HEAT!!

The wall goes up...the wall goes down! We framed this wall in, originally, to serve as a bar area. We were going to put a wine rack on the top and cabinets on the bottom and the came winter! Our first years heating bills of $800+ to keep the house at 62 were well over what we were willing to send to Ameren. We decided to put in a wood stove instead. So, we framed it differently, removed some insulation and put in the slate wall and now, with winter coming fast, we are getting the wood stove in the kitchen. With the location of the furnace, we are hoping that the warm kitchen air will be circulated throughout the house with the blower from the furnace. So, we are poking a 10" hole in the kitchen wall. No turning back now!

The view from the other side. Seth is on the scaffolding outside looking in through the hole.

You can see the scaffolding, the bracket holding up the pipe and the pipe ging up the outside of the house.

Look carefully and you can see the Charles on the roof -in the dark- getting the last piece of pipe through the roof. The forecast is for rain, so once the hole was made, he had to finish or risk water damage. Working on the roof in the cold and the dark was not fun and neither was climbing up and down the roof and scaffolding abut a million times, but we should be much more comfortable this winter!

Doesn't it look nice and warm and cozy. We fired it up the next day once the fire stuff was installed and the pipes were all hooked up! Charles and Seth worked really hard to make this happen and it adds to the charm of our kitchen. The draw is perfect and the kitchen-a room that was intolerable last year because it was too cold - is toasty warm so far this year! Here's to heat and a gas bill we can live with!

Back Porch-Exit Stage Left

This old back porch was in very bad shape. The decking was rotten and the posts were bowed and bent. Underneath was fenced in with chain link fence and, for some reason, there was a metal trash can hung under the rafters? We are wondering if the makeshift cage was put up in the 80's as a dwelling for the bobcat that inhabited the house and yard.

We still have some cleanup to do on the wall, but will, eventually, put a small deck back out here. Originally, this probably served as the sleeping porch when the house got too warm in the summer. The back window, that is now in the laundry room, was a door at one point. If we ever put a garage on, it will probably be returned to a door, but time will tell on that one.

The rotten back porch is gone and the area is all cleaned up! YEAH! Another eyesore-looking better!

The Old Girl Can See...

Saturday morning..here we go! This old porch was probably added around the 1950's, probably for heat as this side of the house faces due west. The addition of the second story would have kept a lot of sun out of the upstairs master bedroom and hallway. We found this summer that the addition of attic ventilation probably did way more than this porch ever could have done for air quality and heat control...but that is beside the point. What we are most glad for is that the decorative pieces on the top level are original to the house and will be saved and put back down below where they started. We are going to save the posts as they appear to be the original as well. I also want to save the rails. In a 1950's pic we have on the house, they appear to, at one point have been on the bottom and they looked kind of cute!

By Saturday evening, the first corner was down. This job is proving harder than one might think. The original soffits and facia boards are under this newer porch and we really want to save them as replacement would be quite costly.

Up they go again on Sunday morning...

Charles was feeling his age by the end of the day on Sunday after about 50 trips up and down the scaffolding! In this pic, you can see that another section is down.

And another...with shadows lengthening...

It is down! I swear I can almost hear the old girl saying I can see! Doesn't she look good? There is a lot of work left to be done. The front soffit has come loose from the weight of the porch and we are hoping to just put that up into place. The short piece of the soffit and facia board are destroyed by bugs (wasps or something that made tunnels) and water damage. All the nail holes need to be filled and the entire piece of the decorative edge is gone (kind of like crown molding on the edge up there) and needs to be replaced. Then paint. The lower porch will not come all the way down. Rather, the posts will be put into the right places and the rotten posts will be removed. The tongue in groove will be replaced by roof plywood and then covered with tar paper....it is a long list, but the old girl is ready.

Take a quick look at the before and after...wow! What a change for a weekend!

It Took Some Green to Start to Level Out This Yard...

Here is the view towards the parlor before we started working. You can see the overgrown dirt pile and the weeds in front of the parlor window.

I started messing with this tree stump and realized it was quite loose. Seth got involved after we had gotten it loose all around the base and pushed it out!

As you can see, he was quite proud of the size of the stump.

Here's the green-John Deere Green, not money! We love the Kemner's, not just for this kind of stuff, but they sure are willing to help out whenever they can. Bailey and Teddy took turns riding in the tractor while they worked.

You can just barely see Teddy sitting in the jump seat here. He loves the tractors!

Here the after shot. We cleared out all the bushes in front of the window and Bill knocked down all the dirt. There are tons of broken pieces of plates and-you will never guess-broken pieces of bricks everywhere in the dirt. We will pick up pieces of stuff for a while while we do the detail leveling, but it looks so much better!

Here is the dining room side dirt pile before.

During...

Woops...A little out of order...but Teddy and Bailey in front of the parlor window...

Here is an after shot of the dining room pile all gone! We finished up with a dinner of chicken, corn on the cob, potato salad, fresh tomatoes...yummy!

Pretty Powder Room

Bailey loves the purple bathroom. Next to pink, purple is her favorite color! The previous owner really loved the floor in the bathroom, but the wood was kind of warped and not in good shape and with the amount of use this bathroom was going to get, we decided to honor the idea of the floor that was here and go with the harlequin tan and white pattern, but we are going to do the pattern with 8 x 8 porcelin tiles. The result is really quite wonderful!

Yet another skill added for Seth and Ben-tiling a floor! Charles was on cutting detail outside with the tile saw while Seth and Ben took turns laying tiles and running marked pieces out to Charles.

Here Ben is working the tile floor...

Here it is grouted! Doesn't it look awesome! We really like our little powder room and it is the most complete room in the house! (If only I could find the back toilet tank lid...)

Vanity is in place. This vanity lived a former life as a dresser with a wishbone framed mirror. We don't have the original mirror that went with this piece, but did use another antique mirror to go in back of it and left the old wishbone frame in place. The sink is a vessel sink with a throughly modern handle. The outlet and lightswitch covers have an antique scrollwork pattern...It really is quite the little powder room.

Exterior Scaffolding

Sacred Heart had scaffolding sitting in back of one of the buildings that was not in use. YEAH!! The sections are just tall enough to reach the top of the building. We put it up near the turret for now and will get that repaired and painted and then...the porch will come down! We are so grateful to the church for letting us use the scaffolding for a while(and to the Kemner's for the use of their truck!)

EEEEEWWWWW!

Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom made a surprise visit to Sturgeon this weekend... First there was the rather large snapping turtle that visited the front yard. I am not sure if it was relocated by the 4 inches of rain or if it was a female trying to find a place to make her nest. Either way, it was big enough, literally, take off part of Teddy's arm and so was sent to the turtle heaven...which is REALLY disgusting on so very many levels... It was an impressive specimen though.

Before the funeral pyre could be built, Bailey came out of the house after using the restroom and reported that there was a snake trying to get into the bathroom. Since the only functioning bathroom is on the second floor and the window is 15 feet in the air, I poo-pooed her at first. Then she said, I am serious, come and see. Which I did and this is what I saw. The second picture clearly shows a 4 foot black snake trying to get into the bathroom screen 15 feet in the air.


After being flung from it's perch, it was quickly bisected and was added to the turtle funeral pyre. (what is really funny is that if Charles would have been enjoying a few minutes in the Christian Science reading room instead of his 7 year old daughter, we would have heard screaming and would have needed several years of counciling before he could enjoy his potty time ever again!!)

Attic Ventilation

For 140 years, people have apparently been living with an oppressively hot upper level in this house because there were only 2 hat vents on the roof. There were no eave vents either. We have added 7 vents to the north and south facings of the house. The first day, Charles got two in and we all were swearing we could feel (and smell) a difference in the upstairs. With 7 vents in, there is a HUGE difference in the air quality of the house and in the amount of heat that is held in. It feels much more comfortable upstairs.

The south face of the house with 4 new eave vents.

Now it is on to the roof. We are installing a fan with a humidistat and a thermostat. We can set it to come on when the attic space reaches 85 degrees and it will come in and pull the hot air out. We can also set the humidity level and the fan will come on when the humidity is high. Next step is the attic fan!

Stairway Transformation

It may take a while, but the stairs will be undergoing a much deserved and hopefully breathtaking transformation in the next couple of months. The design of the staircase is a floating staircase because of the lack of support underneath the top half of the stairs.

Years of neglect have left it with peeling paint and chipped wood and not much of the original charm. Because of lead paint concerns, this will be a razor scrapper job done one rise and one run at a time. It originally had a walnut type finish, so that is what I will put back on. The woodwork underneath will also be scraped and finished so that it looks something like the newel post and I hope that by the end of the summer, the downstairs will be looking like it did 140 years ago.

This step has had the rise and run scraped. One down, 16 to go! Wish me luck!

We Make Heap Big Fire..

This litte building was in the field to the south of the house...where we found the brick foundation to the other house. It was very low and we are thinking that someone may have built it as a dog breeding place or maybe had a few pigs. In later years it was used as a dump...but we did find some neat old stuff in there...We were going to reuse the wood from it for the chicken coop, but as we started to tear it down, all we found was ant and termite damaged wood. So, we tore off most of the roof.

Here are the two runs on the back of the old structure. There are two small dog looking houses in there too.

Charles calls me a pyro...but he had fun setting this fire. We started it with a little boy scout juice...some soaked pieces of cloth and whatever was in the barn. (You should have seen Charles dancing when a family of mice started running out of some junk he picked up..tee-heee)

This fire got pretty impressive...so much so that we went ahead and pulled the garden hoses around from the other side of the house. A couple of nearby trees started burning just from the heat, there were actually no flames touching them. The leaves on the trees above looked like they had a wind blowing up at them...

And now it is over! There is just a pile of ashes and metal left to clean up...That was pretty cool!!

Another House

Bill came over to get the truck out of a mucky mess and stayed and pulled some trees. Every time he pulled a tree root out, we found more bricks! We have found the foundation walls for the front, back and the wall that went down the middle. We also found some old glass that appears warped, so we are thinking that this house, which had a footprint similar to ours but much smaller, probably burnt down in a fire. That explains the second storm cellar and the old barn. I wish we knew when the fire happened...but we may never be able to find that out.

The picture shows some of the foundation bricks exposed when one tree was pulled. We have decided to call our farmers market venture.....wait for it.....here it comes....."Red Brick Farms!"

!/2 Bath Redo

When we bought the house, this was a 3/4 bath. The sink butted right up against the furnace and the shower created an awkward corner in the kitchen. It was the first bathroom we had working in the house. But with no ceiling, it was a huge eyesore and we do have another functioning bathroom now, so we are getting this little room done. It now measures only 81" x 60 inches.

The slats did a great job of sending down dust every time someone ran through the hall upstairs! You can see some of the old wiring hanging.

Ductwork and plumbing make this ceiling a bit of a challenge.

Charles just took it one section at a time and kept on framing!

Here is the framing over the ductwork and plumbing-all done.

And the drywall is all up. This is one job that never would have been solved on paper...Charles had a lot of thinking to do.

Even Teddy was getting in on the mudding. He was working hard to get it smooth!