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.

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! 

Apple Pruning Season in Humboldt and the Tsunami

Friday's Japanese Tsunami hit hard north of Eureka up in Del Norte County.  There were evacuations in the low lying areas of Humboldt County but no damage here.  This does remind us of the January 2010 earthquake and the similarities between the coast of Japan and our fault laden coast.



It's mid-march and the north coast rain is relentless.   We tried to sneak a little painting between the squalls but gave up early.   Instead it was time to look at the old apple tree in the back yard.   The tree looked pretty bad, it has produced a small crop of small spotty apples of an unknown variety.

pruning the mystery apple tree

Restoring an old house is always about more than just the four walls, it's also about the garden and the people who have lived there over the past 100 years.   If we can bring back the apple tree then that's part of the restoration too.


Julia has used her recently acquired knowledge of apple tree trimming and proceeded to give the tree a long overdue and much needed winter trimming.

The tree needs a trim

"Yes, that's where I threw my hat"

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.

What's next with our floors?

We are facing the great floor puzzle.    We have pulled up carpets and vinyl by the tons and now we are actually getting to the wood floors.  Our house was not some fancy upper class house with hardwood oak or maple floors; in fact we have mix of redwood and more redwood floors.  We’ve found some nice tongue and groove floors in one bedroom and in the kitchen,  many of the other rooms having broad planked redwood subfloors that are now exposed.

The North coast of California, including Eureka, was a very isolated area with no rail service until well into the 20^th century.  As a result of this isolation many of the houses had only softwood floors, mostly redwood, and very few original hardwood floors, or so we have been told.

Once we got to the redwood floors we called in the carpenters, floor restorers, and everyone with an opinion, to come up with a plan to deal with the floors.   The floor experts are pushing for new hardwood floors, while we would like to find some way to use the wide planked floors. 

We are looking for others who have had these redwoods floors to help make a decision about new hardwood, or trying to "finish" the redwood planks, cracks and all, or some other plan.

Here is one of the redwood plank floors -- 

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...