Circa 1884 McCuiston House

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Lily left the valley
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Re: Circa 1884 McCuiston House

Post by Lily left the valley »

Southernlady, reading your post made me realize how much we are alike in mindset.

I'm going to be mentally sitting on my hands for much of the first year where the outside is concerned. My solace is that the basement door jut out still has at least some of the original wood siding that I've seen so far, so that may be a mini project for me this spring, taking off the AC siding and seeing what sort of shape the wood is still in.

In regards to the pink insulation, it looks rather haphazardly stuffed in there, which means the R value isn't what it should be, and no sign of vapor barrier either. You may have already considered this, but maybe getting some stiff batts, like Roxul, would be better up there. I can't believe they breached the vapor of the Celotex with all those nails. :doh:

I've no experience with that siding, so I'll let the experts weigh in on that. Will the contractor be doing any sort of rain screen system behind the siding? I've been reading about such, and am curious about where it works best and is most often used, region wise.

I'm keen to see it finished when time allows, especially with proper proportioned trim around the doors and windows.

I hope your wishes come true with the costs so you can proceed with your friend as well. :techie-eureka:
--Proud member of the Industrious Cheapskate Club
--Currently pondering ways to encourage thoughtful restovation and discourage mindless renovation.

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Willa
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Re: Circa 1884 McCuiston House

Post by Willa »

Get the smooth v.s. textured Hardieboard. The wood grain is unconvincing.

The only drawback to Hardieboard is that it is somewhat fragile while it is being handled - like a bump can crush the edge, and it is brittle when dropped. When it is installed properly it looks great, and performs very well.

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SouthernLady
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Re: Circa 1884 McCuiston House

Post by SouthernLady »

Thank you, everyone, for the comments and opinions shared. I enjoy reading every one, and I find all of the suggestions very helpful.

I got a rough estimate on replacing the siding on the back building of the house as well as for the connector portion that will need siding. My contractor-friend will be using the Hardy board--smooth side as was suggested, per my request--and will also be using Hardy board to build out the door frame and window frames to match the originals still on the kitchen wall. He will also be replacing the metal vent with a wooden one, stripping off the aluminum siding all the way to where the pool fence meets the side of the back building, removing the damaged black board stuff and replacing with plywood, installing insulation the correct way, and prepping and painting the second-story portion of the barn. The rest of the prep/paint I will do myself. He has given the rough estimate of $3,000 for materials, labor, etc., and said it may be less once he gets exact costs for materials needed, but he wants me to be prepared for a worst-case scenario. He hopes to be able to start within two weeks.

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I took last week off and began installing the picket fence around the side yard, which I have looked forward to having ever since I bought the place. There used to be a picket fence along this area at one time in its 133-year history. I wasn't able to get the project done, however, as I had something come up every single day (except Monday) where I had to go in to the office to take care of one thing or another, and then a dear friend passed away after a long illness which saw me up in Virginia on Friday for her burial. Having never put up fencing before, I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

Along the length of the fence when it turns back to the enclosed porch lies the old well cover. I assume it is the old brick-lined well as I would not imagine a modern well to have been placed so close to the house. I plan to remove the concrete cover this Saturday to see if it houses a pump (I figure it does) or if it's an old-fashioned well. If it is indeed an old-fashioned well, I would love to be able to run a bucket down to collect water for watering the plants (certainly not for drinking!). Either way, Saturday's plans also involve building a well house over the spot. I am building one similar to one I saw in Williamsburg this past September that I loved:

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We'll see how it turns out! I hope to get the old wisteria vines to climb through the lattice, in a controlled manner. That stuff grows just as quick as kudzu around here.

I also got those old bookcases fixed and in place in the upstairs study:

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They do have pegs in their construction, which I was quite excited to find out.
Last edited by SouthernLady on Tue Mar 07, 2017 9:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Don M
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Re: Circa 1884 McCuiston House

Post by Don M »

It all looks good & the estimate seems quite reasonable. The Wisteria will tear apart your lattice eventually as I have a fairly young one here in PA & it has destroyed several trellises due to strength & weight. I finally set a 4x4 in concrete with a cross member bolted to it. I have the Wisteria tied to that & its weight pulled it loose last summer during a storm. I am sorry to hear of the loss of your friend.

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Lily left the valley
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Re: Circa 1884 McCuiston House

Post by Lily left the valley »

Condolences on the loss of your friend from me as well.

The progress report is wonderful though, and things look great. I hope when we get to the contractor needed parts of things that we find someone as good as you seem to have found.
--Proud member of the Industrious Cheapskate Club
--Currently pondering ways to encourage thoughtful restovation and discourage mindless renovation.

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SouthernLady
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Re: Circa 1884 McCuiston House

Post by SouthernLady »

Don and Lilly, thank you for your condolences. She was just shy of 80, and was one of those most-beloved Southern ladies--she had a nature like that of the character of Melanie Hamilton of Gone with the Wind. Soft spoken, loved everyone, knew just what to say or do in any situation, and could make a killer pound cake that was the first thing to disappear at every church dinner.

Don, I am going to keep that in mind with the wisteria. At this point, I plan to only have just a few sprigs in the lattice and fence, and the rest to grow on a corner support made of sturdy materials next to the side of the porch. The wisteria was planted at the same time the house was built (so the family says), and at one time it engulfed the entire south side of the original house, along with English ivy. It's quite the destructive plant when left to itself, but so beautiful.

My late friend's husband and son made a surprise stop to the McCuiston House this past Saturday. She had been to my home before, but they had not. Their son is a highly-skilled contractor and has built a very high reputation in a large historic port city here in the South as being one of the very best for restorations. He has had work featured more than once in either Better Homes and Gardens or Southern Living (I can't remember which), and is one of the approved by the NRHP for doing restorations on their designated properties.

When I saw him with his dad coming to check out my place for the first time, I felt like I was about to show Monet a finger painting I made in pre-K... :oops: He gave me a lot of great advice, including:

    Do all of your outside projects on the house first. His reason: "I can't tell you how many times I have done a job where someone did all of their inside work first, then started the outside work only to find out that there was significant damage on the outside that merited cutting into the wall and into the finished room, so not only did they have an outside repair, they also had to repair the inside room they had already finished. If they had finished the outside first, they would have saved more money and time by not having to do the interior twice."

    Always figure double what you expect your project to cost to make sure you've budgeted enough for your project. His reason: "If you figure exactly what you think it will cost, you could rip into that wall or remove that dropped ceiling ready to prep and paint or just insulate and discover you've got another two or three things going on that will have to get addressed first. If you can, try to have at least triple financially available than what you think you're going to need in supplies just in case you have a major issue. You never want to let a project get to the point you get overwhelmed. Baby steps!"

    DO NOT start more than one project at a time! I think he said this to me no less than 20 times... His reason: "You will feel more accomplished and less overwhelmed if you see each project to completion before you start your next one. If you start more than one at once, before you know it you'll have your house torn apart and a mess on your hands and you will be financially deeper than you meant to go at once." The exception: "If you're still in the outdoor phase, you could start one project inside for your 'rainy day work' when the weather isn't agreeable to do your outside projects."

Although I technically have two projects going on right now (stripping and replacing siding and building the fence), I got brownie points for having the two upstairs rooms finished and the bookshelves were my rainy day project (which is now complete, so I can start stripping woodwork again in the main bedroom. :thumbup:) However, I lost half the brownie points for having stripped half of a door while it was still in the house on the hinges. As soon as my fence/well house project is complete, I will be taking it outside for a thorough stripping and sanding. He recommended that for my house I could get away with shellacking the woodwork instead of doing the faux graining since what I wanted was a darker wood look as close to the original shade of faux graining that I can be. He also said that base layer of green on the doors was the original color of the woodwork in my room and not a primer layer for faux graining.

I am taking Friday off, which means hopefully the fence will get finished and at least part of the well house will be built! :-D

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Re: Circa 1884 McCuiston House

Post by Gothichome »

Southernlady, progress is always good. Your contractor friend has pretty well pegged the three rules of old home restoration pretty well. Three grand for all that work supplies in, wow. I can't get a contractor to do a drive by quote with out it costing me a couple of grand. All your pink tools and all organized in the case still gave me a bit of a chuckle, I would not have pink tools, but the case would be the first thing lost into the garbage, the tools would be the second thing lost, or at least spread out about the home.

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Lily left the valley
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Re: Circa 1884 McCuiston House

Post by Lily left the valley »

Gothichome wrote:Southernlady, progress is always good. Your contractor friend has pretty well pegged the three rules of old home restoration pretty well. Three grand for all that work supplies in, wow. I can't get a contractor to do a drive by quote with out it costing me a couple of grand. All your pink tools and all organized in the case still gave me a bit of a chuckle, I would not have pink tools, but the case would be the first thing lost into the garbage, the tools would be the second thing lost, or at least spread out about the home.

We've got a lot of black and yellow tools. Didn't fully plan it that way (it did come into play with the Stinger vacuum when we were comparing), but some brands have that color pattern, and fortunately most that we bought were good, regardless of outside cosmetics. Bright yellow is so much easier to spot, just as Southernlady's pink is.

My maternal grandfather always dipped at least one part of the handle of his tools in a colored rubber dip so they wouldn't get mixed up with other folks when they would work together. His choice of color was blue. I never asked him why blue, though.
--Proud member of the Industrious Cheapskate Club
--Currently pondering ways to encourage thoughtful restovation and discourage mindless renovation.

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SouthernLady
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Re: Circa 1884 McCuiston House

Post by SouthernLady »

Gothichome, I have a bit of an OCD problem in keeping things organized... :oops: The pliers to my set have somehow been misplaced, but other than that the set is still intact. :D

Lilly, my grandpa used to put a paint spot on his tools, too. Except his hammer. Nobody touched his old hammer, and it was always in his tool belt unless he was using it. Thankfully, my mom was able to get her hands on the hammer when he passed away and she's left it at my house for me to use on my projects. So, in a way, it's like my grandpa is helping me with the job. (If I tried to describe him, he was a John Wayne kind of man--Think The Quiet Man/McClintock! I wrote about him in my first blog post. Very few men like my grandpa have walked this earth, that's for sure. )

Walking into the bank of my small town this morning, I was greeted with "What's going on at the house now?" Some people don't know my name, but they know my house. I think the town knows all about my projects...

I am happy to report that the replacement siding is going up (supposedly today), the insulation issue has been resolved, and more aluminum is coming down in the next week! I hope to post pictures soon.

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SouthernLady
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Re: Circa 1884 McCuiston House

Post by SouthernLady »

It's finally happening. Siding is going up on the old 3-wall "barn".

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My contractor-friend and his son have matched the framing for the door and windows as closely as they can to the original and are positioning the Hardyboard to match the original as well. The aluminum siding with the AC unit was supposed to have come down today to reveal the original siding, but I haven't gotten off work yet to see how far they got today. This is as far as they had gotten when I ran home during my lunch break to let the dog out.

Part of me is very sad not to be taking part in this portion of the restoration, but the other part of me is so excited to see it coming along like this that I am almost ok with it. :shifty:

I had them install the Hardyboard with the smooth side facing out, much to raised eyebrows and other weird looks. However, after seeing the fake graining up close and in person compared next to the real siding, I believe this is my best choice.

They've also made me a mounting board for the new carriage house light fixture (seed glass--yay!). I am really looking forward to getting this portion of the restoration project done.

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