fix four of five window panes that were broken or cracked.

The next step is to put some wicker furniture and maybe a swing on the porches. Then, we'll be back inside working on the rest of the upstairs rooms. Stay tuned.

Posted by Tim at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Click photo so view photo gallery

Painting an old house, I’ve decided, is 80% prep work and 40% actual painting. The other 20% is clean-up. John and the boys have made a lot of progress during the last week or so with the painting of the Newborn House. They are maybe 20% complete, so they still have a long way to go. So far, they’ve used 144 tubes of caulk (not kidding) and about a gallon of paint.

Since starting mid-week last week, they have pressure washed, scraped, sanded and caulked up a storm. They have replaced a couple of dozen siding boards and repaired several sections of trim. After six days of work, they are finally starting to get some paint on the house. The priming is done and some of the trim work is done. This afternoon, they finished a section under the front porch with the new exterior color.

We’re still keeping the color selections secret for a while longer. We’ve seen a small sample and think it’s right on target. If you want to see the color treatment before we unveil it here, you’ll just have to stop by for a visit in the next few days.

Andi and I have been trying to keep ahead of the paint crew with some necessary exterior repairs. We’ve fixed several sections of bead board trim around the porch. We’ve replaced a couple rotten boards around the front porch. And, we’ve flushed out another colony of bat. I have no sympathy for bats (or snakes, by the way). They are welcome to live in the neighborhood and eat all the bugs the like, but they can’t live in my porch. Flying squirrels also are not welcome.

Andi also has been busy stripping the old paint – all six layers – off of the front door. She’ll finish that up tomorrow. I’m advocating that the front door should be painted red … I think there’s some good feng shui or such that comes with a red door. Andi is in favor of keeping the natural wood color and just staining and sealing. (Unless you normally bet on the long-shot, don’t place any wagers on a red front door.)

Stay tuned.

Click collage to see photo gallery.

Posted by Tim at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We are expecting to see some dramatic changes to the Newborn House this week.
We have hired a painter to paint the exterior of the house. He's painted a lot
of old houses and is undaunted by the challenges of our old house. To get ready, we spent time time trying different colors on non-obvious parts
of the exterior. Also, we've had several suggestions about the right color for
the house. We'll keep the final color choices a secret for now so you'll be
surprised. Stay tuned.

Posted by Tim at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We finally completed one of the neat little projects on the Newborn house today! We installed the restored stained glass windows in three of the gables. Even better, we installed a lighting system to backlight the windows at night. (The picture above left was taken just at dusk. The image at right was taken after dark.)

When we bought the house, the windows had been painted over from the outside. At some point, the owner had hired a painter to spray the entire house white. If it didn't move out of the way, they painted it white. Also, many of the panes of glass were broken.

Andi contact a stained glass artist from nearby Mansfield. He showed her how to replace the panes and told her where she could buy the supplies. We removed the windows and replaced all of the panes weeks ago. I finally got them painted and installed this weekend.

The house has stained glass in the parlor and bull's eye windows in the downstairs and upstairs halls. Eventually, we'd like to have stained glass transoms and in a couple of other locations. We may hire the artist from Mansfield, or we may commission the monks from a nearby monastery. Or, more likely, we'll just do it ourselves.

Stay turned.

Posted by Tim at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

During the past few days, we have seen a major transformation to the property around the Newborn house. Thanks to the fine work of Wyatt Grading and Clearing, all of the dead trees, ugly tree and tangled underbrush have been removed from the property. The area around the house has been graded and backfilled to address draining issues. And, we now have a blank slate to start planning the landscaping.

Robby Wyatt, his son Justin and the rest of their crew have done a great job since arriving last Thursday morning on the coldest day of the year. They have been meticulous, careful and thorogh through the entire project. Thanks, guys.

View photo gallery of the work in progress. (I'll try to upload take some more pictures later in the week or this weekend.)

Posted by Tim at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Work at the Newborn House was very visible this weekend as chainsaws buzzed and heavy equipment roared. We are cleaning all of the brush, dead tress and ugly trees off of the over-grown part of our lot.

(I'll have a report and pictures on the land-clearing after the process is finished early this week, but I have to share one part of the story now.)

We had one huge pine tree that was starting to die, and that was leaning dangerously toward the house. Rather than taking a chance on having the tree fall on the house, the crew called in Russell to climb the tree and take it down ... from the top, piece by piece.

Russell arrived a bit later. He strapped on his climbing spikes, lashed a chainsaw to its leash and started climbing the tree like an overgrown squirrel. Anything in his way got trimmed off on the way up. Once he got to the top, he started taking off big chunks of the main trunk. For the big limbs hanging over the shed, he'd tie a climbing rope to the limb and loop the rope over anotgher limb. After cutting the limb, he'd easily guide the limb to a safe landing spot.

An hour or so later, Russell had reshaped the tree so that it could be safely pushed over by the bulldozer.

If you need a tree safely taken down, Russell's your guy.

View photo library.

Stay tuned.

Posted by Tim at 07:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Early last month we collected a huge pile of bricks (story) from a neighboring property and an old chimney on our property. Last week, we started making good use of the bricks. Steve and Keith spent the week building a new set of brick steps across the front porch. Andi, of course, was there to help. She worked the masonry saw for the angled cuts. And, in her spare time re-built one of the brick sections that under-pins the front porch.

The pictures below show the progress:

Before: When we started, the house had a set of wooden steps that were functional but didn't do much for overall appearance of the house.

During: Above, Steve and Keith have completed the first of four steps.

After: The brick staircase is now complete. We will remove the section of railing on the left side to have a staircase that spans most of the front porch. We need to add some hand-rails (if you have any idease, please send them to us). We'll probably add some big flower pots at each end of the staircase. We think these stairs will serve us well for many years to come.

In addition to the staircase, we also made some progress on completing the underpinning around the perimeter of the house. Most of the space around the heated area is now complete, but there is still a lot of work to do around the front and back porches.

In the photos below you can see how we are are repairing the brick lattice pattern underpinning around the porch. The photo at left shows the in-progress section that Andi single-handedly built. And the photo at right shows two completed sections.

Sorry for the long delay between posts. Stay tuned for more updates.

Posted by Tim at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Click the picture to view the week 15 gallery.

Despite the lack of blogging, we have still been making progress at the house.

Last weekend was a short work weekend because Andi went to Candice's college on Sunday and Monday to see her perform in one of the spring dance recitals. The show was great.

I had to work on Monday and didn't get to go on the road trip to college. So I spent the day Sunday cutting grass and doing a few other minor jobs around the house. (Without Andi to supervise, I'm not a very good worker.)

To make up for the short weekend, we put in an extra-full day on Saturday, when we started laying the tile in the hall bath. We finished most of the shower walls and most of the floor. The shower walls are covered with one-inch square tiles, and the floor is getting one-inch hexagonal tiles. The style is very Victorian and is going to turn out great.

Andi and I have installed a number of tile floors, so there were no major surprises with this one. This is the first time we have installed mosaic tiles and we were concerned that working with those tiny tiles might pose some problems. As it turned out, the mosaic tiles are no more difficult to install than standard tiles. If you are considering installing a tile floor, you shouldn't be afraid of tackling one with mosaic tiles.

During the past few days, Andi and her Dad (Steve) have started a couple of additional projects. They finished trimming out the exterior of the new window in the hall bath. They started bricking up the underpinning around the exterior of the house and porch. And, they started building a new set of front steps.

This weekend will be another short weekend. We're going to see Shannon play tee-ball in the morning and we're gong to Jessica's wedding in the afternoon. If all goes well on Sunday afternoon, though, we'll finish the tile in the bathroom and maybe even get started on the grout.

Stay tuned.

Posted by Tim at 06:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by Tim at 09:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The weather this weekend was just too nice to work inside, so we spent the weekend on outdoor activities. On Saturday, we worked in the yard. On Sunday, we went shopping for old house stuff.

One of the main chores on Saturday for Steve and me was collecting bricks to be used for the new front steps and underpinning. First, we went down the road to tear down a chimney on a the near-ruins of an old house on some property owned by Mr. Mooney. He gave us a good price and we set to work.

After we nailed plywood on the roof to keep him from falling through, Steve took the first shift. He climbed up and started knocking bricks off of the chimney. I was down below with the intention of picking up the bricks. When it started raining bricks, I judiciously retreated to the edge of the yard. We eventually collected 300 bricks from the site.

When we stopped to pay Mr. Mooney he told us about another fallen chimney on the property we could tackle if we needed more bricks. He speculated that the bricks on the house had been made at an old brick factory in nearby Starsville where prison inmates had supplied the labor.

Mr. Mooney went on to tell us about the two sharecropper shacks on the property. In addition to farming, some of the previous tennants (back in the day) supplemented their income by making and selling moonshine whiskey.

Another time, one of the tennants also practiced the world's oldest profession, which was not appreciated by the property owner. An "old-fashioned eviction" involving a shotgun put an end to that enterprise.

We next tackled the shaky old chimney on our property. Three pickup-loads (and two sore backs) later, we had an estimated 1,000 bricks piled in the yard, ready to be cleaned and re-used.

During the brick-collection work, Martha and Andi tackled some much-needed yard work. They lined the new azalea bed with plastic and pine straw. The dug up about a million irises from a front flowerbed and moved them to a temporary bed in the back yard. We also found time to prune half of the crepe myrtle trees and cut down a big sweet gum tree and a gnarly plum tree that were disrupting the view in front of the house.

On Sunday, Andi and I ventured off the the Lakewood Antique Market to get some light fixtures and search for a farm table for the kitchen. We bought two antique light fixtures from David in the basemend of Building One. He has an amazing collection of old light fixtures, parts, and ideas about light fixtures. We'll post some pictures of the fixtures when we get them installed. You'll like them a lot.

(When you go to Lakewood, we highly recommend that you get a bag of cinamon donuts from the vendor outside the door of Building One. The tiny donuts -- about 2 inches in diameter -- are basically deep-fried fat covered in sugar. Ten donuts cost a buck. Get an entire bag for each person in your party so that you won't have to share.)

We also went to Ikea, the mega-store of Scandinavian modern style furniture and accessories -- just the opposite of what you'd think should go in our house. At Ikea, we bought countertops for our new cabinets. The countertops are solid oak and we've figured out how to go the DIY route and save a lot of money on very nice countertops. I'm sure there will be pictures and a story when we tackle the installation.

For the rest of Sunday's shopping, Andi went online to purchase the faucets for the tub, shower and sink in the hall bathroom. She found what we needed and wanted for about half the cost we were quoted by a local plumbing supply showroom.

Here's the link to this week's photo album. Stay tuned.

Posted by Tim at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The roofers got started Friday with one of the house's major needs ... new roofing for the house and all of the porches. They completed the small area toward the road on Friday. Unfortunately, the rain started on Friday night and has been falling ever since. Fortunately, though, they only remove as much of the current roofing each morning as they can replace by the end of the day. (I guess roofers have to pay more attention to the weather than those of us who work indoors.) Click image or click here for full-size picture.

Continue reading "Up on the Rooftop ... Tap, Tap, Tap" »

Posted by Andi at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)