If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.  Rotting wood, incapable workers, cold weather.  And now, bees.  Not just one hive, either.  We were blessed (and really, I do mean that.  Bees are awesome.) with two hives.  No work was going to get done until we focused on relocating the bees behind our old house.  For one thing, the next project was to work exactly where one hive was located.  One hive was behind the clapboard siding and the interior walls of the house.  The other hive was in the tree that had fallen over and crushed part of the shed.  (yup…just something else to repair.) Help with Hives I posted…

Our Plan We needed to work on the front porch.  It had been badly renovated in the past and was in dire need of help.  Because of the single-board walls on the porch, there was no way to insulate what were destined to be guest bedrooms unless we found a way to do a front porch transformation that would restore the look of the original porch while taking into consideration the structural issues we needed to address. front porch restoration plan We visited Barrington Living History Farm and the Joe E. Turner House before we started on the renovations to try and get an idea about what we were getting…

The Day We Discovered Berber Linoleum Once the house was emptied, we saw the floors for the first time.  Imagine our surprise when we saw that some very forward thinking soul had installed rainbow Berber linoleum.  It was so outrageously ugly that I was thankful for all the dirt and rat poop that obscured the flooring from view.  Offensive as it was,  the linoleum remained while we removed the sheet rock.  I hoped the linoleum would protect what I prayed would be pristine, beautiful, original hardwood floors.  My wishes almost came true. The North Pen and Former Kitchen The kitchen (aka the Cynthia Ann Parker Room or CAP) floor was…

  The Thing About Old Houses Old houses are either tiny or spacious.  Neither likely have enough closet space.  That is just the way it is.  Our house was on the tiny side and it was not ready for 21st century living unless we were ready to do some serious lifestyle adjustments.  I was keen, at first, to try and fit into my ancestor’s home.  I soon came to the realization that there was not enough space in our historical home and that we would have to consider adding an addition in order to make the house functional for us. Our commitment to the old house complicated attempts to design an addition.  We had a basic…

Oh! The Irony of the Shed We needed to remove the attached shed on the back of the house.  Along with the chimney removal and emptying the contents of the house, this task had to be accomplished prior to the arrival of the house leveling crew.  We had a weekend to get this done.  Easy, right?  Ummmm, well… One of my biggest fears during the three and a half years we spent waiting to purchase the house was that something would happen to it.  It would burn down or a storm would blow it over or the decaying process would finally render it un-salvageable.  In short, I thought it would…

Yes, it had stood for 173 years or so, far outlasting any homes that are being built today.  So how do  novice DIYers determine that there were structural issues that needed to be addressed?  Easy… Chains Were Pulling the Front Porch Towards the House In the center hallway ceiling, there are two tiny notches.  They are barely noticeable, in fact.  A quick trip into the attic revealed their secret.  The chains attach to the front of the house were strung to the support structures in the attic.  This was a huge clue that something had gone terribly wrong in the distant past.  It appeared the front porch and two small…

I Gotta Level With You… Leveling the house was amazingly hard work.  First, jacking up an entire wall of a house and using a sledge hammer to try and get it back on the sill log is just craziness.  Everything is heavy.  Everything is hard.  But beyond the physical labor, the problem solving part of it took tremendous effort. I kid you not.  Leveling the house was an incredibly difficult process for us.  We were stressed and exhausted.  The house wasn’t cooperating.  It had issues we didn’t anticipate like sill logs that resisted power tools.  Bees.  Termite damage.  We were whipped physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Leveling the house was tough…

Rattlesnake Removal 101 There was no way around it.  The removal of rattlesnakes had to take place to facilitate the house leveling. The concrete slab was thought to be the location of their den. The concrete slab had to go and so did the rattlesnakes under it.  It was dangerous and holding up the house leveling process. There was no way to coax the live snakes out.  And no one wanted to crawl under the house and get them.  So, Jerry and I decided that we needed to rent a jackhammer and bust up the slab.  We thought that when the generator was cranked and the jack hammering commenced, the…

Layers Onions have layers.  Houses do too.  Our house had a layer of trash and a layer of filth we had to deal with before we could begin the restoration process.  Turns out, there were more layers that needed to be peeled away before we could start making true progress.  I will never forget looking at Jerry and asking “how much further down do we have to go before we hit bottom?”  In other words, will there be any house left after we take out all the non-original stuff and after we replace what the rats and termites had eaten?  The sheet rock, wallpaper and nail removal process certainly revealed…

You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For… After we emptied the house, we turned our attention toward foundation and structural issues.  Raising and leveling the house prior to starting the renovation process was very important.  Once these were accomplished, we would be able to repair or replace any problematic floor joists and run the minimal plumbing we wanted to install.  Getting the right also meant that the house would be more square, facilitating window and door installation, siding installation and a myriad of other tasks ahead. There were two outfits that did house leveling in our area.  One group did enough jobs to live for a few months and…