Brass Door Knobs Unearthed!

 The doors throughout the house are covered in tons of paint...  A little hot water, some elbow grease, and some stripper there is a new look.

 Took the paint off a door knob and plate and look what was underneath! 

Now we just need to strip and repaint the door.

Scullery Kitchen Renovation

 We recently got pretty close to finishing our scullery renovation (yep, thats where we keep the skulls)

Before

 

On the wall you can see the remnants of the California Cooler - or San Fransisco Cooler.  The wall opened to the outside to keep food cool.  Long ago removed and now it just adds a draft to the room.

On

Here are some more before photos...

After

The counter top is a solid oak from Ikea - the two pieced were butt jointed with the edges routered to remove beveled edge and make the pieces fit together.

Front Porch Renovation

A while back we did a great new front porch renovation! 

Before, the front porch was concrete, so we thought we would bring it back to what it might have originally looked like made of local redwood.

Time to get to work!

We took the porch down, but then Pam couldn't leave the house! So we added a ramp!

This dog made our porch! 

We had a some redwood railings made. Had the porch constructed, and then got to painting! 

Here's the finished product!

Before and After

Every once and a while it's important to take stock of your seemingly endless project and highlight achievements through a series of satisfying "Before and After" photos!

Before, Apple Tree (see previous post on subject for more info) 

After

Before, Front Porch 

After (also see previous post for more info, and this one too)

Before, Skirting (more info)

After, almost done

Before, Front Parlor

Later, but not quite done

Before, The Second Parlor (see flooring post)

Later, not quite done on this one either, but it looks better!

Before, Stairs

In progress, stairs

Before, Stairs 

In progress, Stairs

While clearly there is work to do, a lot has been accomplished! And I didn't even mention the Mystery Door, or Mystery Well! 

New Victorian-Style Porch

We've added a new porch recently, and to our surprise, a charming dog came with it!

So far we've painted the railing, but there's still more to go.

We tore the original porch off as part of our foundation work.   We had a Victorian reproduction made of redwood designed and built for us by Dane Cowen from Ferndale.  He handcrafted the pieces, we painted them, and he put the whole thing together!

(Before)

New Nail Gun!

There has been an exciting development in my world of historic renovation. New nail gun! Here I am breezing through some home repairs! We had to take the skirting off of the house to replace the foundation, but its going back on, thanks to my new nail gun.

The Slow Road to Recovery

The January earthquake is a distant memory, but the house is still jacked-up and waiting.  We have had great luck with local contractors.   Some advice to Humboldt County Restorations --- just call George Kurwitz,  the legendary Humboldt County foundation and house moving contractor.   George has been working on the house for a couple of months now,  we are in no hurry and the work is getting done.

You can see some of the damage, both piers moving off post and in those cases where the posts were secure the earthquake splits the posts.


After the quake George jumped right in and put in the cribbing to make sure the house didn't slip anymore.


The next step is to put in a new diameter foundation and a concrete wall to connect the foundation to the house.   Stay tuned.


Lucy, the restoration dog, is surveying the damage to the carriage house.

First things First! Carpet!

A couple points worth making about removing carpet

1) a lot of bad thing can be fixed by ripping out old carpets - that old abandoned house smell gets better when the old soiled shag is gone.

2) carpet removal is easier than removing tiles or vinyl floors - so start with the easy stuff.

3) secrets for carpet removal include a good sharp carpet knife, if the carpet is nailed down well you can cut it in 3ft strips and the pull away. We found about half the carpet is really nailed down and the other half barely attached to the tack strips. You never know until you start taking it out.

4) getting the carpet tacks out.  The older the carpets the more carpet tacks, nails and screws have been used to hold the old carpet in place.   Once the carpet is out and headed for the dumpster then the work of nail and tack strip removal begins.   Don't waste your time with an old pair of pliers because it will take forever. After the first day we bought a couple of Dasco Pro12 Pulling Claw Bar.

Here's a look at the house before anything has been done.

First things first! Get all the carpet out the house to Reduce Funky Smells and Terrible Ugliness.


Here is a photo of second parlor, pre-carpet removal.

Here's Pam using the shopvac to clean under the old carpet, but above the old linoleum in one of the bedrooms.

At the end of day the old carpet is just a heap...