FarmHouse-Poor

living and dining rooms

2011-02-03T05:30:00.001-05:00

This week we hung the Sheetrock walls and boxed in the second door to the kitchen. Eventually we will build a built- in hutch to fill the space of the old doorway. Here's a few shots of the two rooms.....

living room finishing

2011-01-23T22:55:00.001-05:00

Today we hung the Sheetrock in the living room ceiling... We picked up 12 foot sheets to cut down on the number of joints to tape and spackle. Dad brought a sheet lift, which saved our backs and necks .

Here is the room with the ceiling leveled and ready for Sheetrock.....

Sooner or later I'll actually take a few photos of the progress.

finishing the walls

2011-01-22T22:48:00.001-05:00

We took a few weeks vacation to start the finishing work on the master bedroom and the first floor.
We started by removing all of the old paint on the perimeter walls.... This was achieved with a hand held scraper over many shifts of bloodied knuckles and sore wrists .
A swipe of the scraper takes the four or five coats of paint down to bare plaster. The paint is so old and hard that it cracked and fractured into tiny chips; cleanup with a vacuum was quick and clean (relatively)

Plaster cracks were gouged out with a dremel tool , filled with plaster and smoothed over. Each of the walls required extensive repairs from generations of neglect and inadequate repair attempts.

We mixed batches of hydraulic lime based mortar, injection grout, and scratch coat plaster using materials from DeGrunchy's lime works ( www.limeworks.us). Same manufacturer as the mortar we used for pointing.

Around forty batches of masonry repair materials later, we're nearly ready to paint the bedroom.

I'll post some photos of the plaster work and the master bedroom ready for paint soon.

Floor restoration

2010-12-25T13:31:00.000-05:00

Before we can buy restoration materials for the floor, we need to determine what species of tree the floors were made from. I planed down a few scraps of floorboards that were left over from the living room hearth project, and it looks like it is mostly White Oak, Pin Oak, Red Oak, and possibly some Chestnut.

The floor is 5/4" thick Tounge and Groove, random width boards. It is face-nailed with old wrought iron "cut" nails, which makes lifting any of the boards excruciatingly painful!
The floor boards, and most of the original lumber in the house, was most likely cut at Bishop's Mill. The Mill was one of many, just 1.5 miles down the road in what is now Ridley Creek State Park.

Here's a few shots of the floor-

I called a bunch of local saw mills and lumber wholesalers to get quotes for about 100' of oak - 8' - 12' wide, quarter sawn and straight sawn to match the grain pattern of the original floor materials. Oak is Expen$ive! the local lumber yard is selling 5/4" straight sawn oak for $8 / ft!!! no way Jose.

A friend recommended checking Wood Finder, where a number of local DIY-esque sawmills advertise their locally grown and harvested wood. I found the contact info for East Coast Log, on the site, and called. I spoke with the owner/operator, Art Weeks, about our floor project. Art was very helpful; he suggested that we visit his mill, check the stock, and pick out the right boards for our floor. East Coast Log had a bunch of White, Red, and Pin Oak in stock, for about $3 / ft, what a difference!

We're planning a trip to pick out the materials in the next few weeks, 'll post some photos from the trip.

Master Bedroom Progress

2010-11-07T21:11:00.001-05:00

I spent the weekend scraping windows in the master bedroom and installing the weatherstripping to seal things up for the winter. The new windows look great, they really brighten things up.

Back in the summer I tore out the cracked mortar hearth in the master bedroom fireplace, and cut some antique bricks to lay a new one. here's a photo of the bricks cemented in place, before grouting. The plaster surround in the hearth was crumbling, so we stripped it from the bricks; not sure if we'll clean up the bricks, or reapply plaster to finish it off.....

While we work on the walls and the floor in the master bedroom I am going to have the paint stripping shop dip the fireplace mantle, bedroom door, moulding, and the "cubby" cabinet doors from either side of the fireplace. When I pried the mantle off of the wall a bunch of old cards fell out from behind it... one is a political advertisement from the 1884 presidential election with an image of James G. Blaine. Blaine was the GOP candidate in 1884 against Grover Cleveland.

We're also in the market for about 100 bd. ft. of oak lumber to replace some of the old floorboards that were cracked, or broken during the installation of plumbing, electricity, and radiator piping many years ago. We're going to buy rough lumber and replicate the old boards as closely as we can. eventually we'll refinish the whole floor in the master bedroom, so the difference should be not so noticeable.

Paint Stripping....

2010-11-05T22:06:00.001-04:00

So I attempted to strip a bedroom door with chemical stripper.... it was no fun. I'm convinced that chemical stripper sold at Home Depot, ( much like home depot itself) is purely a cruel trick for homeowners; they promise "easy" stripping and flash images of rhino skin thick paint effortlessly falling off of intricately carved wooden surfaces.

The interior doors, mantles and mouldings have multiple coats of old paint gobbed on, filling in all of the detail and flaking off in large chips. Our previous attempt to strip one door took us about 12 hours, and 2 cans of chem strip. @ ~$25 per can of stripper, there has to be a better way!

After confiding in a friend my troubles with stripping old millwork and doors, he recommended a paint stripping shop in Wilmington Delaware, called RandR stripping. I loaded up the front door and transom window in the old Ford and drove to scenic Wilmington to deliver the pieces. After driving back and forth across town I found RandR tucked away on an unmarked street, adjacent to a chop-shop. Bob, a jovial man of retirement age and the some, greeted me at the door of his cinder block-walled facility. Upon entering Bob's dimly-lit dungeon of stripping I was pleased to find a number of rather intricately carved pieces that had just come out of the dipping tank, paint-free.

Bob called a few days later; "What the hell was that door painted with on the outside?" he asked. The exterior surface had no less than 10 coats of petrified oil paint prior to stripping - It looked like alligator skin, with cracks throughout. Bob claims that the door had to be left in the dipping tank overnight to work over the rhino skin paint.

In the buff, you can see the plugs and patches that were made to fill in where old lock sets had been removed... The door has seen better days.

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-01T21:41:00.000-04:00

Kat spent many hours crafting Liam's first Halloween costume- Liam was a great woodland creature and he was greeted by smiling people at every door we visited.....

Soon we will have heat again......

2010-10-28T01:52:00.003-04:00

Here's a few photos of the revised heating system. Since the whole house is torn apart, and the original radiators were covered in 2000 coats of paint, we took the "oportunity" to install radiant floor (pex) heat. The radiant floors combined with the wood stove should have the house feeling toasty warm on even the coldest days.

+ I started by downloading a free copy of Taco's FloPro Designer software. Laying out the system was not completely intuitive, but not difficult either. Taco's tech support: Ra Puuri (FloPro designer questions) and George Taber (control systems) was very helpful. I emailed the FloPro files to Ra several times and explained my issues; he made corrections and sent the files back. The website also includes a plethora of wiring diagrams, which I used to tie-in the zone valve controls, Domestic priority switch, and pump relay controls.

+We ran 2000' of red oxygen barrier pex tubing in the joist spaces on the first floor and in the basement. Each floor now has it's own manifold, each with four tubing loops.
+ We installed a new SS chimney liner for the boiler flue; now the boiler flue gasses are isolated completely from the fireplaces in the dining room and Liam's room. Safety First!

+ The two green boxes to the left of the manifold are the Zone valve control (Taco ZVC403) and the circulator pump relay control(SR504 Exp). There are two zone valves on the radiant floor loops, one for each floor of the house. The pump relay control is switching 3 high temp radiator pumps (kitchen/mudroom, third floor, and domestic hot water) along with the primary boiler loop circulator pump. Lots of pumps!

+Here is the Raidant Mixing Block. The RMB houses a radiant circulator pump, and an injection pump in one unit. The pump elements are servicable and are stock items at most plumbing sullpy houses. The RMB control modulates the injection pump based on the set temperature for the radiant tubing. A mixed water temperature sensor was supplied with the unit. The RMB included an outdoor sensor that will be used to reset the radiant floor tubing temperature based on the change in outdoor temp.

+ The tubing is currently clipped to the floor joists, up against the floorboards. Before we insulate the joist bays and install the ceiling, I'm going to test out the system and compate the heat transfer with and without aluminum plates. I made a manual press to form aluminum heat transfer plates, similar to the one that Tom Massie built in this link...

A few odds and ends to clean up, and we'll be ready to fire the boiler.

Record of sale, 1826

2010-10-24T05:52:00.005-04:00

We have been working on learning the history behind our house for some time now, so I decided to take a trip to the Delaware County Archives. The archives building is only 1/4 mild down the road, and they allow open access to all historic tax records, wills, hospital info and court cases.

A quick search on the Delco Archives site pulled up Thomas Riley's will and his notice of death. We also found a record of death and assessment from Mark W. Baker (second owner of our house 1872-1905). The assessment included a complete list of all of the contents of the house and where they were situated. With this document you can take a virtual tour through our house in 1905!.

I then drove over to the Delco recorder of deeds and came up with the record of Thomas Riley's land purchase (prior to building our house).

Here is a scan of the deed for our property from 1826, when Thomas Riley purchased 8 acres from Thomas Clark. The document includes the name of the owner prior to Clark, so I have another trip to the Delco recorder of deeds to make!

I have a bunch more historic documents that I'll scan and post sooner or later.

uupdate- windows

2010-09-12T21:20:00.001-04:00

Been a long while since we added anything to the ole farmhouse blog..... we've made some fair progress in the un-muddling restoration since gutting the place. all of the double hung windows on the first and second floors have been restored. - We took advantage of a custom window sale at the local big orange box, saved a few thousand $ on aluminum clad solid wood windows. they are high efficiency, which may qualify us for some more Obama Bucks come tax season.

each window was a 24hr labor of love:
1. tear out old lead painted sashes, interior casing , exterior casing, interior sill and sill frame.- the old interior sills had rotted and were loaded with mouse nests, bee hives and paper wasps....

2. fabricate a new sill frame to support the sill

3. stencil old interior sill and cut out new one
4. strip all paint from original window frame and exterior sill- the frame is a 4"x5" pine timber frame, in a few cases we had to replace pieces and parts of the exterior sill due to water damage.

5. Prime frame and exterior sill with penetrating Alkyd primer coat
6. widen sash opening to fit custom replacement sash kit
7. fill in sash weight cavity on either side of window with "great stuff" - This should minimize the stink bug nesting that took place over the last few seasons, and improve insulation.....
8. fit in new sash jamb liners - the new ones are spring assisted and tilt-lock for easy cleaning.

9. Finish paint interior of sashes - all were painted gloss white enamel
10. chisel exterior mortar joint out around the frame
11. cut, fit, and install new casing on exterior of frame
12. re-point (mortar) joint around window frame
13. one last coat of paint on the whole exterior of the frame to clean things up.

Next we move on to installing the floorboard heat

GUTTED!

2010-09-12T20:59:00.006-04:00

We have decided to renovate the entire 1st floor and second floor at once... We are going to tear down the ceiling on the first floor, open up the master bedroom, tear out the 1940's era closets, replace most of the mouldings and casings, and replace 12 more windows. The heat on the 1st and 2nd floor will be converted to hydronic radiant floor while we are at it.

Living Room

So far we tore the plaster ceiling down, burned all of the old oak lath, tore out the closets on the 2nd floor, and removed all of the old heavy cast iron radiators...... nearly a blank canvas at this point.

Master Bedroom

The debris from our tear-out filled a 30 yard dumpster! All of the window sills are removed, most of them had rotted from the inside out from moisture. From the looks of things the two windows on the SW corner of the bedroom had leaked for a long time, which really destroyed the sills, frame and floors below.

Pat

Chimney Liner Install

2010-01-09T17:27:00.000-05:00

Today we hauled the 35' constrictor of a chimney liner to the peak of the roof and pulled it down to the living room hearth. Since the chimney banks a few times as it rises it made pulling the liner down fun..... I got to heave the giant stainless steel snake overhead while dad pulled it down with a rope from the living room. Thewhole process was quite a bit smoother than we had anticipated.

We hooked the stove up to the flex liner with a cleanout tee so that when I play chimney sweep every season the soot is captured at the bottom in a neat little can.

All that is left is to paint the stovepipe fittings flat black and wash the new brick hearth with acid to clean things up a bit. The hearth fits in well being made of recycled bricks, and one can hardly tell that we had modified the floor.

Now we just need to buy some wood!

HEAT!

2010-01-06T21:39:00.001-05:00

So far we have burned through a few tanks of heating oil this season, and at nearly $3 a gallon, there is some incentive to investigate alternative heating sources. Over the recent holidays we visited our neighbors, and were wowed by the nice toasty feeling that their wood stove gave the house... we were sold.

I spent some time lurking on a wood-burning enthusiasts' web forum at www.Hearth.com. It's unbelievable how many forums there are today. A quick google search will find you a forum to discuss nearly any topic. So at hearth.com I read reviews on hundreds of different stand alone stoves and inserts, along with much dialogue on lining a masonry chimney with stainless flex duct.

We decided on a stand alone wood stove by Woodstock Soapstone Co. www.woodstove.com. The Fireview model advertises nearly 55,000 BTU output with a small footprint (24x18). The stove is a catalytic type, which means that it qualifies for some tree-hugger tax credits...30% credit!

Here's a photo of the fireview with a fake fire inside.

In order to safely use the wood stove in our living room we need to make a few modifications.

1. the hearth is quite small, and the stove would be 1/2 on the hearth, 1/2 on the hardwood floor. this is a no-no, so the only option was to extend the hearth out into the living room.

2. the existing chimney is HUGE, big enough for me to fit inside and clean it!, but it is made of brick and coated with mortar. the mortar is in less than perfect shape, and the flue is a bit oversized for the stove, so we are going to install a chimney liner.

First we chiseled out the old hearth. it was made up of a top coat of mortar on a 4" thick layer of mortar and rubble. below the old hearth is a cement pad that tops off a huge stone chimney foundation in the basement. I'll have to find a photo of the foundation, it is impressive.

Here is the old hearth after chipping out the mortar bed. the hole in the center was an ash drop to the basement.

Here we have lifted the trim on the front edge of the hearth and cut back the floorboards. we extended the hearth about 6". you can see straight thru to the basement here.

My parents donated a pallet of recycled bricks last fall, and this project was a good chance to continue the "green" trend. this is actually the 3rd (at least) time the bricks have been used! They originally came from a demo'd house in Germantown.

Here's dad laying in the first courses of basket pattern brick.

And here's the finished brick layout. all that's left is to mortar the joints once the cement has set.

Old Bricks.

More to come.

Dining Room Ceiling

2010-01-05T20:07:00.000-05:00

The ceiling in our dining room is still torn apart from when we installed the new structural beam.
Last week we fabricated a steel bracket to join the original beam to the new beam. the bracket is made of welded steel plate, and held in place with lag bolts. This allowed us to eliminate the jacking post that was previously supporting the beam.

With all of the temporary bracing out of the way, we are nearly ready to put up the sheetrock ceiling in the dining room. Before we do, we're going to do some more work on the heating system piping to the upper floors.

Photos to come later.......

Dry-Well

2009-09-20T21:20:00.010-04:00

Our basement keeps taking on water during rain storms and things are getting a bit musty. I read a few journals online to get some info on redirecting storm water. It seemed that the most appropriate thing to do was to dig a sump ~15 feet from the house, downgrade, and pipe the downspout directly into it. the sump will perk rainwater into the ground at a point where it won't seep into the basement walls. Here is a generic elevation drawing from the interweb:

The rear of the house has only one downspout, which is typically pouring like a river during a good rain, so I picked up the biggest pvc sump that I could get my hands on (50 Gal) for the drywell. Here you can see the trench starting at the downspout. We'll plumb the downspout to the well through 4" PVC pipe.

I laid out the run from the downspout to the well and dug the sump (36" x 48" deep) a few weeks ago. Digging a 4' deep 3' diameter hole with a shovel sucks, but luckily our soil is OLD and hasn't been disturbed in many moons... it digs easy as far as dirt goes. Here I am slaving away....

before I could install the well and plumb it up we had a few heavy rains; I checked to verify that the water was making it's way to the well, which it was, and the basement was dry! The well was dry by the day after the rain. Perk test passed!

The dry-well kit is built by NDS, I picked it up from the Natural home store (online) because the big box stores don't carry these things. Here's the well assembled and ready to drop in. It's a 24" diameter, 24" tall reinforced pvc bucket with a bunch of punch-out holes for drainage. The larger holes are used to link multiple wells in series for those with a serious runoff issue.

6" of crushed stone goes in the hole below the well, and once it is installed 6" around the well is filled with stone. I mixed in a few larger stones ~1.5" with the 3/4" crushed gravel.

Liam decided that we should have a catch to prevent the well from clogging up with debris... At this point I am too lazy to install those fancy gutter guards and the giant holly tree behind the house keeps shedding on the roof so this should be time well invested...... We converted a 4" PVC tee into a strainer with a basket to catch any debris that could make it's way down the gutter downspout. I used a piece of gutter-guard mesh and a few screws to keep it from dropping in. Here Liam is explaining how this will all go together:

Gutter screen is trimmed to fit the contour of the tee fitting and the two screws are installed directly below for support:

Liam Approves.

The screen is trimmed and a handle is bent into the backside for easy removal. It is held in place by a 4" threaded cap.

The well also has a vent/cleanout where the PVC drain ties in to remove leaves and sediment that could build up and reduce the efficiency of the well. The vent will also reduce the amount of mold buildup in the well. You can see it here (green cap)

We layed 4" of crushed stone in the trench before backfilling. Here you can see the debris catch just below the tie-in to the existing downspout.

Now the area needs to be graded and cleaned up. We'll see how things work next time it rains. Finished photos later.........

Interim project...... The Garage

2009-08-09T10:47:00.008-04:00

My parents are going to use the garage for storage during their move from the northeast, so we needed to make a few improvements before it could be used (Not to mention all of my junk that was left behind in their garage... read disassembled Chevelle, welding gear, toolboxes, workbench just to name a few.). The garage was built into the remains of the old barn, and had a dirt floor. It was also built on a sloping part of the yard, so one door opening was a foot shorter than the other......

Here's a shot of the garage from 3-08 before we moved in: notice the vines growing up into the trees and all over the barn ruins, the grade in front of the garage, and that lush green lawn!

We started by excavating a foot of soil from the garage and grading the approach. we ended up with about 20 yards of extra dirt. here the garage is level and vapor barrier/ mesh is laid down. the hole in front of the right opening is a hand dug sistern, which should keep the area relatively dry by creating a low pressure zone for rainwater to drain. It was covered up with two big slabs of concrete, which we had to move to complete the grading.

Here's a close-up of the sistern before we reinforced the opening; I'll have to build a new cover for it later... you can just picture the creepy little girl from The Ring popping out when you look down...

All prepped and ready for concrete. Notice the area to the right of the ruins is also dug up. the grade dropped off towards the ruins, and was all overgrown with vines, so we took advantage of the extra dirt from the approach and graded here as well. This will give the rear yard a more uniform grade across the property.

Pouring Concrete:

Grading the approach to the garage left a big step in the grade to the right of the opening as you can see in the photo above. we made use of some of the big stones laying around the yard and built a retaining wall. it's nothing fancy, but it does the trick.

We picked up 10 yards of stone for the newly graded approach.
Here's a not-so-good photo of the almost finished product after the wall was done, stone spread and the new grass seed took:

Next we'll run power to the garage, add gutters to re-direct the rain water and install some doors.

Riley Approves!

Liam's Bedroom is Almost Done....

2009-07-07T13:16:00.004-04:00

I'm 8 weeks behind schedule; The replacement windows for Liam's room came in just before he was born, and they were all wrong :( wrong pattern, wrong model and non-tilting. 4 weeks of back and forth with the window vendor and they agreed to get the correct windows at no cost since I had already paid for the incorrect ones. The correct windows will be here in 3 weeks; until then we'll finish painting the sills and trim finish coats.

Here Riley tests the durability of the oil paint on my restored windowsill. She approves.

Baby Liam /hans Stanley

2009-05-24T21:48:00.004-04:00

Katrina gave birth on May 13th to a 5lb 15oz baby boy! We named him Liam Hans Stanley. Liam has taken quickly to feeding and is growing at a good rate. Mommy and baby are as healthy as ever.

Naptime with Papa
Liam's first bath!

Liam in the "food chain friends"

Bedroom Trois

2009-05-09T20:48:00.005-04:00

Riley came up to check out the action in the bedroom and attacked me.

Over the last two weeks we stripped the window sills, plastered, primed and painted the walls, installed the ceiling fan (minus blades) and primed the fireplace.

I'll be replacing the three windows in this room with Jeld-wen aluminum clad sashes. We ordered them to fit the existing frames and to match the original sashes. The lumber yard claims that they should be delivered in two weeks.
Kat's Dad has a stash of poplar, and used some of it to make us new baseboards; the new boards are about 3/4" taller than the original ones to cover up some imperfections. He also came down to help scribe them to the floor and install them. We're quite pleased with the results.

The flash really brightens up the green paint, it's not actually so vivid in person (i'm not a photographer)

T-minus 9 days to the due date and with the exception of the windows we should be all done in the room if Katrina can hold out that long.....

Bedroom Restoration Part 2

2009-05-05T19:01:00.001-04:00

Katrina has been nesting like a champ for months now, and I am just getting started (well i got started a while ago but didn't post the photos). I started by pulling up the floorboards and ripping out the old romex wiring. We pulled a new 20A circuit for the outlets and a 15A for lighting. We installed an overhead fixture for a ceiling fan, which required pulling floorboards on the third floor. I found this hanging out under the floor:

I pulled the baseboards up because they are painted with several coats of lead-based paint, and were pretty beat up. The plaster was also cracked from behind the boards, and poorly repaired. I plan to make up new baseboards once the plaster work is done. Here's a shot of the old romex wiring and beat-up baseboards

Here is a pic of the hallway outside of the room where I pulled the new wiring up from the basement. yellow 12 ga. for the outlets and white 14 ga. for the light circuit..... 220, 221, whatever it takes! You can see the old black romex wire in the photo; i'm pulling this old stuff out as i replace it.

The plaster on the north wall of the room cracked and failed when the structural beam supporting the room cracked some years back..... the photo below shows the cracked plaster after I removed all of the loose material. We replaced the beam last month and now the floor is (relatively) level and stable, so I can repair the plaster without it cracking right away. In this area I'll pull the plaster down and replace it with sheetrock.

More to Come.....

Fixing the Timber Frame

2009-03-29T20:50:00.009-04:00

Our stone house has a timber frame to support the floors and inside walls. The frame consists of one 8"x8" beam that runs the length of the house in the center with oak floor joists spanning from the stone wall to the beam on each floor. It's a pretty damn beefy setup... it generally brings the words "they don't build em' like this anymore" to mind.

Unfortunately the previous owners did not understand basic construction principles and so they blindly hacked away at the beautiful main beam that supports the second floor to make way for plumbing and electrical components. all of this notching, trimming and chopping made a nice place for a crack to start in the beam. some time ago the beam failed; it bowed as much as 3" in the center. this made quite a mess of the second floor... most of the doors didn't close, and the floor itself was visibly sloping towards the center of the house.

The PO took a shot at setting things straight back in 2003 by installing a second beam below the original. This repair was ugly and ineffective at best. the floor still sloped, and now the dining room had a 9" beam hanging below the ceiling! Here are two pictures of the beam (boxed in with drywall)

We started by excavating the drywall from the ceiling and the support beam, and then built a jack system from scaffold to support the ceiling joists on either side of the beam.

Drywall Demo
Demo opposite side (notice the beam ends at the wall and does not run the full width of the room)

Setting up scaffold support.

Once the floor was supported, we cut the secondary beam out and trashed it. I had assumed that this beam was poorly installed, and it turns out that I was spot on.... the bowed beam only contacted the secondary in the center, and it was held in place with a few lag bolts.

With clear access to the bowed beam, we cut the tenons off of the joists, which left the beam supported only at its ends. The beam was cut in half to make the load manageable, and removed from the ceiling.

I made some calculations for the replacement beam and ordered the "engineered" lumber from the local yard. The beam consists of three 7.25" X 3.5" LVL units @ 14' long. The individual units are Thru-bolted with lag bolts. The replacement beam weighs about 250# fully assembled. Here we have one of the three beams installed:

Hoisting the third beam into place:

Jacking the bnew beam level and installing thru-bolts

Joist hanger brackets installed and support structure removed

The dining room remains in this state until I finish Liam's room..... While the ceiling is open we will move the light fixture to the center of the room, pull new wiring for the dining room and mud room fixtures, and install 3-way dimmer switches

Wheelbuilding: A break from the house

2009-03-02T23:19:00.011-05:00

Wheel building and truing has always seemed to me a black art of sorts, and I lacked a truing stand so I did my best to keep my heavy old wheelset running for as long as possible. I decided to get over my fear and try my luck at building a new rear wheel.

I picked up a copy of Josh Brandt's " The Bicycle Wheel", which proved to be a good source. It is full of detailed steps and images. Here is a link to the wheel theory book: http://rapidshare.com/files/204887168/The_Bicycle_Wheel_-_Jobst_Brandt__3rd_Ed_.pdf

Sheldon Brown's website also has some good discussion on building a standard cross-laced wheel, although the wheel lingo is a bit different from Brandt's book: http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

Installing the "Key Spoke" inbound spoke (head on outside of hub) to the left of the valve stem. According to the literature, the two most important spoke arrangement items are to have the key spoke adjacent to the valve stem to avoid crossing spoke interference with access to the stem, and lacing such that the "pulling spokes" and "pushing spokes" are oriented on the correct sides of the hub flange.Here is the first pass of trailing spokes going in. Notice the oil can in the background.... use just a bit to keep the nipple from binding in the rim hole and the spoke threads from binding. And the second pass of trailing spokes... all nipples twisted on 4 turns.... keep everything loose so that it's easier to get the later passes of spokes in.Wheel on the truing stand after third and fourth "inbound" passes of spokes.
I still need some type of tensiometer to set the spokes at the same tension......

1:45 later........Not bad for a first try

Infrared Paint Stripper

2009-03-02T22:37:00.006-05:00

The doors and window sills in the baby's room are, like all of our doors and trim, covered in old lead paint.... This will need to be removed before I can refinish the woodwork. Burning the paint off is not an option, and sanding it would be a mess. I found some literature on an IR based paint stripper that looked like a good method for stripping lead paint; the store-brought models cost ~$500, which is a bit more than I'm willing to spend. There is an old blog that describes building one with parts from MOR Electric for around $120.

I picked up a 1000w heating element and an aluminum housing; the tech support guy claimed that the surface temperature of the element would get to 900F, which is a bit hotter than it needs to warm the paint enough to scrape. To cut the power back I'm going to wire a router speed controlled in line with the power cord. Harbor Freight sells one for $15, which is half of the price that Rockler sells it for.
I filled the two housing voids with Tempmat insulation, it is rated for 1100F. The housing does not have a handle, so I took a composite handle from a cheap tile float and bolted it to the back of the housing with the hardware that MOR supplied.

As soon as the power control comes in from HF, I will run a test and post some pics.

Bedroom restoration Part 1

2009-02-26T22:23:00.006-05:00

We moved into the house without renovating any of the bedrooms, and they are a bit rough around the edges to say the least. The PO painted the two bedrooms on the first floor some nasty colors and botched up repairs to cracks in the plaster. The house-flip special treatment.

We're planning to get the bedroom on the southwest corner of the house ready to be the baby's room. At this time, there are a bunch of areas where the paint is flaking off of the walls, the wall behind the radiator has never been painted (bare plaster), everything is covered in lead paint, there is no ceiling light or fan, there are light switches that appear to go to nowhere, and the floor dropped causing the plaster to crack in a million places..... we have our work cut out for ourselves.

Improving the Heating System

2009-01-19T21:20:00.005-05:00

In November we burned $800 in heating oil and the temperature inside the house never reached 65°F! Something had to be done......
The heart of our heating system is a Peerless cast iron boiler (vintage 2004) that feeds 3 floors of cast iron radiators and our domestic hot water tank. The radiators were all tied to one header in a "single pipe" configuration. This type of system worked great back when the boiler produced steam for heating, but with only a hot water boiler it is not very efficient. The configuration had one thermostat, which means that if you want to heat the first floor, you have to heat all of the floors at once.

As we were dismantling the system we realized that the PO, I should say PI (previous idiot), installed the boiler circ pump backwards..... this whole time, we have been circulating lukewarm water from the bottom of the boiler through our radiators! no wonder it was so inefficient. nonetheless the black iron pipe still had to go, and we needed to create zones to be able to tweak the temperature in one area at a time, rather than the whole house at once. Also, the iron pipe was installed so far from the floor joists that there was less than 6' of headroom in the basement. Replacing the iron pipe with copper pipe and tucking it close to the ceiling will make the basement space much more usable as our woodshop.

2 days before NYE we ripped out all of the old black iron pipe. This was a lovely task that left us covered in iron slime each time we cut down an old pipe.

We installed new return headers for the first floor and upper floors, and we piped up the radiator units in series. The first floor is broken down into 2 circuits so that we can balance the temperature, and the upper floors are on a second thermostat. It's a bit difficult to make sense of this copper birds nest, but I assure you that it is not so cluttered in person.

The goal was to finish up on the morning of new years eve, because we had tickets to see My Morning Jacket in New York City. PAr for the course, things took twice as long as we expected and at 5pm on NYE, 2 days without a shower, we made up the final joints and fired up the boiler. As the temperature came up we found 2 leaking sweat joints; the boiler was drained again and the joints repaired. We finished just after 7pm. Needless to say, we couldn't make the show.

I installed a Honeywell programmable thermostat with a remote sensor so that the spaceship-like control panel was not visible in the downstairs....
The Thermostat works nicely so far... It has a "smart" feature that allows it to learn how long it takes to bring the room up to temperature, and then fires the boiler some calculated time in advance to reach the set temperature at the set time (It's basically dummy proof). Notice the set temperature; a balmy 65°F!
This is a mini Hershey bar for scale to the temperature sensor.

We're still learning how to adjust the system based on outside temperature swings; this is more critical in the old farmhouse due to the construction of it's exterior walls being of solid stone with no insulation. I may install an outside temperature sensor to help the thermostat keep on track without burning excess oil.

In the last 2 months we have managed to burn less oil than in the previous winter months by about 50 gallons/month. As I break down the second floor from the third, I imagine that we should be able to improve this.

Snow

2009-01-19T20:48:00.004-05:00

We had a few inches of snow today and Riley was impatiently awaiting when I walked in from work. Katrina says she was looking out the windows all day, watching the snow fall. Riley loves the snow! We played catch until the sun went down and my feet froze; Katrina took some pictures:

Reclaiming time!

2008-12-16T21:39:00.004-05:00

This shot was taken in July (2008), the huge overgrowth is covering the foundation of the barn that once stood on our property. The barn had a stone foundation and a wood structure. It stood 3 stories tall. The foundation wall served as a stepping stool for the vines to grow up, over and into the trees behind it. Many of the trees in this area of the yard are dead or dying as a result of the overgrowth.... something had to be done.Since the leaves recently fell off of the invasive vines around the barn foundation we decided to take the opportunity to rip them out. The vines had overtaken the entire barn foundation and managed to climb ~30' up into one of our walnut trees. The vines are multiflora rose, honeysuckle, mile-a-minute and wild grape. The rose is particularly tenacious.

the bush-wacking process has left several thorns embedded in my hands that I will need dig out.

We don't have a plan for the barn yet. There is still a great deal of debris, scrap metal, old roofing material, etc burried around it that needs to be disposed of.

Pointing: Pure Masochism!

2008-11-24T20:48:00.011-05:00

We began the all-out pointing project on October 3. I took a week off from work for the project. My dad and Joe Hannigan (family friend) were kind enough to make themselves available throughout my 9 day window, and the weather reports looked promising, so we had 9 days to get as much done as possible.

Lime mortar has to be kept above freezing while it sets and since the weather was encroching on freezing I knew that what we didn't finish in this week would have to wait for the spring thaw. We worked 12-13 hours each day; from dawn to dusk.

In addition to the tools that I listed below, we picked up a few home depot brand air chisels for 15 bucks; these worked great. Dad made a stop at the local mason supply and grabbed some rubber-coated gloves, hawks, hammers, and trowels.

Day 1. Saturday. Set up scaffold in the back yard and spent the entire day chipping out old mortar. It was clear that the majority of the mortar we were removing was the original material. The stone walls appear to be set in a lime-mud mixture, and the joints were faced-off with lime & sand mortar. The T&H chisel that we picked up last week was easy to use and the lack of a trigger made it (relatively) easy on the hands. Dad, Joe and I managed to chip out about 50% of the rear wall before dark. Not bad progress considering our experience level

Day 2. Sunday. Once we had a section of the rear wall chipped from top to bottom we hooked up a blow gun (air nozzle) to the air compressor and blew out all of the loose dust. This was the messiest part of the job; we wore goggles and a disposable respirator for most of this work. We displaced a beach worth of sand, lime and mud from the wall. The driveway, cars, and neighbor's house were inevitably coated with a thick film. Once the wall was cleared, dad took on the task of mixing mortar; he actually ended up mixing almost every one of the 70 bags of mortar used throughout the project.

I began replacing the mortar around lunch time, and spent the rest of the day cursing as I funbled with the mortar hawk, dropping pounds of fresh mortar on the ground and twisting my wrists in awkward ways to flip the mortar into the random joints. The photo below shows the newly placed mortar to the right of the window, with the remainder of the rear wall chipped out.

The hawk-and-flip method proved to be quite slow going so we set out to modify some caulk guns to pump the new mortar into the joints. We bought 2 heavy duty guns and 2 vacuum cylinders from the automotive shop. (The vacuum cylinder works like a caulk gun in reverse) We mounted the rubber plunger from the vac to the plunger on the caulk gun. The vac cylinder has a cylindrical canister that fits conveniently into the caulk gun, and when filled with wet mortar, this contraption allowed us to neatly pump the stone joints full.

Days 3-7. Monday-Friday. Over the course of the week we managed to complete the rer wall, and the two gable eves. We became fairly proficient at removing and replacing the mortar by this point, but our finishing skills were still weak. The photos below show the manlift being used as a support, and to reach the top edges of the rear corner of the house. I should add that a few of Katrina's flowere were sacrificed to the manlift wheels dispite our efforts to avoid running them over...

Here the scaffold is set up at the rear wall to finish off the top corner (far left in the photo).

Days 8-9 (Saturday & Sunday) A few of our friends ( Pat, John Terry and Paul) stopped by throughout the weekend to lend a hand. With their help we were able to finish all but the area under the porch. At one point there were 8 of us banging away at the walls and repointing. John was stuck in the manlift for most of the weekend, and the other guys on chipping duty. The process seemed to work well when we paired up; one weilding a mortar "gun" and the other following with a hwk and slicker trowel. we would shoot the loose mix mortar into the wall and trowel as it began to tighten up. By the end of the week we realized that the best method for us was to pack and overfll the joints and then trim back the excess. A metal machinist brush was used to clean up the joints. these brushes can be purchased at the local masonry supply for a few bucks.

The photo below was taken at the end of the weekend. This is the East wall of the house, which proved to be deceivingly larger and more time consuming than any other wall on the house. The were voids in the wall large enough for big paper wasp nests! We filled in the large voids with pinning stones and mortar.

Our friends that came to help couldn't believe how painful this work was, and how much energy it sucks from your body. If we ever need to do pointing work again I presume that we will have difficulty recruiting help!

We returned to work on Monday and took the week off from the pointing job. We needed twice this time for our wounds to heal (lime has the wonderful ability to dry and crack skin which in turn leads to extremely painful sores on one's hands). I could barely make a fist with either hand until wed or thurs and I made sure to work late, returning home after dark so that there was no opportunity to pick up the pointig tools.

Days 10-11 (Saturday & Sunday). We were fairly rested by the following weekend and the weather was again beautiful so we took to the porch and fnished chipping out the old mortar. This part of the house is tighty coursed (lined up like brick) stone, which is much easier than the randomly shaped joints that we had been working the previous weeks. We managed to finish the front porch wall in two days, with 14 bags of mortar between 3 guys working. This was the fastest rate we had worked since the first day; I assume that the combination of rest and practice had paid off. Our friend Eric came by to help forthe day; he picked up the art of repointing rather quickly but also left in pain at the end of the day!

Here Dad is "gunning" the mortar into the joints. The area on the right has been gunned in, and isetting up before it is struck with a trowel.

Here is a shot of the front wall after the joints have been packed and brushed with a machinist brush. The metal brush provided the quickest clean-up of the joints and left a clean finish void of trowel marks.

Now wehave finished repointing all of the major structure. we did not work on the rear additon since it is likely to be disturbed later next year when we rip out the floor and pour footers for the walls. I'll post a few more photos later.

More Pointing Tools

2008-09-22T18:31:00.005-04:00

We decided to search for power tools for cleaning out (or de-pointing) the joints in our exterior walls. A local mason claimed that he worked with $50 harbor freight air hammers to chip away the old mortar. I have used these automotive type air hammers many times; enough to know that it is overkill for the relatively light (but expansive) task of de-pointing.

I came across an advertisement in masonry magazine's website for a small company in Vermont that makes small pencil-style air hammers for carving soft stone. This is the tool that would be used to carve the statue of Abe Lincoln in washington DC..... I called to evaluate this prospect tool. The friendly folks at Trow & Holden (http://www.trowandholden.com/) explained that they so frequently sell their light-duty air hammers to masons for pointing that they have a kit with several chisels and a hammer tool. Here's the picture from their site:

Here is the description of the kit from T&H: "Our pneumatic mortor removal set is powerful enough to cut through the hardest mortars yet can be throttled down for fine detail work. The set features: 1" "Type B" short stroke carving tool; 10' air hose assembly with STAUBLI push-button Quick Connect; Striking cap and joint clean-out nozzle; Tool pouch for easy storage; Mortor removal chisels (4)--1/8" and 1/4" carbide cape chisels, 4 tooth carbide ripper, 1/4" steel swept cape chisel. Use with a 5HP compressor to shave countless hours from your task."

T&H sells direect to the public, and they had a few in stock so I was able to get one delivered before the big job begins.......

De-Pointing Trial

2008-09-21T20:41:00.005-04:00

I scheduled a week off in October to try and get the pointing done. The materials are on order; 60 bags of sand and lime mixture... I decided to try out the tools that we picked up for removing the old mortar.

The method of de-pointing (If this is the correct terminology) is fairly simple: Chisel the old mortar out to 1-1/2" and clean debris out of the joint. The existing mortar is fairly weak in most areas, a few blows from a chisel and the hard surface breaks, sending small bits of concrete flying at your face. The inner layer of mortar is original, 1838 vintage. It is extremely soft, and it is apparent that the sand/lime mixture was not uniform. there are chunks of lime about the size of a pencil eraser throughout the joints. The old mortar can be scraped from the joints easily, without the use of a hammer. Here are a few shots of the small area before and after I removed the mortar:

The brute force method of de-pointing works just fine, but it's slow going, and as my wrists tire I manage to miss the chisel and strike my thumb a few times with the hammer.... not fun. I am not certain that it's time to investigate some power tooling if we are to stand a chance at finishing this job in 10 days!

Brewhouse update

2008-09-21T19:07:00.010-04:00

+I have definitely spent more hours reconstructing this old shed than it would have taken to demolish and build from scratch!.... I suppose that we're being as "Green" as possible with this project; I have managed to re-use some of the heavy timbers from the demolished half which has also allowed us to keep the cost at a minimum.

+I finished the framework on the closed and open ends of the building. The opening around the ladder will have 2 carriage style doors installed eventually:

+The windows on the front of the shed were nailed to the frame, so they didn't open and one was broken.

+I'm framing in 4 old wooden windows from the stock of old materials that we have in the garage. Rather than install the complete window, I'm hanging a sash on hinges as a casement window. Here's a picure:

+Next up is the roof... The base layer material is from old pine boxes (some of them still have labels from Kraft foods). The front side of the roof is shot, the roof boards are sagging, and rotted. Since the building is directly under a few large pine trees, the shingles are covered with a solid layer of moss.

+My plan is to tear off the front roof completely and lay down 1/2" plywood. the backside will be repaired with the good boards left over from earlier demolition work.

Pointing Preparation (Background & Tools)

2008-09-07T21:50:00.024-04:00

The house was built with granite stone, and lime/sand mortar. The mortar is not just "cement" to glue the stones together; It serves multiple purposes: The mortar is porous which allows the walls to breathe, and it is sacrificial, so that in the hot-to-cold and freezing weather the stones do not fail.

We knew that the pointing would need to be redone when we purchased the house, and that this would be no quick task. Here is a picture of the gable eave, you can see that the pointing is missing in some areas, and has been patched a few times in the past ( the patched mortar does not match very well). We plan on repointing the entire exterior of the structure....

We did some research and found several sources for information on the subject of pointing historic stonework. The key topic that literature on this topic brings up again and again is using lime mortar over modern cement based mortar. Since portland cement mortar does not breathe like lime-mortar, it can lead to brick or stone failure. Although it is unlikely that the granite stonework will fail, We have decided to go with a lime & sand mortar for historic accuracy. Here is a list of links that we found helpful:

+Stone building methods (no repair info): http://homepage.eircom.net/~mcafee/#stoneb

+Lime building methods (Very helpful, and cheap!): http://www.blackdog.ukf.net/

+National parks preservation guide (Helpful restoration site, document specific to pointing): http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/briefs/presbhom.htm

There are two types of lime mortar, Hydraulic and non-hydraulic. We will be using hydraulic mortar since it offers a quick set, acceptable strength (750 psi) and is locally available here:

+PA Lime Works: http://www.palimeworks.com/lwus/

Limeworks offers premixed bags of lime and sand with color added if desired. I purchased a sample kit so that we could match the original mortar as closely as possible. Here are a few pictures of the kit, it was worth the 20$ investment to see the actual colors available, feel the texture and the strength of the finished product:

The second color from the top matches the original mortar quite closely.

We made a trip to the local Masonry supply house to discuss pointing tools with the experts. We picked up two sets of the tools in the picture below for around $100. They are from left to right:

Plugging Chisel (Used as a lever to pry and chip out hard mortar)
Miniature chisel- For the tough to reach areas
Masons Hawk- Holds a mound of wet mortar close to the wall so it can be slapped into place
Pointing Trowels- Various sizes from 3/8" to 5/8" wide to strike a finish on the morter as it sets up.
Machinist brush- Supposedly the secret to obtaining a nice finish on the mortar. As the mortar cures, it is brushed with this miniature stainless steel broom to expose some of the aggregate in the mortar.
Fanny Pack- To hold all of this junk while we are up on scaffold hammering away.

I have a funny feeling that we're going to need some type of power tool if we plan on finishing this job in a less than an eternity!

Shed-to-Brewhouse Construction

2008-09-07T21:50:00.019-04:00

Our Homeowners insurance audit indicated that the shed in our back yard was about ready to collapse. Although this may have been an exaggeration, it sure looks like crap! There are a few photos of the shed in an earlier post...

The original structure appears to have been a chicken coop, about 12' X 15' it is made of heavy timbers (pine & Chestnut, presumably left over from the construction of the house). It was apparently a earthen floored structure, and a concrete floor was added at a later date. One of our friendly groundhogs decided to take up residence under the floor, which then caved in.... Between this and the herd of mice living (and crapping) in the original structure it is in bad shape.

The coop was added to in the 1920's to accommodate the Baker family's Model A (?) Ford. The Bakers claim to have a photograph from the 20's of a car being parked in the newly constructed garage. This half has a solid concrete slab, and aside from the low-budget garage door, and a few rotted timbers it is a solid structure (made of heavy white oak lumber). The extension on the right side is made of corrugated steel and galvanised pipe.

PLANS:

Demolish the steel & pipe addition
Demolish the original structure, leaving 3 walls of the 1920's vintage addition and the concrete slab.
Reconstruct the garage side of the shed: remove the broken garage door, frame out the open end of the structure and add carrige-style doors, replace rotted siding, replace rotted sills, replace roofing shingles.
Convert the newly renovated shed into our Brew-House!

PROGRESS:

This photo shows the original half of the structure demolished, and the leftover debris

Here is what remained of the original sill. This is all that was supporting the front wall of the shed! No termites here...

Before replacing the sill and repairing the front wall studs, the garage door side was demolished and temoprary supports were installed so that the rest of this heap did not crush me as I worked!

Here are the repaired wall studs on the front side of the shed, and new 4x4 pressure treated sill.
With the front wall complete (minus siding) the temporary wall was removed, along with a rotted roof joist. I also added a ridge pole to tie the new joist into.

The upper sill had rotted due to a roof leak. This picture shows the repaired upper sill, and the new pressure-treated corner post. Next I'll add the replacement roof joist, and frame out the new wall.
More to come........

Riley

2008-08-24T17:09:00.008-04:00

We adopted a puppy from the DelCo SPCA 2 weeks ago. She is an Australian Cattle Dog/ Lab Mix. She came to the SPCA from an overfull shelter in Asheville NC. She was the only puppy in her litter with upright ears a-la Cattle Dog and she has a purple tongue like a chow......

We named her Riley, after the family that built and lived in our house.

Her first and most important job is to keep the local pack of Deer out of the yard and from eating all of our hard work!

Yet Another New Garden

2008-08-24T17:00:00.003-04:00

The lawn area on the west side of the house was run over by weeds, and the ground was very uneven as a result of the previous owner dumping spent coals out the kitchen window!

We tore up all of the would-be grass and made it into a garden. We picked up some bushes at Linvilla since they were having an end of summer sale. Here is a photo:

2008-06-29T21:06:00.003-04:00

Our peackock friends visiting again!
This is the chicken coop/ very old garage which needs lots of help. Pat decided to take down the old fram that was attached to the back. We also removed lots of broken glass.

2008-06-29T20:42:00.003-04:00

This is a pic of the front of the house showing a little of the gardening we've been working on.
Peacocks! What a surprise to walk out your front door and finding peacocks that are far from home roaming your property. It was cool for a little until they were screaming all night long in front of our house until 5am.

This is a small little shade garden that was one of the first gardens I planted. Before pulling weeds you couldn't even see the brick walkway. We had no idea it was there until a few weeks ago!

Pat loves to sweat so much that he spent all of memorial dethatching the half-dead grass. We spent countless hours raking up all the thatch into mounds and loading it up and dumping it into large mounds...lots of fun.
These are some pictures of the back garden where we demolished the root cellar that was attached to the house
We pulled up all the weeds and uncovered some larger stones , so we filled in the spots with small river rock that we found buried amonst the weeds in the front yard. I planted two lavender plants within the stones for better drainage.

Garden work continues

2008-05-28T13:02:00.004-04:00

Katrina continues working on the garden flower bed that we are working into the space from the demolished addition. Things are coming along nicely. As you can see, she is thoroughly enjoying the manual labor!

Rainy day projects

2008-05-28T12:44:00.004-04:00

It rained almost all week, so I decided to get the basement organized to make some usable space and to update the electrical circuits to the living/dining rooms. This little shelf project was my first reminder that in houses of this vintage, nothing is square!

I finished the shelf and removed one of the outlets from the baseboard in the living room. The old-style boxes will be upgraded to code-compliant device boxes with new 12-2 wiring. Copper is expensive! The device boxes will need to be extra small to fit; the baseboard is only 1" from the granite wall.

Demolition

2008-05-16T20:57:00.004-04:00

The PO's had built a small block addition to house a steam boiler, which was removed some time ago. The addition was not so attractive, and screamed "knock me down!".... so we did. I will fill in the flue gas duct hole when we start pointing the house.

Fixing the holes where the rain gets in...

2008-05-05T12:47:00.003-04:00

The current kitchen resides in what was the side porch. It was inclosed in the 1930's and converted. The original (1838) raised-seam steel roof has been leaking into the kitchen ceiling for some time now, and is making a moldy mess of it. I decided to take advantage of the sunny weekend, working on my roofer's tan. Some minor excavation uncovered multiple layers of latex coating, over house paint, over bare steel roofing material. the built in gutters were completely corroded thru, and there was a full 48"x6" plank missing (rotted away).

The low-point of the roof lacked a downspout, and all of the rainwater was being directed into the soffit through the area of missing wood and steel.

I replaced a 4' long section of the gutter, some planking, and added a downspout to the low-point. This was topped with new galvanized flashing and then flashing cement with fiber reinforcement.

Mortise Lock rebuilding

2008-05-05T12:25:00.003-04:00

The front door has a mis-mash of locks including the original RIM lock, a later mortise lock, and finally an awkardly placed kwikset locking knob. I took apart the painted-over mortise lock, refurbished it, and added a new lock cylinder. The original RIM lock will be rebuilt next and then I can get rid of the Kwikset.

First Photos

2008-04-14T19:37:00.003-04:00

Here are a few photos from a walkaround:

test

2008-04-08T07:25:00.001-04:00

testing....