Sunday, November 20, 2016

six years

Well, our housiversary seems a logical time to start trying to post again doesn't it?  While I have several posts in draft form, the issues with One Drive discontinuing their guaranteed unlimited storage and subsequently blocking access made organizing and accessing photos for the posts impossible.  We're using dropbox now, since we already used it for work.  But it's been a steep learning curve for me, and a long process to transfer and attempt to organize our photos.  I may just publish the drafts sans photos, if I don't they'll never get posted.

In any case, work has been continuing!  The schoolhouse is officially done and is only awaiting the rest of it's paint and the restoration of it's shutters (next spring).  The Karmann Ghia is finally parked INSIDE, and it's a wonder to behold.  Various patches and repairs have been done on the exterior, including two restored windows and a small gable.  The radiator that we pulled from the now demolished rectory has also finally been restored and is installed and working.

Perhaps the biggest revelation is that the great porch rebuilding will be beginning in April.  At this point our current entry porch is beginning to fold in half and collapse, and I can't bear the thought of investing time and money into propping the decrepit thing back up.  Even the bare bones version of the rebuild is costing at least 5,000 more than we have to spend because of the work involved in the curved gazebo and conical roof.  The logical thing to do would be to rebuild it as a polygon, but where's the fun in that?  This initial iteration of the porch will consist of a painted osb floor, and 6x6 porch posts to save on money, and similarly, we'll cobble together something for the railings.  Like resurrecting the staircase, the priority is the structure, the decorative details can come later.  I'm sure I'll have a tremendous number of questions as we go on, but first I suppose it makes sense to make sure people are still out there reading.

So, on this first wintery day, make yourselves warm alcoholic beverages and toast to year six of Thornfield's restoration!

13 comments:

  1. Somewhere there is a construction project that has cost less than the estimate. Not on this planet, I think.

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    1. I know the one you're talking about, it's the one they never got around to finishing right????

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  2. Glad to see you back! I'm excited to see more of the work you're doing.

    Your plan for the porch sounds like a foot strategy. Better to get the structure right the first time and deal with the details later, than compromise and do a complete, but downgraded complete build. That's the stuff that makes me sad on homes in our neighborhood.

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    1. Exactly! If we were so inclined I'm sure we could manage a standard L shaped porch ourselves. But not only would the quality not suit the house, with historic photos available to us it would be a crime to do anything less than a full reconstruction. I'm still uneasy at the thought that people will see the temporary finishes and think they represent the finished product, but there's not much I can do about that...

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  3. Sounds like you are planning to do what we did to our porch in 2005. Everything was rebuilt, except for the rubber roofing and plywood on the flat porch roof and the porch floor framing, which was sound. Our interim railing is made of 2x4's and long grade stakes (cheap and functional) and the porch roof is held up by cedar 4x4's. This winter, finally, it's looking like we can spend some time at the bandsaw and make our porch pretty again.

    As for photos, I upload mine directly from my laptop, where they reside, to my post using Blogger's interface. The original photo files are enormous, so I resize the ones for posts to 640 x 480 or so to save storage. My photos look just fine, set to Extra Large with Blogger's editor, and I have never been notified that I exceeded my storage. Something for you to think about.

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    1. You're checking my blog from Vegas? I feel so special!
      The photo problem was not with Blogger, rather, it was the photo backup we used to store and move the photos between our phones and the computer. It wasn't an overly complicated fix, just one that I couldn't find the time or energy to get around to!

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  4. Glad you are back! As a fellow old house traveler, I look forward to these posts!

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    1. Thanks Derek, with winter finally settling in there will hopefully be more time in the day for posting!

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  5. DELIGHTED you are back!

    CRUSHED with disappointment at not being able to drool over images!

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    1. They were terribly exciting too, holes in dirt, crumbling old glazing, DRY ROT! Not to mention the spray foam...

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  6. Glad to see you back and congrats on the OHJ spine!

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  7. Expand your knowledge and abilities.

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