A Century Old House

[digitS']

Those homes are charming, Chickie'sMoma and Carol Dee!

My home is what is called these days a ranch house but at 111 years old, it looks like something off the Montana prairie! I have suggested that horse tack hanging on the wall under the porch roof would look about right .

Thinking back 100 years ago and imagining it without the present kitchen (and attached bathroom and utility room), it is possible to image that the "front" bedroom was a dining room and the kitchen was where a bath and the basement stairwell is now. That would account for the old access to the basement . . . it was thru the floor but it seems likely that the room was a kitchen rather than a bedroom and bath .

The bathroom door frame from what is now that front bedroom was put in sometime after the house was built. The closet door frame beside it, is older . . . that may mean that one would use what is now a closet door to access the earlier kitchen . . !

These days, I use that closet to reach a place I call . . .

digitS'

 

[joz]

I have a Budget Craftsman double shotgun in New Orleans that they pulled the permits for in 1914. It's got straight wood columns on the porch, brackets under the front gable roof, and a few rafter tails exposed (porch depth only). The interior trim is Eastlake, all the doors have 5 horizontal panels... and overall it's pretty plain. So maybe it's just a Budget Polyglot.

I'm slowly rehabbing all the original windows. I have a Certificate of Historic Preservation Studies from the Tulane University School of Architecture, so I'm morally opposed to modern replacement windows. I'm also redoing the kitchen.... the original ones had been reworked in the last 20 years for cheap rentals, and the layout was useless. The tenant side got IKEA cabinets, but I'm building my own from scratch. "Custom" cabinet suppliers frustrated me to no end, and my Dad's a cabinet maker, so I'm spoiled. I've got the bases roughed in, and am about to find out what sort of finish carpentry skills I've got. Wheee! I built lots of models in architecture school.... surely this can't be much different? Better tools, certainly.

It's raised 8' on brick piers, with a garage underneath. The neighborhood took 4' of water in Katrina, so even though it's a low area the house should survive another flood. If it doesn't, I've likely got worse problems.

When I bought it I hired a contractor. We needed to replace a couple pieces of the timber sills, and bits of it needed raised. He did that, and the tile in the bathrooms, and installed the tenant kitchen, and refinished the areas of heart-pine flooring that had been either painted or covered in cheap crappy vinyl.

I've done a lot of drywall, re-glazing windows, and ALL the interior paint. Once my kitchen cabinets are finished, and the dining room gets fresh sheetrock (and 6 new casement windows, which I will also try to make myself.... Because I'm a glutton for punishment), and the enclosed porch gets new siding, and the exterior gets painted (not sure if I'm that ambitious), it'll be finished! I've only been working on it for 2.5 years...

 

[sparkles2307]

I was in the process of buying a 110 yr old house 5 years ago before I met DH until the owners backed out. It's such a nice house, I would have loved it. It was built so well and had the unique characteristics that old houses do. I remember being impressed by the roof in the attic, the wood still looked new.

 

[digitS']

The framing in my house, including the attic, is all unplaned 2 by's. Heavy boards! The floors don't even squeak!

Joz, I suppose you are opposed to this New Orleans' shotgun:

Ha!

IKEA? Hey, take a look what this Oregon pre-fab company can do with a little house - in partnership with IKEA! It comes with an entire IKEA interior package, "maple flooring, Pax wardrobes, and Abstrakt cabinets." Click on the picture to go to the website:



Steve

 

[Carol Dee]

joz, yes I would have preferred to keep the shake shingles, narrow wood siding and original windows. But so much of it had already been stripped out by the time we got our hands on it. So next time we shingle we will go with architectural (por spelling) shingles, already replaced the wide masonite siding with narrow vinyl. O.k. we opted out of wood and painting every few years. DH does it for a living and HATES doing it at home.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

same way about the masonite. it has to go! my parents had it on theirs when it was built in the early 70's like all the other houses in their neighborhood. our older house still has it and the stuff looks terrible along the foundation where water splashed up on it over the years. :/ i was hoping to find some older pics of the house so i can see what might have been on there before they sided it with masonite sometime in the 70's.

i like the look of the cedar shingles, but the house probably had the narrow boards.

 

[joz]

Nah, I don't mind the modern stuff. I've also got an Architecture degree from Tulane, which has a rather theoretical (rather than practical) design program.

I lurrrrrve Santiago Calatrava.

I don't have a problem with modern materials overall, but I feel obligated to preserve what is preservable of the original materials on historic buildings. Both the material and the build quality tend to be better than their modern counterparts. But.... it slows things down, increases cost sometimes (particularly when your contractor thinks you're being a pain in the bum for wanting things "salvaged"), and isn't always very energy efficient. If it's mostly rotten, I pitch it.... I've not yet worked out the epoxy-resin wood restorers, but then, I don't have fiddly moldings or decorations that are utterly irreplaceable. When I must replace something, I look for a salvaged option first, and if I can't find that I replace it with modern materials as close as I can get to the original. But I'm not messin' around with plaster for the walls. Drywall is bad enough.

 

[digitS']

Hey Joz, are we allowed to pick your brain now that we know about your relationship with the discipline? Okay, this is MY THREAD! If others want to pick Joz' brain they gotta start their own thread and hope that Joz responds . . . no hijacking Joz :/.

Anyway, if you don't respond . . . I'll understand.

What I was wondering about is would it be okay to have a heavy beam that passes completely thru a wall? In other words, the wood from something like a 4 by 6 or larger can be seen from the exterior as well as the interior.

I can imagine 2 problems:

1. moisture might move thru the wall along the beam. If it is high up under the roof eave, it wouldn't be rain but moisture, of course, would be a problem even if it was just getting in behind the exterior siding.

2. believe it or not, I have built log structures . . . after 30+ years, they are still standing . Anyway, I'm wondering about any special loss of insulation value from using a heavy beam. I wouldn't think it would be appreciable but, years ago, I just threw another chunk of firewood in the stove .

Talking about log cabins after that picture . . . Wow!! I used to live in Redding California and am not too far from Calgary these days. Going in either direction should allow me to see a bridge designed by Mr. Calatrava, I've learned from looking at Wikipedia!

Steve

 

[vfem]

Well our home is only 15 years old... but that's ok with me. I'm planning on having a huge charming garden that will probably last longer then the home will! HAHAHA

I've looked in raleigh too at some gorgeous old homes, and we've done remodel work to many old homes in Raleigh. It's what my husband's father used to do for a living. The last house he was working on before he passed was an old church he was converting to a 5 bedroom house on St. Mary's street in downtown. I'm yet to drive by and see how it was finished since it sold at auction to another builder after his father died. The original plan was to keep all the old stained glass. I wonder if they new builder did? If my memory serves me right it was a church from 1896. But don't quote me on that, its been over 5 years since it was bought and the project started.

 

[joz]

Sorry, Steve, I wasn't paying attention, and didn't notice your post and questions.

I'm really not familiar with either log cabins or heavy timber construction.... or cold weather. However, I can have a semi-educated natter about it.

I'd think that the biggest problem would be adequately sealing the gap. I don't know how much general moisture/humidity would travel through the wood. If the end of the beam is sheltered sufficiently by the roof, you can eliminate *most* rainwater penetration. How humid is your climate?

I have exposed rafter ends that continue up into the attic. They're completely covered by roof, and are painted outside (badly, flaking, in need of a repaint so certainly not weathertight, per se). But I'm not insulated, and my house is superduper drafty (I prefer "breatheable"). I have not analyzed the levels of humidity in my attic, nor can I adequately compare it with a system where the rafters do not penetrate the envelope.

I would recommend faking it. Which is not really in alignment with my principles of design (honesty in materials and methods), but, might be generally simpler. If you can figure out how to hang the outside chunk.

They tell you that any hole in your insulation is like a hole in your wall. I don't know if the spray foam guys are the ones telling us this or no. More importantly than a hole in your insulation is that the beam itself would act as a thermal bridge. But I'm not sure how thermally transmissive wood is. Engineered glulam beams will be less likely to absorb humidity, but more solid and therefore more likely to transmit a thermal condition inside. Maybe.

I don't know. SURELY there's some *real* info out there.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com.../how-get-eichler-look-without-energy-pricetag

If this doesn't answer your questions, it might give you better keywords to augment your Google-fu.