There's A Hole & A Bucket

I just couldn't stand it anymore.  I had to know. 

There's this space.  It's completely inaccessible from all sides.  Solid field stone and granite foundation on the outside all the way around.  Solid wall-to-wall pine flooring on the inside.  And there's this infuriating poured-cement reinforcing wall (about 5 feet tall under the corner of the 3 feet of exposed field stone and granite foundation) where it adjoins the main house in the basement.  There's a "1962" painted on it.

Those four digits mock me every time I do laundry.  I look at that wall and wonder what got sealed in there.  And, seriously, even if it was a crawl space above grade, shouldn't they have left some access to it, for plumbing or electric or maintenance or whatever?

So, now that hubby has finished all the key elements of demolition in the "tavern", as we call it.  I am finishing up the sorting of all the barn board (the two floors that came out of the ceiling).  Because of the way everything was put together, the only way to get it out was in 36-40" sections.  I am planning on repurposing a good bit of it as pieced-together horizontal wainscot, but that project is for later -- after painting and floor and perhaps some beam reconditioning.

I decided to stack the usable barn board sections in the closet under the stairs up to the bunk room.  It's about the size of Harry Potter's first bedroom at the Dursleys' -- not huge, but semi-climate-controlled and out of the way. A perfect place to put things we'd rather not see for awhile, while keeping them handy to their eventual destination.

Before I started stacking in, it occurred to me that this would be the perfect place to pop up a floor board and peek at what was underneath.  The stairs wrap around the northeastern corner of the tavern -- same wall, opposite corner from the 1962 on the other side in the laundry.

I just happened to have a hammer, a long-handled pry bar, a reciprocating saw and a flashlight handy.   I do not have one of those little fiber-optic spy cameras with the screen and SD card video capture, or I would be sharing this great discovery with you!  (HINT TO SANTA)

So I pried up a floor board and found... another floor.  Why am I not surprised?  Broad plank pine.  I am not and expert, but there are marks on it that appear to be made by hand tools.  No circular or straight patterns from milling.

I checked for nailing patterns to avoid cutting into anything structural below, and  found...  another floor?  It looks almost like lath, but thicker and wider.  It's a mystery.  Did they have subfloors back then (when?)  And did they lay them parallel to the floor?  Does not compute... Or maybe it is lath?  For a ceiling?

So I cut deeper into my peep hole.  I'm feeling some serious draft now.

And I can reach into empty space.  I am just a little bit heebed out about something biting me or grabbing me at this point.  Given the displacement of all of the mice and squirrels from ceiling, they had to go somewhere, right?

So it's about 30" down to a level, silty-sand "floor".  I can't see farther then about a two-foot radius in the area under my hole.  My hole is two small to get my fat head through.  Sigh.

Well, there's a bucket -- possibly galvanized, fluted sides, with wire handle.  I can see a few large field stones stacked inside a repointed portion of foundation.  I can see some older,  modern 2x4s, apparently shoring up the floor under the stair structure.  So now we know that they got in and under this room and did some fixin' here and there, so that's something...

We know from early twentieth century pictures of the outside of the house that the stairs were likely in the northwestern corner at some point (odd square window at odd height, now absent.)

So now I am dying to see the rest of what's under there.  There are some tantalizing hints on the "outside".  The southeastern corner of the foundation is enclosed in our present-day basement, around the corner from the 1962.  There is an old iron/lead pipe coming out of it at mid-wall over a granite block on the floor.  The adjacent are of the main house basement closest to the well (still in use today) has the remnants of pre-1820s lath and plaster with some odd brick work and the remnants of integrated wall supports for shelving.  Summer kitchen?  Laundry area (did they have those)? Dish washing area for tavern upstairs?

I seriously need fiberoptic spy gear.  I can't risk a bigger peep hole where I cut today without cutting something structural and/or load-baring.  Aside from my burning curiosity about what the space might have been used for, I really would like to know that the floor and underpinnings look solid before I spend too much time and money on the room above.  Although, there is no shaking or wobbling in the floor and it's probably the most level, square and plumb room on the property.  Perhaps I should consider my curiosity sated with a hole and a bucket.  And get back to vacuuming, sanding, painting and finshing so maybe, just maybe, we have have finished living space for Christmas.  Sigh.

And, Behind Door #3...

Just when I thought I'd seen it all, in terms of odd color choices...  It seems the Care Bears may have had a little known colonial influence...

In our travels through the many and various basement, attic and garage hiding places of TOPH, we have found a large collection of windows, doors and screens.  Since we moved in this Summer, and the house was still largely "winterized", we made quick, if amusing, work of matching each port to its appropriate ventilated pest barrier.  And we attempted to store the take-offs in a way that made sense.  But, let's just say we had some left over parts.

When the drafts of first frost came, we learned quickly where stop-gap measures were needed. And, as luck would have it, our match-making skills proved generally successful.  The many-doored passages to the outside suddnely made sense.  Although, I must say it is cumbersome to navigate multiple knobs and latches in a cramped space with groceries and children, I do get the yankee-logic of an air lock.

However, there are doors in the house that open directly into living spaces.  It was our intent to shun those passages in the Winter months, but, even closed, they were radiating cold.  There was just no way the previous owners lived with them like that...  Ah.  Spare parts!

In the rafters of the garage hubby found a solid tongue-and-groove door with some old hinges and thumb-latch hardware on it.  It fits the outside of the tavern door jam perfectly.  It swings out.  The old hand-hewn panel door swings in.  Clearly it's been there before -- the hardware matches up perfectly, although some pieces are missing.  No biggy.  We will likely figure out a way to secure it and not open it again until Spring.

The kicker is the color.  Now we have a purple house with blue doors and a bright green (we're talkin' verde gris) "over" door.  This just keeps getting better.  I feel like I'm in a colonial Care Bears movie.

The Chill is Upon Us: New Community, Old House

Our world is a little bit upside down.  When we lived in Annapolis, Spring was the busy time of year.  Weekends and evenings (and quite a few sneak-away-from-work hours) were spent getting boats ready for the season.  Tedious hours were spent getting logistics sorted for the sailing season.  But it was all worth it.  The more prepared we were for the season, the better we were able to enjoy our hours on the water.

It was a busy time when the community shared information on new products and processes they were using.  The talk about the coming season centered on new sail plans and purchases, new crew line-ups, ultimate strategies for long-distance races and tactics for the all-important race to the dock/bar.

Now that we have moved North, the sailing season is shorter and Fall is longer, but (apparently) way too short to complete all of the many Winter-prep projects required to keep us warm and safe at TOPH.  The to-do list for Fall included tree trimming to keep branches away from the house, replacing five basement windows to replace some of the the old, rotten ones (removed earlier in the Summer), ceiling demolition in the tavern to allow for plumbing repairs and some window replacement in the main house.

The tree trimming has been slow-going.  Hubby has been pecking away at it over the last six weeks, but our chainsaw has proven unequal to the task, requiring multiple sharpenings over the course of an afternoon.  Plus, tree work with the kids "helping" is slow-going with constant checks of their giggling-proximity to every given projectile and cutting tool.

The basement windows are more a financial challenge.  This is perhaps on of the only areas of "investment" in TOPH where were were willing to go with the cheapest, effective measure.  However, the window sizes are not stock or common, therefore either significant reframing efforts or expensive custom windows are required.  Sigh.  In the short term, hubby built two "hutches" to match the three contraptions already here.  They look like 3-sided dog houses that sit over the window wells.  Under those, I have used "found" materials to affect some protection from the colder temeratures.  The flat-frame screens I made to lay over the window wells for pest protection during our fully-ventuialted Summer have been covered on both sides (with air pocket in between) with several yards of painters' canvas I had lying around.  Hoping they will provide enough of an insulating barrier to protect window-proximal pipes -- we'll be keeping a close eye on those.

The ceiling demolition is more of a mental-physical barrier.  It sucks having yards of dust, debris, frass, feces and fodder fall on your head.  And working with power tools over your head is rather taxing (and death-defying.)  it's not a project you can work on for more than two hours at a time, yet the prep and clean-up take a good hour.  Finding time and motivation has been the greatest factor.  On the other hand, not having a living/family room for five months has posed its own challenges.  The critical mass of willpower (directed at Couch + Fire + TV/Book) is building a decent head of steam!

And finally, we took forever to make a decision about windows for the main house.  Then it took 6 weeks for our "sample" to arrive.  Truth-be-told, it took hubby less than two hours to install it.  And we like it.  A lot.  Now we just have to line up the pecking/ordering order for the rest.  Each one is about $325, so we figure we can do 2 each month without breaking the bank.  Some rooms have only one window and some have three, so it should all come out in the wash.  Although we'd like to do all nine on the front of the house in one go.  In the meantime, there are several that are "breezy" shall we say, so we have made a stop-gap purchase of shrink film, which is actually quite invisible to the naked eye when installed properly.  And, that is how we are spending our Thanksgiving.

So, back to my sailnig analogy.  Hubby and I have both remarked that it is a little tough embarking on projects in an old house in a new community.  Our community of sailing/Annapolis friends was always willing to lend a hand or opinion on a wide variety of boat projects.  Most folks we've met here, though, are not old house people.  So, although they find our house "charming" and projects "interesting", we have found very few with affinity or experience.  And, perhaps it's becasue we barely know them, we have been reluctant to ask for help when tasks require more hands.  Mostly we miss the commaraderie of the boat yard (and The Boatyard Bar & Grill) in terms of group-think and the inevitbability of drop-by helping elves.

Don't get me wrong, we LOVE living here and we are meeting new folks every day, but community takes time to build and we are freshmen.  We are thankful for all of the new folks we are meeting, but honestly, we miss (and look forward to) the sophomoric comments and sage-senior advice that come from old friends. 

So, on this Thanksgiving, we hope you'll join us it toasting friendships new and old.  Here's hoping the former grow finer with time.  Cheers and warm, homey hugs, all!