November 25--"I'm Even More Thankful for...."

Fast-working drywall installers.

The view into the dining room at 8am:

The view into the dining room at noon:

Here is the opposite wall toward the patio:

November 25--Time Capsule

When we began to discover items in the walls during demolition, we decided to create our own time capsule. It's been completed and imbedded in a wall, just prior to drywall installation today.

Note to the future: Look for this box:

November 25--"I'm Thankful for...."

Drywall deliveries.

November 24--Departing Door

After the drywall sheets are stocked inside, this door will be removed and replaced with a "spare" 1788-era window.

November 24--Before and.....During

The masons spent Saturday scrubbing down the latest exposed stone wall. They will finish the cleaning and begin to mortar the exposed areas this week.

Last week:

Today:

Detail of stone:

November 24--Dining Room Archway

This is the view to/from the dining room. We removed the door and widened the doorway and carved out yet another arch. This will remain open full time now.

November 18--Brrrrrrr!

Insulation went in today, and not a moment too soon!

For the area where a window has yet to be re-installed, we had to improvise:

November 18--Old Wine in New Bottles

The 1788 window sashes have been placed in new frames, and two were reinstalled today. This is the best of both worlds: we've kept the 18th century viscous glass, and Now we will be able to open them in good weather. The other two will go in after the drywall sheets are passed through them.....maybe later this week?

November 18--One More Wall....

We decided to chip the plaster off the wall opposite the bar room, once we realized it was stone beneath the plaster. The beam -- a nice surprise -- will remain exposed as well.

Here is the wall before final cleaning today. The "clean spot" was done when the archway was installed. At that time we were only going to leave a section of stone exposed.

November 15--One Man's Trash....

As I cleaned out the attic, I moved six speakers, one 1980's tape deck, one 1970's receiver, two 1990's CD players, and an indeterminantly-aged TV to the end of the driveway.

The view at 10am:

The view at 1pm:

Thank God for scavengers......

November 15--Attic Purge

For years I have wanted to get up into the attic and pull off a wide-scale purge of decades-old boxes, old bed frames, outdated appliances, etc. and with a newly emptied dumpster on the property now, I can fill it with impunity:

November 11--"Form of....An Arch!"

I caught the removal of the form shaping the new arch this morning.

These are views from the family room toward the arch:

This is the view from the bar room into the family room:

The masons will spend time today pointing up and smoothing out the barrel interior.

November 8--Arch Action

The hearth in the 1788 portion of the house is one of the home's best features. Using some of the recovered stone, we are mimicking the radius of that hearth arch in the doorway from the bar room into the family room.

The hearth:

The view from the bar room, as the arch is being formed up:

The view from the Family room into the bar room area, with the stones set and about to be mortared:

November 6--"The Process Has Been Served!"

Our variance request to expand our garage from the current too-short and too-low car port was approved by Howard County. Hooray!

November 5--Mission Creep, Part....500?

The cellar door has been rotting away on its hinges for years. Taking advantage of some lag-time before inspections, Kevin built a new door out of contemporary products to emulate cellar doors of old. The hinges we reused, but everything else is new.

November 3--Revised Retaining Walls

The back patio used to have planters that were always a problem: it was hard to get things to grow and was always a source of moisture into the house. We removed these to give more open space, and saved the stone to re-install as a border feature that better ties the house into the other retaining walls and flagstone walkways.

 

November 1--Window Rot

Three of the windows from the 1788 section had rot all around the jambs and frames. We will reuse the sashes with their antique glass and install them in new frames.

November 1--Pliable Army Man

Found while patio walls were being rebuilt: