Your House Will Keep You Busy

I have always loved older houses. They just don't build them like that anymore. Living in an old house can have its' challenges, but a lot of fun at the same time. My last house was new construction and even it had issues I had to deal with from time to time. Like the outlets in the dinning room that were never hooked up, but passed all inspections, and rot under the front door and a leaking Sliding door leading to the deck.

I had the opportunity to buy my current house back in 1995 and figured it would be a 5 year project to restore it like I wanted. Here I am 16 years later and still renovating this old house. It's a labor of love though, so I certainly am not complaining. Besides, it has a history that is cool to research and imagine how it was when it was built back in 1905. The town of Wendell was new, founded in 1903 as a railroad stop between Zebulon and Knightdale, NC. The Richardson family had it built and moved in. Mr. Richardson was the former Mayor of Zebulon, NC. He would walk the three blocks into downtown to buy a cigar in his retirement days, and always had some candy in his pocket for the kids he'd walk by.

His Granddaughter told us about the bathroom addition added to the back "L" of the house, and how she had to dawn her coat to go onto the back porch to the bathroom in the Winter, but at least it was attached to the house. The old Carriage House is still in use as storage, and in need of repair, but that's another project for later. Down at the Little River, the grist mill ground corn during the day, and was switched to a generator at night to supply electricity to the town. Each household got about 85 Watts of power to run the lights and radios at dusk. They were charged extra if they went over that amount.

Back in the day, houses were built facing East / West with a center hallway for cooling. On either side of the hallway are four big rooms. A double sided fireplace on each side of the hallway warmed the main part of the house. Off the back is an "L" which is two room in a line from the left side with porches on each side. Later those porches were closed in to make smaller rooms about 7' X 15 feet each. The street side porch is now a mud room/ laundry room connected inline with the main hall, where the indoor bathroom was added on.

At some point, the house was divided into two apartments, with the owners living in the front, and tenants in the back. The great hall was divided, and the front kitchen was put there, with the back kitchen in one of the closed in porches. The wiring was updated for the two spaces. Some of the old two-wire ceramic insulators are still in the attic. Today, the kitchen is still in the main hallway and has to go somewhere!

We used one of the main four rooms as a guest bedroom and storage. We noticed the floor was sagging a bit, and later a lot. I took a quick look underneath and saw a couple floor joists had broken in the middle. A few pine floorboards were rotten by the fireplace so it was obvious we had some water damage from a roof leak around the fireplace chimney flashing. I had no choice but to tear up the flooring and fix the problem.

In late August I began demolition with the aid of Tommy Stanley, a younger friend  of mine for many years. At 55, I needed a strong helper since my knees and back wear out quickly and Tommy's dad, David, does this kind of work and was kind enough to provide technical help and code advice. David was amazing and pitched in to handle the hard stuff we could not have tackled on our own. We started at the outside wall since I figured that's where the most damage would be and I was fearing the outside sill would need replacing and the sooner I knew this the better.

Builders at the turn of the century did not lay sub-flooring. The tongue and groove 3/4" Pine boards are attached directly to the joists using cut nails. Made out of iron, these nails will rust a bit causing them to grab into the wood making it impossible to pull out. It makes one heck of a strong floor, though. Unfortunately, you end up tearing the floor boards to pieces when you remove them and since most were a little rotten, there was no way to save them for use later.

The 2"X8" joists all failed near the center of the room as they were spanning 15' with no center support. In the picture above you can see the cut nails still holding strong in the joists and mold growing on the beam in front of the fireplace. We pulled them all out and had David over to inspect the sills around the room. To our surprise, they were all in good shape except a small area at one of the piers. These are 8" X 8" "logs" surrounding the room's perimeter and was dead level on all sides. David chiseled out the bad spot and  inserted some good wood into the beam. It was easy to nail a new treated 2" X 10" to them so we had something fresh to nail to. The old wood is so hard being old growth Pine it's a chore to drive a nail into, but fortunately I was given a pneumatic framing nail gun for Christmas last year, so it made the task pretty easy.

Even though local building codes allow a 2" X 8" board to span 15', I decided to add a center beam to bear the load. We set a double 2" X 10" treated beam on three new foundation piers in the center of the room that the new joists rests on. Now that it it finished, I wouldn't have a problem if someone drove a Mack truck on the floor. It is pretty stout now. I spent every free weekend and day off moving plumbing and electrical outlets for the new kitchen. I had to wait until a good time to move the drains and water lines since this disables the old kitchen next door, and we've been eating out for a week now. But finally, I don't have to lay under the house making connections. I have been sore in places I didn't know I had from crawling in the dirt, twisting into awkward angles working around air ducts and numerous obstacles. It's been an amazing feeling to wake up and not have to shimmy under the house for hours.

I think the happiest feeling I've had on this project was when the insulation covered the view of old dirt, and the new sub-floor sealed it up. I was totally tired of seeing a dirt floor and walking atop floor joists. Luckily, I didn't fall and break a hip and aside from a burn from dripping solder on my left arm, no injuries so far! I did get a bruise, but haven't shed any blood yet.

With a solid floor to walk on, we removed the wallpaper, and began patching walls. I have some framing to finish in the old closet area and a portion of ceiling to fix. A previous owner cut an access panel to the attic in the closet. The ceilings are the same tongue and groove Pine used on the floors. I found enough pieces of it in the attic to fill in the hole, but it's going to be a challenge to get it to match the cut they made. Hopefully a little caulk will fill and gaps I leave.

With the major construction nearing the end, I'll post the finished results when it's finished. I have the new sink ready to go in, the new flooring is ready to lay down, and we finally agreed on a paint color. I have a couple more days off, so I hope to finish this project soon. I need some rest!