New Additions and Status Update

No, not THAT new addition yet. But we did get our new glider/recliner, in preparation for the new addition to the family. It is wicked comfortable. Check it out:


In other news, there have been no further night-time noises from the critter, so we are hopeful that he/she has found a different home. We never got the traps out, but haven't heard any more signs since that one I mentioned in the last post.

We haven't posted much lately, as it has been a busy time. Jake has been working away in the bedroom, and I've been staying out due to the toxic mix of lead paint and new paint and whatever else is up there. But it's coming along and looking quite nice!
This is the area by the closet. You can see that it kinda looks like two different colors of yellow, but it's just the way the light is hitting it; it's really just one shade of yellow for the whole wall.

Here's the area by the entry door and built-in:

And here's the slanty ceiling/wall by the window:

Jake is up there right now painting the trim with glossy white paint.

Uninvited Critter(s)

We awoke at 4 am to hear a sound. There is something in the wall. Is it a flying squirrel? A mouse? Something even more scary?

It seems that it was either in the front wall of the house, or perhaps even under the floor of the second floor. It was scratch scratch scratching away. It makes me wonder if that busted electrical outlet was actually caused by some critter gnawing. Grrrrr.....

So today Jake will break out the traps and head to the attic. Stay tuned for more updates.

Electrifying Goodness

No big updates recently; our jobs and my exhaustion have kinda kept us from doing much around the house on the big projects (or from blogging about them). This week, we did have our next-door-neighbor, Lisa, the licenced electrician come by to fix some stuff for us. She has been great!
She re-installed the lighting fixtures in the baby's room, including the overhead light in the main room


and in the closet.

Let there be light! She also dealt with the electrical cord that was sticking out inside the built-in, as you can see in this before and after pair:


































We also had a new problem -- the one outlet on the front wall of our bedroom blew a month or so ago. It was the one we used to power our bedside lamps, alarm clocks, and the air conditioner (perhaps that's why it blew). It wasn't just a fuse or circuit-breaker issue; it seems that it was one of the outlets with older wiring, and somewhere along the line, the wire fried. Lisa couldn't find the specific spot (without, say, ripping apart all of the walls) so we decided to cover that outlet completely and have two brand new ones installed.
Here's the old one, covered up:

And here's one of the new ones:

These are heavy-duty receptacles, with 20-amp (instead of only 15-amp) service, so we're good to go for plugging in all our power tools and air conditioners and whatnot.

Putting in the new ones involved a lot of fancy professional electrician kinda stuff, so we were very pleased to have an expert. She set things up and strung new wires from the basement, up through the wall by the chimney, overhead through the attic, and then into nice new heavy-duty outlets in the bedroom (one for each side of the bed). It's great, and now we don't have to worry about plugging in the air conditioner. [On a side note, I cannot believe that we still need an air conditioner in October in Massachusetts!]

While in the basement, Lisa showed Jake some of the fascinating wiring in our house. Most of it is more recent, and all of it looked safe to her, but it's really quite the wiring museum down there. Jake has some pictures, and he can probably elaborate further on our little piece of electrical history.



Other than that, we need to get back to finishing the baby's room; that's on the list for next week. Jake has primed all the trim, and also painted the ceiling with the ceiling white color (it has a name, but I forget what it is. Weirdly, it's not just "white.") The room is looking a bit creepy right now, with white on every surface. It's like some weird optical illusion:

Update

Things have been busy around 83 Durant, and we haven't been able to make a lot of progress since our carpenter left. Jake has finished caulking holes and edges in the trim, and has mostly finished sanding the trim. I don't have any pictures, becuase it's really too toxic for me to go in there right now. Hopefully he'll be able to get some painting done this week, but it has been hard to fit in project time with our work schedules.

Jake switched out all the air vents on all the radiators in the house, so that's a nice thing to have done before the weather turns. The new vents should make things a bit more efficient and hopefully a little less bang-y. Now we're trying to figure out crafty things to do with the old vents.

Other than that, not much to report. I can't wait to get the baby's room finished so we can move all the baby stuff up there!

Baby Room Carpentry Complete!

We're thrilled to announce that our carpenter, Bill Champagne, finished up work on the baby's room today, and it looks great.

He put the door back on, so now it's a real room! We'll need to strip and paint it, but it fits nicely.


He put in some new red oak flooring in the area where the built-in once was. It's very nice. We just need to stain and varnish it.

He also dealt with the mess at the bottom of the original built-in, adding some baseboard and molding at the edges, and putting in plywood for the floor area inside the built-in.

And we're very pleased that he was able to restore the original built-in to its original glory, with new shelves and sturdy shelf brackets. This, too, will get a good paint job, and we're also going to ask our electrician friend if she can run the wires through the wall instead of through the built-in.


It was a tricky job at several spots, such as around the original trim of the window and door. Since the drywall is much thinner than the plaster and lathe, there was a big gap around the edges of the door and window frames. Bill fixed this with small pieces of wood. It looks great:


Here's the new piece of baseboard by the closet, including the base cap molding on top.


So now it's our turn. Remaining tasks:
--sand all the trim to get a smooth surface for painting
--paint the radiator
--paint the ceiling
--paint the walls
--paint the trim
--get electrical taken care of (overhead light and re-run built-in wire)
--move in all the baby's stuff (finally!)

And then we're ready!

Carpentry Madness!

This week our carpenter has been here working on a few jobs, including installing the trim for the bedroom. So far he has accomplished quite a lot! He has re-installed the original trim around the window:


He has replaced the large piece of baseboard that we busted when we were doing demolition:


He has also started on a promising solution for the mess where the built-in once was. He's going to put in some new flooring, and has already ripped out the bungled up old stuff. You can also see here that he is fixing the problem with the baseboard and molding around the bottom of the original built-in:

And here's the top of the old built-in:


He'll be back next week to continue the job. We're very pleased with his work!

Jake has also taken up carpentry, and is installing new storm doors. Here's the U-G-L-Y (and broken, and highly ineffective) storm door for the door off the kitchen:

Here's the inside view:

As you might be able to see, the lower window doesn't fit, and the thing is literally held together with tape. The latch handle is broken, and sometimes it doesn't stay shut. We also don't have any screens for it. It's time for an upgrade!

We ordered the doors (custom of course, nothing in this house this old can be found in a "standard" size) from Lowes during the Massachusetts tax holiday. Plus there's the energy-saving tax credit. Woo hoo! After some struggles (which perhaps he will detail here himself) we have a LOVELY storm door (in "cranberry") installed. It lets a lot of light (via the window) and air (via the screen) into the kitchen. And it should provide more energy efficiency for the winter.



Of course, the most important improvement, according to one of 83 Durant's residents is the Dog Visibility Factor (DVF). Carter is really enjoying being able to see in and out (the old door was too high for him).


The pink room has a door to the back porch that had no storm door at all. It was a serious point of cold air entry, as we discovered back during our infrared report. We have another door -- much like this one, but white instead of cranberry -- that Jake will install soon.

Some more house history

I like finding out about the history of our house. Some recent time staring at old maps has led me to believe that the house is older than I had initially thought.

Here is Durant Street in 1879, from this atlas:
http://nmrlsdli.cdmhost.com/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/p4034coll20&CISOPTR=580&REC=3


We're not sure, but we think we might be one of those houses in the cluster of four. It's hard to tell, because none of the outlines exactly matches our house. The outline on the 1896 map (the one I blogged before) looks exactly like our house, but all of the outlines on this map seem a little more basic. Anyway, we're not sure if that's us or not.

It has been hard to trace things back, in part becauase all the deeds are actually about the LAND and not specifically about the house, so it's unclear if any individual transaction included the house, or just the parcel of land where the house now sits. Spending some time at the online Registry of Deeds for Middlesex County, I have been able to figure out the chain of custody for the land at least:

We bought the house from Maria Mazarakis and Luis M. Lima on August 31st 2006

Luis M. Lima and Maria Limabought the house from Robert G. Basnett and Lori E. Basnett on February 26th 1998 for $97,000.

Robert G. Basnett and Lori E. Basnett bought the house from the executor of the will for Veronica Crowley on December 8th, 1989 for $115,000

Margaret M. Crowley and Veronica Crowley bought the house from Fred J. Crowley and Mary L. Crowley on July 29th, 1947 (Book 1072 page 584)

Fred J. Crowley and Mary L. Crowley bought the house from Frank Wiech and Veronica Weich on July 16th 1921 (see book 647 page 163)

Frank Wiech and Veronica Weich bought the house from Mary A. Garvey (the deed notes that she was unmarried!) on August 6th 1920.

Mary A. Garvey bought the house from Augustia Sullivan on May 4th 1920 (Book 624, page 423).

Augustia Sullivan (married to Thomas B. Sullivan) bought the house from Fred M. Chase (for one dollar!) on December 4th 1909 (book 443, page 285). This was the last deed I was actually able to read. It includes the following information:

Fred M. Chase was the sole heir of Joseph Chase

Joseph Chase conveyed to Susan Murray by deed dated August 5th, 1878. The Sullivan deed refers back to this deed: Book 130 page 337; however, I was not able to find this deed (admittedly, I was tired and didn't try for too long). I think it may be that I mis-read the book or page number (the handwriting was pretty tough to decipher). I might try to go back to it another time. You can check it out for yourself here:



Now this Joseph Chase's name appears on the 1879 atlas that I wrote about in a previous post.

All this and more is available at the Middlesex Registry of Deeds: http://www.lowelldeeds.com/
I might have to go to the registry and see if the original copies they have there are any easier to read. It's been fun looking at all these old maps and documents!