Yet another sad day for historic homes

We were sitting on our front porch yesterday evening when I noticed some smoke in the distance. It appeared to be coming from the north side of downtown. We hurriedly hopped in the car and drove there. Afer a few seconds of driving my heart dropped into my stomach. I knew what was on fire, it was the old funeral home on Hill st.

Picture taken 2 months ago

I'm not too sure about the history of the house. Some say it was built right at the turn of the 20th century, others say it's antebellum. Either way it was a beautiful old house. Just 2 months ago I decided to go around town and take pictures of the historical homes in Griffin. I took the above photo and as I was walking around it the funeral director came to the door, I explained how much I loved old houses and he let me in for a tour.

Foyer

Parlor

Parlor2

That was how it looked 2 months ago, the pictures below are from last night:

Previous owner's relatives visit

We haven't gotten much done on the house for a number of reasons. One of them being the new TV we got:




It's a 47" Westinghouse with full 1080P HD. The picture is incredible. It's $700 or $800 cheaper than anything else in it's class. I got it for $1299 from Best Buy. I fully recommend it to anyone in the market for a flat panel LCD.

We had a visit from the relatives of the former owner of the house, Hazel. I've mentioned her in the blog before, she lived to be almost 105 and owned the house since 1955 when she inherited it from her 2 aunts, Helen and Kitty-Clyde. They inherited the house in 1945.

The relatives brought some old photos of them over for us. I gave them a tour of the house and showed them all of the progress we've made, they seemed impressed with the work done so far. Here are a few pictures they brought:

Hazel in front of the house

Helen

Kitty-Clyde

Helen with her husband

They also brought some photos of the front porch after a car hit it back in 2001. A man that was a convicted felon got into a fight then shot at someone that tried to break it up. He then car-jacked a vehicle and didnt get 2 blocks away before losing control and crashing into the front of the house. I've found some evidence of this a few months ago when I was planting new bushes in front of the porch. I dug up what appears to be a front fender reflector and some safety glass that probably came from the drivers window.



In anticipation of their visit we rearranged and straightened up many of the rooms in the house. We completely rearranged the Parlor:



The Buggy is a recent find that we got free off Freecycle.





I'm hoping to get back to work on the house soon.

Paint

We spent the entire weekend painting. On Saturday we painted the shutters and the front porch railing.




We're thinking about possibly leaving the house white when we repaint instead of the pale olive we were originally thinking of. I think white will look a lot better with the upcoming redo of the front porch I mentioned in a previous post.

I also painted the wicker furniture on Saturday, the loveseat and table were unpainted but were looking very washed out, the chair was a hideous blue (we found it at a thrift store for $3):


Sunday was spent painting inside, first we painted all the trim in the Foyer and the back hall, then I painted the foyer:



I still need to finish installing the picture rail and figure out what I'm going to do with the entryway to the Study (on the right in the picture), the entire study is stained a dark walnut so making the transition from antique white paint to stain is difficult. I'm thinking of just staining the entire Study entryway.

The door in the picture leads to the back hall and will most likely be replaced with a salvaged french door. Eventually I will remove the door, widen the opening and add some columns to create a wide open passageway from the foyer to the back hall. I dont have the front door pictured because I still need to strip it entirely and refinish it.

We still have to paint the walls of the back hall. We will hopefully finish that today so I can move back upstairs to the master bathroom and finish it off.

Living room complete!

The living room is finally done, well not done but done enough. We primered and painted the other day.

Primer

After primering, I painted all the trim then did all the cut work for the walls:


Then I painted the walls:




We then spent the better part of the day getting the room organized:







Obviously, there is still a lot left to do. The TV in the corner is temporary until we get our flat panel, it will go above the mantle. The corner that the TV is in now will have a wingback chair and side table.

Living room wall patching and new porch look.

Yesterday afternoon was spent patching the living room walls. The first thing I had to do was fix all the holes I made when running the wire for the lights.

I took some scrap lathing and cut it into short strips and placed it in the hole using my nailgun to secure it to the lathing around the hole.


Then I cut 1/2" drywall to fit in the hole and screwed it in place.

Here are all the holes covered and ready for mud.

And here they are mudded.

After the holes were patched I patched all the cracks in the rest of the room. As I've mentioned before I'm using drywall mud mixed with play sand. It gives it a texture very similar to plaster and blends in well with the existing plaster.


Unfortunately today I have other things I have to take care of so I doubt I'll get a chance to sand and primer today.

I've come up with a redesign of the front porch, originally it was just a one story porch but at some point a second story porch was added. The second story porch is horribly done with just 4x4 posts, 2x4 joists, and plywood floors. I had thought of removing the second story porch but we really love sitting up there in the evenings.

So I took a picture of the house, played around with a few ideas and came up with this:


I think it keeps with the style of the house nicely and gives us our second story porch to sit on in the evenings. This style of porch was actually popular in this area so it keeps with the period look.

I probably wont get to this project this year, it will have to be something I take on after the rest of the house is finished.

Living room mantle and electrical

Work on the living room has gone slower than anticipated... imagine that. Stripping the mantle took almost the entire day Saturday.


unfortunately the tiger oak veneer on the front edge of the mantle was in such bad shape that I had to remove it. The wood underneath is oak but it's very rough and it's not quarter-sawn so I'll probably have to get some new oak veneer.

Sunday was almost entirely taken up with rewiring the lighting. The original knob and tube was shoved back up into the ceiling at some point and metal conduit run along the ceiling and down the wall.


The light switch wasn't even by the door to the hallway. When the house was apartments the little door in the above picture was the entrance to this room, it is a small closet that connects to the study. These two rooms, along with the main bathroom and the laundry room were one apartment.

So anyways, the conduit had to go. Running the new wire from the fixture in the ceiling and down the wall was a pain. I had to cut a lot of holes in the wall to run it.


The rest of the day sunday was spent finishing up all the scraping of the walls and ceiling.



Hopefully I can patch everything today then sand and paint tomorrow. For the trim I've decided to try my hand at faux graining. The living room needs to get done fast and I dont have time to remove all of the paint from the trim.