Tuesday, February 26, 2013

climbing up the walls

I thought the next few days would be a bust, as work was supposed to take us out of town, but that was canceled, and we found a few hours today to work.

What, not everyone uses their sleeping porch
as a wood shop at night in the sleet and rain?

The floor is done other than a final cleaning and sealing, and it's time to turn our attention back to the walls.  Filling the corner blocks is a slow process because of how much material we need to add to make them square again, but we got a fair amount of the wainscot up. Although we couldn't use any of our salvage (our thin stuff is being hoarded for a third floor room), we bought some new stuff (gasp!) to protect the walls from errant laundry baskets.  We were planning on using the beaded plywood, but when we did the math it was actually cheaper to use the pine panels.  Very unexpected, and we're very happy about it - even though these will be painted I sleep better at night knowing they could conceivably be refinished in the future.  They're surprisingly well milled (they're just the packs from the blue store) and we haven't had trouble with the tongues or grooves on any of them.  We didn't buy the common beadboard pattern they carry because every pack they had was beat to hell, but this pattern is nice and somewhat different.

I swear I don't buy Hitachi tools
just because they're pretty.
hey look, my nail gun matches
matches my floor and my walls! 




We don't own a router, and none of the local stores carry a rabbited chair rail type molding we like, so we're using a simple piece of lattice that the cap molding will sit on top of while overlapping the top of the paneling. I haven't done it this way before - but hopefully it will solve some problems.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

holy aesthetic movement batman!

Dinner smells incredible, and tonight's about the only night there's anything good on tv, so I'll make this short.

First off, grouting's done. Yay.

Second though requires a back story. The first condemned house we had permission to plunder was an incredible Italianate duplex. It was in better condition than our house, and had the most incredible porch which would have provided us with all the columns we needed for our own restoration.

The porch was so rotted it disintegrated on impact, but in the 18 hours we had in the house we were able to save a smorgasbord of goodies. Among these were all the newels and spindles from both staircases. These were used when we rebuilt our back porches. We never thought much about them as they were slathered in paint, but when we had to trim a couple of spindles down to size we realized they were solid mahogany. I literally cried at the thought that we had used them on our porches where they'd be painted and unappreciated - at least mahogany does well outside.
rebuilding in progress

From that point on one of my rules is that anything I plan on painting doesn't get stripped. Sanded and cleaned, not stripped. Needless to say, I almost broke my rule today.
>




you can see some of the gilding
on the lower right of the white
The corner blocks we're using on the window came out of a brownstone style mansion that would have been at home on any of the best streets in NYC. It was going to be knocked down, but the contractor changed his mind. Although he gutted it, he was saving the best to reuse, but anything damaged he was throwing out. He let us have all the blocks we could pull out of the 2 story trash pile in the backyard, as well as some drawers and beadboard we took out of the kitchen. In cleaning up those corner blocks I stripped the outer layers of paint so the detail reappeared. All the blocks turned out to be more mahogany (figures). Not only that, they were ebonized and gilded
Visions of Whistler's Peacock room are dancing in my head. I mean, we already have the peacock blue washer and dryer right? RIGHT?


Saturday, February 23, 2013

displeased . . .

So the tiling's done, sadly it ended with a fizzle rather than a bang. The last row of tiles against the threshold was installed yesterday, and they are less than spectacular. Specifically, they wanted to shatter, crumble, and do anything BUT cut straight. Other than pulling out the big grinder I tried anything I could think of; in the end it just wasn't important or obvious enough to beat myself up over. I have to say, I honestly prefer working with salvaged tiles - mentally I'm more prepared/willing to deal with the curve balls thrown at me by the 100+ year old tiles I drag home than new ones I paid for.

I had hoped the grout would obscure the color
difference in the tile. I hoped in vain.
Although I had planned on just sealing the tile today, I got antsy and managed to grout half the floor - I would have finished except I ran out of grout. Being that grouting is one of my most dreaded tasks, I was surprised this went so smoothly - the black tiles worked beautifully for telling me whether or not I had gotten all the haze off. At least having to go out and buy more grout will help get me to the grocery store tomorrow.
Next on the agenda is trimming out the stained glass windows and putting up the wainscoting. All in due time I guess.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

The Crimson Permanent Assurance

So the tiling's done, sadly it ended with a fizzle rather than a bang. The last row of tiles against the threshold was installed yesterday, and they are less than spectacular. Specifically, they wanted to shatter, crumble, and do anything BUT cut straight. Other than pulling out the big grinder I tried anything I could think of; in the end it just wasn't important or obvious enough to beat myself up over. I have to say, I honestly prefer working with salvaged tiles - mentally I'm more prepared/willing to deal with the curve balls thrown at me by the 100+ year old tiles I drag home than new ones I paid for.

I had hoped the grout would obscure the color
difference in the tile. I hoped in vain.
Although I had planned on just sealing the tile today, I got antsy and managed to grout half the floor - I would have finished except I ran out of grout. Being that grouting is one of my most dreaded tasks, I was surprised this went so smoothly - the black tiles worked beautifully for telling me whether or not I had gotten all the haze off. At least having to go out and buy more grout will help get me to the grocery store tomorrow.

Next on the agenda is trimming out the stained glass windows and putting up the wainscoting. All in due time I guess.

It seems apropos that I post this the day I get hired for a new job, luckily I won't be facing any violent corporate takeovers (although I will be working for The Very Big Corporation of America).

A lot of people have asked the reason for the title of the blog, and it's probably clearer in my mind than I could ever explain on paper, but let's give it a shot. Google will tell you that the Queen Anne's Revenge was Blackbeard's ship, and while I wish I could say that the blog takes its name from the hoards of treasure found in the walls, it doesn't. Instead, I like to envision our old Queen Anne's second chance with us as a revenge on all the people who did her harm who are now dead and gone. The pillaging part rings true as well, being that most of the bits we're using to save her are coming from houses less fortunate. We also can't forget that the last owner built a pirate ship bar in the backyard, and that lumber has been used in repairs all over the house (I'd love to see the look on a future owner's face if they stumble across the stud labeled mainsail.


At the end of the day, I just really like the thought of my house spouting sails and sailing away. That and I like pirates. And rum, we can't forget the rum.
Oh, you don't know what I'm talking about? Don't worry about it, it happens all the time. This will help with that . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YUiBBltOg4

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

tiles and tribulations

Not much to report, other than I now own duplicates of one too many tiling tools.  After buying another cement board cutter (only to find my original right where it was supposed to be when I got home) I thought my offering to the tool gods was taken care of.  Sadly, that wasn't the case, and I had to buy another tile nipper on the way home today (I sprung for the one that bragged about ergonomics and compound jaws - that'll teach my old one to hide when I need it).  The mesh backing the tiles were on was way too stretchy to get an accurate cut on my wet saw, not to mention the thought of getting my fingers that close to a very fast diamond blade was a bit disconcerting.  Other than the tiles that need to be cut for the threshold (only a few), I'm done except for sealing and grouting.

After staring at the mismatched tile sheets on the floor we did end up calling Home Depot.  Wonder of wonders customer service jumped right on it and refunded us 50%.  That, paired with being able to return extra materials (the first time in history we didn't need extras) and enormous discounts on both dryer pedestals means that we're actually UNDER budget.  I know, I should probably whisper that, I'm sure the house is already plotting how to make replacing the gas line as painful as possible . . .

Wait, you were only here for the pictures?  That'll show you . . .

Monday, February 18, 2013

it rubs the thinset on its skin

It's the only explanation for why I'm covered in it. Even better is that the washer is in the hallway for the duration. I'll preserve my dignity and NOT post the photographic evidence for all the internets to see . . .

Yesterday we got the hardibacker down. One of the many instances in which this is not a how-to guide. There's no way our pine floors meet the deflection guidelines, and there's no thinset that permits using tongue and groove as a base. Since there was no way I was ripping out our original floor and installing plywood to do this (or building up the floor), we went ahead and did the best we could. I've had success doing it this way before, so I'm confident it'll be fine. Things would be different if this were a high traffic or wet area, or if we weren't using hex tile that's small enough not to crack over the imperfect base.


In other news, TILE - despite how lovely it looked in the box, this tile is my new mortal enemy (because tiling was my secret superpower, along with loading uhauls and eyeballing center and level). Many of the tiles (Home Depot's Merola antique black and white hex flower in unglazed porcelain) were mislaid on the sheets, causing them to not line up right - which I didn't notice till after the first row was laid. Tearing that out, cleaning up the tiles and thinset, and figuring out the problem took up more of my energy than it should of, so the job didn't quite get done tonight. And I'm not even going to go into the fact that the sheets vary in color even though they're all the same batch number . . .

maybe someday the inlaid oak will
get some love too
those little brown specs are
pennies, 1/16 inch, perfect spacers

What you can't see in the photo are the green tiles that surround each of the dark flowers - that was just a separate sheet of tiles that was cut apart, and we popped the white tiles out and substituted the green. Initially we were going to do a more complex pattern - but there's more than enough color going into the room. Tiling will get finished tomorrow, and I may start grouting, not sure yet.

Friday, February 15, 2013

starlings in the slipstream

Saw the first flock of starlings today, they seem to have displaced the flock of geese I'm used to seeing. It seems far too early, but hey, maybe Punxsutawney Phil was on to something. Oh, and in case you were wondering, a flock of starlings is a murmuration, yeah, I didn't know either.



In other news, it turns
out a 5000 square foot house / full basement / half acre lot is an excellent place to lose tools. Especially little blue ones like my cement board cutter. It's always the little things that jam up the simplest projects. Instead, I notched out the jamb, and
cut off the tongue of the oak floor for the marble threshold. The marble was a pleasant surprise from the blue store - a nice beige, matches much better than the carrera they normally sell.

I also started painting, the colors are surprisingly great for dollar paint from the Habitat Restore - the upper paint is similar to the silvery green everyone gets from Restoration Hardware, and the lower/trim (not painted yet) will probably be a dark muddy teal - lovely. I've bought a lot of paint from the Restore, obviously open up the can if they'll let you, but more importantly, make sure you're familiar with the most current labels on the paint brands you're interested in so that you can tell the age/quality of the paint. I've saved hundreds doing this, and have never gotten a bad can.

these aren't in good enough shape to be
stained, so they'll work great for the
laundry trim which is being painted

Last but not least, I've started going through my stockpile of trim and hardware in the basement, but that's less like work than it is playing in a candy store with mom's credit card.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

the weather man lied

it turns out I'm putting to much time
into this to be happy with the mismatch,
also, it's the first thing you see as you
come up the stairs
Today was supposed to be warmish and sunny, and since it wasn't, I lost all motivation to set up the tile saw. Mind you I could have found 42 other things to work on, instead I decided the mismatched pedestals weren't going to cut it for me. After our washer and dryer were discontinued the pedestals - which we had been undecided about buying - became tough to find. At first we weren't going to get them, too expensive, and of questionable utility. But since the vibration of the washer has me concerned about the plaster moldings and ceiling in the living room below, we decided they may be worth a try - also, rags, the drawers will be awesome for rags and dropcloths. A month ago there were no matching pedestals for a reasonable price, so we bought a different color that was on clearance. Although they look nice, it was going to bug me, so I arbitrarily did a search for matching ones today. Low and behold, the world came through for me. One in the area at Sears outlet, and one on Ebay. The Outlet one was pretty beat up for it's $150 price tag, so the manager sold it to me for $25. So points for Sears, Electrolux on the other hand tried to sell me a vial of touch up paint for $25 not including shipping. There was a time appliances came with touch up paint, I am less than pleased, and think I'll be living with the chips.

found in the awesome (not original) closet that
lost it's life in the staircase rebuild - it had
a trapdoor and secret room

Also, happy Valentine's day . . . .

More importantly, wish my dog a happy birthday.









More tomorrow, I promise . . . .

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

tough luck . . .

I assume it has something to do with when all the doorknobs were stripped off the doors. There's a reason I keep a knob on a spindle in all the rooms, which is made even more funny as a requirement of our 203k loan was that the doors get doorknobs. Ummm, yeah...
Salvaged corner cabinet will be
installed for linens
where we're starting from




















However, despite our house's sense of humor, work on the laundry has started. And, like any project, it all starts with making a huge mess.

Although it wasn't part of the plan, yesterday we took the door off it's hinges - we had thought we'd need to plane down the bottom edge, but it turns out we have another door that swings the right way that already had the bottom hacked off to accommodate the carpet that used to be in that room. We're hoping we can just switch the two doors to minimize door brutality. That's probably optimistic, but I can dream. I also did a second pass on scraping the last of the black linoleum adhesive from the pine floors. I had done the hot water soak and scrape a while ago, but there were still some remnants around the edges as I stupidly built the partition walls BEFORE I took on the adhesive. Putting down the thinset and hardibacker couldn't happen since I was waiting for the floors to dry, so I scrubbed the original bits of plaster and moldings and primed what I could. Nothing particulary picture worthy, but tomorrow will hopefully bring more progress.

Monday, February 11, 2013

catching up is hard to do . . .

As much fun as it is to revisit the past, I'll be starting finish work on the laundry tomorrow, so I'll give you a brief run down on how we got to where we're at. Although we're trying to do an accurate restoration, we'd also like to make sure the house is "livable" as far as future owners are concerned - not so much for resale as for keeping the house from decaying again once we're dead and gone. That said, this bedroom is paying the price. When we bought the house, this room (which was likely the "master") had been chopped up into a kitchen that had never been finished, had one wall completely rotted from where a window had been removed and never patched, a drop ceiling rat super-highway, and cat urine soaked asbestos tile floors.

this 50's steel sink had never
been installed - it's awesome
and is now installed in our
office kitchenette
this door now opens into the
laundry, the dark spot is urine
revealed as we took up the tile,
the plaster ceiling was all that
was left after we removed the
dropped ceiling below it

Although this was the biggest/nicest bedroom, it was the only one that lent itself to the chop - and it will become a laundry room, walk in closet and someday, a master bathroom. Luckily, we have eight other bedrooms to toy with.

red = fireplace, blue = windows

In the laundry room we will have a teal electrolux washer and dryer (got them 80% off retail), a stained glass window that will let light in from the bathroom window behind it, a hex tile floor (the proper unglazed rectified type), and a salvaged built-in linen cabinet. We may put up beadboard on the lower walls - I had nice inch thick beadboard I meant to put up before plastering, but I forgot about it and plastered the full wall. I don't have the clearance to install it on top of the plaster as the washer and dryer wouldn't fit, so if I put up anything it would be the thin modern stuff. We'll see I guess. There's also some salvaged baseboard to clean up, and a gas light to rewire. We have some antique tin we intend to put up as well, but that'll wait till we circle back around. Cement board will go in tomorrow hopefully, and I'll take some pictures for you then.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

easier with lincoln logs?

Since the layout of these big old houses isn't necessarily obvious or easy to describe, I spent yesterday working on my old school paint skills to make up a couple of simple diagrams of the first floor.
You can see our hall of mirrors in the middle of the image, the bane of all who came to visit in the early days. That vestibule section was what was ripped off in the pictures in the last post. Although we do what we can ourselves, the cantilevered staircase that we built to replace it was an engineering feat - and after doing all the demo, salvaging materials from condemned houses (legally!) and rerouting electrical, we were happy to turn this over to our architect/builder, leaving us with:

Determining how the staircase was supposed to run was the most mind-boggling part of the project. It was clear that the floorplan had been changed dramatically, but no one was quite sure how. Before finding the early photo, I spent days examining the exterior brick and mortar for holes, shadows and patches indicating where the porch was supposed to be, and many hours climbing through the secret holes and rooms that had been walled off because of the changes - the spelunking was just as exciting as it sounds . . . . Luckily this house wants to be restored badly enough that she's told us what to do; through more shadow lines, bits of woodwork and wallpaper fragments we have the stair layout close to what it would have originally been (we think). Sadly, in all those walled off spaces no one bothered to stash the missing stair parts, not even the newels . . . Here's where we are as of today on the stair bay (nothing like getting a few square feet painted to make you want to drop everything and PAINT)!

Friday, February 8, 2013

semi-permanence in all it's glory!

I could write a novel about the first year we spent in this house, the fact that we just got our occupancy permit a month ago - meaning the house was considered uninhabitable and we were technically living here illegally - may illustrate just how bad things actually were. But since I'm not ready to revisit that trauma, lets talk about the first project we chose to do, the stairs. The 1st to 2nd floor stair was ripped out during the conversion to a three family, leaving what should have been a grand hall a 15 square foot space with 5 doors, and getting upstairs required winding through another 5 doors and three flights of stairs.

to the upstairs and closet
to the first floor and basement
There was no heat, water, or electricity upstairs (and very few walls), so every morning our first winter in the house we'd throw on our winter coats, hats, gloves and boots and go to work.  You'd think after that we'd be content to appreciate having some working radiators the following winter, instead, we tore the front off the house . . . .

the wart is gone!


cantilevered platform, yeah, we like our engineers

Guiding this restoration was a turn of the century photo (seen in the first post) that we were able to find after about a 1000 hours of research. Not only had the stairs been torn out - the room you see being removed was a vestibule for the 2nd and 3rd floors - the orientation of the house had been changed. The current front doors are cut into what used to be a bay window, and as we found out the house's original entrance faced down the hill, and in fact had owned all the land down to the main road. We're saving up the major funds needed to work on the porch, but until then, we have a semi-permanent stair by which to navigate our shack. Why semi-permanent you ask? Well, because quartersawn cherry (what the original stair was) is incredibly expensive - so our salvaged bits and pieces will have to do, but at least the framing is good to go!


Thursday, February 7, 2013

objects in the mirror are worse than they appear

So, I promised more pictures, and I will indeed overwhelm you with the horror in a minute. Before I do that, I've been thinking about what I actually intend to do with this thing. After a century of abuse I think the house deserves a fan club, that's basically the long and short of it. The house is a long way from needing any sort of "styling," and you likely wouldn't enjoy my sense of style anyhow, unless 100 pound antique typewriters, ragged taxidermy (my grandfather was a hunter and gunsmith, I was into it long before the hipsters got their hornrims into the act), and enormous pieces of broken furniture are your thing too. That leaves building, which I'm certainly no expert at either. So instead, expect a mix of proper restoration done by diyers mixed with madcap art projects under the guise of restoration. We probably need parental supervision, instead we have a couple of friendly contractors that egg us on.

 As an aside, the ad where two morons are smashing a kitchen with sledgehammers in an effort to get you to go to Lowes is on right now. People are sick . . .

 These are some of the interiors from before closing, and things naturally got worse before they got better.