International Day of Electricity Consumption

As brought to by the Sheinhart Wig Corporation, exterior lighting and microwave division.

Original Building Permits

Molly's cousin Sara works for the Saint Paul Heritage Preservation Society and did some super sleuthing on a slow work day. Sara turned up the original building permit from August, 1909 and the log of sub-permits. The house was built for C.W. Boyer and the contractor was J.S. Sweitzer; his home is still standing on the corner across the street from us. His grandson owns the house now. I wonder if they have any of the blueprints from the house? I know they found a bunch in their attic.

We bought the house from Richard Remick who was J.H Remick's son. He inherited the house from his parents and lived here from the day he was born until the day he died. He was an interesting guy. Never worked a day in his life because his parents invested in the premium stocks way back in the 40's or 50's! The house had been totally remodeled in the 30's (as the permits say!) and never touched again. Pretty cool to walk into!

LOVE THE FLOOR

Floor pt 4

All the work getting the underlayment smooth was worth it. The tile went down really easily once we got the hang of it. Spread out adhesive, let it dry until tacky, lay out tile based on the guideline snapped on the floor. Having 3 sets of hands helps too. Especially if one is a quilter to shout that you are about t lay a tile with the grain going the wrong direction.

Floor pt 3

Yeah for helper parents! My Mom and Dad, filling each nail dimple, seam and imperfection with leveling compound.

Floor pt 2

The underlayment is 1/4 inch 4'x8' plywood sheet, nailed down using a ring-shanked nail to prevent squeaking. Every sheet has to be nailed every 3 inches around the perimeter and every 6 inches in the field. That works out to ~150 nails per sheet. I used around 6lbs. of nails, and hammered my thumb more than I care to tell. My poor neighbor Dave had a migrane that weekend and either he was too polite to tell me he heard all the pounding and sawing or he's got a real quiet house. Sorry Dave, you're too polite.

The Floor pt 1

Remodeling, adapt and plan. The original plan was to skim-coat the linoleum and lay tile right on top of that. but after a lot of research the floor was too loosely attached to the floor for that plan. When the 1930's linoleum went in they glued a heavy felt paper down and then floated the linoleum sheet on top of that. Plan B was to tear out the linoleum and lay the tile on the existing subfloor. It was a happy day when we got certified asbestos free, I didn't have to wear a hazmat suit or get the blacklung. The linoleum came up super easy because it wasn't glued down; it was getting the felt paper up that was the problem because it was. With enough scraping the adhesive came off, but it wasn't worth all the effort. Plan C do a new underlayment.

With the old linoleum out we noticed the original floor was tongue and groove wood floors like we have in the upststairs. It was like an archealogy dig, remove a layer and try to figure out things were like back in the day. The location of the old kitchen cabinets (that are now in the mudroom) was filled in with rough pine boards. The old stairs from the second floor had been cover in drywall and plywood sheet, so that must have come out later. All the old wood shavings from when the planed the baseboards to the floors were stuffed in under the pantry cabinets. We found a few random items under the pantry. Sadly, the most frequently found item was an obituary cut out of the paper and the date written on it. Reminds me of the story from the artist Andy Goldsworth, he was walking around his small village in england and noted that he could name the families and the children born in each house. He related that story to an elderly woman who had lived in the village for many years, she replied that were he sees the people born in those houses she sees the deaths of those who lived there previously. Rebirth and perspective.

More painting

We really haven touched the kitchen. It was so dingy and dark that we avoided cooking. I think Molly was embarassed to have friends over it was so bad. The 70 year-old linoleum was so worn and cracked that sweeping just moved the dirt into the cracks, where it would stayed for all of 5 minutes. We hated the floor so much we'd put shoes on to walk in the kitchen. I haven't put on shoes to walk on a floor since college!
Thanks Dad for helping paint.

mudroom ceiling

The leaky mudroom roof caused the plaster to fail and then damaged all of the square ceiling tile they'd put up. I imagine this roof leaks kinda frequently because the 2 layers of ceiling were both damaged. It looks like we're living in squalor with this picture. The worst part was the shower of dust you got if the back door was slammed shut. This project pretty much spawned the whole kitchen redo...

The patched up ceiling tile. It looks better already and I haven't even fixed the walls yet.

It was your birthday.

I turned 33. I had some sweet brunch at Key's in the great White Bear Lake. Go Bears! This is my interpretation of what I would look like if we'd bought a house in the 'burbs. The hair is fake, but it's creepy right?

So Long Carpets, It's Been Good to Know Ya

They made great drop cloths. It sure was fun to figure out where all of Mr. Remick's furniture was based on the wear tracks. What wasn't fun was pulling out all of the carpet staples and scrubbing the carpet pad off the hardwoods.

Midway is the new Uptown

MPLS aint got nothin on StP.

Sensi-Temp

Pictures from the first non-box meal we cooked at the new homestead. Gotta love the Sensi-Temp dial on the 1962 General Electric oven. Apparently people in 1962 ate a lot of eggs, steaks, french toast, hamburgers, pancakes, sausage and WEINERS. HAHAHAHAHA. Maybe this is what's wrong this the modern diet, not enough weiners.

Plaster repairs

What you can barely see here is a long horizontal crack in the plaster. Regularly not a problem, but here the plaster had separated from the lath and a patch would have fallen out over time. Thank Al Gore for the internet... and Ask This Old House.

Step 1, drill a bunch of holes into the plaster along the crack. About 85 in this case.

Step 2, fill every other hold with adhesive.

Step 3, add a washer and drywall screw to the holes without adhesive.

Step 4, tighten the screws down and let adhesive cure.

Step 5, remove the screws and washers then to what is by now a familiar chore, filling and sanding the holes.

Roofin

Who knew you could get dropped from your insurance company for a couple of broken shingles? Turns out they can do that. I guess the inside of a garage is like a gremlin, it multiplies when it gets wet and then bad things happen if you feed it cars after 11pm. Check out the before and after pictures. Either my insurance agent can take flattering photos or the insurance company has pretty low standards. Anyway this bought me some time until I can get it re-roofed.

House Guests

Thanks to everyone, human and otherwise who has come by to see the house and say hello.


Chowder, Cal's dog

Jack's response to Chowder

Tibby, makes himself at home.

Best buds

Chasing each other around the bathroom.