Converting an 1825 Federal two family home back to a single family home

Our new foster family

2011-12-20T12:26:00.012-05:00

I know, I know I should be updating my house blog. I've been running out of steam. We have a few more rooms painted and the office is almost done. Yes, we enjoyed a summer with the pool (but no landscaping - another issue). I want to share the cute pictures. June 2010 our beloved cat Lipton died from her diabetes. This past spring we fostered a mother cat and her 5 kittens for 3 months. We kept the mom, Valentina, and one kitten, Tuxedo. Enjoy.

Interesting facts: every kitten can have a different father - that's why the wide variety in the coloring of kittens. Snowball is part Simese. 80% of the orange tabbies are males. Calico or tortie cats (mom and mocha) are always female.

I would have loved to keep snowball and clemetine but our house is furnished for black pets (dark rugs, dark couches, dark bedspreads, dark counters...)
Lauren named the kittens - snowball, clemetine, mocha, bandit and tuxedo. Can you guess which is which?

This is what waited for us every time we came home. They were at the window next to the mudroom.

More pool in process pics

2010-09-27T09:59:00.009-04:00

I'm a little behind but here are a few in process pics. The framing of the pool.

After framing they spray the "cement" and smooth it out.

The reason why we have big ruts in our our yard.

Wetting down the pool once or twice a day while it cures. Lauren says "I don't think it's worth having a pool if we have to do this every day."

The "mess" from the street.

Eventually this will be a yard.
3.5' retaining wall at back of property goes here. Our yard will match the top of the pressure treated neighbor's wall.
Back retaining wall near other neighbor's retaining wall.

A big hole in the ground

2010-05-26T10:01:00.009-04:00

Here are some in process pictures of the pool. I am so impressed with the back hoe drivers. John (left) with our pool rep - Andrews pools.

Framing out the pool - it's roughly 41' x 28' in an L shape. Because of setbacks the smallest width is approx 11' by the entrance stairs and then it gets wider.

Pool equipement will go behind the garage next to the AC units.

Hayden came over to watch the backhoe and dump truck. What a wonderful outing for a 3 year old boy. He cannot wait for the pool. It was only 90 and humid today. They said about 6 weeks to the finished pool.

Digging the trench for the equipment pipes from the back of the garage to the pool. This is the view from the kitchen. The bluestone patio will be out this door.

Kim and Jacob in the shade

Day 2 - pool dug and spreading final rocks at bottom of pool. Adding a dry well for 3 downspouts to keep water away from pool and our foundation. One downspout occasionaly gave us a small puddle in the basement. Hopefully this will not happend anymore.

View from the kitchen window. The shallow end wraps around the house to the right. Most of the pool is 3' to 4.5' for games (volleyball, basketball, etc.) A small deep end at the far end.

Other end of pool - shallow end (about 16") for the little ones. In the far right corner is 6.5' .

View from the side dining room window.

View straight out the dining room. Bluestone patio will be behind kitchen on left - garden with path to pool here and pool to the right.

View from the kitchen window where the table will be located.

Latest kitchen pictures

2010-05-24T11:57:00.008-04:00

OK it's a functional kitchen but not quite done. We have to move down the frig and microwave plus pick a paint color. The microwave will go to the left of the range. It's a bit messy but I was in a hurry (that's why no close up of the farmhouse sink). John has to build the built in bench with the old floor boards that were found above the ceiling. We need a new kitchen table, stools for the island and of course we still need to build the pantry shelving and nook cabinet. Our 1st priority is paint though.

And the earth moved

2010-05-24T10:43:00.007-04:00

The trucks came today to clean out the backyard. Pool tomorrow.

This picture taken from the 2nd floor window.

I'm very impressed on the driver's finese with a full size back hole. He's taking out shrubs right next to an old wooden fence and the fence stays intact.

Inches from my 2nd floor office window. The earth and house shakes.

Floors are finished on the 1st floor

2010-05-24T10:36:00.004-04:00

This past weekend the floors were refinished on the 1st level. We went with natural oil based polyeurethane. I know it may be a bit shiny for some, but I love it. We're on the home stretch.

Second floor bath - more pictures

2010-05-24T10:23:00.009-04:00

Here's our 2nd floor bath. Our walls and trim are not painted yet. Emerald Pearl granite is used for the vanity top (it came free with sink for spending so much money on our kitchen granite). It is stunning - the pictures don't do it justice.

Since the washer and dryer are in this bathroom I wanted to use the least amount of hard surfaces (i.e. tile) as possible. I used Armstrong Alterna vinyl tile - Mesa Stone light grey. It is textured and people can't believe it's not real tile. I love it. Farther down is the shower - it came out great. The blue tile has so much depth and personality.

Now on to the yard (even though we're not finished in the house)

2010-05-14T21:11:00.013-04:00

So, just in case you think I don't have enough to do (picking colors, sanding, painting, staining, moving in...) they start digging the pool next week. The pool shape is set but the patios, plantings, etc., are not finalized. This year is the backyard. Hopefully with more money we will do the front yard next year.

Many years ago I met a period landscape designer. She is designing for us an 1850 garden for modern living. We will use plants found in the Boston area in 1850 or earlier. Also the shapes of gardens, patios, hardscape, etc will be from that era. Normally the pool would be rectangular but we had a lot of setback restrictions so we squeezed what we could into the yard. The salt water pool is 41' x 27' in a somewhat "L" shape. We have a "sun shelf" at the small end for the little ones (about 18" deep). The long part of the pool is mostly 3' to 4.5' for basketball and volleyball. At the very end is ~6.5' deep. We will have a heater plus some water and light features. John's in charge of the details (I had enough on my plate with the house).

Here's the 1st draft with gardens, patios, etc. At the far end on the right will be our vegetable garden. I had to cut and paste and then resize so it may be a little off but you should get the idea.

Here's the pool depth - the far 2 on the right are 6.5' deep. The next 2 (up and down) are 4.5' deep, the next 2 are the corner are 4' deep and then 3.5' and finally 3' at the stairs. One stair wraps around into a bench. There's a swim out in the deep end with a bench. The at bottom of the picture is the "sun shelf" and 2 steps into that shallow end.

You can see some of our setback restrictions on the below.

Paint colors

2010-05-07T12:11:00.013-04:00

Potential Paint colors for Eden Ave – I will use Benjamin Moore white dove on trim. I bought pints of each paint and will try in each room. I will live with it a few days before deciding on a color. There's more rooms to paint besides these. Lauren wants pink and purple, Sean wants blue plus the hallways and a few others.

My monitor doesn't represent the true colors but you get an idea. I love saturated color! Some of the sample colors have writing thru the center - just ignore that.

Kitchen
A bit more orangy – looks better with the red from the dining room. Benjamin Moore™ 2155-50 Suntan Yellow
Benjamin Moore™ HC-4 Hawthorne Yellow
Dining room colors
This sure doesn’t look red on my computer. Benjamin Moore™ 2078-10 Roseate
Benjamin Moore™ 2079-10 Candy Cane Red

This looked more red in real life . Benjamin Moore™ 2080-20 Confederate Red

2nd floor bath – will choose 2 colors including an accent wall (sink/toilet wall)
Benjamin Moore™ 2059-40 Yosemite Blue

Benjamin Moore™ 2059-50 Pool Party

Benjamin Moore™ 2059-60 Splash

Benjamin Moore™ 2060-40 Toronto Blue

Benjamin Moore™ 2060-50 Cayman Blue

Mudroom – possibly 2 colors
Benjamin Moore™ 2062-40 Blue Daisy

Benjamin Moore™ 2062-50 Blue Jean

Benjamin Moore™ 2062-60 Blue Hydrangea

Benjamin Moore™ HC-152 Whipple Blue

Benjamin Moore™ HC-153 Marlboro Blue

The problem bath – the cool granite modern sink with the claw foot tub; one will go on wall, the other on the tub
Benjamin Moore™ HC-169 Coventry Gray

Benjamin Moore™ HC-170 Stonington Gray

Benjamin Moore™ HC-171 Wickham Gray

Office
Benjamin Moore™ HC-128 Clearspring Green

this was the front runner
Benjamin Moore™ HC-129 Southfield Green

Benjamin Moore™ HC-132 Harrisburg Green

Our present office is close to an above clearspring green plus this (which is in the running) Benjamin Moore™ HC-6 Windham Cream

Sitting room
Below chair rail in sitting room -Benjamin Moore™ 2070-50 Enchanted

above chair rail - This looks more lavender in real life. Benjamin Moore™ 2070-60 Lavender Mist

Half bath – more intense in bath; Benjamin Moore™ 2067-40 Blue Lapis

TV room – was more red in real life; Benjamin Moore™ 2079-20 Blushing Red. May switch to a blue

Still missing music room, billiard room and all the hallways. Probably something calming and light in the hallways to tie in the rooms.

3 down and 1 to go

2010-05-07T10:32:00.014-04:00

This past week we passed our electrical, plumbing and fire inspections. The building inspection should be on Monday. Our floors get refinished next week Wed - Sat. We're on the home stretch! Our 2nd floor kitchen (gas, water and drain) was disconnected yesterday - we now start using the 1st floor kitchen. Today I will begin to move things into the new kitchen.

We still have ALL the painting to do. - including priming, patching walls and woodwork, some sanding, washing walls and woodwork and of course over 28 6 over 6 windows plus 4 side lights, 3 transoms and a french door.

A peak at the granite

2010-03-15T22:31:00.006-04:00

Granite was installed today but they will be back tomorrow to complete installation. The 2nd floor bathroom will be done in a few more days. We got over 10" of rain and 3 chimneys are leaking - two in the attic and the 3rd has a HUGE water spot on the new dining room plastered wall.

In the rain 3 guys carrying in the 800 lb island.

Here's a peak at the red range and the island.

The half bath sink off the kitchen. We're buying a maple door - but John built the cabinet. I wanted a very small vanity and could not find anything. The granite is black galaxy with copper sparkles. The granite sink is a bit more coppery than it appears in this picture. The granite slab is great with the sink. Trim woodwork will be painted white and the door will be left natural with polyuerthane coating.

A view of the island looking west.

The "sandwich" area just outside the basement steps.

more kitchen

2010-02-24T20:34:00.006-05:00

Crown molding, light rail and working lights have been added (but more to go). Appliances are being delivered on Monday and granite templating same day. Our main staircase should be finished tomorrow. We're moving along.

The schoolhouse fixture in the area outside the pantry

Looking west towards the mudroom door.

This doorway goes into the dining room

My pullout spice drawer. I will use it for oils and spices and keep most of that stuff off the counter tops. I'll probably take out the 2nd from the bottom shelf so my oil bottles will fit.

some of the undercabinet lights have been installed. We will have above cabinet lights - probably just rope lights for now. There's an outlet at the top of each cabinet run.

In the pantry looking into the half bath. The school house fixtures seem a little large to me but I wanted adequate light. The one in the pantry has a 150W bulb and the other one has 100W (but can accept 150W). The items on the top right are the "extra" switches. For the home automation system every light has to have an individual switch. That's 15+ switches just for the kitchen. We don't want that many on the walls so the extras go here in the pantry. For instance, every under counter light can be individually controlled. We will have a button to turn them all on or off not 7 individual switches.

A peak into the kitchen

2010-02-24T00:58:00.005-05:00

Here's an in-progress kitchen. The crown molding, light rail and some of the other items will be installed tomorrow. My appliances are suppose to be delivered the end of the week and the granite templated beginning of next week. The cabinets are darker than I remembered - I'm very happy with that. I thought I picked lighter cherry becaue I believed it was going to be a dungeon with all the cabinets at one end and the windows at the other. As you can see it's still pretty bright in there.

This is the view from the dining room (the doorway is framing the picture on each side). I'm a little worried on my white frig - originally it was a cabinet away from my farmhouse sink - but not now. It's closer to my red and stainless stove

From the end of the island looking towards the mudroom and the "sandwich" area - the step down part of the kitchen in front of the stairs to the basement. This is where we're going to store food and items to make the kids lunches. It's also near the frig. The kitchen chandeliers on sitting on the island. The vent is so high because the 160K+ btu stove requires the wood hood to be a minimum 36" above the stove. We have a 1600 CFM vent - John says it's going to suck out all the air in the house. I hope I don't have to run it on high. That pipe over the cabinets will go away - right now it's supplying us gas to our 2nd floor stove. This kids still want to eat.

Let there be light

2010-02-23T11:50:00.012-05:00

Here are some of our lighting choices. I was surprised on how difficult this was (well it was difficult when staying on a budget). Most of them I hope look period appropriate. Some of the pictures are a little distorted. This is the 2nd floor bath light. We also have a recessed light in the shower and above the washer and dryer. There is also a light in the fan.
This is the dining room chandelier that we bought for the tenants about 3 years ago. It has 5 lights, not 6. Our kitchen chandelier is based on the shape of the Murray Feiss dining room one. Most of the lights on the 1st floor are based off this piece.

The sitting room (next to the dining room) has the smaller version of the DR light and it's ceiling mounted. I haven't seen it yet but I'm crossing my fingers. In this room there's a medallion.

This is a handcrafted hanging light for our main entry by Northeast Lantern in dark brass with clear seedy glass. If I could afford it I would have bought all my outdoor lights from them. They are beautiful in person.

Two of these lights flank the mudroom entrance. Adequate is all I can say.

Three of these are in the 2nd floor hall. Boy, we will have lots of light. Each one can handle 2 100W bulbs - 600W for the hall! We will probably use lower wattage bulbs.

We have a beautiful foyer light that we bought 3 years ago. It was discontinued so I have no pictures of it. We needed a 2nd understated light in that foyer - so this is it. We'll see how it goes but I have other places for it if I need to move it.

This light is for the TV room. We wanted something that didn't hang too far from the ceiling but has adequate light - 3 100W bulbs. It looks much better than this picture.

I have 2 of these. One is for the mudroom and the other was for the "sandwich" area of the kitchen in front of the basement door. Well, in the 2nd position the upper cabinets will hit this light so we had to find another place for it. We're putting it over the tall table in the billiard room.

A 5 light version of this light is over the island and kitchen table. It carries the same lines as the dining room and sitting room chandelier (but different manufacturers). You can see at least 2 of these at the same time. The colors compliment each other.

I also have 2 Rejuvenation schoolhouse light fixtures - one for the pantry and the other for the area outside the pantry. I also need more lights for the following:

patio
sandwich area
2 for guest room hallway (top and bottom of stairs)
bottom of stairs on the 1st floor
wall sconces for billiard room
billiard light (probably get it used when we buy the table)
another light in the TV room near the DVD player and built in bookshelf
1st floor full bath (I'm waiting until the other elements are in there to pick a light)
2 for the office
the above lights are "new" light fixtures; I also want to update a few other lights on the 2nd floor.

New mud room

2010-01-31T18:46:00.003-05:00

Besides the kitchen I'm really excited about our mudroom. Here's a "BEFORE" picture just when we started construction. Our plans call for bumping out our entrance 6' for the mudroom. We also had the 2nd floor window centered over the door, changed the garage fascade to match the rest of the house and the 2nd pantry window moved to the doorway to the top of the garage (cannot see in the 2nd pic).

In process picture. Pillars are still needed to match the other porch pillars. We think it looks so much better.

More in process pics

2010-01-31T18:07:00.008-05:00

Here are more pictures as of 1/30/10. The is the new kitchen addition. Wood floors are going in next week and cabinets the following week. We're moving along.

In the kitchen near the dining room looking towards the pantry entrance and half bath. French door to back patio.

West wall of dining room. The door was moved from the far right to the present position. When they took down the plaster there was a door frame just a few inches to the right of the present door. Our side table wouldn't fit between the door and the built in cabinet so we had them move it a few inches.

Dining room looking east. Doorway on left to kitchen. Not much done here except removed wall paper, widen doorway to kitchen a few inches and put in a transom above the doorway.

Picture taken from sitting room into dining room (and kitchen). The marble fireplace is painted. Another project for me - stripping the paint off of the fireplace.

Sitting room - mainly a staging area now.

Picture taken from the TV room thru the foyer (and hall closet) into sitting room. The main doorway entrance is to the right.

TV room looking into the foyer. This pic was taken standing by our old front door.

TV room taken from the foyer. This is our old front door. The stairs were removed last week. We think they MAY have been the original framed staircase and moved to this position. The staircase frame butting against the wall was painted. They would not have painted it unless it was exposed. This frame may have been the stairs that were originally in the foyer to the 2nd floor. (Or maybe it came from another house?) When converting into a 2 family they reused as much wood, doors, trim, etc. as possible.

We're also installing a gas fireplace insert. The metal tube in the fireplace is from the old heating system. The old heating system has been replaced with a forced hot air and vented outside thru a window in the basement. Also installed central air on the 1st floor. We now have 4 zones in the house.

The future billiard room.

This picture was taken from the 1st floor full bath. The door to the right leads into the foyer and the main entrance. The stairs will be our main stairway to the 2nd floor.

So in the TV room we removed some of the paint from the woodwork. I was hoping for mahogany or black walnut. John was hoping for junk wood. Well, it's pine, oak and other stuff. It's hard to see in these photos but there's 2 or 3 types of wood used on this paneling. It was never meant to be exposed. John's very happy - less work for us - we only have to paint it.

a close up

Here's the tile in the mudroom just layed - no grout yet.

Here's the ungrouted tile in the half bath 4 x 4.

Same tiles as half bath but 6 x 6 ungrouted tile in the 1st floor full bath. The tub will go against the far wall, the toilet next and a pedestal sink closest to the door.

In process pictures

2010-01-29T13:12:00.005-05:00

I definitely need more in process pictures. Here's the kitchen with the new addition. A lot more light than I thought. The kitchen table with built in bench will go under the back windows and 1.5 windows on the right.

Kim and Jeremy taking the in-process tour and looking at the kitchen layout on the wall. Kim's due early March. This is the other side of the kitchen. The pipe in the wall will go but we're using it now for our gas stove on the 2nd floor kitchen. The 2 dishwashers and sink is on this wall. To the right thru the doorway is our "sandwich" area where we will make the kids lunch. Past that is our mudroom.

Our future dining room. The wire in the ceiling is for the future speakers. Past the window is a staging area for re-use: doors, trim, etc. It will be our future office.

The sitting room. Pink insulation is in the windows because the windows only have storms here. John and I are reglazing and painting those windows - about 22 6 over 6 windows!

Jeremy looking into Sean's room. Taking the stairs for the last time. Jeremy's head is in Sean's closet. The floor will be extended and we will have a hall linen closet and a walk in closet for Sean.

From the old stairs looking into our future TV room.

Let there be stairs!

2010-01-29T12:52:00.006-05:00

First they had to take out the old hallway closet. This was holding up the stairs to the 3rd floor. Only 2 times (so far) the contractors have sworn during the renovations. This was one and the other was trying to get out 150+ year old pipes in the wall - in the latter they had to make extra holes in the 3rd floor to take them out.

The stairs to the 3rd floor were built for a storage attic in the 1910's. Those stairs would be used maybe twice a year. They were minimally built. We finished half the attic with a playroom and bath 5 years ago and use the stairs many times daily. The closet walls supported the stairs. With them gone Mike had to now improve the stair supports dramatically. Things came to a halt while ideas were thrown about and the architect called. I wanted to take a quick shower so they held up some support beams under the stairs and told me to jump the last stair. I was worried that we couldn't access the only bathroom on the 3rd floor and would had to stay at a hotel. They put in some more supports for the night. The next day Mike came up with a plan and they reinforced the stairs. I have been really impressed with Mike and safety. We have a sturctural engineer on this job and Mike provides even more support than suggested. Generally this house is built like a fortress and is not going anywhere.

They then broke threw our floor to install the new stairs this week. Here's Bruno working on it with Mike our contractor. They had to cut through a 10" x 10" main support beam. Now the dust has begun!

They clean up each night but this is the hallway between the living room and our bedroom and only working bathroom on the 3rd floor. We track dust everywhere.

living in a construction zone

2010-01-29T12:23:00.006-05:00

We're trying to keep the dust down to a minimum - but it's difficult. Our wine bottles look like they have been aged in the cellar.

We do take the "dust covers" off at night so we can use the the living room.

The 1st morning the kids were trying to watch TV thru the plastic.

Our contractor moved one pantry window to where our door to the roof of the garage was located. That area (roof entrance) was removed so that the 1600 cfm stove vent had space on the side of the house. (Our grill is still on the roof - the contractor forgot to bring it down before the door went away. The will carry it down the ladder.) They also had to center the other pantry window on the street side. Our dryer is located in the kitchen with the water cooler and everything else on shelves in the pantry (moved to the kitchen table). Our washer was in the mess too. Our friends Mike and Liz spent the weekend with us in this disarray.

Here's the old window opening that will be a wall in the guest suite shower (phase II when we have more money).

The temporary wall in our hallway between Sean's room and the bathroom and the rest of the house. It was closed up for most of the time but today it came down. It helped keep dust to a reasonable minimum.

Our dining room. We move the sheets every day so we can eat here. You can't see the kitchen table - it's covered with "stuff".

The office in session. If it's really dusty everything's covered and I'm not on the computer.

old, old wallpaper

2010-01-29T11:12:00.008-05:00

From October thru January a lot of very old wall paper has been exposed. I will try to approximate the age. One piece may be original. I've kept samples of it all and will frame them for one of our "house history walls."

The following is behind our closet over where the old central stairs should have been located. We estimate the closet was added in the 1910's when they converted to a 2 family so this wall paper is any time before then (my guess 1880's -1910's). It's made to look like marble stones and would have been in the stairwell/hallway on the 2nd floor (near the bedrooms).

close up

This was a really "find". With the architect's error of losing 16" we had to take out the plumbing chase in the bathrooms. The sewer lines were installed to our house in 1877. They would have made a chase for the plumbing and vent. (Our plumbing thinks that there was a chase even earlier because there appears to be older pipes than 1877 in the house. His thought is that there was a cistern in the attic and the servants ran up water for a gavity fed toilet.) Two layers of wall paper was behind the chase. So one may be original the 2nd put up 20+ years later. The top layer is the brown with copper foil like leaves on top. You can see it behind the pipes in the 1st photo and a close up in the 2nd.

This wall paper was found under the above paper. It has blueish green dots and lines with gray flowers and columns and light yellow background (maybe white that was aged).

In the biggest parlor this wallpaper was behind our stairs that were installed in the 1910's. This wall paper is probably from 1880's - 1910's.

This is a better close-up when our stairs to the 2nd floor were removed.
It's mainly browns and gray urns with flowers. On one wall (under the trim) someone put a border on it with brown, greenish gray, gray, and gold. The brown is textured like velvet. (sorry I don't have a photo of that).

This wallpaper was found in the "other" parlor. The doorway was widened probably in the 1910's - but it could have been widened earlier. Similar in style to the other parlor.

tile

2010-01-08T21:48:00.013-05:00

We're moving along. The contractor will finish blown-in insulation today. The walls will be buttoned up next week. All the rough electrical and plumbing is finished. The heating system is running. In about 2 weeks Mike will tile the mudroom and half bath and the 2nd floor bath after that. We had to pick out tile this week - much harder than I thought - too many choices. Here are my pics so far. (will order them later today (Sat.))

Mudroom: Italian Edilcuoghi porcelain tile canyon musk. This pic shows it more brown than it is. It has a lot of tecture but not too rough on bare feet. It's suppose to be unbelivable hard and can take abuse. I really like it.
In the tile store and in the samples it has more grey. It is very slate looking. There is some undertones of green that was picked up with our granite. (The granite is typhoon bordeaux but not from my slab. The wood sample is from our nature oak floors which will be next to the tile. OK, not a great match with the wood but we like the tile). We're also thinking of having the tiles layed out in this pattern in the 6' x 12' mudroom. Second floor bathroom: Since the washer and dryer are located here next to 2 bedrooms I did not want hard tile on the floor. I picked out Armstrong vinyl groutable tile - Alterna in mesa stone light gray. It has texture and won't be slippery. I love it. It will also absorb the sound better instead of bouncing it.

We settled on home depot 8x10 white tile in a subway pattern with Briare Galapagos 1x1 blue-green tiles for the back wall and floor. (white tiles on the walls to the right and left and the ceiling in the shower) We were thinking of the HD glass tiles but like the ones above better and it was only $3 per square foot more. The below picture is with the HD glass tiles.

Here's a picture of the Galapagos tile but it doesn't do it justice.

The tile looks much better with a few of them - more depth and variation. It provides a great punch of color and surprise in this serene bathroom. Here's a view from the shower and also with the Armstrong flooring.

First floor half bath: It will have this vessel sink in it. It was hard to pick out a tile with this color sink. The medicine cabinet is natural maple and we think we will have a black granite top. Undecided on the sink cabinet but like this tile. It had much more variety in the store. The tile is by Gazzini - Montecito Echo in 4x4. We're going to run them a normal square pattern. It has some textures so it should not be too slippery plus all the grout lines with the 4x4 tiles. (we're not having the gold accents - just the normal tile)

I've never had tile let alone picked it out. It was harder than I thought - too many choices and I didn't have strong feelings. What do you think of our choices? Patterns? Any suggestions?

Here was a strong contender. I loved the middle one for the mudroom and the bottom for the half bath. The only thing I worried about is that the brochure showed too much orange in the middle sample - but that was not the issue in the store.

Here's another one I loved for the half bath but they didn't have it in the 6x6, 4x4 or 12 x 12 size in stock (only 18" x 18" or 2" x 2" for a 4' x 5' bath which I don't think would work). The store would have to order it from Italy (they're an importer of it) and it would take months. I keep telling myself that I think it was a bit too modern for the house. [the tile was reasonable but 5 of those little accents cost $40!]

When it rains it pours

2009-12-07T16:52:00.002-05:00

Today my contractor started to gut our 2nd floor bathroom. Let the dust begin. As we were reviewing what items I want to keep he took some more measurements. Walls were in the way and from past experience these walls are different thickness. I told Mike just put a hole in the wall and run the tape measure thru it. A few hits of the hammer and we soon found out that my architect is off by 16"!!! We can squeeze 4" from Sean's bedroom and have no trim around a window but it's hard to make up for 12" on a 9' bathroom. I called Robert our architect and he came right over. We have had a lot of measurement issues with this house. From room to room the walls are different thickness. Also his assistant quit after measuring our house. Now we have to come up with a different plan for the already tight bathroom. I was going to order the vanity and sink today - I'm glad I didn't do it yet. I do have the shower items, toilet and sink faucet. Oh well.

An hour earlier our mudroom entry door with sidelights and transom was delivered. This was after a 4+ week delay when they broke the frame at the factory after building the semi-custom door. Mike our contractor offered to help the guy unload the door off the truck - knowing that it was very heavy. The driver refused the help and then promptly dropped the door and broke part of the frame. The door went back with the driver. Another wait for a new door. The first floor cannot be buttoned up without it.

Finally our old knob and tube circuit for the kitchen gave up this weekend. This circuit has the refrigerator, microwave, toaster oven, kitchen lights, stove, stove fan and light, wash machine, dining room light and Lauren's room on it. All on ONE 100 year old wired circuit. For 10 years it worked fine (except we knew we couldn't run the microwave and the toaster oven at the same time without tripping the circuit breaker). This weekend it said - no more. We could not reset the circuit breaker. We lived the weekend with extension cords running to the garage and one over the sink light. We couldn't plug it into another outlet in the house since the rest of the house is on the other 100 year old wired cicuit (office, living room, hall, bathroom and the 2 bedrooms). 95% of the house is run off two 15A circuits!! I don't understand why we need the additional 200A service upgrade (oh yeah the pool needs 100A). The electrician Noel is here fixing it and adding a new outlet off of a new circuit in the kitchen so we don't have to run extension cords to the garage and leave the back door open a crack for cold air to enter into the house.

Besides this everything is moving along. I've ordered (and received) most of the plumbing fixtures but I'm a little stuck on lights. I'm trying to get them to flow from one room to another without spending an arm and a leg. I have to make some decisions on tile too.

Let's just throw out that kitchen design

2009-11-10T20:28:00.006-05:00

Yes, the electrician and plumber are to start this week and this past weekend I threw out my kitchen design. I've had it for over a year! I planned on ordering cabinets this week so I put my kitchen layout on GardenWeb.com this weekend for final reviews (Wonderful site and lots of information. I cannot say enough great things about the kitchen forum). My range placement wasn't popular - main traffic path. Everyone wanted it moved. So I swapped my main sink with my range and all the cabinets that go with them. I think I have a better design - more prep area, bigger counters next to stove, bigger pathway for main traffic aisle (and not in front of stove), etc. My range is centered but not my main sink - just 10" off. What do you think? My design doesn't show upper cabinets - but I have them too.

I also ordered my stove, vent, blower, both dishwashers and 2 bathroom fans this week. I have a few more days to pick out the color of the range. I put the blower on hold until I can figure out if I'm going in line or external blower because of the new range position. I want to discuss this with my contractor first but he's taking a roof off a house for a few days. I'm trying to nail down my new staircase - I think I have decided on the balusters. I'll have a quote in a few days. Also still checking out columns for our mudroom entrance. One ridicuouls quote was $2100 for 2 columns. I'm a bit under the weather today. I stayed home and John put me on speaker phone during Lauren's parent -teacher conference. Lauren said "that's sure cool technology".

OK, the cabinet guy said we can have the trash cabinet open towards the dishwashers but we have to make the cabinet 21" deep. I took the 3 inches out of the next two cabinets and converted the bookshelves into a 4 drawer base. We'll have a bookcase in the mudroom for my cookbooks.

Project Overview

2009-10-29T10:48:00.018-04:00

Oops. I've been so closely tied to this project that I forgot some people don't know all the things we're doing. We bought our 1825 two family back in April 1999. We always planned to buy a 2 family that was originally a single and would be easy to convert back to a single. I wanted a Victorian with natural woodwork but they were $200K - $300K more money. We ended up with an 1825 Federal period home that was a structurally sound but cosmetically challenged two family. We had the wallpaper stripped and then all the walls needed to be skimcoated, floors refinished, all the ceilings repaired, reglazed the 30 six over six windows on the 2nd floor, updated electrical panel to two 100A circuit breaker service, updated some electrical to include wall switches (!) and painted everything. We rented downstairs and lived upstairs.

Our kitchen had red counters and white counters, old cabinets, the frig in the middle of the room, no dishwasher and 2 radiators taking up space. We updated our heating to central air and heat and bought the lowest end Home Depot kitchen for $2k (cabinets, counters, sink, faucet, etc.) thinking that this was a temporary (4 year) fix. It was a huge improvement.

We finished half the attic into a guest room/play room and added a bathroom (shower only). Then we lived in CA for 16 months, the UK for 6 months and traveled extensively. When we got back we started detail planning. This took years.

We're now converting the house back to the original single family. I want to respect the house and keep as much of the original fabric as possible but still have it for modern living. I see us as caretakers for this home. Some contractors and architects wanted me to blow out all the walls and gut the house. If I wanted a modern house I would have bought one. We're keeping as much of the original footprint as possible.

These are our present projects:

gutting 2 baths (and moving one wall)
taking out one non original staircase and adding one where the original staircase was located
moving a few doorways for better flow
gutting the kitchen and adding 8 feet out the back with a half bath
adding a mudroom
updating ALL the electrical and plumbing (some of my pipes are the original from 1877 when they brought in the sewer lines and lots of knob and tube wiring)
lots of structural work mainly in the basement
lining a few fireplaces
adding a home automation system
roughing in the guest bath (we'll do the finish work ourselves)
refinishing the the wood floors on the 1st level
new heating system on 1st floor
adding central air to 1st floor
plus a few other things like wall light switches (!), ceiling lights in rooms that have none (!), etc. - you know, some of those modern conveniences most people enjoy today.

I'm reglazing, repairing and repainting the 30 1st floor 6 over 6 windows (John's helping), stripping woodwork, painting the whole house, buying all items like lights (30), plumbing fixtures, caninets, doors (custom and stock), pillars, staircase parts (lots of research) etc. coordinating my contractor with MY subs (window repair, HVAC, floor guy, roofer, etc). I've been working with an architect since 3/08.

Presently, our addition framing is almost done (waiting for a door) and most of the demo is finished on the 1st floor. (We're living on the 2nd floor). The plumbing and electrician will rough in the 1st floor over the next few weeks and then the contractor will break thru to our floor after Thanksgiving. He will then go gun-ho until finished. He expects to be done Jan/Feb.

My scanner isn't the greatest and most of these drawings are on 11 x14 pages but you will get the idea. Here are the updates to the 1st floor. The kitchen is chopped off but it's included in the kitchen blog. The staircase is moving back to the center of the house. The study in the bottom right is the billiards room where the "new" fireplace is located. You can see a little bit of our mudroom at the bottom right - right of the basement stairs. The top of the picture is south.

Here's the 2nd floor updates. Bedroom 2 is getting a walkin closet from the old staircase. Also a linen closet will be carved out of the space in the hall. The large closet from bedroom 2 will be used in the bathroom so we can move the washer and dryer into it and add a shower. (the washer and dryer are in the present 2nd floor pantry which will be the future guest bathroom). The unnamed room on the left in the middle is our present dining room. In phase III it will become our master bath. The space just above it in this drawing will become our walk in closet.

Here's how the front of the house will look when we're done. The new mudroom addition is immediately to the right of the garage. I cannot wait for our 6' x 12' mudroom! This part of the house is facing the street and west.

Here's a drawing on how the back of the house will look. The garage is to the right and off picture. The new 1st floor kitchen addition is on the right side of the picture. The small window is in the new half bath. This wall of the house is facing east.

This view is from the north side of our property line looking south onto our garage. To the left is the 8' kitchen half bath bump out. To the right of the garage is the new mudroom. These walls of the house are facing north.
This will give you an idea on some of our electrical updates on the 1st floor. Notice all those new wall switches - there's only 3 in the 1st floor now!! Some of the rooms don't have ceiling lights.

We're also planning a full backyard renovation with inground pool. I'm working with a historic landscape designer and want to use plants from the 1850's or earlier. She designs period gardens for modern living. We hope to have the pool in by late spring. Kitchen is my main focus but I have a lot of other things going on. And renovating a very old house there are many surprises in the walls. I'm still holding out for gold in the walls.

Phase II will be finishing the guest room suite in our present kitchen and adding a wine cellar in the basement. We expect to do most of the work ourselves.

Phase III (when we have more money) will be to complete our master bedroom suite. We will convert our present dining room into our master bath and convert our office into a walk in closet.

I think we have enough to fill our time (and take all our money).

Searching for a staircase

2009-10-28T20:35:00.006-04:00

So, our plans call for removing the 1910's staircase to the 2nd floor and putting in the original staircase. Normally one enters the foyer with the steps either on the right or left that go up to the 2nd floor. This is what we want to do. Our house was built before indoor plumbing so the present bathroom did not exist at that time. There's not enough room at the 2nd floor landing for the staircase. The steps will not fit if it's to meet code. To make it work we're going to put them in reverse order. When you walk into the foyer a coat closet will be in front of you. The stairs to the 2nd floor will start near the bathroom. In this rendition we don't have to reverse the stairs to the 3rd floor.

In the below picture the 2 bathrooms are on the left - one on each floor and both will be gutted. The entrance to the foyer is on the 1st floor to the far right.

I never found anything in the house on what the original staircase looked like. Now I had to do my research. Asher Benjamin is a famous architect from the early 1800's. His pattern books provide drawings and practical advice for full house plans, including such details as circular staircases, doorways, fireplace mantels, balusters, etc. Many drawings were full scale. People used these books to build houses. Our library had copies of most of his books. I copied many useful pages. I also found a book at the library on Federal Homes with drawings for woodwork, windows, etc. Not too much on stairs but helpful for other things. The moulding most similar to ours is in a house 3 miles away - the Gore estate. I went over to look at their stair baluster - very plain. I also have the "The Elements of Style" - excellent resource for period homes.

Next I searched the Library of Congress Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/index.html This is a treasure trove of information. "Administered since 1933 through cooperative agreements with the National Park Service, the Library of Congress, and the private sector, ongoing programs of the National Park Service have recorded America's built environment in multiformat surveys comprising more than 556,900 measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written histories for more than 38,600 historic structures and sites dating from Pre-Columbian times to the twentieth century." I thought I read many years ago that this program was started by FDR to get people back to work in the Great Depression.

In this database I can type in a date and "baluster" and get lots of pictures for stairs for that date. I can also search by state, county and then city. I looked at old houses in Newton, Cambridge, Boston and the North Shore. I found many examples. From all of this I'm searching stair books to find something similar. Yes, I could go custom but it will be very, very expensive. Instead, I would like to find something that would appear to most people that it would fit for the period. I think I'm getting close to a decision.

Found a fireplace

2009-10-27T20:44:00.009-04:00

September 23, 2009

Well, we knew there was probably a fireplace in the wall in the room under Sean's bedroom. This will be our billiard room. Our contractor took a look and low and behold - there it was. It was bricked up. I think the old furnace was vented thru here. (the other fireplace on this floor is bricked up too but we will open it for a gas insert.) Our furnace and the new 1st floor furnace will be vented directly outside. The fireplace has a brick face - not plaster. Mike thinks this is how it was originally. This is very different from the others. Maybe this is where the original kitchen was located? We're going to expose this fireplace - do we leave the brick exposed too or plaster it up? We need a mantle also.
Here's the fireplace in the TV room. We will open this up, put in a flue and add a gas insert. This is a marble mantle,
Another marble fireplace - this one will be in the sitting room. We will only use candles in it.A close up of this fireplace.The 4th firplace on this floor. The marble mantle is painted - I need to figure how to get the paint off and not ruin the stone underneath. Any suggestions?

Granite and kitchen layout

2009-10-27T12:23:00.008-04:00

Granite - I wanted a "WOW" granite. I visited over 10 granite yards multiple times and was contantly pulled towards Typhoon Bordeaux. I wanted some red, lots of movement and not too dark. Here's a picture of our slab (we have two). We picked it out on my way to the airport to Ireland for 10 days.

Kitchen - I've been thinking about it a long time. Here's a "before" picure. I worked with my architect, got some suggestions from a few kitchen designers and then the final configuration from Garden Web people. I'm very happy with it. We will have a 48" red Blue Star 6 burner plus grill range, 2 dishwashers, 30" farmhouse sink, prep sink in the island, french door frig and an undercounter frig. I also have a big walk in pantry. We have a big island, built in benches around table and a lunch/sandwich area to the right of the frig. I was worry that it would be dark because all the cabinets are at the end with no windows but it isn't the case. (Click on the diagram and it will be larger).

If you have any recommendations I'm all ears. I hope to order cabinets this week or next. I'm getting Cabico cherry cabinets in a natural stain. I'm not sure what color. I also want a red stove. I was looking at the top color on the left, top 2 colors in the middle and bottom color on the right. I love the last color but it's "too" red and doesn't go with the granite as well as the others. The 1st one was the best "match" but too brown for me. I'm going with the top color in the middle.

Next I have to pick out a cabinet stain. This was my 2nd round of choices out of 30+ stains. I love the dark one but the red stove gets lost in it and the white refrigerator will look too stark. We already bought the frig since ours died last May.

I then narrowed it down to these 3. Which do you like?

Here they are in the kitchen.

Here are the cabinets in the dining room on the natural oak floor. I'm hoping to have the same in the kitchen. The only "catch" is if I go with reclaimed wood - not sure what that would be or look like.

Gutted entrance hall

2009-10-27T12:07:00.003-04:00

Here's our gutted entrance hall. This is looking at our new entrance, south.

The main support beams are 10 x 10 but the other ones are undersized. More support added.

The new staircase has to go thru the 10 x 10 beam. Before Mike would cut it he wanted to make sure all is OK. Both the architect and structural engineer came out to look at it. All is fine.

We found some very old wallpaper behind our present stairs to the 2nd floor. It was probably from the late 1800's. We found some more behind wood trim too.

Foundation and cement truck 9/10 and 9/11

2009-10-27T12:06:00.002-04:00

OK, this is not quite in order. This work was some of the 1st to be done (9/9 and 9/10) but I'm playing catch-up with my Blog. It's also my 1st time blogging and I'm learning as I'm going. I know the pages will get "prettier" as I go along. Here are some pictures of foundation work. The cement walk way was broken up by by Bruno with a sledgehammer. Bruno's a small guy.

The foundation was dug out with a back hoe. Here's the mud room foundation hole.

Here's the kitchen and half bath foundation hole. There will be a crawl space under here.

Mike our contractor directing the cement truck onto our lawn.

Hayden was here the 1st time the cement truck arrived.

Gutted 1st floor kitchen

2009-10-27T12:06:00.000-04:00

The kitchen morphed into a shell over time. This 1st picture is the east wall down to the studs. This wall be removed and a new frame will be built 8 feet further into the backyard.

This corner had the old stove. We think this addition is between 1840 - 1860. Notice the vent for the stove that went into the chimney. We decided to keep the half brick wall and the brick on the floor. Some of it will be covered by the new cabinets and stove.

Framing is going up on the back side of the east wall. Part of the wall is being removed.

The new kitchen addition waiting for windows and door.The gutted kitchen looking west. The wall to the left of the door will hold 2 cabinets and my stove.Windows and door are in. I was afraid there wasn't going to be enough natural light - but I was wrong.

Gutted 1st floor bathroom

2009-10-27T12:05:00.000-04:00

Here's pictures of our 1st floor bath.

Notice where the rear door use to be on the outside wall? It's only a single layer of brick now (where the window is located). Lots of knob and tube wiring too. We decided to update all the electrical. We're switching the sink and toilet layout so the sink is the 1st thing you see when you walk into the bathroom. We're using our old sink from Watertown - square stone one with open faucet. We will have the old claw foot tub reglazed and open up to the room. Just a hand held shower with no curtain. The tub will be mainly used for soaking.

Painted wood floor above kitchen ceiling

2009-10-27T11:39:00.002-04:00

September 11, 2009

Ok, I've been talked out of the old wood floors in the main part of the house because our beautiful oak and fir on top will have left a lot of nail holes, the floors are too soft, the floors would be different levels, "there's a reason they covered it", etc. but...a new saga. Still no gold in the walls.
Both kitchens have 8' ceilings compared to 9'4" in the rest of the house. The floors are all level so there is "room" between the 2 kitchens - specifically 16". Mike our contractor wanted to see what's in there because we need to order windows and the plans call for full height kitchen. He was hoping a drop ceiling and no pipes. Trying to cut thru the ceiling was a bear - no drop ceiling here. Mike says it looks like another floor. Huh? His saw is having a difficult time. Well it appears to be 2 layers of 3/4" flooring just like the main part of the house (old growth pine?). I think we have a very nice old floor without nail holes. It doesn't look hand planed but maybe from the 1840's. We know the addition was there before 1877 when city sewer was hooked up to the house per the old city connection plans that year. The floor is painted too like the old part of the house. Since it's on the 2nd floor it would not have gotten much use and nothing on top of it so no nail holes.

I asked Mike if he's ripping up the ceiling today. He said no (he's getting the footings in for the mudroom today - a full size cement mixer was in our back yard yesterday). I told him I may want to keep that old floor. He said only a midget could get it up. Well, I'm the ideas person and John is the implementer. John's cringing right now reading this. We got the weekend to think how to attack it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the old floor but it will not be in the dumpster!

All ideas appreciated.

Well, John spent part of Saturday trying to figure out how to get the floor boards out easily. He had to cut a larger hole to get a better look. On Sunday my brother-in-law Jeremy and a good friend Eugene helped John bring down the 2 layers of old pine (plus insulation, old mice droppings and 100 years of dust). Eugene came up with an even better idea on how to get whole pieces simply down. They guys got all the boards out in 4 - 5 hours. I spent the afternoon taking out the old sqaure nails. At some point I may make a sculpture out of them. I'm not sure what to do with the old floor but it's not in the dumpster. Maybe they will go down on our bedroom when we start phase 3.

Applied for permit

2009-10-27T11:34:00.000-04:00

September 2, 2009

Yesterday I met my contractor to apply for our permit. Just to get to this point has been a rough 6 months. We were pursuing a special permit but the aldermen finally voted a band-aid to fix their screw up for FAR (floor area ratio). Well, yesterday was 9/1 (move in day and John and I spent all day cleaning our college apt for the next 5 male college students to move in). It was also the 1st day we could apply for our permit with the new fix. I came from scrubbing gross bathrooms and a kitchen. Mike, our contractor was going to be 15 min late - stuck in traffic. I asked him if I needed my checkbook for the permit. "Only if we get it today". No one thought THAT would happen. It would take 2 - 3 days if we were lucky and how my luck's been I thought it was going to take another 2+ months! Since I had the extra 15 minutes I dashed home to get it anyway.

At the counter was Al, an inspector Mike has used MANY times. (Another reason I picked my contractor - he's done lots of work in Newton). If Mike was alone, the permit would not have been given. Since I was there and could answer many questions we got the permit! It took 20 minutes. I wanted to FRAME the permit - not just tape it to the window. I was SOOOO happy. We started planning this project the day our offer was accepted 10.5 years ago. I went looking for an architect almost 2 years ago. I've been working with our architect for 1.5 years. We've been stuck in zoning purgatory for almost 3 months. It has been a LONG journey and we haven't even started the "hard" work.

Well, Mike wanted to start in the basement - we need about $20K of structural work. First the old radiator pipes need to be removed (10 radiators so 20 pipes). We're getting a new central heat and air system. Since we knew we had to do this no matter what (and we could split the permit in 2 if we really had to) I had my HVAC contractor take out the pipes ahead of time. (Actually, he drained the system last June when we thought for sure we would get a permit and took out the pipes the last 2 days). I walked thru with Greg (HVAC guy) where the returns and registers would go on Mon. I said I wanted to run it by John . There were a few up in the air. He asked when he could start. I said I would like it done by mid Oct so we have heat down there but he could start sooner. After the pipes he was going to send someone over to take out the radiators. He was doing a job near by and could send some guys over during their down time on that job. I said I was flexible.

Well, last night I was so excited and couldn't get to sleep until almost 3 am. So much going thru my head - so many decisions! At 8 am our doorbell rings. A guy wanted to talk to me about some stuff downstairs. They're taking out the radiators and 2 are enclosed. They may have to saw it apart to get at them. I said let it rip. He then asked me where I wanted the heating grates in the kitchen - they were not marked. WHAT!?!? 8 am and most of the grates have been already cut in the floor - including one where it definitely wasn't going. If I was there some would be moved a few inches. I told the guy - no more holes in the floor!!!! We called Greg, my HVAC contractor. Greg said since he didn't hear from me that he thought all the locations were OK. It was only a little more than a day! From now on if a decision has to be made, no one can precede until they get my OK. I didn't think they were going to cut holes in the floor for a few weeks. I now may have a few patches in the floor. There would be some for the holes from the radiators pipes. Take a big breath - I will live. I told them to keep all the wood they sawed out of the floors. I inspected some. I thought they put the present floors over the old floors. Now I could see for sure.

There were 3 floors. Our oak and fir wood floors (from 1910's), the original floors (1825) and a subfloor. Now another major decision. Do I pull up the beautiful wood floor to show off the original 1825 hand planed painted grey floor? You would not believe how dense that wood is! It's 3/4 inch thick. There's an old fashion square nail in it. I'm thinking about exposing the old floors in a few rooms. At least this decision doesn't need to be made for a few weeks. What do you think? Really - tell me your opinion. All comments welcome! I'm also going with wood floors in the kitchen. They may not have the old hand planed floors since it was built in the 1870's (we think). They may have the oak floors and I could use the pulled up oak for patches. (This is my economical side thinking). What are your thoughts?

zoning purgatory

2009-10-27T11:32:00.001-04:00

June 9, 2009

UGH!!!! We're in a BIG zoning mess! I don't know what we're doing. Newton just made an "oops" when changing the permit/zoning process 2 months ago. We're stuck in limbo land. The board knows this was a bad decision but unfortunately any town fix can take months. We thought we were pulling permits this week! I was at a town meeting last night until 11 pm with everyone agreeing this issue was not well thought out before becoming a zone requirement. (FAR - floor area ratio - it effects people on small lots with big house. Franklin community is very hard hit - 20 - 40% of the houses in this area couldn't add on a mudroom!) Our limits are .35 and we're sitting at that point now. We want to add 200 sq. ft = .015. The house next door has a FAR of .75!

We need to get a special permit for our bump outs which can take a few months on the short end. If the aldermen change the FAR requirements we won't need a special permit. I just got off the phone with our contractor. We will come up with a definitive plan tomorrow but at this point I think we will hold off until Sept before we go any farther. One work around was to start downstairs in July (bathrooms, staircase, doorways, etc.) and hopefully get the required permits before they finished. Another plan is to take out the heating and windows on our enclosed porch and hope the FAR numbers work. An issue for our contractor was that he may not be available in fall. He will get back to me tomorrow on it but he just called my architect about the latter plan when I thought we had a plan to start in Sept. UGH!!!

Our HVAC contractor drained the 1st floor radiators yesterday. Today they were to take out the pipes in the basement. I have put him on hold. He was trying to get the guy on the phone to tell him to stop. He hasn't reach him yet. I'm guarding the house and won't let him enter. Right now there's no heat available downstairs. I would hope they don't need any heat this summer.