The Historic District

Bonnie, your work on that house is dazzling. I'm glad I had the chance to see it in person. Whoever ends up living there is lucky indeed. Your renovations were done with an integrity that is rare today.

Thanks, James.

And I want to thank everyone on this site. I've gotten so much good advice from folks on here and learned so much. I probably won't be posting too much going forward, but I'd like to keep up with what y'all are doing.

Bonnie, I certainly hope you do well in the selling of the house. You put so much effort into it. I know your current plans don’t include an old house but do certainly hope you stop by every once and a while to say hello.

Bonnie, you have definitely been offering many vicarious restoration experiences I have partaken gladly. I learned a lot both from you and other folks pitching their pennies when needed.

I hope the sale goes smoothly.

I especially hope you indeed will not be a stranger after saying goodbye to that home one last time.

awomanwithahammer wrote:Oh, I do that, too, Phil! I bought a bunch of square stair balusters at Habitat for $2. Didn't know what I was going to do with them. They ended up as a bathroom vanity and laundry sink base. I'll post pics later.

I also sew, and I never look at patterns first. I find a fabric I love and THEN look at patterns.

I once bought an oak tank for a high flush toilet.... wind forward a year or two and a whole bathroom was built around it with wainscoting carefully matched to the stain color of the tank

Mick_VT wrote:

awomanwithahammer wrote:Oh, I do that, too, Phil! I bought a bunch of square stair balusters at Habitat for $2. Didn't know what I was going to do with them. They ended up as a bathroom vanity and laundry sink base. I'll post pics later.

I also sew, and I never look at patterns first. I find a fabric I love and THEN look at patterns.

I once bought an oak tank for a high flush toilet.... wind forward a year or two and a whole bathroom was built around it with wainscoting carefully matched to the stain color of the tank

Nice!

It's been a while. Honestly, it's been really nice not working on the house all the time. Then along comes Facebook market place and just like that we have a baby grand piano on the way. The requisite moving of furniture revealed water damage to the plaster on one wall. So we started chipping away until we got back to solid. Now I'm pointing the brick exterior of that side of the house. After that I get to fix the plaster, and then paint. All before the piano movers arrive on the 23rd. Things like this remind me of why I play guitar.

There are 12 wooden double hung windows on this (1950s Connecticut) house, the rest of which are replacements. Six of those windows date from the 50s and they don't look like they've had any putty repairs. They were in rough shape. The western sun made the putty dry and brittle; pieces of it would rain down when opening or closing a window. Fortunately, there is no bad wood. I've repaired or replaced the putty on all of these windows, using DAP 33, rather than the good stuff. (Vinyl window replacement is so rampant around here, it didn't seem to make sense to invest in full restoration on windows that are likely to be torn out 6 months down the road because they're "old.") Yesterday, I repaired/replaced the putty on the remaining six in the breezeway addition built in the 1960s. They were in even worse condition, possibly because of the southern exposure with a lack of overhang or the quality of the original materials.

I assumed a building inspector would point out the poor condition of the putty, so I took care of it. It's hard to decide sometimes what to fix or what to leave as-is because the potential buyer either doesn't care or will immediately replace.

James, to us old home people, replacing glazing compound every 60 or so years is called maintenance. For those who are not it called a nuisance even every 60 years. They will still last twice as long as the new fangled plastic windows.

Gothichome wrote:For those who are not it called a nuisance even every 60 years.

Some of the tasks that people "can't be bothered with" boggle my mind. Sure, it's not a whole lot of fun glazing windows in place (I enjoy restoring windows in the shop, so I guess I'm weird) especially out in the hot sun but when it's done, as you say, they're good for 60 years.

'Replace rather than repair' is the mindset of many people who have commented on my work, hinting that my labors are a silly waste of time. I can't help but think there is a little boasting there too; that the ability to throw money at a problem is somehow superior. Misses the point by a country mile.