Some Days I Question My Sanity

When I stumbled across these antique balusters at Portland Architectural Salvage, I should have just kept going.  But no, I stopped and marveled at how fabulous these would look on the little front porch of the Maison Mansard.  And in a weak moment, I decided I was up to the challenge of stripping that old paint and restoring them.

I need my head examined.

This is our little front entry porch.  The existing railing isn't the right style for this home - these balusters will be so much better.

I spent the next 3 weeks painstakingly removing the paint.  I tried all the usual methods - chemicals, infrared heat, scraping, cursing.....😂. Cursing doesn't help with the paint, but makes me feel better. 

At last they were cleaned up enough to repaint and it was time to do some repair of the splits and chunks that were missing. 

Finally, I could start the repainting step.  The guys created a painting jig for me, that let me spin the balusters around as they got painted.  

I primed each one with a high quality oil based exterior primer

And then I faced the paint color challenge.  I've been to the paint store so many times, they chuckle when I walk through the door.  Picking paint colors for a Second Empire home has been a challenge for me.  But I appreciate that the Victorian aesthetic uses color to highlight architectural details.  

So I started trying different colors on different parts of the balusters.  We'll also use the color scheme on other details of the house, so getting it right is important.  I hated some of them....and started over.  

Why am I smiling?  I have so many balusters to paint!!!

At last, I came up with a combination I'm happy with.  I love that they don't look brand new.  They reflect the history of the past, which will be perfect on our 1880 house.  Now I just need to paint the next 15 of them!  Like I said, I need my head examined! 

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Basement Rec Room

One side of the original basement was semi-finished.  The main wall was sheet rocked and there was a pellet stove in the middle of the room.  It wasn't an exciting space, but extra living space is always a good thing. 

I debated long and hard about whether to leave it in that condition, or make it a more livable room.  And finally decided it would be great for the new homeowners to have some extra space down there.  It could be a kids playroom, a craft space, or whatever they want it to be.

But we needed to do some work to make that happen.  And it might seem counterintuitive, but we started on the exterior.   The previous owners said in the disclosure that there was sometimes leakage in a heavy rain.  We saw evidence that some water had come in the basement windows, but with this dry weather, we haven't seen anything else.  But we did notice that the downspout from the roof runs right along the exterior wall, next to the windows.  I dug a small trench and installed drainage pipe that the downspout will drain into, forcing all the water to the front yard.  It also created a swale that will limit water from the neighbors yard from collecting along the foundation.

But basement walls can still be damp from condensation in the basement, especially in the summer.  So we installed 'dimple board' along the exterior walls and on the floor to provide an air gap from the concrete.  

The spray foam insulation was applied on top of that, to create a tight seal.  We also added the stud walls, electrical and flooring.  The rest of the wall was insulated with rock wool.

We removed the pellet stove now that we've updated the house with insulation and heat pumps (it also got rid of the open floor grates that were in each ceiling up to the 2nd floor).  And we're adding an electric fireplace at one end of the room for both ambiance and heat (although when the steam boiler is running, it will be plenty warm in there thanks to the exposed steam pipes).

Once the drywall is installed, it will start looking like a room!  When all the finishing work is done, we will add a suspended ceiling, that will allow sections to be removed if they ever need to access plumbing or electrical lines.

How would you use an extra room in the basement?  

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Curb Appeal Updates

Some days it seems like we're rebuilding every single part of this house.  For example, when we pulled off all the old aluminum trim covering the roof and window trim, we discovered the wood trim that was underneath had suffered from leaks over the years and was in very poor shape.  So we had to remove it and replace with replicas of what we found.  The good news is, this detail will look amazing once it's all painted!

Once we had the roof crown molding done, it was time for a new roof.  The roof wasn't super old - we guessed about 15 years, but it's such a complicated roof that there was evidence of leaks and patching that had occurred over the years.  We want to get everything sealed tightly, before we start putting new interior finishes inside.  That's not the time to find a leak! 

Dormer roof was lath and sheet metal!

Interestingly, the dormers didn't have what we would consider a proper roof at all.  They had the same lath work that you would find on the interior walls, with a sheet of metal nailed over top of the lath - and then asphalt shingles nailed onto them.  Needless to say, that's not up to today's standards (although it's obviously been there a very long time)!  They now have wood sheathing as a base for the new roof shingles.  

The roof probably makes a bigger difference on a mansard style than a typical house.  Don't you love the new roof? 

Look at that new roof!  And all new window trim!

As a reminder, here's our curb appeal plan with the old roof and aluminum covering all the detailed woodwork.

The plan

And see what a different the roof, windows and trim make once they're updated?

One of the biggest changes we will be making to the house is adding brackets to the upper windows and eaves.  Almost every local Second Empire home that I've looked at has brackets.  If ours had them, they were most likely removed when all the aluminum cladding was added and since we haven't found any clear original photos, we just can't be sure.  Since we're trying to make this a more authentic Second Empire, we will be adding brackets. 

Creating them is a big job!  Kyle cuts each bracket on his CNC machine. 

He glues up two of them to create a full bracket and then uses a router to create the decorative edge on both sides.  We need 16 eave brackets (aka 32 individual ones) and 16 window brackets (aka 32 individual ones).  It's a long process!

Once they're done, I get to paint them.  After lots and lots of experimentation, we finally have a color combo that I'm happy with.  

I have spent so many hours with a tiny paintbrush to get these done!

Mock up of window trim and bracket colors. BTW, none of these were the winners 😂

We did find evidence of some trim work on the original fascia board.  After looking at similar trim on other local homes, I had something custom made at Fat Andy's - our local custom millwork shop.  It was pretty exciting when Kyle installed the trim and the brackets for the first time with the final color combo! 

The painters have started painting up all of the trim. The siding is pre painted, so it will go up last.

And I have to share this first photo of the 'new' antique door and the first of the new windows.  Don't they look amazing???  

I love this 'new' door so much! 

Hopefully painting will finish up this week - before it gets too cold!  And then the pre-finished siding will get installed.

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Creating an Energy Efficient Old House

One of the things that scares people about buying an old house is how do you make it energy efficient.  And a quick observation when this house came on the market made it pretty obvious it was hard to heat.  That's a big problem in Maine.

Adding dense pack cellulose in all the exterior walls

You see, it had an oil tank in the basement.  But it wasn’t being used anymore and the boiler had been switched to natural gas.  But that must not have been enough to keep it warm (or it was still too cold, with unaffordable heating bills), so they added a pellet stove in the basement.  Sections of the floor had been cut open to take that heat up to the first and second floor.

These floor grates give me a little vertigo every time I walk down the hall

 

But that still must not have done the trick, because then they added a propane Rinai heater in the living room.  There were also plastic accordion doors to keep the heat in from what I presume was a drafty foyer.  And sadly, it was probably still very expensive to heat, because the only insulation was a few inches of fiberglass batts in the attic and around the sills in the basement.  The walls were completely empty and there were spots where we could see daylight in the basement sills. 

 

Obviously we need to change all that.  We started with a blower door test, to see how leaky the house was.  I've shared a lot of details about blower door tests in previous posts, so let's just say it failed miserably.  This house is leaking heat all over the place.

The solution is 4-fold.  1) Air sealing 2) Insulation 3) Windows and 4) Heat pumps (which will also provide air conditioning – a bonus!). 

 

Where do we start?  1) Air sealing.  Since we’re changing the siding anyway, this is the perfect time to install a WRB – Weather Resistive Barrier.  In our case, we’re using a product called Blue Skin.  It seals the exterior of the house so no air can get in, but it allows any moisture that builds up in the house to escape.  Early versions of WRBs back in the 1980’s didn’t do this, and you sealed the moisture in the house - resulting in rot in the walls.  Thankfully new technology allows us to do a much better job.  This is going to make a huge difference in the house! 

 

The next step combines air sealing and insulation in the same step.  We spray foamed the basement sills to completely air seal the sills, while insulating at the same time.  Honestly, if you can only afford to do a couple of insulation projects in your home, this and adding attic insulation are the most important projects to do.  This is especially true if you have hot water baseboard heat and your heat pipes run along the exterior walls.  All that cold air that manages to sneak around the sills seriously degrades your heating efficiency.  And by insulating 3 feet down from the ground, you’re sealing out the coldest part of your foundation (a basement floor is usually around 55 degrees, far warmer than what can be below zero at ground level here in Maine). 

 

Next, we installed dense pack cellulose insulation in the walls.  That means I get to keep all the plaster walls (I love plaster walls, they absorb heat from the steam radiators and radiate it back into the rooms for hours. And they give a house a whole different feel than drywall) and the beautiful original moldings that we have on the windows and doors. 

Dense pack cellulose is made of shredded newspaper, so it’s a great environmental choice (spray foam is not great from that standpoint, so I try to minimize its use to where it’s really necessary).  To install it in an existing wall, the guys cut a band around all the rooms, so the cellulose can be pumped into the entire cavity.  Above and below windows, they drill holes to fill the spaces.  It’s a messy business, but the guys did a great job. 

 

As they finished each area, I followed up with an infrared camera to make sure they’d filled everything.  In these images, purple means an area is cold.  You can see behind the steam radiator there is a purple area, and we realized they had accidentally forgotten to fill that wall cavity, so they went back and filled it up.

 

Cellulose is also great for sound absorption, making for a much quieter house.  For the kitchen walls (where we had gutted the walls), we used rockwool, which is also a great sound barrier.

 

The final step to insulation is the attic – it will be upgraded to R48 loose fill cellulose once the new ceilings have been installed.  

 

3 – Windows

 

We are also installing new windows.   Windows aren’t the biggest opportunity to improve energy efficiency, but these will be a nice change for the house. The existing windows are metal, incredibly heavy, and many of the glass seals have separated.  The new windows will be much easier to use and as we install them we can fill the old weight pockets with insulation, which will also help keep the house warm. 

 

And on a curb appeal note – we’re installing 2 over 2 (meaning two pane over two pane double hung windows), which is much more typical on a Second Empire (Mansard) home. 

 

4 – Heat Pumps

 

Their slogan cracks me up - 'hotter than your Mom, cooler than your Dad' 😂

While I am not a fan of the look of a mini split heat pump in an old house, I am a huge fan of their lower energy bills.  So we are installing heat pumps in the house as well.  We do it now, while the walls are open, so there won't be any lines running down the outside of the house.  

With the new insulation they will keep the house nice and warm and on the coldest of nights the steam radiators can still be used (some insurance companies won’t insure a home with just heat pumps).  With all the added insulation, this house will be nice and toasty. 

And the heat pumps can provide air conditioning in the summer - a real bonus!  The wall units and exterior air compressors will get installed when the house is almost complete.  

While we're talking about heat pumps, I should mention that we will also be installing a heat pump hot water heater.  The boiler used to provide the hot water, which meant it had to run year round.  This is a much more efficient approach and it has the added benefit of providing dehumidification to the basement.

You're probably wondering, how much does all this cost?  And the answer is a lot.  But this is the perfect opportunity to make these upgrades, while the house is open and accessible. And in Maine, we have rebates available through Efficiency Maine that help offset some of the costs. If you are renovating your own home, you can also apply for federal tax credits. 

And the result will be totally worth it.  Energy bills will be much lower, there will be a dramatic reduction in fossil fuel use and the house will be much more comfortable.  I can't wait to try it out as the winter months approach! 

 

 

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The Amazing New Kitchen

We don’t usually get to create a big kitchen, so I’m pretty excited about this one.  The goal?  Create a kitchen with some vintage styling, but with modern conveniences.  That means lots of cabinetry, convection stove, pantry storage and an island for quick meals or just chatting with the cook. 

 

Our starting point was a bit awkward, with the refrigerator sitting in front of the basement door. The cabinets were past their useful life, so it was important to start from scratch.  

I'm guessing the kitchen was last updated in the 1980's.  It's time for a change! 

 

We gutted the entire room – this makes it easier for new electrical and plumbing – as well as letting us pad out the walls a bit to improve the insulation factor.  And of course, we found an amazing additional 18” of ceiling height when we ripped out the old drop ceiling. That extra 18" has totally changed the look and feel of this room! 

The kitchen is a bit dark, so we replaced the original east facing window with a much larger casement window, while also cutting back a big tree that blocked much of the morning sun.  It makes such a difference! 

Here's the design.  Thanks to the tall ceilings, we have extra tall cabinetry throughout the room.

I love the tall glass cabinet on the right -it's made to look like furniture, in keeping with an old kitchen

 

On the other side of the kitchen, we are recessing the refrigerator and creating a pantry for storage. 

 

There will be a long, 8 foot island down the middle, with a recessed fridge and pantry

Here's how the layout changed.  As you can see, we closed off the original door to the sunporch.  Moving it a few feet to the left allows us to have more cabinetry in the new kitchen.  And with the wall to the dining room opened up, it's a big, fabulous space!

I know what you're really curious about.  What are the finishes we've selected?  The cabinets will be a neutral taupe.  And they will be accented with an amazing quartz that looks more like marble than any I've seen before.  Over the stove, we're going to install a tile inset that looks like a vintage tin ceiling.  I can't wait to get to that point in our project!

The kitchen cabinets are already completed and waiting in a warehouse - because we have a lot more work to do before we're ready for them!  But it's wonderful to have the plan ready!

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