Kitchen Update

I took advantage of a tidy kitchen today to snap some photos so I could update anyone who happens to stumble by my poor neglected blog.  As a (weak) excuse for the lack of posts here, I admit that a full year passed between the first builders grade oak cupboard door coming down and the last white-painted cupboard door being rehung.

So, for a quick review, here's the kitchen in 2009:

 

In 2011:

In 2013:

And today:

I'm rather proud of the fact that I did about 95% of this work by myself.  Painting helped hide a few imperfections, but all in all I'm quite happy with how everything turned out.  I did have help from my mom who cut all the arched brackets in her shop.  The little arch along the side of the refrigerator was her idea, and it's one of my favorite little details.  

I also had help from my uncle J, who moved an outlet and handled the electrical end of installing the new hood range.  As the earlier pictures show, the microwave used to set on a low shelf just above the stove.  The shelf was so low that it made using the stovetop awkward and dark.  It also seemed to be perpetually covered in grease and every other kind of cooking gunk.  The new hood is a basic model, but I love having the extra light and height when cooking. 

I also love the sink area.  I splurged on a new bridge style faucet and a mini-chandelier that matches the larger chandeliers in the kitchen and dining room.  Mom's brackets show up here at both the top and bottom of the upper cabinets, and I also like the new beadboard backsplash.  The laminate counters were a budget concession, but I'm still much happier with the mottled tan of the new counters than the garish green of the old. 

Like everything else around here, there are still a few details I'd like to tweak (like painting the dark toe-kick areas and adding little arches in front of the toe-kick to give more of a furniture look to the lower cabinets) but for now I'm calling the kitchen good. 

For You, Mom

You've been asking for another post here for a few weeks now and since you're on the opposite side of the country right now and any other gift will have to wait until you're home, here's an Einsel House post for you today.  Happy Mother's Day! : )

The basement windows at this house have been an issue as long as we have owned the place.  Previous owners raised the level of the yard in front of the house by about a foot, basically covering the basement windows on the west and north sides of the house.  When we bought the house the west facing basement windows (front of the house) had been removed and the holes filled with concrete.  The concrete is immediately obvious from inside the basement, but when outside the only evidence of the former windows still visible are the original window lintels, which are now right at the soil line.

The west facing basement window had not been removed, but it was in a sorry state when we bought the house.  Poor drainage coupled with a poorly sloped yard meant that whenever it rained water funneled to this window, pouring through into the basement below.  By the time we bought the house the sill for the window was completely gone and the two sides of the window frame were half rotted away.   The window itself was still in place, but we removed it in 2009 to stop it from further deterioration.  Then, because we had other more pressing issues during those late days of 2009, we temporarily "fixed" the resulting opening in the side of the house with a piece of foam board secured in place with liberal amounts of expanding foam.  (Classy, I know.) Outside, we covered the atrocity with a straw bale.

And so remained until this spring.  On one of our nice March days I pulled back the straw bale and dug out the long abused window.  Charles helped to break loose the foam board, and then we stood back and looked at the result:

Not very inspiring results for an afternoon of hard and dirty work.  But it was at least a starting point. 

(On a side note - I was surprised to uncover the poured concrete window well that is visible in the pictures.  It gives a good idea of the original level of the yard prior to it being raised by previous owners.) 

The nice weather in March gave way to a cold and wet April, so the straw bale (partnered with some plywood this time) went back over the gap in the house.  Meanwhile, I cleaned up the original three light window.  What had been the bottom exterior side was partially rotted, so I removed what was too far gone and treated what remained with a rotted wood stabilizer.  I also decided that when reinstalled I would rotate the window, so that the former exterior bottom (most exposure to water/weather) would become the interior top (least exposure to water/weather).  With the window primed and under one coat of paint I got to try my hand at glazing - and found I rather enjoyed it.  Luckily we had enough correctly sized panes of old glass to put two panes in each of the window's lights.  Another coat of paint, and the window was ready to go.  The frame was another story.

After taking the pictures above, I pried out what remained of the two sides of the frame.  They were too far rotted to try to save.  Each piece was a true 2" thick and 11" wide.  I called the local specialty lumber shop, but the owner said he could manage either 2" thick OR 11" wide, but in order to do both he would need to glue pieces together.  That didn't sound like a good idea for wood that was going to be used in a basement window frame below grade.  At my mom's suggestion (Hi, Mom!) she and I went back up to the old Second Empire house we salvaged bricks from last year.  This time we salvaged wood.  While we didn't find any 2x11 boards, we did bring home a 2 x 9 1/2 that we thought we could make work.

With mom's help, we cut pieces for the new window frame.  Under the gray weathered surface of that old wood was beautiful quarter sawn oak.  I commented to mom that you'd never find 2 inch thick quarter sawn oak used to frame a house today.

Back at the Einsel House, I decided to dry fit the pieces we had cut for the new frame before painting them.  That turned out to be a good idea.  At some point during that long afternoon I decided that it was definitely easier for the Einsel House's builders to build the stone walls around the already constructed window frame than it was for me to try to fit a new frame into the already constructed stone walls. When I finally got everything to fit together nicely, I pulled everything back out.  Since this wood will all be below grade I wanted to prime and paint all sides of each piece before installing them for good.

The remaining steps took almost another two weeks, but I can type them out much more quickly:

-seal, prime and paint (2 coats) the new sill and frame

-assemble frame in wall

-fill remaining gaps in top board with epoxy filler, sand, prime and paint (2 coats)

-install repaired window

-tuck point gap between the stone walls and new frame (I called our mason who gave me the correct mortar recipe for this step)

- build a stone retaining wall to bring the window well up to the current level of the yard

And, as of late yesterday afternoon, here is the "new" window:

I'm very pleased with this.  

So pleased I may even take my lunch outside today and eat it while admiring my work.  : )   

In the Details

There's an old barn just south of here on the county line that rests quietly in a grove of trees.  

I've been known at times to take a slightly longer route than necessary just so I could enjoy the scene pictured above.  Still, I had been driving by this barn for several years before I noticed a little detail near the gable peak.

See it?

This whole summer as I was working on our little Einsel shed I've had the old barn in mind.  So earlier this summer, with camera in tow, I stopped at the old barn. Although I knew there were three stars in the old barn's gable, it was only from inside the barn that I realized the peak was a five point star while the two lower were six point stars.

And so, the south facing gable peak of the Einsel shed:

I am so thrilled with how this turned out.  There's no corresponding interior picture from the shed, though.  Behind my stars are boards painted black with several holes drilled through to provide ventilation.  Secured to the front of the black-painted boards is a layer of screen to hopefully prevent wasps from nesting inside the shed. 

I've really enjoyed my work on this side of the shed, bringing to reality the details I've seen in my mind for so long.

Obviously, I'm not quite finished yet.  The upper right corner will continue out to incorporate the new awning, and I've got two doors to build and install.  With Thanksgiving and December around the corner I figure my outside work is basically done for the year, but I'm hoping my mom won't mind if I use her (heated) shop - and perhaps advice - while building the doors.  The door hardware I ordered is on backorder right now, so I've got a little time anyway.  (Oh, and since I'm guessing some may be curious, the thick wire hanging off of the roof is from the lightning rod.  I'm thinking eventually it will be rerouted to hang over the back of the shed instead of the front.)

I'll have two sides of the shed to finish next summer, but I'm quite pleased with what I've accomplished so far. 

Not too bad considering what the poor little building looked like last May:

: )

Creative Financing

We’re approaching the two year anniversary of a very nerve-wracking period here. The earliest posts on this blog recount the whole story in detail, but I’ll give the cliff notes version here. Basically, to say we bought the  Einsel House in an unconventional manner is an understatement.


Thursday, August 27, 2009 – Charles and I are the only bidders for the Einsel House when it is sold at sheriff sale. Immediately after the sale we find out there was an attorney who was supposed to bid for the bank, but he basically wasn’t paying attention and never placed any bid.

August 27-September 19, 2009 – Charles and I wait anxiously for closing (which we are told takes 6-8 weeks)

September 20, 2009 – Our attorney gets a phone call from the office of the attorney who didn’t bid at the sale. That attorney offers us $ to rescind our bid. If we refuse he threatens to contest the sale.

A few days later I wrote here, “So in the end we are not that concerned about losing the Einsel House. The main difficulties have to do with time and money. And lack of sleep. I'll elaborate on the "time and money" stuff later…”. Well, it’s two years later, and we obviously did get the house, and it feels now like a good time to finally share some of the details I withheld back then.

Anyone who has read here regularly already knows that we owe my parents (particularly my mom) a huge thank you for all of the help they have provided at the EH, especially during those first nine months. But what regular readers here don’t realize is that we are indebted to my parents for more than just their time and labor. We also owe them innumerable thanks for their trust in Charles and me. That is because much of the money spent on the Einsel House during those first nine months was money borrowed in my parents’ names and borrowed against their house.

Charles and I have always been conservative financially. When we started looking at houses we went to the bank regarding preapproval for a loan. We told the loan officer how much we planned to borrow, he took our information, pulled our credit scores and immediately said, “That will be no problem!”. The bank loved Charles and I, but it turns out we were only half of the equation; the other half was the Einsel House. And the bank wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic about the EH. It made no difference how high our credit scores were; with a patchwork roof, peeling paint, crumbling drywall and no furnace there was no way the Einsel House would qualify for a conventional loan.

Our loan officer said we would probably qualify for a construction loan (portfolio loan I think he called it), but the extra hoops such a loan would require made Charles and me very cautious. As I understood it, with a construction loan the bank would have to review and approve everything we did to the house. We would have to provide the bank with documentation that all work was done by licensed, insured professionals and we would have to have quotes approved by the bank before any work could begin. Trying to renovate the house with a bank looking over our shoulder through the entire process did not sound fun at all.

Enter my parents - who had a house that would easily qualify for a conventional loan. When we brought the possibility up with our loan officer I think he was somewhat taken aback, but he said that from the bank’s perspective it would be no problem. If my parents’ house and personal credit both qualified, the bank really didn’t care how the money was spent. So my parents applied for a home equity line of credit in their names, and with their house on the line. The plan was to use the HELOC to make the repairs needed in order for the Einsel House to qualify for a conventional loan. Charles and I would be responsible for all fees and payments required on the HELOC, and once the Einsel House was up to par we would refinance it in our own names, using the proceeds to pay off the HELOC in my parents’ names.

The paperwork for the HELOC against my parents’ house went through without any complications, and on September 17, 2009 they signed their names opening the line of credit. We were all set for our closing on the Einsel House – until three days later when we suddenly had an attorney threatening to contest the sale.

This added a whole new set of complications to the situation. The line of credit through my parents was set up and ready to go, and from that front we were still able to close and start repairs. But the attorneys I work for cautioned us strongly against putting any money into the house with the possibility of litigation hanging over us. Although they felt that we stood a very good chance of keeping the house in a court battle, they said that if the sale was somehow reversed we would probably lose any funds invested in the building above the purchase price. The courts would say that any improvements we made to the house while it was the subject of ongoing litigation were a “known risk” and if we lost the house we would also lose any money spent on improvements. Legally, the safest thing would be to close on the house, but then not put any more money into it until we were sure we were not headed to court. But it was already late September, and the house in question had no furnace and needed obvious structural repairs. There was no way we wanted to let it sit empty through the approaching winter.

The loan officer at our bank had more bad news. The home equity line of credit through my parents was still there, and the bank still didn’t care how that money was spent. But our loan officer warned us that the bank would never approve a refinance on a property that was the subject of ongoing litigation. This meant that even if we took our chances and made the necessary repairs to the Einsel House we would not be able to refinance it until any possible litigation was resolved. This was concerning for two reasons. First, the HELOC had an adjustable interest rate and we wanted to be able to refinance as soon as possible to secure a fixed rate. Second, Charles and I were planning on a conventional 30 year loan when we refinanced; but the HELOC was based on a 10 year amortization. This meant that our monthly payments on the HELOC were more than double what they would be following a refinance. We were prepared to make those payments for awhile, but being tied to those payments indefinitely was very concerning – especially because it was technically my parents who were on the line.

The attorneys I work for were quite confident that if push came to shove case law would ultimately uphold our purchase of the Einsel House. But they warned that even if we ultimately prevailed in court, it could take a long time to get there. The attorney opposing the sale was the senior partner in a multiple member firm. Even if he knew he would lose, it would cost him nothing but time if he chose to be a thorn in our side (and we had no reason to doubt that he would).

In the end we bought the other attorney’s cooperation by paying him an amount equal to half of his malpractice insurance deductible in exchange for his signature on a "Covenant Not to Intervene or Interfere in Sale." Considering the alternatives it was a concession we felt we had to make. And in the end it did all work out. We closed without complications on the Einsel House on October 7, 2009. For eight months we made payments on the line of credit open in my parents’ names, and in June, 2010 we closed on the refinance of the Einsel House, paying off the HELOC and settling into a conventional fixed rate 30 year mortgage.

It’s a little bit surreal to recall the emotional highs and lows surrounding our purchase of the Einsel House.  If I were making the whole story up I don't think I could have put more twists and turns along the way.  Looking back, I remember the last advice my dad shared with me on the morning of the sheriff sale -  "Just relax," he said, "if it's meant to be it will be".  And in the end, I'm so glad that he was right.

Before the Befores

As promised, this post will be full of older pictures of the house.  We've collected these from several sources - all various previous owners or renters of the EH.  The picture in yesterday's post is the oldest of the bunch.  (I'm still dreaming of finding a picture of the original front porch.)

Continuing with more exterior pictures of the house, here is an aerial photo taken in the mid 1990's:

We'd been told that the house used to be surrounded by trees, but seeing this picture still made me catch my breath.  The only tree in the above photo that was still standing by the time we bought the property is the solitary walnut alongside the drive at the bottom of the picture.  I do wish some of the trees around the house were still here.

Next up is the old bank barn:

I'm told the original barn sat basically where our pole barn now stands.  Although this picture only shows the front of the barn, there was a long "ell" off the back of the barn that extended down nearly to the creek.  Looking out the window as I type this, it's hard to believe the view of the pasture used to be so different.  The old barn was torn down in 1996/97, in preparation for putting the property on the market.  By all accounts the barn was in poor condition when it was torn down.  (It was also, by all accounts, full of large old growth timber.)

Up next, the south side of the house, mid 1990's:

This is one of my favorite old pictures of the house. I've got a list of "someday" projects for the EH, and high on that list is bringing back that little side porch.

At left is a close up of the porch from the picture above. I love the pilaster at the top of the right handrail (which also gives me clues as to recreating the original front porch, another "someday" project). I'm also pleased that this picture shows the interior walls of the porch were covered in clapboard siding. The large pipe that is visible was the vent for the bathroom. If we ever do reopen the side porch we will almost certainly move the bathroom's location at the same time, meaning we could forego this one detail.

The pictures below show the same area, circa 1996 at left, and today at right:

The door and window in the 1996 picture went out to the porch pictured above.  The current door goes to the bathroom.  I wish the 1996 picture was brighter so that I could make out more details on the door. (Looks like we need a larger area rug!)

Our 1996 photographer did a 180 degree turn after taking the above picture to snap these two pictures of the kitchen:

(I hope you'll forgive me, P, if you ever see this blog post, but it was one of the best pictures of the old kitchen.) 

These earlier kitchen pictures intrigue me. What I see in these pictures (especially the horizontal board 2/3 up the wall) seems to reinforce my belief that the kitchen addition dates from the 1880s or earlier.

At right is a current photo taken at the same angle as the right picture above.  The ivory light-switch and plate in the current photo are black in the earlier photo, if that helps you orient the two pictures.  The left picture above shows the wall that used to divide the kitchen wing into two rooms.  (Note the flue cover, and compare it to the location of the chimney in the picture below.) 

The last picture I have to share today shows the back of the house, again circa 1996.  See the little cupola over the kitchen roof?  No one I've talked to can ever remember it having a bell, but it seems obvious to me that it was intended to house a bell.  The cupola blew off during a storm sometime after 1997.  Replacing it is another item on the "someday" list. 

And with that, I'll end this post.  I've got a cake cooling in the kitchen and a seven-year-old boy who is quite anxious to frost it.  : )

"Plans are only good intentions...

...unless they immediately degenerate into hard work."  ~Peter F. Drucker

2010 was quite a year here at the Einsel House. Here's a selection of scenes around the house from the beginning of 2010:

By December things looked a bit different:

And if we can accomplish half of the projects I have planned for 2011 then things should look different still by next December.

So, what’s in store for 2011 you ask?

The Shed

This poor little building is long overdue for a little love. The picture at left was taken in October of 2009, but it basically looks the same now.  Our plans for this spring/summer are to tear off and replace the rotten awning, recoat the metal roof, wrap the entire building in tar paper and then cover it with salvaged barn siding.

The Stone Bridge

This is perhaps the most intimidating project on the horizon, but given the rate the bridge is eroding I know we should not put this off. The plan is to rebuild the bridge in 4 sections, starting with the northern half of the west side. I suspect this may be a four year project.

The Springhouse
Although the springhouse was the focus of much attention in 2010, the work on this little building is not yet finished. I want to replace the windows and finish work on the roof, as well as plant some ivy or other ground cover around the new stone walls in front of the springhouse.

More Masonry Work
We’re saving our pennies so that we can have our masonry contractor return this spring to repoint the east side (back) of the house. The previous owner of the EH repointed the north side of the house, and our mason did the west side in the fall of 2009 and the south side in June, 2010. Once the east wall is repointed this spring/summer we will save up and hopefully be able to have the chimneys rebuilt sometime in 2012.

The Kitchen
I'm quite excited about my plans for this room and predict I’ll dive into this project sometime before January ends. More details should be coming in a post soon.
The Yard
The yard here is currently a blank if somewhat bumpy slate. My (perhaps overly ambitious) plans for this summer include clearing a small area along the creek for a stone bench that Charles’ parents gave to us last year and planting a vegetable/herb garden in front of the kitchen wing and surrounding it with a picket fence. And of course more general leveling and stump clearing.

So here’s to twenty-eleven. Do I think all of the projects outlined above will be completed a year from now? Probably not. But we’ll have fun trying!

House Tour

After last weekend's open house, I thought it might be fun to do a house tour here on the blog as well.  These are candid shots, taken just after church on Sunday.  My apologies in advance for the glare in some of these.  The sunny weather was perfect for the open house, but not so perfect for taking indoor pictures.

First up - the kitchen.

Pictured below is the north end of the kitchen, where we had to lower the cathedral ceiling.  That warbrobe pictured in the last post is going to go in the corner of this room to corral the toys currently overwhelming those MDF shelves that I abhor. 

And the 'kitchen-y' end of the kitchen: 

Most people disagree with my plans to paint these cupboards.  But so far that hasn't convinced me to give up my plans - namely, adding crown molding, painting all cupboards (except the island) off white, and replacing the door hardware, counters (again except the island) and sink.

Moving on to the dining room:

That cupboard in the corner of the room was a jelly cupboard from my grandparents' basement.  In 1997 I stripped the old paint off as a 4-H project.  Last month I sanded down glossy poly finish and put it back under paint.  I love the punch of color it adds to the room.

Next up - the office:

The white chest of drawers between the bookcases was left by the previous owners.  Eventually I want to clean it up, repaint it and change the hardware. 

Yes, we have two computer monitors.  (Charles only consents to living in an old house so long as I consent to allowing his modern toys in said old house.) 

The stacked cabinet on the right side of the above picture is easily the most commented on piece of furniture in our house.  It's also the first piece of furniture I ever bought.  I was 15 years old when I stumbled across it at an antique store in Marietta, Ohio. My parents and I were killing time before I could sign in for the week long archeology camp I was registered for at Marietta College. A "lawyer’s cabinet" was what the shop owner called it, but the price tag hanging from one of the drawers ($750) was too steep for my parents.  We left to check out other shops, but I was too smitten by the lawyer's cabinet to let it go that easily.  Just as we headed back to the van so I could check in at the archealogy camp the solution occurred to me.  I could buy the cabinet.  Myself.  With my own money.  (At 15 this was a novel idea.)

But by the time this solution occurred to me there was not enough time left for me to return to the antique store.  So once I was settled in at Marietta College for the week my parents returned to the shop.  My dad had promised to do his best for me bargaining with the shop owner.  If he could get the price down to six hundred dollars they would buy the cabinet for me.  Cell phones were still a novelty in 1995, so it was a few days before I was able to call home.  Of course, the first thing I asked about was the lawyer's cabinet.  My mom was apologetic, but she told me the shop's owner would not budge at all on his price.  When they picked me up at the end of the week, she promised, I could go back to the shop and try bargaining with him myself.

So I spent the week playing in the dirt and traipsing around Indian mounds.  And at the end of the week my mom made the drive back down to Marietta to pick me up.  When I got in the van I noticed the signature cardboard envelope of a 24 hour photo development place sitting - perhaps too conspicuously - on the console between the front seats.  As mom had to know I would, I immediately opened the envelope and began flipping through the pictures inside.  Somehow she coaxed me out of the van as I looked through the stack of pictures.  She had her camera ready at her side.  And as soon as I got to the picture of the lawyer's cabinet that they told me they hadn't bought sitting in our living room, right between the computer and rocking chair, mom took this picture:

The receipt for the lawyer's cabinet is still tucked in the back of one of the index card drawers. 

Dad had talked the shop owner down to $575.

 

But, jumping back to the present, we're up to the Einsel living room:

(Sorry about the glare in those.) 

And yes, I realize that a clock needs to go on that shelf instead of a picture - an ogee clock to be precise - but I'll talk about that more in another post.

Heading on upstairs:

This circa 1860's child's bed was a perfect fit for the little nook at the top of the stairs.  It originally belonged to my great great grandmother's sister, who left it one of my grandmother's cousins, who left it to me.  The quilt on it is an heirloom from Charles' side of the family.  His paternal grandmother began the quilt in 1953, when she was expecting her fourth child.  Sadly, the pregnancy ended in toxemia (eclampsia).  Baby Joseph Allen lived only one day.  His mother held on for 13 days.  Later, Charles' great grandmother finished the quilt that her daughter-in-law had begun. 

Here's the view of the stairway from inside the back bedroom:

And Cecilia's view from her bed:

Neil's view is through the windows pictured here:

 

And Charles and my room last:

The place has come a long way in just one year.  Still, it feels a bit sparse.  I'm constantly plotting what to hang on the walls and what other pieces of furniture would be a good fit.  Based on my experience with our last house, I expect the finishing details will take me years.  I'd rather live with a blank wall indefinately, waiting for something that feels perfect, than to put up a picture that feels mehhhh just because I have it on hand. 

That's the tour - although it's much better in person.  : )