Madison, AL - 1911 Home

[Lily left the valley]

Welcome.

Your home is lovely, and my query is, "How many fireplaces are still useable?"

[Greygon]

:wave: Welcome.

Your home is lovely, and my query is, "How many fireplaces are still useable?"

We haven't really figured that out yet. We were warned maybe none. They do seem tthat have had some gas heaters they were venting into a few of them. We opened upon the fireplace in the living room on Saturday. There were some newspapers being used to block airflow around part of it dated 1986. There was also about forty pounds of leaves, acorns, and other assorted junk up inside.

The brickwork in there looks pretty good actually. Trying to determine what is next? Get it looked at by a sweep company? This would yield us two fireplaces because the main and second floor share chimney.

[JacquieJet]

Welcome! Congrats on your lovely home! There are a lot of really neat old features- lucky you!

As for your fireplaces, when we moved in here our fireplace was original (save for the tacky modern mantel that a PO had put on), and we got a chimney company in to do a level 2 WETT inspection. Basically they scope the entire length of the chimney and inspect the whole fireplace, and let you know what needs repair. It's very thorough. Typically, it's not cheap (I suspect because to do the inspection, the technician has to be WETT certified), but IMO it's the best way to go for peace of mind in terms of fire risk/safety.

[Wackyshack]

great home and welcome to the group!!!

getting old photos is a great score!!! Many of us never get our hands on any

[Gothichome]

Greygon, welcome to the district. Your new old home looks very nice. I can see it caught the white paint wood blight though. So many of them do though. Reminds of another of our neighbours here in the district, they bought a home with the same green carpete, or at least close. I think you a a treasure hiding under it. Look forward to seeing more.

[Greygon]

Greygon, welcome to the district. Your new old home looks very nice. I can see it caught the white paint wood blight though. So many of them do though. Reminds of another of our neighbours here in the district, they bought a home with the same green carpete, or at least close. I think you a a treasure hiding under it. Look forward to seeing more.

Ok, so I have to ask, what is the white paint wood blight?

[Gothichome]

Greygon, white wood blight, your fancy originally stained wood work gets painted white. When these old homes weren't so new but not yet old it was common to freshen up the trim by painting every thing white. Same goes for the exterior, all the great colours would be hidden with white paint to make the home look modern. For a long time after, it was assumed that white was the standard for all Victorians and other homes built in the Arts and Crafts style. Unfortunately Gothichomes interior suffers from seveveral different colours of wood blight.

[Greygon]

Gotcha! Yeah it is like the floor fungus they call carpet... we have actually pulled much of the carpet up in the downstairs and exposed the heart pine underneath. I guess we should be thankful that the floors were covered so they were preserved. Although they did paint over all of the floors upstairs. Tough to decide how much of the interior paint we should try to get rid of. Maybe the olde pictures will help out when we see them.

[Gothichome]

Ya, upper floors were often painted from new. Spend all the money on the fancy floors, were guests would see them.

[1918ColonialRevival]

This is a very nice "transitional" house, as it has both late Victorian and Colonial Revival elements. You are fortunate to have so many original features still intact.

Regarding the woodwork and floors - as Gothichome said, it wasn't uncommon in the early 20th Century to have painted pine floors in private areas of the house like bedrooms and finished oak floors downstairs.

Strip a small section of the woodwork to see what it originally looked like. Although finished wood was more common in Victorian houses, by about 1900, a lot of woodwork was painted from day one. This is especially true once the Colonial influence began to emerge, as the Georgian and Federal era houses they were modeled after often had painted woodwork. When you strip, if the wood underneath is pine, it was painted. If you find a gummy shellac residue on the bottom layer, it was finished. If it was finished, it would most likely be a more decorative wood of the era like oak.