What do you do when you're not working on your house?

[heartwood]

more! I want to read more of these interesting biographies! it's like becoming good friends with
long time acquaintances...

after graduating high school in 1973, I hitched a ride out to san Francisco to find my fame and fortune...
I ended up living in shelters with a lot of other misdirected young people and there began years of active alcoholism
and drug addiction...if AIDS was around in those days, I may have succumbed due to sharing needles...I was aimless but employed for many years...then, in January of 1986, I got clean and sober....

life 2: remnants of an abusive childhood still sit on my shoulder but my back is now strong...I have created a family of choice with many wonderful people...and of course my dog and cat are part of my family too...
in 1996 with my newly earned contractor's license, I was asked to bid on a whole house restoration in provincetown on cape cod where I lived for 10 years...I was the only one who said "sure, I see no reason why these windows cannot be restored." and I was awarded the project...two weeks later I boarded a plane to attend an international window restoration conference in DC...I learned quite a bit on that project and realized I could make a career as a window restoration specialist...
I now reside in beautiful rural western Massachusetts and have a lovely shop set on a river next to a farm...I can throw open the windows and let in the aroma of fresh mown hay, walk down to the river at lunch, gaze at the autumn foliage in fall and appreciate the new fallen (many inches) of snow from the warmth of my shop in winter...
I quit smoking and became a vegetarian 26 years ago...I am a long distance walker and enjoy hiking in the white mountains of NH....i enjoy working in my yard/garden and working on my house....life is good and I am healthy...at age (almost) 64, I don't see myself retiring anytime soon...
I guess I've come full circle as I visit san Francisco often where my best friend and niece live...I've put in a lot of walking miles in that fine city...it's nice to be welcomed home to my little farm house in my little town by my little loving dog betty and cat gigi............

[GinaC]

I see so much synchronicity in this thread! I was born in San Francisco, and very recently I found my birth mother, and learned that she was originally from Iowa. Abusive parents, illness... those ring true for me as well.

It looks like one thing we all have in common, besides our love of old houses, of course, is that we love to work with our hands. We also like to figure things out. I can only speak for myself, but I know that I can also be a very stubborn person. I think this helps -- we find a way to do what we have to do.

[awomanwithahammer]

It looks like one thing we all have in common, besides our love of old houses, of course, is that we love to work with our hands. We also like to figure things out. I can only speak for myself, but I know that I can also be a very stubborn person. I think this helps -- we find a way to do what we have to do.

Oh, yes! I've always said one of the reasons I do these things is because I refuse to admit that there is something I can't do or learn to do! And I work by myself so I have to find ways of doing things without help. I rarely have to ask my husband for help.

Jade, what a great story. I admire what you have made of yourself so much. I'm 3 years younger than you and I was lucky enough to avoid the drug and alcohol trap. But my life was pretty aimless, too, for a long time. I fell into clerical work only because it was what my mother had done. My dad was an engineer and one of the most brilliant people I've ever known. I inherited much of his mechanical ability, but I wasn't encouraged or motivated to go to college; women weren't so much then. As I've gotten older, I've started developing the latent skills I always had. I think I could have been an interior designer (not a decorator!)

I have enjoyed reading everyone's stories as well. I'd love to hear some more, too!

[Mick_VT]

The short version for me is that I pretty much dropped out of high school, and became a management trainee at a local supermarket. That lasted about a year or so before my ideas were stolen by the store manager and presented as his own. I left not long after and joined Texas Instruments as a draftsman working on micro-processor design diagrams. With my boss' encouragement and help I was able to get into college to study for a bachelors in computer science and AI and launched into a software engineering career (I had been programming since I was 12 so it was a natural fit).

After about four years I was running a department of around 50 engineers when I met my future wife and moved to the US. This was 2001 (just before the dot com bubble burst) so was easily able to find a programming job again in New Hampshire, even though I had to move 3000 miles to go to work. The company even helped me with moving expenses and my visa. I continued a mix of coding and engineering management progressing through multiple roles until about 8 years or so ago when I was director of engineering at a medical device company. I left there to become a full-time management consultant / road warrior, teaching large companies how to build true collaborative teams at the associate and executive level. I loved that job but 100% travel is very hard on the mind, body and relationships. The biggest casualty was my marriage. It's very hard to stay close to somebody you do not see all week. Particularly when you live in rural VT and your partner feels kind of abandoned. She and I separated in 2015 and divorced last year. We are still great friends, but things have moved on.

Last year I gave up consulting - I felt guilty for my cats who lived most of the week on their own, and my house felt like an expensive storage closet - I wanted nothing more than to live there again. I was also ready for a change in direction. So now I find myself as the VP of Technology at Simon Pearce. A high end hand made glass and pottery manufacturer, having a whole lot of fun and enjoying being more involved with tangible products than I have ever been. It really helps that those products are incredibly beautiful. I also have a new girlfriend who loves working on the house with me. She even helped me replace the siding on the back of the house after we had only been dating just a few weeks!

[KenN]

I am retired now, not my choice at the time in 2017 but it has worked out ok so far, so I think I am done working. I too did software development for 30+ years, all in the financial district in NYC. If you have ever done a wire transfer in the US, it has certainly passed through the systems I developed or designed.

When working with virtual raw material, you can always throw away your mistake and go back to a previous version, but with actual raw material it is very true that you have to measure twice and cut once!

When I first stopped working I jokingly said my new job is Chief Assistant Dog Walker, but working on the house has become my new full time job. We bought a 1915 house in 2015 that was basically solid and well built but it had been neglected for quite a while. We are only the third owners so far, and luckily not much was “upgraded”. I am trying to preserve and fix what I can, working from the outside in. After 4 years we have made great progress, but I think I can see now how it will never really be finished. Just taking one project at a time now.

This year the main project is fixing all of the windows on the first floor. There are 12 on the first floor. We have fully completed 6. Number 7 has the sashes all ready, the window frame needs some more work before we can put it back together. Number 8 is apart, one sash done the other sash still being stripped. Hopefully we can finish the last 4 windows before it gets too cold. Then 10 windows upstairs to do for next year.

The house also has 7 windows with a diamond window pane pattern. I’m not sure what these are called, maybe cottage or Tudor style. All need work and some are in bad shape. I’m not sure what to do with these. I don’t really like the style, and I am toying with the idea to build some replacement sashes for these. I have become a fan of Queen Ann style windows with colored glass squares and I am going to try my luck building one of these hopefully this Fall also.

[awomanwithahammer]

The short version for me is that I pretty much dropped out of high school, and became a management trainee at a local supermarket. That lasted about a year or so before my ideas were stolen by the store manager and presented as his own. I left not long after and joined Texas Instruments as a draftsman working on micro-processor design diagrams. With my boss' encouragement and help I was able to get into college to study for a bachelors in computer science and AI and launched into a software engineering career (I had been programming since I was 12 so it was a natural fit).

After about four years I was running a department of around 50 engineers when I met my future wife and moved to the US. This was 2001 (just before the dot com bubble burst) so was easily able to find a programming job again in New Hampshire, even though I had to move 3000 miles to go to work. The company even helped me with moving expenses and my visa. I continued a mix of coding and engineering management progressing through multiple roles until about 8 years or so ago when I was director of engineering at a medical device company. I left there to become a full-time management consultant / road warrior, teaching large companies how to build true collaborative teams at the associate and executive level. I loved that job but 100% travel is very hard on the mind, body and relationships. The biggest casualty was my marriage. It's very hard to stay close to somebody you do not see all week. Particularly when you live in rural VT and your partner feels kind of abandoned. She and I separated in 2015 and divorced last year. We are still great friends, but things have moved on.

Last year I gave up consulting - I felt guilty for my cats who lived most of the week on their own, and my house felt like an expensive storage closet - I wanted nothing more than to live there again. I was also ready for a change in direction. So now I find myself as the VP of Technology at Simon Pearce. A high end hand made glass and pottery manufacturer, having a whole lot of fun and enjoying being more involved with tangible products than I have ever been. It really helps that those products are incredibly beautiful. I also have a new girlfriend who loves working on the house with me. She even helped me replace the siding on the back of the house after we had only been dating just a few weeks!

Mick, thank you for sharing your story. I'm so sorry about your marriage breaking up. I didn't realize you'd been going through that so recently. But I'm glad you've found a job that satisfies your creative soul and a girlfriend who loves old houses.

Where did you emigrate from? I'm guessing the UK, but don't want to make assumptions. Funny thing, my father worked for Texas Instruments when he was at the University of Texas, around the time I was born, in 1957.

[awomanwithahammer]

I am retired now, not my choice at the time in 2017 but it has worked out ok so far, so I think I am done working. I too did software development for 30+ years, all in the financial district in NYC. If you have ever done a wire transfer in the US, it has certainly passed through the systems I developed or designed.

When working with virtual raw material, you can always throw away your mistake and go back to a previous version, but with actual raw material it is very true that you have to measure twice and cut once!

When I first stopped working I jokingly said my new job is Chief Assistant Dog Walker, but working on the house has become my new full time job. We bought a 1915 house in 2015 that was basically solid and well built but it had been neglected for quite a while. We are only the third owners so far, and luckily not much was “upgraded”. I am trying to preserve and fix what I can, working from the outside in. After 4 years we have made great progress, but I think I can see now how it will never really be finished. Just taking one project at a time now.

This year the main project is fixing all of the windows on the first floor. There are 12 on the first floor. We have fully completed 6. Number 7 has the sashes all ready, the window frame needs some more work before we can put it back together. Number 8 is apart, one sash done the other sash still being stripped. Hopefully we can finish the last 4 windows before it gets too cold. Then 10 windows upstairs to do for next year.

The house also has 7 windows with a diamond window pane pattern. I’m not sure what these are called, maybe cottage or Tudor style. All need work and some are in bad shape. I’m not sure what to do with these. I don’t really like the style, and I am toying with the idea to build some replacement sashes for these. I have become a fan of Queen Ann style windows with colored glass squares and I am going to try my luck building one of these hopefully this Fall also.

Ken, software development seems to be a common theme among this group!

Yes, old houses seem to be a never-ending project. It's good that you are working from the outside in; at least outwardly it looks good. I can never make myself start on the outside, though, because the inside projects are so much more fun!

I feel your pain on the windows. I had only 14 total to restore and it took me 10 months to do them all. I like the Queen Anne windows as well; good luck with that! I have a friend who salvaged several of those. I don't know anything about the diamond pane windows. Jade will know more about those.

[heartwood]

here's a great article on the evolution of windows...
http://www.james-garvin.com/images/Window_Sashes2.pdf
...jade

[Neighmond]

Thanks for the kind words! Work has been slow here, had some health setbacks and I wasn't too sure I'd be here today, each day I wake up is a gift. Clearing out the hoard in the house, I want my home back. I hope I'll have more news in a month or so.