If you’re itching to live in Ohio, you can buy yourself a fully-furnished Victorian……. off of eBay!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=12605&item=4359269436&rd=1

I saw this article on Bob Vila’s site and thought it had a good set of guidelines for the type of demolition work we’re doing on the back of the house:

Deconstruction for Reuse and Salvage

We didn’t get a permit before we started tearing down……. oops. Didn’t know we needed one!

How great is my fiance? I came home from work yesterday to find the walls of our back porch GONE! When he gets into a project, he’s a maniac. He’s a neat maniac, though – he got all the debris loaded onto a trailer, and salvaged all of the clapboard siding, decorative elements, and useful wood.

What sparked the late winter demolition work? More insurance woes. We’re still trying to get things straightened out on that front. We’d like to go with the default New York State insurance for now, but are having trouble finding anyone to actually give it to us. The NYS people don’t answer phones or emails it seems. Yesterday we did make some progress though, and hopefully by the end of today we’ll have an answer.

In the meantime, it became evident that this project has to get done a.s.a.p. The New York State insurance covers the house at cost, so the bank would get their money back if it burned to the ground. But we’d be out on the streets if something major happened, so it’s not something we want to keep for very long. With nicer weather FINALLY heading our way, it’s time to say goodbye to the crumbling end of the house. We don’t feel too bad about it, since it’s not an original part of the house and sticks out like a sore thumb.

We’re looking into renting a dumpster by Friday, so this weekend will be a work weekend for sure! Maybe I’ll throw this on my iPod for inspiration.

sent this beauty to us yesterday!

I came home from a long day of work and errands and tripped over a very large box in our entryway. Imagine my excitement when I turned on the porch light and saw what it was. This saw is something Teague has been drooling over for months, and it was one of the first things he put on the Home Depot registry. So he’s in heaven right now, looking for any and every reason to make a nice angled cut.

No card attached though, so we don’t know who to thank!

EDITED TO ADD: We found a card in the box (Teague has it open and is using it right now!!), and the saw is from his relatives, Stan and Anita Baron. Thanks, guys!

Phase one of the downstairs bathroom is, for all intents and purposes, done.

WHOOOO!

It looks the same as in previous pics, so I won’t post again but for those who missed it, here’s the money shots.

I patched some wallpaper into the closet on Sunday, and painted the remaining trim. Now all we need is a new shower curtain and a few baskets to hide cleaning supplies, and we’re set. Which reminds me, I should stop by Target and reigster for a new shower curtain and baskets. Our wedding shower is in less than a month!

EDITED:

Apparently, because I’m on a University campus I have free access to this online tool while others do not. That seems unfair and somewhat silly, but my guess is that most public libraries would have access to this site as well. Or, you might be able to find other online resources – ones that are accessible to all! If you do, let me know and I’ll post them here.

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Gary, over at This Old Crack House, set me off on a very productive Google search that I thought I’d share with all of you.

He suggested looking up the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, available online and at various libraries. A quick search turned up great results online – no trip to the library necessary. (Though our library is beautiful, and I never mind visiting.)

Below is a link to an online version where I found detailed maps of Canastota dating back to March 1890!

http://sanborn.umi.com/

The weather around here is bringing me down. This morning, while driving to work, the temperature was a balmy 14 degrees. The sun was shining so it could be worse, but this many weeks in a state of perpetual cold has taken it’s toll on my motivation. Our house is cold (thanks to ultra-high gas bills we’ve been lowering the thermostat), so when I get home the only thing I want to do is curl up in a blanket on the couch.

The key, then, is to make my couch time productive in some way. That’s why I’ve decided to rent a few “victoriana” movies so I can fawn over the gorgeous sets.

I found a great list of movies at the Victorian Preservation Association site (http://www.vpa.org/bookstore.html) to get me started.

The Age of Innocence is at the top of our list, and might be my first rental. This movie was partially filmed in Troy, NY – my old college town. Downtown Troy has it’s fair share of crime and poverty, but it also has some beautiful victorian-era buildings, storefronts and ironwork. Numerous other movies have been filmed there as well, including The Time Machine, The Bostonians, and the The Emperors Club. The house that is featured in Age of Innocence is actually a frat house; students call it “The Castle” because, well, it looks like an old stone castle plunked down in the middle of Troy. At the time of it’s construction in the 1890’s, it was heralded as the most extravagant residence in Troy

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, we’re not completely finished, but the downstairs bathroom “quick fix” is looking really good so I wanted to post pictures anyway….

The Problem:
Downstairs bathroom was hideously nasty. Wallpaper was badly stained (nicotine) and has cat claw marks all over it. Linoleum floor was 70’s orange and curling up at the edges. Ceiling had been painted and was cracked and flaking. Paint chips would fall off every now and then and flutter to the floor. Best part was it’s probably lead-based.

The Goal:
Make the bathroom less frightening without spending a ton of money. Solution is not long-term, since the tub needs to be torn out (it leaks) and the rotting sub-floor needs to replaced. This room looked so disgusting, even I was afraid to pee there and I’m the one who scrubbed it with bleach from top to bottom.

The Solution:
Removed a rusted old medicine cabinet and light fixture, rewired the bathroom, added a light over the toilet and installed two new light fixtures. Just Walmart cheapies for now, but they are still a big improvement. Got rid of the old wallpaper (all 5 layers) and put up new stuff we got for a $1/roll at Menards. Painted all of the trim with paint we had leftover from the dining room makeover. Used some sticky-backed tiles that the previous owners left in the basement to cover up the orange linoleum.

And my favorite part…… we bought some paintable wallpaper from Home Depot (similar to this) that has a great tin ceiling-like raised design. Since the tub isn’t usable, we decided it’d be ok to wallpaper the ceiling to cover up the paint mess. IT LOOKS AWESOME!

Here’s a comparison…. ignore the tools and materials lying all over the “after” :)

Eventually we’d like to add wainscotting too, but for now this will do just fine. No more scaring off house guests – whoooo!

The day we moved in, the front entryway had three broken windows. Two were glass (one with duct tape keeping it together) and one had a plexiglass replacement “pane” in it.

Since the insurance companies aren’t fond of broken windows, we’ve been working on replacing them. We wanted to keep it authentic, so we went the route of replacing the glass. Since the weather has been awful, working on any outdoor project hasn’t topped our favorites list.

Here’s what we did:

1. Called our local glass company with precise measurements. Measure the sash at different points if it’s an old house; our side panels were not exactly rectangular (surprise, surprise). We made a cardboard template for the door pane, which has an arched top. Make sure you’ve got an 1/8″ clearance all the way around.

2. Removed old glazing and trim VERY CAREFULLY. We didn’t do this with the first pane, and learned the hard way that quarter-round has shrunk a bit in the last hundred years (much like 2x4s)

3. Removed all of the glass.

4. Cleaned out all the old putty, caulk, etc. Our glass guy stressed that a clean surface is important.

5. Fit the glass into the window

6. Tapped the trim back on and wood puttied gaps and holes. For the front door, we will be applying a putty compound because there was no trim holding it in.

7. Paint (we haven’t done this yet, tsk tsk)

Ta-da!

There’s other things we could have done, such as use glazier points, but overall I think we did a decent job. The new glass looks great. We used 1/4″ thick safety glass for the door, so hopefully it will withstand a good hard slam.

how can you resist loving dogs this cute?

This picture was taken the same day that Nero (the min-pin) left a nice “surprise” in the passenger seat of the car while Teague and I were in an antique store, then managed to step in it and track it ALL OVER THE SEATS, requiring us to drive to a nearby gas station and purchase Handi-Wipes for emergency clean-up. Bruiser, meanwhile, managed to eat an entire apple including the core, plus a few paper bags and a piece of plastic wrap. All this while we naively imagined then to be napping in the sun as we had left them.

So I guess you could resist, if you really tried.