New Member- 1840s Piedmont Carolina "I" house

gvforster (WavyGlass) · Wed Jan 29, 2014 10:10 pm

did a quick floor plan of 1st floor- hopefully it helps with the earlier photos

I labeled the rooms as they would be in the 19thc; the 1st floor bedroom will be Living Room,
Parlor becomes the Dining Room and original Dining Room becomes the Family Room (the room
where I will locate the TV)

picture of the well, photo is kinda of misleading,the well is very deep

The house has vinyl siding, but original siding is underneath and looks in excellent condition( vinyl will be removed.

there are 36 original window sash(168 panes of glass- all but 2 appear to be original -wavy, bubbles,
other inclusions in the glass) the window sash never even had locks installed

Post by **drew1910** » Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:25 am

Do you have anymore photos of the house? I'd love to see what you're working with, have done, and are planning to do.

Post by **Don M** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 8:10 pm

What an attractive home & yard. I like your relaxation space in your parlor.

Post by **Gothichome** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 12:22 am

Gents, looking at your well got me thinking. The home I grew up in probably 160+ years at the time had a hand dug well, went down about 60 ft as well if I recall. Now the question, the well was inside the homes foundation. How common was it to build the home around the well? The well was located in one corner of the home.

Post by **Don M** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 1:01 pm

I don't believe it was common to have wells inside a home although I have seen a few homes like this. My 1830s vintage farmhouse had a brick vaulted cistern that was half outside & half inside our house. It allowed the kitchen to have a counter mounted hand pump in the kitchen before inside plumbing. My neighbor's house still has a spring running in the cellar. It runns year round & sometimes has fish in it!

gvforster (WavyGlass) · Sat Jul 12, 2014 3:19 pm

I haven't accomplished much actual work on the inside, kitchen left in a 30yd dumpster and sorting out required major structural repairs; but alot of outside work on the property

Anyways, a few pics:

mortised/pegged framing;

hand-hewn sill beam- the larger timbers (sill beams, corner posts) were still being hand-hewn, with the smaller studs , joists, rafters being sawn with sash-saw

front view of house

gvforster (WavyGlass) · Sat Jul 12, 2014 3:32 pm

Only had one small outbuilding remaining, a termite ridden wash house, when I bought the property last Summer.
I tore that down and built a small workshop ( my avocation is building 18th-early 19thc furniture with hand tools only, using original methods as much as possible.

the wood siding I had sawn, air dried for 2 months and than run thru a planer- it matches the original siding on the house. I found window sash at local auctions, and was able to glaze with 80% early wavy glass.

just haven't been successful at photographing the glass

gvforster (WavyGlass) · Sat Jul 12, 2014 3:43 pm

I also planted a garden; didn't really have time, as I work a 60-70 hr week out of town, but since there hadn't been any garden planted here in 30+yrs, I wanted to get started , not lose another year

Sorry, don't know how to attch. more than 3 pics

so to be followed: