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The big renovation: 1908 home

You can't rush art Scott. looking good.:clap
BTW, we built and the process is just as painful in every way.
There is no avoiding it, it's the hidden perk of home ownership.
Best of luck to you though.
:wave
 
Nice bungalow! Has an almost oriental quality. Lathe and plaster, old "skip sheet" in the roof with what looks like a plywood overlay for composition roof. Prob. had wooden shingles originally. A lot of potential there. I always loved to remodel.
 
Scott
Are you sure you are not a closet Airhead? Some clues:
* Likes old stuff
* Likes fixing old stuff
* Gets into big projects at the limit of skill set
* Completes project with artistic flourish
* Needs electrical work

These are questions that make me go Hhmmmmmmm.

Keep us posted buddy
 
Nice... I had to laugh at the auger bit stuck in the top plate...:doh"lets hide it behind the wall and forget it"...remember that was most likely done with an old brace and bit and a cranky apprentice electrician....not that I would know anything about that:whistle Helped my dad partially re-wire my grandfathers Craftsman style home in the Houston Heights that he had originally built along with several in that area in the early 1940's...it had open wire circuits on insulators in the walls and attic ...very scary stuff...especially for the wayward mouse! Looking at that pic, I see an insulator above that bit...maybe it was originally wired the same.


Have FUN! :deal
 
I love projects like yours. Its like an archeological dig; slowly removing the layers to expose the past. Did you find any old coins? We found a 1911 fifty cent piece in a small change purse from a local bank on top of the bottom plate but UNDER the dripped plaster.:scratch. Then there were the post cards behind the door trim from 1919 sent by friends who lived only 20 miles away expressing their regrets for not undertaking the "arduous" trip to come visit 'cause they had the "chills". Fun stuff!

Tom
 
Scott, you are ambitious and hard working. The longest journey begins with a single step. :bow

I have seen many homes like this disappear in Saratoga Springs when the new owner buys the home just for the lot. After the sale, the old home disappears and a new dwelling, sans character, appears a few weeks later.

There is nothing more satisfying that a project one has done on his own.

Good Luck and keep the pictures coming.
 
I have seen many homes like this disappear in Saratoga Springs when the new owner buys the home just for the lot. After the sale, the old home disappears and a new dwelling, sans character, appears a few weeks later.

So true Paul and what a shame. New construction lacks character and I think that speaks of the loss of craftsmen in many areas. I've had many "features" in my 1920's era home corrected but I like this old house with all it's flaws.
 
So what are the plans to make your place super energy efficient now? It has to be reasonable easy with everything torn out.
 
So what are the plans to make your place super energy efficient now? It has to be reasonable easy with everything torn out.

Nothing extraordinary. Blown in insulation, double hung windows and that's about it. We've had a few try to sell us on the foam insulation, new higher efficiency furnance, etc but the cost savings just aren't there in a place with a relatively mild climate.

Looking around the place, it's clear that "character" in a house is often akin to character in a motorcycle. Sometimes "character" is a nice way to say "that's just stupid". :ha
 
Nothing extraordinary. Blown in insulation, double hung windows and that's about it. We've had a few try to sell us on the foam insulation, new higher efficiency furnance, etc but the cost savings just aren't there in a place with a relatively mild climate.

The difficulty with most of the energy efficiency items is that you pay for them all up front to get a hoped-for gain later on. Most take a number of years to pay off, but usually they can be expected to outlive that period and return eventual gains. We are just about to finish off our 8th year with a very expensive photovoltaic system. The break even point for us is somewhere in the 12-13 year time frame. But after that point, it will start saving us $3,500+/year, and the panels have a 25 year warranty -- that could add up to $42,000 savings. But it's difficult to justify if you think you're going to move in a few years.

Besides just the energy savings, there can be other advantages. Do you have a forced air heater? Radiant floor heating can be cheaper in operation and it doesn't blow dust everywhere.

Maybe it doesn't make sense for you now, but you can do some advance work that is cheap but could save you a lot later. For example, while everything is opened up, it may make sense to plumb stubs up to your roof and down to where your water heater is for a later installation of a solar hot water system. The guy who built my house did that, and it saved me a significant amount of money when I installed such a system last year.

How about low flow toilets and shower heads? We bought dual-flush toilets during a remodel and they are quiet and work very well. I have to admit I was very concerned about the move considering the reputation the early low flow toilets had.

I'm surprised that an upgrade in insulation doesn't pencil out to savings in a few years. If it's a close thing, what about the consideration of the house simply being more comfortable to live in, especially during those few weeks of hot weather in the summer?
 
So true Paul and what a shame. New construction lacks character and I think that speaks of the loss of craftsmen in many areas. I've had many "features" in my 1920's era home corrected but I like this old house with all it's flaws.

Looking at the framing in this place, it's clear that contractors have been earning their reputation for a long time. :ha

Some of these old places are clearly gems, but I think you can find the same in modern construction. They weren't trying to do something amazing back in the day any more they are today. They were just using the knowledge and technology on hand to, most of the time, get it done as quickly and as cheaply as possible with the features the buyers were demanding. What we think of as neat old bungalows were often the junky track housing of their day.
 
And the American Dream was Born

Tract housing got its start with the invention of the pre-manufactured truss. At that point, the same cookie cutter houses sprang out of the newly designed and drafted "subdivisions". Quality and craftmanship were replaced with easier ways of building a house; Honestly, how can you blame em? Can you imagine hand nailing each of those lathe in place OMG!? Somebody did that for a living?

All of this happened just in time to fill the housing needs of the WWII vets and their families.

Your home was built before that, Right?

Out of interest, what kind of wood was used for framing? What’s your foundation made of? Those items varied from region to region depending on product. In MN, so many turn of the century homes were framed with rough cut oak (can you believe it? Who needs headers?) and set on top of either packed (rammed) earth berm or llimestone with no mortar! Imagine the skill to make a wall with no mortar!

I am truly excited for you Scott!
 
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The difficulty with most of the energy efficiency items is that you pay for them all up front to get a hoped-for gain later on. Most take a number of years to pay off, but usually they can be expected to outlive that period and return eventual gains. We are just about to finish off our 8th year with a very expensive photovoltaic system. The break even point for us is somewhere in the 12-13 year time frame. But after that point, it will start saving us $3,500+/year, and the panels have a 25 year warranty -- that could add up to $42,000 savings. But it's difficult to justify if you think you're going to move in a few years.

Besides just the energy savings, there can be other advantages. Do you have a forced air heater? Radiant floor heating can be cheaper in operation and it doesn't blow dust everywhere.

Maybe it doesn't make sense for you now, but you can do some advance work that is cheap but could save you a lot later. For example, while everything is opened up, it may make sense to plumb stubs up to your roof and down to where your water heater is for a later installation of a solar hot water system. The guy who built my house did that, and it saved me a significant amount of money when I installed such a system last year.

How about low flow toilets and shower heads? We bought dual-flush toilets during a remodel and they are quiet and work very well. I have to admit I was very concerned about the move considering the reputation the early low flow toilets had.

I'm surprised that an upgrade in insulation doesn't pencil out to savings in a few years. If it's a close thing, what about the consideration of the house simply being more comfortable to live in, especially during those few weeks of hot weather in the summer?

I wrote up a big long reply and my browser hiccuped. :banghead

The short version:
I've gone back and forth on all of these details. The bottom line is all of the "save the world, save a dollar" options, smart though they may be, are just too expensive. We can't afford them now and hoping for a pay off a decade or more down the road just isn't reasonable for us. Some like the insulation are significantly more expensive. Something like solar is an audacious luxury that would take that much longer to pencil out in our area.
 
Tract housing got its start with the invention of the pre-manufactured truss. At that point, the same cookie cutter houses sprang out of the newly designed and drafted "subdivisions". Quality and craftmanship were replaced with easier ways of building a house; Honestly, how can you blame em? Can you imagine hand nailing each of those lathe in place OMG!? Somebody did that for a living?

All of this happened just in time to fill the housing needs of the WWII vets and their families.

Your home was built before that, Right?

I have one word for you, "Sears". :D

When you drive through the aging bungalow belt around so many cities and see the same house again and again, however quaint, it's clear that most often they weren't building works of art. They were making housing, usually nothing more.

Having said that, our house is different in its detail, porch and roof structure than any similar sized houses we've seen.

Out of interest, what kind of wood was used for framing? What’s your foundation made of? Those items varied from region to region depending on product. In MN, so many turn of the century homes were framed with rough cut oak (can you believe it? Who needs headers?) and set on top of either packed (rammed) earth berm or llimestone with no mortar! Imagine the skill to make a wall with no mortar!

I am truly excited for you Scott!

:thumb

The house is framed entirely with rough sawn 2x4 and 1x6 fir. Portland was booming at the time as a lumber port and the stuff was cheap, plentiful and STRONG. The foundation, formed with those 1x6's recycled for use in the framing, is a bit sketchy. It's a concrete foundation 4" thick made with round river rock for aggregate and not quite enough cement. We're taking some steps to augment that crumbly old foundation but otherwise the house has surprised everyone by being in solid shape with minimal decay.
 
...it had open wire circuits on insulators in the walls and attic ...very scary stuff...especially for the wayward mouse! Looking at that pic, I see an insulator above that bit...maybe it was originally wired the same.

I wouldn't want to be the mouse either, but knob and tube wiring was actually quite good: there was so much space and air circulation around the wires that equipment shorts leading to overheating and melted insulation and fires were uncommon.
 
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Slept just shy of 11 hours last night. :ha

The parting photo of the night...

674765977_eW3t2-L.jpg
 
Friend of mine looks for those window weights.Says they make the best ammo for black powder rifles because of the compound in them. Ed
 
My place was built in 1824, and over the last 30 years, it pretty much has been reconstructed. You are doing it the right way, all at once. I tackled it in 3 separate sections, for a lot of reasons.

It was a lot of work, but satisfying too. Good Luck
 
My place was built in 1824, and over the last 30 years, it pretty much has been reconstructed. You are doing it the right way, all at once. I tackled it in 3 separate sections, for a lot of reasons.

It was a lot of work, but satisfying too. Good Luck

Did I mention that my wife is pregnant? :ha
We had originally planned to do it in sections, but renovation and a baby seemed like a really bad combination.
 
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