Things Past...A little different Diary Entry

We haven't done anything "dramatic" to the new old house in a few weeks  ( I mean,  we did have insulation blown in the attic and we're painting here and there...but unless you want to look at mounds of fiber insulation...there's not much to see!)  SO,  I thought that you might want to peruse some of the OTHER old house projects that I have undertaken in the murky past:

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This is my first house, purchased in 1984 and sold in 1999 in Montville Township, New Jersey.  When I bought it, the house was a wreck;  leaks everywhere,  broken plaster, even a dead rat in the toilet.  It looked good when I left after working on it for ten for fifteen years...even BETTER since the new owner added the handsome fence around the property!  I've learned so much since then...like not using a metal "power stripper" on nineteenth century clapboard!  The house originally had a veranda on the driveway side. 

Now, the next two house projects in the Village of Arlington Heights (we still own both of them) are all the dogs' fault since they chose to do their business in front of the deteriorating structures as I walked them down the street.

#1   Here's our Elliott Avenue house,  which appears in the 1880's maps of Hamilton County.  When I purchased it,  there was a large tree leaning on the back of the house.

The house has three bedrooms upstairs with an oversized claw foot bathtub,  a "mother in law" room in back of the kitchen and incorporates this handsome staircase...one of the spindles has been replicated...can you tell which one? 

Two years ago...we had a freak windstorm "Hurricane Ike," that tore off several of the old asbestos roofing tiles.  Except for a deductible...Ike gave us a brand new $10,000 roof!

We have been fortunate to have the same good tenants in this house since buying it in 2006 for $50,000 and it certainly has not required the labor and money that our other houses have demanded.  

#2  Our Glen Rose Avenue house;  though our smallest house,  it has a unique architectural style (half a dozen in Arlington Heights...I've not seen any like them elsewhere) and a colorful history.  A salesmen named Menuez purchased the house ca. 1890 and left a tin full of letters in the attic.  The house remained in his family for eighty years  (local legend:  a young great grandaughter died in the back bedroom during the 1950's...her father locked the door and it remained locked until his death in the late 1970's.)

Before:

After:

                                                                                              

                     
We've also had trees removed, the driveway paved and found a root had replaced a drainage pipe...under the basement concrete! I think I should paint the bricks on the front porch...what do you think?

Neglected as this house was...THERE WAS NO TERMITE DAMAGE!!!!  Sadly,  the house is vacant and we are currently looking for good tenants (we're two and two on tenants so far:  two good; two bad).

I hope that in some way we've improved the communities in which we have lived but I'm also reminded of the temporary nature of "things" in this world and the need to hold them with a loose grip!

Our goal for the next couple of weeks...painting upstairs,  finish laundry room, put up ceiling tiles, get appliances working...then to move just in time for Spring!



                         

 

Almost Spring in Cincinnati

<===== This is the Garden Gate, aka "The Gates of Hell" from a prop at church. Here's the outside plan: there is a hodgepodge of fencing around the property now...I am having a company install a new privacy fence around the rear and sides of the property...from the railroad to the house...and a more decorative fence and gates about midway across the driveway. This will give us a front and back yard. I am leaving part of the cinderblock wall that used to be a garage wall at the rear of the property and will raise it to about ten feet. The plan is to create an outside theater and to show neighborhood movies. Sort of reminiscent of this photo which we have in our bedroom (O. Winston Link)...but without the cars:

This week so far I've taken advantage of warmer weather to transplant three Redbud trees, two ornamental grasses, several Rose of Sharon sprouts and a Forsythia bush. We also moved the shed from the old garage foundation to next to the house...two of us inside, pushing up on the roof and walking...must have been a funny sight!

I also dug a tunnel under the walkway and ran a three inch drainage line from the gutters so rain will no longer drain into the basement.

No, still working on the bathroom ... still no water..... Today, the plan is to install two joists in the downstairs bathroom floor and put down some concrete backer board...while Mark learns how to do hardwood flooring.

Thanks for checking in! Deano

Everything you've always wanted to know about Termites

We knew that there was some termite damage here and there...but when you deal with old houses, things are always worse then they seem and when you start addressing one problem, you find another and another and so on.

The Parlor Right floor was a little "bouncy" near the fireplace but no damage was visible except in the far right corner of the photo below. Because the furnace with its octopus of ducts was directly below, I had to fix the problem from the top which meant removing floorboards.

Termites are attracted by moisture and I suspect that the moisture came from bad sheathing on the fireplace chimney...around the hearth, all of the beams were damaged or destroyed.



Now this is a piece from one of those beams...the termites had gone right through the grain and eaten the best part. We'll have this framed and call it "Termite Art."


I tried to pull up about one third of the "swamp pine" floorboards with a crowbar but since they were tongue and groove, it required that a circular saw be run along the groove to cut off the tongue. The saw is old and the depth kept changing...making matters more difficult.

I removed all the damaged splinters and framed around the hearth with 2x8 pressure treated lumber... using a bottle jack, by the way, below the hearth, just in case that the concrete might want to crack.

Each damage beam was "sistered" with the same 2x8 lumber and bolted in place with large bolts, washers and nuts.
The floorboards were replaced, best that I could...some had split but these will be covered with new flooring anyway. The bad news is that I have found damage even on the second floor but everything seems solid up there. I suspect that the front porch deck is a goner too.

The place is sure a mess...the lesson to be learned is to do one task at a time...not three or four but us ADD guys just don't know any better.

More next time....

D

Diary Entry No. 1: We buy our first HUD Home

My wife's friend, Becky Candler. lived in the white house at the end of the street in the 1950's and 1960's but the neighborhood was far older than that; the John Olden subdivision, laid out in the 1880's; one of the first planned suburbs in the country.

I didn't know much about Cincinnati, Ohio when I moved here in 1999 from New Jersey, 'cept that people there tended to be provincial and perennially resistant to change... but I was an admirer of old houses...and especially of the white house at the end of the street.

Alas, Becky told us that the house had been yellow and had arched windows until Mrs. Candler hired a cheap vinyl siding contractor in the seventies who messed up everything. There goes the neighborhood...but those windows will return someday, I secretly vow.

About two years ago, the previous homeowner walked out on their very expensive mortgage, and eventually, HUD, the good old Secretary of Housing and Urban Development acquired the property. It took over a year for a "for sale" sign to appear.

I've never purchased a HUD property before...and probably would not again. The listing and the contract was a bureaucratic nightmare...somebody lost a LOT of money on this house and I suspect that it was the taxpayers...you and me.

For instance, HUD had hired a contractor to go through the house and document every spot of missing or chipped paint. I didn't bother reading his voluminous report; old houses have lead paint; we know this, everyone knows this and they didn't have to waste taxpayer's money reminding us when a simple disclaimer would suffice!

"HOUSE MAY HAVE LEAD PAINT." There, now was that so difficult?

Anyway...at $55,000 the house, sitting on a double lot, was a steal (It had been sold for $105,000 previously) and I signed an offer for $48,000.

Just after we signed the contract...someone kicked the back door in and removed copper pipe from the house...and HUD's local service company didn't bother to show up for three days to secure the property. HUD...through (yet another) company representing them refused to repair the damage. $800 of damage for about $20 worth of copper...hmmmm. We backed out of the contract...and HUD graciously kept our $500 deposit.

We then spent the next three months...count 'em, three months...making a new offer of $35,000 every week until enough time had passed for HUD's software to finally figure out that no one was going to purchase the house but little old me.

So, that's the HUD story. We purchased the house officially in December and have a list of things to do that's about three miles long....

The REST of this blog will describe our experiences restoring the old house...to it's original glory and for our modern convenience....(and I promise, more photos and hopefully funny dialog).

Deano (New Jersey Boy sojourning in Cincinnati)

And I invite comments....dherbert53@aol.com