"If these walls could talk"

Today, I finally removed enough furniture to take a look at the "footprint" left by the original center wall, fireplace and venting system in the living room. My anticipation and enthusiasm for uncovering this mystery was much higher then the results revealed. All I can see is a large, poorly done patch about 2 feet from the wall. Perhaps the original oil burning furnace vent was here. Not sure if this can be repaired, patched or at least blended in to match.  Now we need to find the fireplace chimney patch and see how this all comes together. I can't remove all of the carpet and padding because the drywall ers want it left in place until they have finished. And since they have not even started, we are stuck with our terrible carpet for a bit longer.

I just wish the floors could talk so we wouldn't have to be surprised and perhaps deeply disappointed by the hidden holes, patches and perhaps missing boards that we walk on every day.

Ready to get this process going.

October 25, 2015 addition- Finished floors, no sign of the poorly patched vents. Nice job "V".

What is all of this stuff?!

And where will we put it?

The thing about remodeling is you have to remove and stored everything in all of the places that are now targeted for demolition. And the stuff you move, replaces other stuff and so on. So inevitably, a storage unit is rented. Storage of stuff is a huge business in the US, since we all have too much stuff and don't want to look at it any more, so we put it into a unit where it will be out of sight.  I have always prided myself on never accumulating so much stuff that it required a storage unit, but yesterday that changed.  I broke down and rented a small space to start off-loading piles of stuff.

The justifiable piles include my work records that will someday be my book:)  "M" stuff that will someday go to her home in Sacramento. The paperwork from all of our transactions (selling three houses in one year generates boxes and boxes of stuff) that will someday be discarded and forgotten. 

The unjustifiable stuff includes our collection of Barbie Dolls, that we will sell some day and get a fortune for,  my mother and father's things that I don't have the heart to throw away and the boxes of miscellaneous crud that I don't want to go through right now.  If I am lucky, the rental units will melt in the 108 heat or spontaneously ignite and burn to the ground leaving a pile of ashes.

But it is a great feeling to have half of the attic cleared, half of the Tuff shed cleared and by next week, we will be getting close to having a cleared room ready for action. 

Lots of questions still need to be answered regarding the remodel, but it is hard to let go of the ideas that were not even part of the project and are now the key elements. Such as, removing the living room wall, we never even considered it and yet, this morning "G" was saying, to his own surprise, "I think we can get that wall down if we want to do it ourselves.  It wouldn't be that hard". He is talking about a wall, solid, wired, and framed! This is the man that didn't want me to take down the dropped ceilings. In any case, I am glad he is getting into the spirit and, if it weren't so hot, we might even be taking up battle with the plaster and wood. 

The wall contains lots of materials that are original to the house and will be re purposed in other places in the house. This is a bit of a problem for us to undertake since we don't know which pieces are re usable and which are just trash.  In any case, nothing can happen until we remove the stuff and thus, that is our task for today. Heat or no heat, we will be setting out on our third truck load of stuff to the storage unit and probably wishing we had rented a bigger one;/

The Tub and the Lamp

This odd thing happens when you have something you hate, then someone else sees it and they love, love, love it!  Suddenly this eye-sore item starts to shift and take on a new and wonderful personality. And becomes one of your favorite things. We have a very, very old lamp that came with the house. The light bulbs each have their own switch so you can turn them on and off individually. A cool feature, but all of the lights never seem to work at the same time. Not my favorite feature.

The brass lamp

However, the guy who removed it for us, love, love, loved it. "It is solid brass, heavy, with delicate carvings on the ceiling plate". As he is hoisting it down, I am looking disgusted with the heavy ornate item and had ideas of just trashing it. Until........... he says, "I'll take it, this is an amazing and unique piece. It is worth a lot and such a find."

Now the shift is starting. This horrible, gaudy lamp is starting to look beautiful, unique and charming. I tell him he cannot have it, I will find a place for it. (I'm thinking it can hang in the closet)  He is thinking, it should be our entry way focal point.  Okay, maybe it will look nice as a focal point!  What am I saying, this old cranky light fixture that I have hated for 6 years.

But there it is, the transformation from trash to treasure. Now everyone who is working on our house renovation gets to see "the lamp". Every week it becomes more valuable and something we will "never" remove from it's home.

So I was chatting over my manicure about the lamp.  When "K" shares her trash to treasure story.  She has lived for the past 20 years in an older home that had an original deep sink in the laundry room. It was painted lime green and was very useful when it came to cleaning paint brushes, storing rags and generally it became the "dirty" place for stuff. She is moving and was thrilled to leave the 500 pound thing behind, until her sister arrives and describes the tub as "an original soap stone tub"  wow, these are amazing, look at what people do with them!!! Pintrist has a way of creeping into all of these "look what you can do" conversations.  The images of soap stone sinks made into masterpieces, flower pots, beautiful sinks, etc. Now my friend "K" is in it, transforming her idea of this horrible, ugly, heavy sink into a amazing, original, priceless gem that was surprisingly sitting right under her nose all these years.

Her husband was not thrilled when she informed him that the sink was coming to the new house.  Sometimes it is hard for our husbands to manage our sudden change in prospective regarding these old and previously hated items.  He is a lovely, compliant guy, who now has a hernia, and with some help, the sink gets loaded and moved. All 600 pounds of it (it gained 100 pounds while I was writing this story). The real finishing touch on K's story is that the tub was placed face down on the patio and the numbers 12/08/04 show up imprinted on the bottom. Seems to be the date the sink was made in 1904.

In conclusion,  like people who live over 100 years, things that survive that long seem to deserve a little extra attention, even if they are too heavy and all of their lights aren't quite on anymore.

Old 2 by 4's

Along with the wonderful old floors come the not-so-wonderful 2 by 4 ceiling joists that aren't wide enough to hold the recessed lighting I have planned or the upstairs storage we have started to count on. Our contractor gave me an hour of mumbo-jumbo about retrofitting joists, securing footings, enhancing ceiling support and ultimately getting our walls, windows and ceiling to line up like a normal house. Not sure the 120 years of sag can be "lifted". I only have 60 years of sag and I am quite sure it can't be lifted:) Anyway, we are now looking at putting a lot more structural integrity into the front of the house, not where we want our money to go, but what to do?

If we don't do this work now, then we may be looking at a sagging ceiling later and we feel more ready to face this now then we will in 15 or 20 years.

I may have to give up the recessed lighting idea. Apparently, the casing of the lights need a lot of clearance in the ceiling and we just don't have it with our little house.  I guess they were not thinking about recessed lighting back in 1895, they may not have been thinking about lighting at all. We have considered going back to dinner by candle light, but that doesn't seem very practical.

Other developments include, re-routing the air conditioning intake vent. Apparently, it is not only the wrong kind of vent, but also too small and "choking" our air conditioner. We don't want a choking air conditioner do we? The correct way to circulate air in a house is to have the intake vent at the ceiling, the output vents near the floor thus taking hot air from the hot top of the room, bringing in cool air at the bottom so it will rise.  "G" says, "our house is fine", no need to reconstrew (is that a word)  the air system, but I say, "this house is hot, the best place to be, is lying on the floor. And my world only occasionally has me lying on the floor".

So we are looking to move the vents, open them up, release the choking grip on the air systems and hopefully "save" money in the end. Not sure how saving $2 per month in electricity will ever add up to the $20 K we are spending on sealing, insulating and replacing our windows with double panes, but that is the idea.Some of this just doesn't make any sense when you are living in mild So Cal.

We are thinking of opening up the path from dining room to kitchen (removing the current laundry room wall)  which will also open into the new den and yard. But, with the dirt and dust of demolition looming in our future, the contractor would prefer to remove both the living/dining room half wall and the dining room/kitchen full wall all at once. This will give us a rather odd look for awhile. We will have our washer/drying in the middle of our kitchen entry. Yes, we will look like a construction sight while we wait for the plans to be completed and the City to approve. This could be months before we get any further then the opening of the kitchen, but I think I am ready to blast ahead and get this show on the road.

Added entry: Here is the end result of the decision to open the kitchen wall and live with the washer/dryer in the passage. October 2015. I got the recessed lighting despite the challenges with space.

I vacillate between the thrill of having the original high ceilings finished and the old wood floors polished, and the horror of all of the details that need to be managed behind the walls. Electrical, venting, support beams. That stuff starts to scare me, what are we getting into?

Those of you with new houses are laughing a bit at the ridiculous dedication to the old,  I agree it is a bit of a "hobby-gone-bad", but we are in it and hoping to see it through.

"G" occupied his energy by assembling a new gas grill yesterday. He worked outside while the temperature reached 104 degrees in the shade.  By the time the new grill was ready to receive it's first bratwurst,  the cool breeze and cold wine made us both feel very lucky to have a shaded yard and a good life.

We just have to keep this remodel in prospective and not let it overwhelm us.  It is a bit like a rising loaf of bread. When we are not looking it gets bigger and bigger and starts to climb out of the pan, then we pound it down and get it back in the pan and let it rest a bit. 

Old forest fir

The "floor guy" came and his enthusiasm for old floors is contagious.  He describes our floors as, old forest Douglas Fir, a species that can now only be found in "Fir Farms". The ring patterns tells the story of very old trees, the likes of which will never be seen again. Now Fir is an endangered species and protected, these floors are well worth saving. He thinks they will polish up beautifully and most likely creak and show their blemishes. He clearly loves his work and loves restoring old floors. All I could think of was how the first contractor we spoke to wanted to remove all of the original floors and put in new "stronger", "smoother" floors. What a terrible mistake that would have been. We could not even afford to put in the type of floors we already have it has become so expensive and rare.

The original builders (back in 1895)  would have placed the floor down first and then followed with walls and rooms. So we are hoping to uncover the original footprint of the house by following the floor. It is quite an expedition we are on and each "old house restorer" we talk to gives us more enthusiasm for the adventure.

The big puzzle is the front two rooms. There has definitely been an original wall that was moved, but the original venting system seems to support the newer wall. So the "floor guy" thinks the wall has been moved twice. Once to enlarge the dining room and again to enlarge the living room. Why someone would go through that much trouble to accommodate the changing trends, we will never know.  His recommendation was to remove the wall between our living and dining room entirely  He says the passage is too small to be Victorian. Since it is not weight baring, we are now looking at demo-ing the wall.

Other current events:  Baby "C" turned one last weekend and we are preparing "M" Court for new renters. One day we will look back and wonder how we kept so many "balls" in the air at once, but each day includes a good dose of yoga, work and grand babies and this recipe seems to keep me going.

 Our neighbor's house gives us an idea of how things once were. Instead of a doorway to the attic, we probably had a built-in storage cabinet like this in the dining room.

 Our neighbors also have preserved the original kitchen pantry, with the same molding and door structure as the rest of the house. We now have a stove in this space where the pantry wall was taken down.

 "C" is suspicious of the orange and blue icing, " This doesn't look like food to me!"

 Living/dining room divider, added in the 1960's, it is too low to be considered Victorian and makes the passage too narrow to be practical. Maybe it hides another surprise, we are considering removing it and taking our chances with the old fir flooring. If the floor is intact, we will have a wonderful expanse of old forest flooring in our living/dining room, if not, we have another problem. 

 Removing the wall will give us enough room for a large dining table and the opportunity to host the Christmas dinner with the entire family. Yikes, maybe the wall should stay!

 Our low "imitation" Victorian wood work versus the original height and size shown from our neighbors house below. Note the distance from the picture rail to the  wood beam.  We may save the wood and put it back to it's original height as part of the passage to the kitchen which we envision sitting directly behind our dining room, where the mud room and guest bath is now.

Evidence of prior wall between living and dining room. Not sure if I included this in prior posts. The floor below this area will tell the story once we remove the carpet. We are waiting to remove carpet until the plaster work is done on the ceiling.

Attic disappointment

Yesterday, I spoke with a second architect who confirmed our suspicion that the attic plan needs to be abandoned.  A retrofit of the foundation, new support beams in the ceiling and walls would render the project too massive for this little house. Both architects agreed that adding a two-story addition in the back with a suitable foundation is a better way to get what we want.  Hence, time to change what we want. I'm not interested in putting a giant "butt" on our cute little cottage. We meet with the third architect in a few minutes and will see what they have to say, but I am readjusting my sights and the floor plan to keep it one story. Our little, steep staircase will remain and we will continue to use the attic as a "junk storage place" rather than living space.

October 25, 2015- Added note: The "little staircase" was demolished in the first round. I wish I had taken a photo. It was ingenious and is now a pile of rubble. This is all I could find to remind us of this unique little escape. This space is now home to our powder room.

Closet where the stairs originated.

Remaining stairs and asbestos exhaust pipe after lower stairs were demolished.