All winter, I’ve been gazing at our lovely interior wood trim and moldings, debating whether I should start stripping them. It seems that all the cool kids have done it, and it looks absolutely beautiful. But it does take immense, heaping amounts of time and patience. Two things we’re usually pretty short on.
Teague and I debate back and forth. Sure, it would look pretty, but the off-white paint that’s there now looks crisp and fresh against our wall colors. And I am not someone who can piece a task like this out slowly but surely in my “free time”. I get consumed. Obsessed. I know I would turn into a paint-stripping monster the minute we brought out the heatgun. I’ve been known to skip showers and meals in order to continue peeling wallpaper. Which is why I haven’t dared start stripping our woodwork yet… but still, I waffle.
Then tonight, I came across this little tidbit from The UK Victorian Society’s website:
Is stripped pine an authentic Victorian finish?
The stripped pine look is a late twentieth-century fad: before the 1960s, joinery was painted (or, occasionally, stained to resemble expensive and exotic woods and then varnished). The only exposed pine in a Victorian house was the well-scrubbed top of the kitchen dresser or table.
Expensive timber such as solid oak or mahogany was polished or varnished, to enhance its natural beauty and to make it easier to clean.
Are we off the hook? Is painted woodwork actually more historically accurate than stripped? Or is this just a UK thing? I’m dying to know, because most of the beautiful historic homes I’ve been in have stripped woodwork, so I always assumed this was the “right” look.
If you’ve got time, poke around The Victorian Society’s site:
http://www.victorian-society.org.uk/:
They have some interesting information, and they’re in on the house blogging too!
I know, you’re just dying to hear about our adventures this past weekend. Unfortunately, it’s pretty boring stuff. More parging of basement walls, and more floor jacking. We wrangled Teague’s father into helping us again, and between the 3 of us we made good progress. Teague and Don continued work on the back end of the house, and I parged one of the foundation walls until we ran out of cement mortar – I went through 3 80lb bags for a section that was roughly 7×12. Lots of big holes to fill!
What’s parging, you ask?
PARGING – A coat of cement over block foundation walls, or a coat of plaster over stone or brick walls.
Yeehaw, right?
I took a photo of my glorious parged wall, which is totally unremarkable except for one little thing – the glowing orb that showed up in it. My theory? It must be a baby ghostie. Our basement does look like something out of the Blair Witch Project………
Could this be Fixer Upper’s first ghost? Or should I count the pink flying bits as the first one?
I know, you’re just dying to hear about our adventures this past weekend. Unfortunately, it’s pretty boring stuff. More parging of basement walls, and more floor jacking. We wrangled Teague’s father into helping us again, and between the 3 of us we made good progress. Teague and Don continued work on the back end of the house, and I parged one of the foundation walls until we ran out of cement mortar – I went through 3 80lb bags for a section that was roughly 7×12. Lots of big holes to fill!
What’s parging, you ask?
PARGING – A coat of cement over block foundation walls, or a coat of plaster over stone or brick walls.
Yeehaw, right?
I took a photo of my glorious parged wall, which is totally unremarkable except for one little thing – the glowing orb that showed up in it. My theory? It must be a baby ghostie. Our basement does look like something out of the Blair Witch Project………
Could this be Fixer Upper’s first ghost? Or should I count the pink flying bits as the first one?
I’m a magazine junkie. I buy cheapo subscriptions (usually for about $5) because I KNOW I’ll be suckered into buying them for $4-5 a pop if I have nothing to look forward to when the mailman comes.
Since buying the house, my magazine tastes have changed. I used to read fluffy girly ones like Lucky and Jane. Now, we get Country Living Magazine, Home, This Old House, and The Family Handyman.
If you’ve never read The Family Handyman before, it’s worth a look. Unlike This Old House magazine, the repairs and projects are realistic. You won’t find a million-dollar remodel of a gorgeous historic home, but you will find good tips for your next drywall job and some cool ways to organize your garage. They also have pretty funny “oops” stories, where you’ll learn what NOT to do.
Their website gives you some idea as to their style:
http://www.rd.com/familyhandyman/
It’s not on par with a Taunton Press publication, but we like it!
We’ve grown so used to our house’s slopes and valleys that we hardly notice them. But when they go away, it’s hard to miss!
Teague and his father, Don, spent last Saturday crawling around in the basement jacking the back side of the house. This is the hardest part to reach because it’s partially blocked by an unused cistern and filled with gas and water lines. That didn’t slow them down though. Here’s Don, covered in cobwebs and dirt:
By the end of the day, they had jacked one of the ledgers up about an inch, making a VERY noticeable difference in the kitchen and bathroom floors. They also repaired many of the joists and added support to some that had been cut. (Pictures to follow when I get my camera working again!) Because the kitchen floor is newly tiled, we worried about cracking it and ended up cutting a few of the grout lines with a circular saw so that the floor had some wiggle room. I’m happy to report that no tiles were broken despite the significant shift, and we will regrout that small strip when we’re done jacking.
The only other negative outcome of the jacking was a few small hairline cracks in the dining room’s plaster walls – mostly around the doorways. They will be easy to repair, also. The tradeoff – a few small fixes for a stable foundation – are well worthwhile!
Teague and Don also poured new cement footings and will be putting up new posts – possibly this weekend – to replace the hydraulic jacks that are holdling things up right now. Then they’ll move to the next problem area. Teague estimates that the job is about 1/4 of the way done, and what’s ahead is easier work. All good!
On Sunday, Teague and I worked on parging one of the more crumbly outer foundation walls. We mixed up some mortar in a wheelbarrow and filled in all the cracks and gaps, essentially making it a smooth and solid wall again. This is a cheap and easy fix, and an important one since we’re shifting much of the house’s weight back onto the foundation walls.
Here’s what the basement looked like on Saturday:
Notice the wall in the very back. That’s the one we parged on Sunday. It’s looking MUCH better now. More foundation work is scheduled for this weekend, so stay tuned.
I was prepared to write a post about our foundation jacking progress, but first I want to say hi to all the Canastota High Schoolers who must be learning about blogging in their technology class! I think it’s very cool that their teacher, Mr. Lasnicki, is sending them our way. By the time these guys graduate, blogging might be a lucrative job. It would definitely be a fun one.
They left some very sweet comments, some “wish I was playing solitaire instead” sentiments, and one, well, odd one – excuse the language, but Matt would like to know “y u fuckin in one of these pics”.
He MUST be asking why I’m not in the photos, because he can’t be implying what it sounds as if he’s implying. Right? ;)
The first words out of Teague’s mouth this morning were “I swear, I took them off at the front door”. He was marveling at the plaster-caked footprints from one end of the house to the other. But his work boots, parked guiltily in front of the back door (the end of the trail) say otherwise.
This isn’t a new phenomenon – huge messes are a regular occurance at our house. I make them too. It’s to be expected with a fixer upper, and usually it doesn’t phase me. We covered every inch of the kitchen in dust this Saturday, and I didn’t even blink. But since I had JUST spent 3 hours Hoover-Floormating grout dust and basement dirt off the floors, my fingers were itching to throttle something. I’m over it now, and I’ve accepted a few things….
Truth #1:
I’ll never get Teague to take his dirty shoes off when he comes in the house.
Truth #2:
I’ll never be excited about extra cleaning chores.
Truth #3:
We both have better things to do with our time than clean the floors (or argue about cleaning the floors).
So I ordered up a box of these:
They’ll probably be taped to our front and back doors with a big sign that says “NO DIRTY SHOES”. So if you happen to stop by to say hello, rest assured the sign is not meant for you ;)
Since our big newspaper debut, our secret is out. Our double-life is exposed. Coworkers and acquaintances now know what strange, obsessed house enthusiasts we have become. I’m enjoying the attention more than I thought I would ;)
Everyone has been sweetly supportive, congratulating us on taking on our ambition and progress thus far. But many are also wondering why we chose this particular house, in a small town that is about 45 minutes away from where I work. A town so quiet, many people from the area haven’t even heard of it.
There is of course a long-winded answer to this, but the short answer is that we wanted small town life and an affordable old house. Prior to buying the Fixer Upper, we lived in an apartment in East Syracuse and were getting mighty tired of it. The neighborhood was going down hill, fast. Teague and I grew up in quiet little spots, in unique and spacious houses. We always had lawns, and trees, and friendly neighbors. So we were never happy having loud, obnoxious, and downright dangerous neighbors throwing garbage on our lawn and screaming lewd remarks at us from their porch steps.
In the Syracuse area, anything historic, close to the city and in a good neighborhood was out of our price range. So our search expanded past the suburbs to more rural areas, like our pretty little Canal Town, where we found exactly what we were looking for. Despite it’s imperfections (of which there are many), our house called to us from the minute we walked in the door. I remember squeezing Teague’s hand, trying hard to “play it cool” in front of the real-estate agent but knowing that we’d finally found something we both would love.
Over a year later, the commute has lost it’s thrill, but the house has not. I still love turning the corner on my way home and seeing it pop into view. And I grow to love our little town more and more every day. The people are friendly, I can walk the dogs in peace, and there are no street brawls breaking out in front of our house. Enjoying the company of your neighbors and feeling safe in your house is worth a longer commute!
Are there any other Why’s you’re just dying to know? (Like, why I have two of the tiniest dogs in existance, or why Teague’s wearing the same shirt in every photo?)
I’m dreaming of the day our (thoroughly cleaned) hardwood floors do not look like they’re caked with four layers of mud and grit and grime. Right now, they ain’t pretty. Even my father, who’s more frugal than me, thought maybe we should just throw down carpet and hide them for a bit. But I’ve held fast to the belief that they WILL be refinished, and WILL look good. Or at least, much better.
Here’s the before:
You can’t see it in this photo, but we also have a “speed bump”, two boards that are so warped and raised they’re hard not to trip over. We screwed them down for safety’s sake, but they’ll be cut out and replaced. As will anything rotted – we’ve got some bad rot areas near the radiators.
My job is to track down replacement wood. We’re pretty sure it’s red oak, but if you think we’re wrong, please share! I’m planning to call Significant Elements and Historic Houseparts, our two favorite salvage shops. Hopefully they’ll have something close to a match.
We’ll be working on the basement jacking (better to finish that first, as it affects the way the floorboards squish together) and generally getting things in shape for sanding. We won’t actually sand until the weather is nicer, since it will need to air out.
Any tips on what we can do to prep them while the weather’s still nasty?
Bear with me while I put on my web geek hat for a moment. This post isn’t house related but it *is* house-blogger related.
For months, I’ve been meaning to write about using feed readers like Bloglines, which allow you to “collect” all the latest posts from your favorite blogs (like us, of course) in one place. If you’re checking a bunch of blogs every day to see if they’re updated, this makes life a whole lot easier. Once you start using feeds, you’ll be amazed at the amount of information you can take in every day. More knowledge, less work – and ultimately, less time spent in front of the computer. Gotta love that.
For those new to the blog and “feed” world, Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune has such a great step-by-step tutorial that beats the pants off anything I’d put together. Read it here:
23 real simple steps to making your Internet life much better
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