Another Weekend Report

This weekend was more of the same. Sanding, sanding, sanding. Pictured below is the hallway upstairs, before sanding at left, and after at right. (We didn't do the railing yet, but with everything else done I'm thinking it really should be done now too.)

I should have taken a picture of the other end of the hall as well. If I had, you would see that we also got all three bedroom doors and their accompanying trim sanded as well.

That was Saturday, with Charles and I working together. Charles kept busy with the power tools on the smooth surfaces while I inched around the room with a variety of scrapers and sanding blocks working on the trim. The picture at right was actually taken a couple weeks ago, but it is an accurate portrayal of how I spent all of Saturday. 12 hours straight of that kind of work is hard on the arms.

When we got back to the farm Saturday night, my mom reported that our oldest kidlet was requesting a Mom Day, so Charles went to the Einsel House by himself today, while the kids and I spent some quality time together. Of course, some of that quality time was spent picking up our special ordered 600 square feet of kitchen and bath flooring. As we pulled out of the parking lot with the back end of the van weighed down rather heavily, the youngest kidlet was singing, "You save big money, you save big money, when you shop Menards!"

Back at the Einsel House, Charles finished sanding in our future bedroom. (I'll have to tackle the edging job in our room on another day.) The living room is the next (and final) room on the sanding list.

In other news, new floor registers are popping up in various rooms. Even better, there is heat coming from these registers! That's right, for the first time this winter we actually have central heating at the Einsel House. Before this, it was usually about 80 degrees in the basement, around 60 degrees on the first floor, and pretty darn cold upstairs. Now, we can set the thermostat and get the same temperature throughout the house. This is all because the HVAC crew went ahead and hooked the temporary furnace to all the new ductwork they've installed. The new furnace and heat pump are sitting in boxes in the kitchen waiting for us to get done sanding, and then they will be installed.

(I realize that the register is the focal point of that last picture, but did you notice the beautiful, nicely sanded baseboard in the background?)

The House Next Door

Alternately titled "See, Charles, It Could Be Worse"

How amazing is this place!? As the first picture suggests, this cabin sits deep in the woods at least 1/2 a mile back from the road. I had driven by for years without even knowing it was there. There is no evidence that the house ever had electricity or indoor plumbing. I've been told by someone who grew up nearby that this place was already empty and falling down back in the 1950's.


Between the house and the road are the remains of a barn foundation. Supposedly the barn itself was burned down by a hired hand in retaliation against the homeowner. When this occurred I'm not sure, but the passage of time is clearly indicated by trees nearly a foot in diameter growing inside the barn foundation. According to the elderly neighbor who farms the land north of us, the barn was stacked full of original growth walnut lumber when it burned.


Normally, seeing an abandoned house saddens (and often angers) me. But this place is somehow different. The crime of abandonment occurred so long ago that whatever penance I would typically feel is due has surely already been paid. All old houses have a sense of story, but with this cabin, that story feels almost tangible. It sits right on the surface, with no 1970's paneling or 1930's linoleum to strip away. The appeal is undeniable, and yet, to give in to that appeal feels vaguely like committing a crime. The isolation that pervades this place is so overwhelming that any honest visit feels like an intrusion.


But I don't think that will be enough to keep me away.

The Weekend Report

First, an update on the bathroom floor. First thing Saturday morning I planned to take another picture of the hole, this time with the basement light on, but our general contractor had installed the new subfloor the day before, so it's another photo opportunity missed.

Also on Friday, the contractors finished the ceiling over the north end of the kitchen. The last step here will be rebuilding beams to match the south end of the kitchen.

Speaking of the south end of the kitchen, here it is:

It's the heart of the home - even mid-renovation. : )

As for what we accomplished this weekend, Saturday we continued sanding woodwork in the laundry room. It was a race to the finish, but when we left that night we considered the room done. Unfortunately, inspecting our work yesterday I found a few areas that still have those annoying circular arches left by the random orbital hand sander, so at some point I'll have to sand those areas out by hand. Here's a picture of those two baseboards that had to be stripped of paint before they could be sanded (pardon all the dust in the air):

And a close-up of one section of baseboard:

Sunday we put down the sanders and moved upstairs, priming the hallway and south bedroom. Here's the hallway:

And the bedroom:

This bedroom has seen quite a bit of work. When we bought the house there was moisture condensing on the interior side of the stone walls. (A not uncommon problem with stone houses.) This had caused the plaster to fail on portions of the south and west walls, and there were active areas of mold and mildew growth. We scraped the walls back to solid plaster and primed over the walls before our contractor joined the action. He began by patching the largest holes and then skimcoated the entire room. We primed over the skimcoat this weekend.

As the picture above shows, until the permanent furnace is installed we are are keeping the moisture in check with a combination of various fans, space heaters and dehumidifiers. We're hoping our new central heating system will be sufficient to keep the new walls dry. We've increased the amount of heat to all of the upstairs bedrooms, and we have added cold air returns to each room to help circulate the air. Still, we'll be keeping a close eye on all the stone walls upstairs, hoping to avoid a recurrence of the condensation issues.

One final note for this post - I apologize for my habit of repeatedly waiting until after dark to take pictures. I'm not too fond of pictures taken by the light of a flash, but I guess they're better than nothing.

It's 4PM. Do You Know Where Your Mother Is?

One day earlier this week as I walked the alley from the office back to my car, I called up my mom on her cell phone to see if she had by chance fed the animals at the Einsel House. She told me that she was at the house and that she could feed the animals, but could I stop by anyway because she “needed my opinion on something”.

Twenty minutes later I pulled the van in the drive, walked through the kitchen, and as I entered the dining room it occurred to me that perhaps we shouldn’t allow my mom quite so much unsupervised time at the Einsel House. She was sitting cross-legged on the bathroom floor in front of me, the circular saw on the floor by her right knee, the sawzall on the floor by her left knee. In front of her:

A few posts ago here I jauntily mentioned reaching the “putting back together phase”. I obviously spoke too soon.

Although Charles and I had no plans to rip out the bathroom floor, mom was not unjustified in attacking it with multiple power tools. Remember that directly under the bathroom is the beam we just spent several months slowly jacking back to (almost) level. You can see it clearly in the picture above. (That beam measures 10x10 by the way.) When the Einsel House’s previous owner remodeled the bathroom he worked with the sagging beam, placing shims under the bathroom’s subfloor so that it was level. Then we send contractors in who raise the beam several inches. And suddenly the bathroom floor is no longer level. Mom had the floor ripped up before we could get an exact measurement, but she’s guessing that the floor dropped about an inch over 2-3 linear feet.

So up came the carpet, and down came the circular saw. Two layers of subfloor came out, but only one (3/4”) will go back in. And although the floor still won’t be perfectly level, it will at least be much closer. (Perfection would require removing the tub, toilet and sink cabinets, which even my mom admits would be more work than would be justified by the reward.)

It’s another entry on the list of things Kimberly-could-have-lived-with-it-as-it-was-but-she-knows-in-the-end-she’ll-appreciate-having-it-fixed. Or, as my mom said, “I know it was perfectly safe before, but you’ll thank me someday anyway.” And she’s right.

As my dad is wont to remind me, I’m a lot like my mother. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that I have a hard time getting upset with her, even when she does things like chopping a hole in the bathroom floor without asking permission first. Truthfully, it’s possible that I would have beat her to that crooked floor if I had her collection of knowledge and tools. And chutzpah. The Einsel House may be expanding my own knowledge and tool collection, but I’ve got a long way to go before I’ll ever come close to my mom in chutzpah.

Insulating

I found the following pictures in my inbox earlier this week - sent by my Aunt D, who had camera duty on the day insulation went up in the back bedroom.

Here's Uncle D behind the south knee-wall:



And my lovely sister-in-law behind the north knee-wall:

Thanks to their work, the back bedroom is now the warmest room upstairs!

A Bunch of Boring, Repetitive Pictures

Boring and repetitive, perhaps, but don't you agree they are lovely? The drywall seems to me to be visible evidence that we've reached the "putting back together phase" - we're "over the hump" at least as far as interior construction. It gives me hope that someday (I'm itching to add the word "soon" here - but I realize that's probably still premature) we'll reach that glorious day when we can begin PAINTING!!! And shortly after painting will be that even more glorious day when we can actually MOVE IN!!!!!

Okay, I'm calming back down. Patience. Patience.

Much of the new drywall is covering equally new ductwork. With solid stone walls, we didn't have many options for placing ductwork other than boxing it out of the corners of rooms. We did this as unobtrusively as possible. I actually like the dining room (the last drywall picture). That little angle at the top of the drywall makes me smile. When the HVAC contractor asked if it was okay to angle the ductwork there I gave an emphatic "Yes!". My only request was that they not cover any of the woodwork surrounding either door. With the baseboard back up and the wall finished I think this corner will look like it fits right in with the rest of the house.

Speaking of the rest of the house, it's still dusty. We didn't get to any of the bedrooms, but the laundry room was a focus of attention all weekend. Saturday was lovely. Charles' dad spent the day with our son, and for lunch they brought everyone at the Einsel House hot dogs, corn on the cob and a pot of baked beans. We left the Einsel House at 7pm and when we got back to the farm we were greeted by my brother and sister-in-law, who had a turkey dinner ready, complete with mashed potatoes and green beans. We were spoiled that day!

In the laundry room Charles ripped out the carpet. The wood floor is lovely, but unfortunately there are two old register holes that have been covered with plywood. Charles has brought up the "C" word, but I'm still plotting ways to keep the original wood uncovered. I spent the entire weekend sanding more woodwork (with help both days from my dad). Somewhere earlier on this blog I stated that none of the woodwork in the Einsel House had ever been painted. I was wrong. After getting up close and personal with the trim in the laundry room, it is obvious that the entire room had been painted at one time. The good news is that someone before us decided to strip the wood back to it's original walnut. And they did a good job. The bad news is that whoever we owe this thanks to got tired before they finished the room, and with two baseboards left they broke out the brown paint.

Below are pictures of one of those baseboards, first with the brown paint, and second without the brown paint (and without most of the white paint that was under it). This baseboard sanded down quite nicely, but I forgot to get a final picture.

I'm glad that stripping paint will not be a recurring theme at the EH. I spent large portions of Saturday and Sunday sitting crosslegged on the floor. By Sunday night I had bruises running down both legs from repeatedly bracing my elbows against my legs for additional leverage as I pulled the scraper against the wood. But seeing the tight grain in the original walnut undercovered again makes it all worthwhile. : )

Change in Plans

Earlier this week I spent nearly $50.00 on sand paper. And another $20.00 on respirators. This weekend we’ll put that $70.00 to work.

Yes, delayed gratification is becoming a theme at the Einsel House. We’ve got tung oil and two colors of paint that were originally integral parts of the plan for this coming weekend, but it now looks like they will all remain sealed for the indefinite future. Charles and I stopped by the house briefly yesterday and were quite pleased with the progress being made by the contractors. Our general contractor has been quite busy hanging drywall. And the HVAC crew finally has all the new ductwork installed.

On the HVAC front, the only work left will be replacing the temporary furnace with the permanent furnace, and then attaching all this new ductwork to the new furnace. However, it would be healthier for our new furnace if we can finish all the dusty work while the temp is still on the job. So, rather than painting and finishing woodwork we’ve decided to spend this weekend doing more sanding. I predict the bedrooms and laundry room will see most of the action.

Stay tuned for pictures….