The Historic District

The time has come to share some of the projects I have been working on the past 4 years since living here. Its been a wild ride so far but I am finally getting a grasp on things. Some of the major overhauls are done (both planned and unplanned). Gotaa say its been crazy fun somewhat expensive experience. The first major project was the HVAC replacement. When we bought the house it was already old and on its last legs. The next summer it gave up the ghost, a small hole in the condenser unit. Time to replace the whole system. Couldnt be happier. High efficiency heat pump with a gas furnace backup with an ionizing filter. I have no pics of this because well its kinda the boring stuff. While this was going on we decided to strip the wallpaper and repaint most of the first floor. This had to be done. I again remind you these are all older renovations. Nothing we are doing currently. This topic will be in somewhat of a chronological order of things we have done from oldest to most recent. So the adventure begins.

The Living Room (before pics are in introductions)

We decided to repaint the room and get rid of the awfull curtains.

The French doors on both sides of the fireplace are a nice feature. Do they lead out onto a veranda?

Manalto wrote:The French doors on both sides of the fireplace are a nice feature. Do they lead out onto a veranda?

Yes, they do lead into an enclosed sun room. Not a very efficient room. Winters are cold and summers are hot and humid. It has the louvered type floor to ceiling window. The proper name for them escapes me. We are going to eventually replace them once budget and time permit. Probably going to go with a slider type on two sides and then a couple more french doors to exit onto the back patio.

The Dining Room

Repaint and get rid of the nasty curtains ( is anyone noticing a theme here?)

ColonialRevivalPete wrote: It has the louvered type floor to ceiling window. The proper name for them escapes me.

Jalousie? If so, it's unlikely they'd be original to a house built in 1937. It would be interesting to learn what was there originally. Sometimes those spaces were transitional areas - open air, roofed, screened - that homeowners later enclosed to take advantage of the space. It wasn't always done well, as you report.

Lets go oustside for a bit shall we. The new veggie garden.

This was a fun project. Took 2 seasons but was very worth it. It is about 40' by 40'. The fencing around it is approximatlly 8.5'. This was done to prevent the infiltration of deer. Construction materials used were 8 x 8 posts and 2 x 8 all pressure treated. The inside of the raised bed boxes were lined with BPA-free garden plastic to prevent the nasty stuff leaching out of the pressure treat. Posts were dug in approximatly 3' and then anchored in place with hard packed crushed concrete. Its now a bountiful garden that provides us with about 3 seasons worth of fresh vegetables.











I do not have pictures on the internal beds, but there are 3 of them. Construction type was the same except using 4 x 4 posts

Manalto wrote:

ColonialRevivalPete wrote: It has the louvered type floor to ceiling window. The proper name for them escapes me.

Jalousie? If so, it's unlikely they'd be original to a house built in 1937. It would be interesting to learn what was there originally. Sometimes those spaces were transitional areas - open air, roofed, screened - that homeowners later enclosed to take advantage of the space. It wasn't always done well, as you report.

Yup, those are the ones. Its was originally open air with a concrete pad and then in the summer they attached screening which i do believe I still have in the garage in the attic. At least thats what was described in the original prints of the house

ColonialRevivalPete wrote:

Manalto wrote:

ColonialRevivalPete wrote: It has the louvered type floor to ceiling window. The proper name for them escapes me.

Jalousie? If so, it's unlikely they'd be original to a house built in 1937. It would be interesting to learn what was there originally. Sometimes those spaces were transitional areas - open air, roofed, screened - that homeowners later enclosed to take advantage of the space. It wasn't always done well, as you report.

Yup, those are the ones. Its was originally open air with a concrete pad and then in the summer they attached screening which i do believe I still have in the garage in the attic. At least thats what was described in the original prints of the house

Those windows didn't become big until after WWII. Their peak years seemed to be the early to mid 1950s, though I can remember people were still installing them in patios in the 1980s when I was a kid.

For some reason, a lot of the houses in my neighborhood have these on the landing between the second and third floors. The only reason I can think of for this is around 1950 there was probably some smooth talking BS artist door-to-door salesman who came through hawking these. He probably mentioned how the tall stairwells would act like chimneys and all the "hot air" could rise up and out through those windows. At least six households in my neighborhood fell for it, including the previous owners of my house.

1918ColonialRevival wrote:He probably mentioned how the tall stairwells would act like chimneys and all the "hot air" could rise up and out through those windows.

Hot air, indeed.