Here are a few other of the photos I found while going through one of the bins. Again, please know this is with utmost respect for the people in these photos and I am intentionally not posting any relatively recent family gatherings, out of respect for their privacy. The photos below are from a time long ago and a country away. As I sorted through the dusty old albums I found an old map of the Panama Canal and I…
This week, during the rains I finally decided to start sorting through some of the old bins I found upstairs in one of the bedrooms. The bins were left behind from a previous owner and appeared to have numerous old photos and other memorabilia in it. I had always planned to stop and sort through it with care and respect but hadn’t found the time to do so yet. As I slowly went through the 1st bin, what I found…
Even with the rainy days, we ultimately had a few clear ones to make headway on a few projects and found ways to keep our selves sane. With the heavy rain, came a wet cellar. For those of who don’t know, our cellar is quite large but only part of it is cement, while the other part has a dirt floor. We’ve done some reading on this and found this is actually not a bad thing for various reasons and…
This week at the house started off a little off schedule. Hard rains came in for a couple of days and our original work plans had to be put on pause. What’s more, we were given a whole new set of more pressing work plans instead. You see, although there is a new roof on the house, one of the side back rooms began leaking from the middle of the ceiling, straight into a box with speakers in it (that’s…
New Sneak Peeks! Also on one of our sanity/can we break the monotony moments, we started removing paint from the staircase rails and the columns in the parlor. And look what we found underneath! Beautiful Wood! More to come… Cellar Doors – Here are our current awesome cellar doors. Yes, a trip to the ER waiting to happen, complete with rusty nails and sharp metal edges exposed. So far, we’ve managed safely but, they are on the way out. Besides,…
Paul has been continuing to work as well on those beautiful bay windows. He scraped some of the old rust off the very top and added aluminum flashing on the eaves to protect it (just in time before the rains came). He continues to work his way down on the exterior, level by level, scraping the windows and trying to remove as much of the old paint as possible and exposing the original long hidden wood. We’ve been told over…
This week I was able to finish mortaring the bricks on the cellar doors. This now lets Paul begin building the new cellar doors. He’s already chosen the trim and hardware and begun work on them. I wish I could give you a snapshot but not just yet. Trust me though, they will be beautiful and a far cry above what was there before. Paul’s work is so clean and precise. For those following along at home, as you may…
The front bay windows definitely have proven to be a challenge but we knew they would be. Normally a 2 story house would have you up about 18 feet to work on 2nd floor windows but because this home’s foundation/cellar has a large portion above ground and sits on a sloping downward hill, the actual height needed to reach not only the bay windows but the roof for repairs, would need to be about 26 feet. Paul has done an…
This week we began moving along a lot more visually from the street view. Although we were working steadily this whole time, much of what we’ve done has been behind the house or inside. We continued our painting on the front foundation, this time on the right side of the steps. This is quite a process as it required us fixing or replacing the loose mortar in many spots and addressing the boards around the bricks, then 2 coats of…
I want to tell you a little bit about our process and what you’ll see (this applies to painting as well as most of the work we will do). We will definitely be bringing in contractors at given points but right now, it’s the two of us. As we investigated hiring the help to get the house painted, we were told it would be next year before we could get a crew to do it and with winter coming, we…