Landing Room??? to Bedroom

This room initially caused us the most confusion. It began it's life as some sort of landing type room and was the only access to the bedroom-turned bathroom. It was also filled with furniture and parts and pieces of furniture. This is the door to the back porch and some of the stuff that was in the room.



Once we had a plan, the wall had to come down to be rebuilt. We tore out the plaster and the doorway, rebuilt the wall, filled in the opening and made the weird landing room into a 4th bedroom. It was the same 16x16 that all of the other rooms were, but we added a hallway to get to the main upstairs bath and now the total room is only 12 x 10.

Have we mentioned how much fun it is to tear out plaster? Demo, we have to admit, is fun, but the mess is almost unbearable! Seth and Ben had fun tearing down this wall.



Karen came over a few times that first summer to help out. She had seen this crazy old house and loved it, but didn't want to take it on herself. So, she came armed with hammer and screw gun and lended a hand. Here, she and Seth are working on the closet wall.



With the list so long and Teddy having a room to share with Bailey, more work was slow in coming. But with Bailey's birthday approaching, she decided that she wanted her own room and we got to work again. Sam has access to a beautiful, wonderful, incredible, professional floor sanding machine and brought it over to work on this floor.



I am absolutely in awe of the floors that exist under 140 years of muck, mire and layers of paint. Can you believe the difference this machine(and our friend) are making? I actually got teary eyed and kept thinking- 'someday, this house is going to be so beautiful.' It has been about two years since we first walked threw the doors and decided to make this into a home.



Here is the almost finished floor. While much of the flooring will be covered with a layer of walnut stain, which was the original finish, this floor is going to just get some polyurethane. I really can't believe how beautiful it is.



The barnwood wainscoating was taken from the barn. Crown molding was added and all of the wood took several coats of the red paint. Doors and trim will someday cause someone to say, "What were they thinking?" But for now, this has got to be one of the cutest little boy rooms ever. We are at about 90% finally on this room.



The little bed was an old single that Sam helped modify to a modern twin size. I still need to get a cover of some sort for the box spring. We are going to leave the doors off the closet and put his toys in here, but it is SO CUTE! Just what I always wanted my little Teddy to have!

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!)