From Hitched to Honeymooning and Beyond...

Dear Readers and Friends,

After a year of planning, with a fairly insane rush in the last few weeks and days, this renovation couple finally tied the knot on Sept. 6th at the 1811 House in Manchester, VT. It was an epic and beautiful weekend that was overflowing with friendship, fun and goodwill in one of the most beautiful towns in all of Vermont. It was our hope to bring the people that we love to a place that we have also come to adore, and watch as friends and family fell in love with this beautiful and humble corner of Vermont. Our wedding (and the epic partying that ensued) was partially a Thank You gift to all of the amazing folks in our lives, and a bit of a love letter to all that Vermont has come to represent to us: a home in every sense of the word.

Handmade entrance sign courtesy of my dear friend Lisa

We were farmhouse representing all over the 1811 House for the weekend, and so I feel that it is only right to share a few photos from this event! While there are countless photos that deserve their moment in the sun, I'm going to put up just a few that showcase the ingenuity and hard work of our friends as they helped bring together our vision in the wee hours before the wedding using a handful of farmhouse finds: from scrap wood for signs to the antique furniture collecting dust in our attic to slate shingles that were repurposed for signs and a guestbook, everything came together in a way that shocked even Tony and I. Flower arrangements, table settings, and the coolest arrangement of wedding favors I've ever seen... it all came together beautifully, thanks to our amazing friends and their ability to share in our artistic vision for this day.

The decorations came together perfectly :)

Visions of a very happy day... 

With antiques up the wazoo!

While I could gush about this wedding for days on end, that is of course not why you are here reading this blog! So we can move on to the farmhouse now, and recap all of the work we scrambled to get done before the wedding and everything we accomplished on our 'honeymoon' and beyond. But first, if there is one final point to be made about the wedding, it is this: Tony and I witnessed all of our random antique finds come together so beautifully under the tent, leaving us all the more excited to finish this house and finally get to decorating :) I'm quite confident the end product is going to be a stunner.

With that said... to the farmhouse we go!

Heat!!!

With snow in the forecast for this coming Sunday (and with water sitting in all of our pipes on the first floor) one thought is running through our minds constantly, and that is… we need heat, stat! All of our fun side projects have been put on hold as Tony and I scramble to finish prepping the first floor for heat. Of course, readying the house for heat would be wonderfully simple if all it required was us putting the radiators in place and waiting for the plumbers to come and hook up the lines. Alas, when you are juggling 5 different renovation tasks at once, all of these things must miraculously come together at the same time to reach the end goal successfully. So getting heat up and running really breaks down to… paint radiators, haul radiators inside, secure flooring underneath radiators, run electrical for thermostats, run electrical in first floor, insulate and drywall behind radiators, and finally, put radiators in place. Here's where we're at with all of that nonsense…

Don't be deceived… it took a neighbor's forklift to get this beast into the house!

The week after the wedding, Tony and I pulled some moves that defied the human body and introduced us to muscles we had yet to discover, as we hauled one of our 12 fin radiators into the house by ourselves. The monstrosity you see above actually required a neighbor's forklift just to lift from the ground outside onto the porch. It took four of us and some ingenuity to then lift it onto a dolly, strap it down and wheel it into the house. I quickly realized that moving this radiator over the 1 inch high threshold at the front door was about as easy as being asked to toss the entire thing up and over the Great Wall. Never has a 1 inch piece of wood been so intimidating, or brought so much grief to a group of young, able-bodied individuals. Getting this thing in the front door was both an epic accomplishment and somewhat pathetic at the same time haha. The ups and downs of renovation often go hand in hand.

Getting highly creative with a dolly and a handcart for the smaller radiator.

Tony and I achieved the impossible by getting the smaller of the two radiators up an impromptu ramp and onto the porch. I really wish I could have seen our Herculean efforts as a bystander driving by, because the scene must have been absolutely ludicrous to watch. It was either pull/push that radiator up the ramp, or have it roll back down and crush me to bits. Losing this battle was not an option.

With the radiator on the porch, we tried quite a few MacGyver tricks, finally strapping a dolly onto the side of the radiator, slowly lowering the radiator onto its back, and then pushing it back up on its side. The end product is the photo you see above. It was far from the normal approach to getting a radiator through a narrow doorway, but dammit it worked! One less thing on the to-do list ;)

Electrical run and labeled!

With our radiators finally painted and inside, it was time to move on to bigger and better things. We've been working with our electrician John to get as much of the first floor wired as possible. This past weekend John hooked up the thermostat for Zone 1 (the north side of the first floor), which includes the bathroom, library and living room. We also began running additional wiring in the bay window room and library, and plan to finish running the wiring ourselves in the coming weeks. When John returns to review our work and give the final ok, we will then place some additional Pink Panther insulation over the wiring and close up the walls! Drywall, here we come. Our rooms will actually look like rooms again!

We kicked off drywall this weekend by closing up the bathroom and drywalling in the exposed basement staircase. We will probably do all of the taping, spackling and sanding for the first floor at the same time, so for now we get to enjoy the much faster process of hanging the drywall. You don't know how beautiful walls in a house can be until you've spent 3 years living without them.

Chimney is looking fancy against that clean backdrop

We have some very high hopes that we can finish running the electrical in the library and living room so we can drywall behind the radiators before they are hooked up in two weeks. This is a lofty goal, but the thought of disconnecting and emptying those radiators down the line is a scary prospect and therefore motivating us to haul ass ;) Let's see how fast we can work to beat the clock before the blessed event that is getting HEAT IN THE HOUSE!

Late Season Painting

Touch-ups to the front porch... cover those nailheads!

My friend that just refuses to go away… painting! There is never a shortage of weekend painting missions, and while I'm rounding the bend on finishing this house, working to fix and paint the windows to help prevent heat loss and helping with electrical and drywall needs in the house has definitely eaten into my painting time. The back of the house will be my big to-do for next summer, and unfortunately I bring with me into the winter season what I like to call "problem areas" on the other 3 sides of the house. These aren't very big projects - painting a bit of roofline that still needs repairing, painting some new trim along the bottom sill of the house - but these areas require Tony's woodworking skills and so have gotten pushed to the back of the line as we prep for heat.

This is what happens when your paint doesn't dry before nightfall...

It's really just a few weekends worth of work to paint these small fixes, so hopefully I'll be focusing on finishing up the back of the house by June or so. I know I've probably said that exact sentence the past two years, but this time I actually mean it! The end of painting lies within my grasp, I can see it!

Our painted lady gets a painted porch :)

If we luck out and get a few more warm weekends coming up, I might continue to try and tackle a few more of these "problem areas", but realistically I envision only having time for windows coming up. It's a less than exciting process but getting the black windows in place really cleans the house up nicely :) Windows are certainly my nemesis, but I have to remind myself that I am the one who was so mesmerized by their wavy glass and charm and fought to keep them, so… nary a window painting complaint shall be made on this blog ;)

Odds and Ends

And of course, a brief recap of all of the little tiny projects that keep us busy in-between:

Master Carpenter Tony tackles the basement steps for the bulkhead doors.











Finished steps within 24 hours ;)




















A little landscaping work results in a serious pile of firewood for next winter.










The fall garden is looking a bit unkempt but our perennial plants are going strong :)











Wedding bouquet hangs over our newest amazing find - an antique Standard Oakland stove which will be converted to our kitchen cooktop!















Well, dear readers, I do believe we've come to the end of another update! I'm looking forward to sharing more photos of our electrical and drywall progress over the coming weeks and months, and will definitely include a picture of me hugging a searing hot radiator soon ;) Until then, please check out our slideshows and check back in with the blog soon!

We have quite a few photo albums to share with you since our last post, so enjoy watching us add a little Victorian flare back into the house, prep the house for wedding visitors, honeymoon (aka renovate), defy gravity and haul the remaining radiators inside, snap some Autumn foliage while we can, and make headway with electrical and drywall!

Thanks for reading, all, and enjoy the last of these fleeting Autumn days! Happy November!
- Melissa

The Grand Dame

Lawn tennis. Wildflower fields. Cascading flower boxes and the juiciest blueberries in town. A living room full of friends and fresh cut lilacs from the yard, set out on the table when guests would stop in. This is the picture painted to us when friends and family of the Crowninshield or Cheney clans stop by to share their stories of our home from days gone by.  A neighbor who reached out to Tony a few weeks back via email described the farmhouse as a Grand Old Dame and was so happy to see her being fixed up again. As we remove layer after layer of chipping paint, repair rotten siding, fix broken windows, and restore all of the ornate exterior trim, we’re starting to see through the fog of neglect, discovering that a proper Victorian lady lies beneath. 

Nothing beats a fancy bay window

While this house may have always been an operating farmhouse and dairy, Wales Cheney cleared spared no expense when he built this home. It’s been described to us as the prettiest house in the Valley, and darnit we’re going to earn that title again! With an intricately painted bay window, done in the style of a San Francisco Painted Lady, and a few native flower gardens starting to take root, we’re on our way to owning not just a house but an entire property that will (hopefully) delight every passerby.

Beautiful day lilies make a happy statement in the back garden

Of course, the process of getting this home from 'haunted' to 'beautiful' is always far less pretty. We’ve been getting down and dirty-and possibly spilling a can of paint or two along the way-for the last month, and things are shaping up nicely outside the home! We’ve also started taking some significant steps inside, so let’s do a quick midsummer recap and take a look at our new stash of photos!

Paint, Paint, Paint and Away!

I've always hated this spider-filled corner!

As our luck continues to hold and we enjoy one sunshine-filled weekend after another, it feels like we're really flying through the final stages of our exterior paint job! With only small touch-ups left here and there (well, except for the back of the house of course), we're finally starting to class this place up. Fourth of July weekend proved to be a bit death defying as I wrapped a rope around my waist and prayed for a good grip while sanding, priming, and painting the dirty corner above the 1st floor bathroom. My rubber boots did their job (most of the time) as I held onto whatever I could find and attempted to do a fairly clean and exact paint job... all the while sliding down to the edge of the roof ever so slowly, only to have to stop myself and clamber back up again. 

The score was Melissa – 1, Gravity – 0, until a slight slip on the roof and a swift kick of a boot to steady myself unleashed epic, slow-moving chaos.

Oops...

All of those tiny paint drips I was making suddenly paled in comparison to the river of Behr's exterior satin-finish paint running oh-so-slowly down the first floor roof. As I screamed wildly and attempted to push the flowing paint back into the now-empty paint can with my tiny paintbrush (why doesn't a video of this exist somewhere?!), Tony attempted to catch the dripping paint from below with a giant garbage bag (to little avail). The end result was, well... messy. Fortunately, I was able to get the majority of the paint off of the roof the next day using a paint scraper (that was a fun experience), but if anyone has a few hours to spare and enjoys sitting on hot metal roofs with Goof-Off paint remover and a rag, please let me know! Boy do we have a job for you haha.

Nothing a little Pinedale Shores & pink trim can't fix!

Obscene paint spill aside, this creepy back corner was looking pretty fabulous come Sunday afternoon!

Tony still has to repair the missing roof trim, as you can see from the photo above, but otherwise the corner is finally done. No more giant nesting spiders and wasps, and most importantly, no more flaking mustard-yellow paint! This past weekend, with the help of our dear friends Meredith and Lisa, we basically finished off this side of the house and made sure we touched up all of those annoying drips that resulted from my mega-mishap. It's like it never happened... as long as you don't look at the roof haha.

In just a day Lisa, Mere and I sanded all of Tony's trim repairs, primed everything and got the first coat down on everything! Finishing it up with a second coat of paint should go fairly quickly during my next visit, and then we can actually put work on this side of the house completely to rest. Thank the heavens. 

They don't call it backbreaking work for nothing...

The final big painting challenge that remains before the wedding in September is redoing the first floor and porch area of the front of the house. While it breaks my heart to admit this, I began painting the front of the house before I realized we needed to use an oil-based primer and zinc paint to cover the nailheads. Without it, the nails are rusting through the paint and the paint itself is peeling off. It was a dark day when I realized the entire front of the house needed to be redone. The area above the porch was done correctly, and I sanded and repainted the 2nd floor last summer. All that remains is the first floor and front porch area. 

Sanding away all of my hard work :(

The front is looking a bit pathetic compared to everything else at the moment, but I'm hoping to at least get it all primed when I head up again in early August. A final paint job should be completed before Labor Day! And with the front finally painted the correct way, I can officially declare that three sides of the house are DONE! Tackling that narrow little strip of yellow paint that remains in the back of the house should be smooth sailing come September :)

We're coming for you, back of the house!

Other Happenings...

In addition to plumbing and heating, which is reaching a big turning point over the next few weeks, we have a million other small jobs happening all at once. It's probably easiest to review these with a quick photo recap, so here goes!

Old mason jars, originally dug up in the basement, provide some refuge to a few rescued wildflowers 

Tony, Bailey and Alastair recently teamed up to build the cement landing for the basement bulkhead stairs. Bailey clearly took a keen interest in learning the ins and outs of the cement mixing process.

Windows! They'll never end, ever. Mairim was a window-glazing machine over 4th of July weekend and glazed nearly half of the windows upstairs. Now, who gets to be the lucky person who paints them all?

All of the radiators (save two behemoths currently sitting outside the house) are painted and sitting in their future spots! I can assure you right now, it was no fun transporting, painting and carrying 5 cast iron radiators upstairs to the second floor. Those things are never coming down, ever. (Unless they fall through the floor, of course, which I sincerely hope I'm not alive to see.)

Landscaping! While it's not a priority right now, we're trying to maintain our orchard, shrub wall and also get a few perennial shrubs growing for the long-term. It's going to take a few years to achieve the cascading, cottage-style gardens of my dreams so it's best to get a jump on things. So proud to see my Phlox has survived the winter and is finally in bloom!

And finally...

As I mentioned earlier, we've made some great headway with plumbing and heating! We faced a minor financial setback a few weeks back when, in Money Pit fashion, we discovered that our well pump was D.O.A. Just another major repair that needed to happen before we could have water and heat! We got the name of a reliable 'well guy,' and he lived up to his reputation. Before we could blink he'd come to the house, replaced the well pump and hooked up the electric to the pump itself.

Tony was able to dig a channel and run PVC conduit from the well into the house, feeding our electric wiring along the way, so our electrician can safely hook up the pump to our system in the basement during his next visit. 

Tony's PVC channel seems endless

The final obstacle in this years long race to heat and hot water is the chimney, which needs to be lined and the lining must be connected to the boiler. Finding a chimney guy willing to take on our crooked, narrow chimney and steep, slate roof was no easy task, but we have finally booked someone for next Monday!

Therefore, once the chimney is lined, the only thing holding us back from hot water is just a couple of clamps to connect the lines. Finally, we are CLOSE to actually getting running water and heat in this house. Is it possible... will we see heat this winter???

In the meantime, please enjoy our ongoing collection of slideshows! Click here to see our last four visits to the farmhouse, when we turned the bay window into a Victorian beauty, tackled some landscaping and exterior challenges, enjoyed a little R & R (rooftops and radiators), and verrrry nearly completed painting the north side of the house!

Thanks again for reading, dear friends, and hope you are all having a happy, sunny summer :) We'll be back soon with more updates, but in the meantime... pray to the renovation gods that be for running water and a completed paint job soon! I know I sure am haha.

Happy July,

Melissa :)

Hearth & Home

Appropriate subtitle: Spring Has Sprung!

With the snows of late March (and even early April) having finally melted away, the soggy, snow-soaked grounds of Vermont are eagerly taking in their first breaths of fresh air for the 2014 season. Winter was, well... long. Endless. No end in sight. Snowy. Arctic. So on and so forth. It honestly seemed impossible that we'd ever see a day that didn't require multiple layers of wool!

Alas, the celestial gods continue to push the Earth onward as it makes it's yearly journey around the Sun, and so here we are... all thawed out and ready to go for the warm weather. We have survived yet ANOTHER Vermont winter (an impossible feat had you asked me in February), and from here on out, the only shivering our bones will be doing will be from pure excitement over how much we're going to accomplish this summer. Summer 2014 - bring it!

Cloaked in spring colors!

Well there is no shortage of updates to report on since we first started making regular visits to the house again in February, so let's get to it! As you will come to see in the upcoming months, we will be trying to crank through a serious amount of work to get the house looking as decent as possible for our wedding guests come this September - while the house isn't ready to host the wedding itself, we hope to invite friends and family to tour our beloved construction site the day after! Our big goals for September included a finished paint job, a working bathroom, and perhaps a few drywalled rooms. We'll see where we are come late August... fingers crossed we won't fall short of our goals!

Now, time to recap our oh-so-busy weekends. First, let's start off with...

Interior Updates

Tony and I have finally reached the miraculous place where, in truth, there isn't too much left to do inside the house until plumbing and electric are run. There are of course various outstanding projects... like build out the two upstairs bathrooms, per se, or remove all of the window and door trim for drywall... but none of these things need to be done immediately. The downstairs bath will be in working order once plumbing is up and running, and we already have all of the trim removed and stored for most of the downstairs, which will be the only floor getting wired next month. So really, we're kind of at a standstill! Therefore, during the chilly (freezing) months of March and early April, we took on a few pet projects inside to pass the time.

First on the list was laying down a brick floor in the back hall of the kitchen, which once functioned as a sectioned off hallway that led out to the milkroom and barn. The floorboards were rotted, plus very worn out from many a trip spent walking back and forth to the barn, so we decided to replace them with a hearth-style floor which should stand up well to all those muddy boots coming in and out of the yard in the future.

This was a somewhat time-sensitive project, as our kitchen radiator will be placed on top of this brick floor, so we knew it needed to be completed before radiators could be hooked up this summer.

Laying out the brick pattern first

My dear friend Meredith braved the freezing temperatures of March to join in the creation of our brick floor. After laying out our 1/2 inch brick veneer to get a good mix and match of colors, Tony showed us the ropes on proper mortar techniques. After getting the first few rows down, we sped into high gear! The floor was finished in only a matter of a few (cold) hours.

Laying bricks... a breeze, but tough on the knees!

The finished product (before Tony filled in the joints with mortar)

With a little exposed brick showing in the kitchen, I became motivated to finally try and remove all of the old plaster from our chimneys. I took a crack at the kitchen chimney first using an air-powered chisel, a tool which turned out to be a complete godsend. I can't believe I actually attempted to clear a chimney of plaster using a hammer and crowbar two years ago! It probably took no more than 30 minutes to remove the plaster from all four sides, and saved me the exhaustion of swinging a hammer and chisel for hours on end.  

After clearing the chimney of all of its plaster, it was time to remove the remaining plaster residue from the chimney via a rotary sander. I had seen this done once on Rehab Addict, but I don't remember the end result being quite so dusty.

I look like a home renovation G.I. Joe 

All done!

Definite lesson learned - when it comes time to sand the chimneys in the other 4 rooms, find a way to CONTAIN the dust! It has been two months since I cleaned this chimney and almost everything on the first floor is still covered in brick dust. It's like pink pixie dust but far less magical, and apparently way harder to clean. Fingers crossed those lovely summer breezes whisk it all outside.

Electrical

With our electrician John coming to wire the entire first floor in a few weeks, it was also time to make some final decisions on the lighting layout. This proved to be an epic weekend for sure, as Tony and I anguished over placement of sconces and dining room chandeliers.... never has a 1/2 inch here or a 1/4 inch there been so stressful! After having this house look like a total mess for three years, making decisions on its final appearance was a little scary.

Blue ceiling boxes indicate placement of our matching kitchen pendants

My father, handyman extraordinaire that he is, has helped us rewire all 7 ceiling light pendants for the kitchen (which were salvaged from this house during demo), along with a bunch of other lovely antique lighting finds, including antique gas lamp chandeliers and hanging lanterns. All of the lighting throughout the house should be very unique and period appropriate. This house will be off-the-charts cozy once it's all lit up!

Restoring the copper patina on an old hanging gas lantern

Exterior Work

Now that the warm weather has arrived (amen!), Tony and I have begun to fly through our outdoor to-do list. Tony's first project was to finally cover up the all of the subwall that was left exposed after we replaced the house sills under the kitchen/dining room. We've been putting this off for awhile since this project required some major custom woodwork, but Tony stepped up to the challenge last week and knocked this job out of the park!

Woodworking - done! Now time to paint this baby ;)

Aside from putting up more clapboard, Tony had to create custom base trim with angled joints at the ends, along with his own 'water table trim', which sits above the base trim and is angled down to help water run off the house. It was no easy task and took hours of precise measuring and cutting to complete. The end result, though, is amazing!

Close-up on our custom water table trim 

After finishing this trim work, Tony took on the feared "kitchen window switching" project. We've been putting it off for some time, as it seemed it would be an obvious pain to complete, and we were right! The small window, meant to sit above the kitchen sink, needed to be moved to the back of the kitchen (where the sink will now sit) and replaced with the longer window currently located in the back of the room.

Bring on the bigger window!

As always, nothing goes as easily or as quickly as it should, so we're only about 90% complete with this project. Removing the window frames was the easy part... reframing the openings and getting the windows to sit plumb and in line with the other windows was not.

The corner where the small window sat has been our greatest challenge thus far. This area is pounded relentlessly by rain thanks to the low roof of the bathroom, which stops just above the window, and has been slowly rotting away over the years due to this onslaught of water. Upon removing the window frame, which was in rough shape itself, Tony had to cut out and replace all of the rotten subwall and siding. It also took a few attempts to get the new, longer window frame to sit perfectly in line with the window to its right. Once all of that was completed, Tony had to face the challenge of rebuilding some of the intricate and very angled window trim that surrounded the window frame and was rotted beyond repair.

This fella should start his own woodworking business, because Tony once again rose to the challenge and recreated the top of the window frame to nearly exact specifications. Once it is painted, there will be no way to tell this trim hasn't been happily hanging on the side of this house for the last 130 years.

Long window in place with custom trim by Tony!

There is still some minor siding that needs to be added to complete the window switching process, but once all of this is done I will be able to sand this area and finally finish painting this side of the house! We also intend on adding some sort of gutter system to this area to prevent the window from getting pounded by rain once again.

Which brings me to my final update...

Painting!

When, oh when, will painting this house be finished? While I do love the whole process of painting my home, I am also beyond eager to move on to other projects. Painting has to be finished by this fall!

The bay window, finally in progress!

The front and two sides of the house each have a little remaining work here and there, so my intent is to go from side to side and finish each side for good! The only work remaining to do on the south-facing side of the house was the bay window, so that was the first project I took on this spring. I worked on the bay window (including painting the window panes themselves) over Memorial Day weekend, and finished everything minus our pink and hunter green finishing touches. The application of Pinedale Shores really anchored the bay window and makes it feel like a true extension of the house. Next weekend, weather permitting, (knocks on wood) I will finish the window using our pink and green highlights, which should add a bit of fun and liveliness to this beautiful feature!

Once the bay window is complete, I will move on to the north side of the house and paint all of Tony's new trim work, and hopefully wrap up all finishing touches on that side of the house in just a weekend or two!

There will be many photos and updates to come on that end so stay tuned :)

In the meantime, please check out the new slideshows of our progress as we lay out the brick floor, lay out the electrical plan, expose the brick on our chimneys, begin the great window switching project and finish up some serious exterior custom woodwork! 

I'd also like to share a big Thank You! to all of our readers who have been sharing stories and support as of late. You guys are all wonderful for sharing your comments with us, and we are so excited to see that some readers have personal ties to this house and have seen our progress in person! We hope we're making you all proud, and thanks for investing your time and interest in our farmhouse :) The love others have for this home inspires us to keep going on some of our more challenging days.

Many more exciting summer updates to come, but in the meantime we hope you all are well and thank you for continuing to visit this blog! Until next time, wishing you a very happy June!

Melissa :) 

On a Winter's Night

"Winter then in its early and clear stages, was a purifying engine that ran unhindered over city and country, alerting the stars to sparkle violently and shower their silver light into the arms of bare upreaching trees. It was a mad and beautiful thing..."

Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

Closer to finished than not!

Well there's no denying this year that winter is making a comeback. After a weak showing the past two years, it is once again testing our mettle... 10 degree high with a wind chill factor of -2?? Deal with it, she says. And so we shall, because for some crazy reason even I can barely understand, I wouldn't give up this beautiful yet beastly season for a minute. Autumn, spring, nor summer would be so sweet without the bitter cold and (at times) bleak landscape winter brings. It definitely feels like this time of year is meant for hibernating and resting up for the busy summer months, but unfortunately we don't have that luxury!

Tony and I did allow ourselves a bit of a VT hiatus during the holiday season but we finally got back on track with things two weeks ago, when we made our first visit to the farmhouse for 2014. We also took a bit of an accidental hiatus from the blog (what the heck else was I doing during that time, I don't know!), so it's time to get caught up on that as well. We accomplished quite a bit of work before December, so we need to get to recapping and then talk about upcoming plans!

When we last left off with the blog, the drama was building and the clock was ticking as we worked feverishly to prepare the house for the installation of first floor heat. So the big question among friends has remained...

Did You Guys Get Heat?!

Is that a radiator I see?

After three consecutive Springs of shaking my fist and shouting to the treetops that "I'll never be cold in this house again!", were we finally able to deliver? Did we actually get our radiators installed and the heat set up for Winter 2014?

Well, the simple answer is... we could have, had we chosen to go through with it haha. Which basically means... our water bottles were as frozen as our limbs by the end of our workday last weekend. Congratulations, farmhouse, you've bested me again! If anyone is running out of space in your own kitchen freezers, bring your food items to us... they should be good here until April.

So, no... we did not get our heat installed! A minor defeat, at least for my ego and all of its visions of hanging drywall in a comfy cozy house over the winter months. To look at this in a good light, we made a mad dash to the finish line and did basically reach it in time - our radiators were in place, all of the first floor windows had been repaired, all of the insulation had been run, and the holes in the basement had all been closed up. All that was left to do was fill the oil tank and have our plumbers hook up the radiator lines, but two rather expensive fixes popped up last minute.

First... our septic. While the following picture looks mainly like a dirt mound, what you are looking at is a brand new septic tank tucked away under our yard:

There is quite a bit of $$$ sunk into that ground!

As we mentioned in our September blog post, we discovered we needed a new septic tank put in, along with a new drain line running from the basement to the tank. While the team who did the job this fall completed the job well and at a fair price, installing a new septic tank simply does not fall into the category of 'cheap' house fixes. A few thousand dollars down the line, we can at least happily report we have a brand new concrete septic that will be able to handle the strain three bathrooms, a laundry room and a full kitchen will be putting on it.

Add to the septic bill the cost of having our very filled dumpster hauled away, and the money we had set aside to pay for additional plumbing work and the filling of the oil tank had all but disappeared. We were in a pickle and had a tough choice on ours hands; was it really worth putting another $2,000 into an oil tank, when the house was not as sealed up as it should be? Without storm windows in place, minor holes in the walls here and there, and a few remaining broken windows upstairs, our heat would have flown right out of that house at an alarming rate. Realistically, we would have been paying an arm and a leg to keep a house heated that we probably wouldn't come up to all that often. And so we made the difficult decision - it was best to wait on heat.

 

 Such pretty radiators, just waiting to be used!

So in the end, our radiators received an extended vacation. They have one more season to rest up, and once the weather warms up enough we'll have our plumbers come back and finish the installation. It's a good thing we're well-versed in this 'working without heat' thing. I don't know if I'll ever be able to adjust to a comfortable winter life up there once all is said and done!

And of course, aside from our mad dash for our narrowly attained heating system, we kept busy with other work...

Painting!

The gargantuan task to end all gargantuan tasks... the total renovation of the house exterior. After two summers of exhausting, dirt-covering prep work, this summer we finally took off with painting the house. Once all of the sanding and priming was done, actually getting the paint on the house was a snap! With the super helpful addition of the occasional electric lift rental,  we nearly completed our goal of getting three sides totally redone. It was a definite race to the winter finish line, and I kept up the fight right through the arrival of freezing temperatures. After renting the lift for one more frigid weekend in late November, I threw in the towel on finishing the north side of the house. We probably fell about one weekend shy of getting the whole side done!

Fighting the clock, and the cold!

The north side of the house is unfortunately still looking a bit nasty... there is some serious repair work to do along the roofline above the bathroom, a bit of sanding and priming still remains, the short window on the first floor needs to be switched out with a full-length window, and new trim work needs to be added along with clapboard on the bottom of the house. In short, there is still a lot of work to do on this side. Finishing it was never realistically in the cards for this season!

Yuck! Still a bit of an eyesore.

There is also some painting work to be done in the front of the house, including a total re-do of the first floor paint job, not to mention finishing up the bay window on the south side of the house. SO, we're not quite close to finishing these three sides of the house yet, but I think we should be there by early summer. Once we can check that big to-do off of our list, I intend on focusing my energies on finishing up the back of the house. It's about time to put this painting makeover to bed! As much as I enjoy the beauty of winter, I'm looking forward to spring's arrival so I can jump back into painting and get this house DONE!

The Basement

As we raced to prep the house for heat, a great deal of work remained in closing up the basement. This included getting all three new windows installed, repairing a rotted sill, and rebuilding the wall around it, in addition to some basic brick work here and there. As always, Tony's never-ending skills stepped up to the challenge, and he managed to get all of these projects done with incredible speed and quality. For instance, he knocked out this sill replacement and brick wall rebuild in less than two days...

He also installed the first of two basement ventilation fans with built-in dehumidistat, so the basement will hopefully enjoy a much drier and humidity-friendly life! We also have some other big plans for keeping moisture out of the basement, including eventually putting down a vapor barrier over the floor and covering that in gravel, and doing some sort of basic ground gutter system to direct water further away from the foundation.

I was actually able to get started on installing ground gutters along the north side of the house over the fall, which included digging out angled channels, running a plastic vapor barrier from the edge of the foundation down through the channel, and covering everything in gravel. In front of the gutters, we began planting some initial perennial shrubs and covered those in mulch, all of which will hopefully help soak up more moisture on our rainy days. We're not sure if this will make a huge difference, but it is a step in the right direction! It's also making the house look a bit more like a real house and a little less like a construction zone :)

Crossing my fingers for these shade-hardy shrubs!

While this is just the beginning of our landscaping adventures, it's great to get our hands at least a little dirty as we learn the science and artform behind beautiful landscaping. Having the opportunity to also learn about New England's native plant species has been an amazing education so far, and I can't wait until we build up our gardens in the future! In the meantime, I am crossing my fingers that our shrubs and grasses survive their first VT winter.

Other Tasks...

Aside from our plumbing and painting tasks, there are always a million other things going on inside the house. With the superhuman dedication of Susie Merkel, we managed to get all of the first floor windows scraped, sanded, glazed, and in some instances, painted, before winter set it. Windows are of course on hold until the weather thaws, so we're focusing on more indoor-friendly tasks.

Tony and I have basically finished mapping out the electrical plan, right down to the last dining room sconce, and I'm convinced this room is going to look absolutely beautiful! When I stop to look at our hollowed out dining room/kitchen, it feels like my brain switches into SketchUp mode, and suddenly tables, cabinets, sconces and kitchen islands seem to appear out of thin air. In my mind I can already see our home completed down to the last minute detail... now it's just a matter of getting it there!

A former oil lamp chandelier is transformed for the dining room

We've purchased most of the light switches that we need, and have begun installing the switch and outlet boxes throughout the first floor. Soon, once the house temperature is a bit more manageable, we'll invite our electrician back to help us run all of the first floor wiring. In the mean time, we're keeping my father busy with a ton of rewiring to do on all of our vintage lamps and pendants. We actually have our dining room chandelier, most of the overhead lights and first floor sconces already in our possession; with a little soap and water, and a little wiring know-how, we're returning them to their former glory!

Also, during our last VT visit, Tony and I installed (with surprising ease!) the second of our 16 foot support beams across the kitchen. I can't quite remember when we first had these beams cut, but I am thinking it was fall 2012, so they have had plenty of time to dry out and lighten up a little. For once since owning this house, a project actually went according to plan!

Getting those measurements just right on the support beams

Learning the hard way that it is better to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised when you get something slightly better than the worst, we anticipated another battle royale to get this beam installed. After all, last time we nearly busted through the dining room floor trying to lift a sinking corner of the house to get the first support beam in place. I think we spent a solid two hours just hammering the wall post into position.

Up she goes, bit by bit!

Therefore, how wonderful it was to find that the back ceiling was not somehow sinking, and there would be no crazy maneuvering to do. Once we had the beam hoisted onto two opposing ladders, Tony slid the first wall supports (on the right side, which will actually be hidden behind drywall) into place. Then, after trimming the height slightly on the left side wall post, we were able to hammer it into place perfectly!

Aside from the prep (cutting out the old wood supports, removing wall insulation, etc.) which always takes awhile, the actual installation of the barn beam took no more than a few hours. When we were finished, we sat there slightly in shock. Did something really work out so easily? Has the world gone mad? If so, we'll take it! This is the kind of surprise we could use more of.

We of course documented the beam installation along with all of the other work we've been doing...

Click here to check out slideshows of late summer painting, Southern Vermont in its autumn glory, a painting/gardening/radiator-restoring combo, plumbing fixes and the arrival of winter, insulation and basement work, AND the kitchen support beam installation! 

Phew, that's a lot of photo updates.

Seeing as how this winter weather no longer scares us, we'll be heading back up to the farmhouse next weekend for another round of frigid work. This time, we'll be knocking out the last of the rotted ceiling joists in the basement (those running underneath the family room floor) and putting nice, new ones in their place. It won't be glamorous work, but it will certainly keep us warm and will finally bring an end to our rotted wood witch hunt. Plus, that old wood burns beautifully in our wood stove - a double win for warmth! And for fire safety ;)

You can count on more updates as spring approaches. Until then, thanks for reading and check back soon! Wishing you all a happy, wintry evening in your warm and toasty homes :)

Melissa