I don’t know what these little penciled numbers mean, but I love finding tidbits of when the house was originally built (1903/1905), especially because there’s so little “original” left. Since starting our renovation, we’ve determined the house was first gutted in the mid-’50s and had been poorly maintained ever since (e.g. I’ve found remnants of the original trim being used to hold up the rafters in our garage built in 1954 😩). This thick orange paper within each stud cavity must have been an early version of the Tyvek house wrap we use today. The paper is so water-stained because we don’t have separate shiplap separating the siding from the studs—our original siding *is* the shiplap, which means it’s hard to keep out every drop of water. Before we can address the siding, we have to put in seismic shear walls per city code, so we have to clean out all the stud cavities of this paper and ’50s insulation, and remove all the lath and drywall nails from each of the studs. After that, *all* of our siding—these wood walls you see here—has to come off to put in the shear walls (plywood). We could have installed the shear from the inside but we wanted to save every possible inch we could in our little house. And with even more water leaking in from outside due to the nail holes caused by a second layer of cedar shake installed on top of our original lapsiding, we wanted to re-side anyway. In short, our house must become a full skeleton before it can become whole again. Yikes. ☠️

It’s hard to tell, but when we pulled off all the drywall and ’50s lath, we discovered there had been a second doorway in this wall. It made me wonder if there may have originally been a colonnade splitting the living and dining rooms. I’ve always thought it was a bit odd for this house to be so “open concept” considering this part was built in 1905.

So tonight I started pulling up the ’90s oak floorboards between the two doorways to see if there were any hints in the original fir floors indicating the former existence of a colonnade. Sure enough, I found what appears to be a floor patch and another on the other side of the room. They may just indicate a wall had been there, but it seems wider than a wall… At some point in the coming months we’ll be able to pull up the remaining floor to see if the patch goes all the way across the floor or if it’s just on the edges, indicating a colonnade! Now to start daydreaming about putting it back… ✨

I planted our garden in our front yard because a) our backyard will continue to be a disaster for a long time, b) the front yard gets excellent light, c) grass is pretty useless and just sucks up water, and d) we ultimately want to make our empty spaces more productive.

I planted these beds—mostly from seed—over the course of a couple of weekends (late April-early May) and I’m thrilled to say everything except the zinnias and chives has sprouted. There’s a long way to go before we actually get any kind of produce so there’s still the possibility that everything will die, or get eaten by bugs or birds or squirrels, or some kind of mildew or blight will kill them off. But I’m celebrating these little sprouts as my first big milestone as a new gardener.

We had such a magical old house afternoon! ✨

We met a fellow old house lover named Nils who was giving away free beadboard on Craigslist. We had scoped it out in his alley last weekend before actually meeting him and noticed a house lifted up on cribbing behind his house—just like our house had been during our foundation project but WAY higher in the air AND on a hillside. We finally coordinated a time this weekend to come pick up the beadboard—socially distanced—and finally got his whole house lift story.

Developers had bought the lot next to his family’s house. The lot housed a 1907 house that was slated for demolition. They went back and forth with the developers but the developers weren’t having any of it. They didn’t want to deal with moving the house, even if Nils and his family were willing to do the heavy lifting (no pun intended!). The move only happened because of the coronavirus pandemic: The developers’ project was put on hold so the house move was able to go through. Apparently the house moving company said it was one of their most challenging lifts because they had to move it up the hill and over to Nils’s backyard.

Long story short, after exchanging stories of our own house lift and what we’re doing with our house, Nils said he had beadboard from the lifted house that was in way better condition that he was happy to give us. It has beads and v-grooves on both sides so we may just be able to flip them over and stain them instead of having to strip the paint. The hope is they’ll find a new home in our mud room eventually, but we don’t even have walls yet so that won’t be until a very long time from now. We’re so happy to have found a kindred spirit today!

Everything’s a disaster but it’s okay because we make a pretty great team. 💕

Today we ripped off most of the back of the house. 😳 Yes, this is close to the same view from two photos ago (our sink used to be before that “window”. We started the day by cleaning up the yard to a) finish filling the dumpster (which gets picked up tomorrow), and b) make room for the electrician to install our temporary power pole this week since our electric panel is currently mounted to a wall that needs to be removed and rebuilt. Once the yard was relatively tidy, we destroyed it yet again, refilling it with siding, stud, and ceiling joist debris as the walls came down.
Yesterday, our neighbors across the alley were incredibly kind and gave us the biggest tarp we have ever seen. It now covers the massive hole on the back of the house (and then some). We also cobbled together a “security system” of floor-to-ceiling boards mounted to the studs from the inside creating a thick barrier between the open side of the house and the two-story structure we’re retaining. After the two burglaries of our garage in March, we’re not taking any more chances.

Despite the rain in the forecast next weekend, we’re hoping to wrap up the rest of the demo and make a few socially-distanced dump runs to clean up our job site.

I hit the vintage razor blade jackpot yesterday.

If you live in an old house, look in your medicine cabinet. If it’s an old medicine cabinet, there’s likely a slot in the back. This slot was designed—by a rather short-sighted person—to accept razor blades and store them “in perpetuity” within the bathroom walls. Apparently the designer didn’t consider the fact that houses might be renovated in the future. 🙄

If you were following along last summer, you might recall how I dug around in the crawl space above the kitchen and discovered a few of these razor blades where the original medicine cabinet would have been. Over the last few days, we’ve finally torn out the floor of this crawl space, causing razor blades to rain down into the room below. Luckily, I’m a bit of a ✨historic hoarder✨ and sifted through the blown-in insulation to collect them all. Like weird vintage Pokémon.

I haven’t dated all of them yet, but I know some of them are ’30s/’40s. They’re likely all pre-1954, when the house was first gutted and renovated, stripping out all the original character. 😭 Don’t worry, we’re putting it all back in. ✨

Well this certainly isn’t normal… Today we busted through the ceiling of the kitchen to prepare for taking the walls down. But before we could do that, we had to clear the debris—previously stacked to the kitchen ceiling—and take it to the dumpster that had been delivered yesterday morning. We filled all 20 cubic yards in no time. 😬

We pulled this sink from the main floor “powder room,” which was really just a toilet and sink shoved under the stairs with no door. It was in Trevor’s office, so we called it his “executive washroom” (may I remind you, there was no door). The front portion of the house where this sink was located was built in 1905. We can’t guarantee tht sink is original you the house, but it’s dated 1908, and the sewer line wasn’t installed until 1910. Water service was likely in place, but it probably drained straight into the ground (luckily the soil on our lot it’s incredibly well-draining!). We plan on reusing this sink in our new powder room (*not* under the stairs and it will indeed have a door!). It’s in excellent shape and has the cutest built-in soap dish and drain-plug-on-a-chain. I’m so glad we’re able to keep it with the house after it’s been here for so many years. 💕