A 100 Year Old Panaramic.... Almost

My neighbor sent me a copy of some great pics the other day. Then tonight an idea came to me.... and a little tweaking in photoshop later I came up with this little gem.



A few more feet and we would have a great wide angle shot of my street almost 100 years ago. Very cool!

Here's another pic he gave me of his neat house (built 1887). You can see the side of it on the far right in the street shot. The two houses to the right of me in the street pic were built in 1897 and are identical to each other. The two to the left of me (not pictured) were built in 1893.... so at 1906 I'm the new house on the block.



There are two other pics I've seen of this section of my street, but I've yet to get copies of them.

He also returned a lost piece of the Hall house. I'll reveal that later.

Making A Window Whole Again

When the one bedroom was converted into a kitchen upstairs, they took the two windows and shortened them. The one I can understand due to the counter being installed, but the other...???? Plus they hacked the original sill flush with the sheathing so they could put siding over it. It was real quality work too! They used ceiling tiles to insulate the section of the old window opening they enclosed - top notch craftsmanship.



So first thing was dismantling what they did. Of course this wasn't too hard to do. Then in order to repair the sill I had to remove it. This involved removing all of the original window construction down to the wall framing.





Once the sill was out (a real beast at over 3 inches thick) I ran it on a table saw to get a nice clean edge to join a new piece to it. It just happened that there is a 3/8 drop from where the old window closed against the sill and what was the outside part of the sill. So this made a perfect point to joint the new piece. I used a piece of salvaged pine for the replacement piece which will hold up to the elements compared to any new piece of pine. I glued and countersunk 4 inch drywall screws to join the two sections. All stripped and sanded it was time to put it back in place.





There is a cavity between the wall framing and the side pieces that will frame the window opening. This is where the old window weights hung. The original pieces were beat up and split, so I installed new sides. They seat in notches cut into the sill and header piece. Then the boards that cover these weight openings install on the inside and out. Finally install a stop trim and ready for a new Pella window.



This will all have to be done on the other window in this room too... but the counter is still in the way. So this will wait till the kitchen gets dismantled.

Siding Project - 7 Months and Counting

Yep, that's how long (not counting the winter months) that I've been working on the second floor siding. Not much new info to report, you've heard for the last six months! Here is a set of pics showing the progress on the north side....









Next will be dealing with that shortened window and the idiot who hacked the sill off - I have some choice words for that guy!

Finally A New Post

Yea, I know.... poor neglected blog! Well I honestly have been working on the place and progress to report on which I will have to take a few posts to catch up on.

I officially have completed the first floor AC installation. My dad came out and overkilled making up the copper lines with 56% silver solder! Only need 5%, but won't have to worry about leaks at the joints. Then my friend Liz's husband came out and charged it up which went smooth. Then fired it up, balanced out the system with the dampers and nice and cold. I used a thermometer at the dining room register and had 59 degrees coming out. There's no insulation on the supplies at this point, so I could make it even colder probably.

I put down a brick pad for the condensor unit to sit on which came out OK. There has been a little settling (I kinda did a quickie job on it), so I will need to go back in one area and get a little more sand underneath.




Of course now that I have some central AC going.... I haven't needed it!? It's been a cool wet summer - but I'm not gonna complain too much. Though the garden could use a little more sun than rain now. More later....

Happy 4th!!

I Can Almost Feel The Cool Breeze

I spent my week off after Atlanta kicking butt on the Central AC installation. For the first floor system I'm installing a Goodman which I got a good deal on in January. After running my house through the duct sizing program, I laid out a plan and put together from stock pieces supplied by a dealer in NJ. I caught a free delivery deal with that too, so I've been doing good. With the help of my buddy John, we hung the unit from the ceiling using all-thread and brackets and started to install the duct work. I initially planned on coming out the side for the return, till I found the return was on the bottom - hence why I had to suspend the unit. The supply trunk runs down and catches three supplies takeoffs - one to the kitchen stair riser, and three floor units in the foyer, parlor, and dining room. I used insulated flex to connect the takeoffs to the register boots. The return runs parallel to the supply and catches three of the returns I installed in the walls 2 years ago when I gutted the first floor. The 4th in the kitchen I ended up not having to use since I had enough with just the three.





Two days and the duct and wiring was done and passed the blower test. I sealed most of the seams on the supply header, but still have a few to get too. Wednesday I helped John do a 200 amp service for one of his customers, then Thursday was back to the AC - running the line set and wiring the outside condenser.



At this point I was really getting frustrated with my working facilities - or lack there of! Tools are everywhere, the basement is jammed up, the garage is jammed up, and I will loose the kitchen soon as a work area.... so this week I stopped the other projects and started to build a shop in the basement. So the past few nights has been spent dividing the basement in half. One side will be my radio collection room. The other half will be a nice shop, and one corner will be a storage area for seasonal stuff and camping gear, plus the freezer.





I won't get this 100% now, but will be done enough to get a shop going and get all my tools downstairs, especially my larger wood working tools. These epecially have not been weathering to well in the garage and i have to keep removing surface rust on the bare metal, and coating with oil only works to a point. It won't be no Norm shop, but it will be 100 times better than what I've been dealing with. In the meantime, I had to start downsizing my radio collection a bit - at least of projects I doubt I'll get to, and other vintage items that I don't have room for in the house.





Tomorrow my dad will braze the refrigerant lines for me and then this weekend I hope to get the condensate pump installed and vacuum test the refrigerant lines, then open up the condenser to the system and top off with a little more R22. Then I'll be finally living the cooool life!

Back From the Work Abyss

So the three month outage at work is over (I think) and I just came back from my two weeks of training down in Atlanta.... now I can finally get back to the laudry list of projects that await.

Here are a few pics of the current state of the back yard. I bought a nice cedar arbor that went together pretty quick. I had a design in mind to custom build, but the time just ain't there. Maybe next go around. The garden is planted and doing OK. The weather has been a little too wet this spring I think for my spring crop.





Also started building a field stone wall to level out the slope one the side of the property. Here I will fill in and make a brick patio to sit the AC units on. Speaking of which that is my next big project. I have the AC unit and the duct work. Using a sizing program I put together a duct layout that should be sized just right. I should get a jump on that this week since I have vacation - no more HOT summers! Stay tuned....



And yes, more cedar shakes to do....

Some Blog Filler

Working 70 hrs a week right now, I've had little time to work on the house and won't get to do much till May. So for the locals here is some turn of the century scenery of Ridley Park from my postcard collection....

More Garden Work

This weekend I finally finished the major sanding of the kitchen. Next will be a touch up coat, a final sand, and then I can finally move on to some trim work and paint in the kitchen - I can almost taste it.... nevermind, that's just from sanding dust in my mouth.

Sunday turned out nice outside so I worked on the garden beds. I wanted to add an irrigation system which is much more efficient and better for the plants. But, I didn't want to pay the hefty investment of one. Then I found a plan online to make your own using standard PVC piping.

I built the main header on one end feeding all four beds. At each end is a shutoff valve and quick disconnect to attach a garden hose. I can run domestic water from the house, or from the other end I can run saved water from rain barrels when I get that system set up next year. They will be behind the garage. Each side of the bed gets a feed from the header with another valve to regulate the drip rate. Then branches feed off of these to the plants. The main header is glued, but the bed piping is dry fitted so is can be disassembled for the winter.



A 1/16 inch bit is used to make the holes. Recommended is every 6 inches, or for bush plants, 2 to 3 holes spaced 5 inches apart. Looks pretty good and price was at least half of a normal bought system. A layer of mulch will cover everything up. and help retain moisture. Next step is building some structures for cucumbers and tomato cages. The seedlings are doing good, especially for my first try!

A Reason To Post Again

A little motivation and some warm weather got me workin on the house again finally. The kitchen is half sanded and looks like it will be a while before I sand the rest.

In the meantime last weekend I decided to rent a jackhammer and bust up the section of driveway that will become yard again. A large section of yard was made into parking when the place was apartments. But now it's much more than I will ever need and prefer to have some more yard back. I did decide to leave one lane around the side of the garage to park the truck when that retires from everday use to just a weekend hauler. A little intimidating at first, I managed to bust everything up in alittle over 3 hours. Then was the fun job of removing the concrete into a pile, which I've yet to work out the details of where it will go next. I was lucky to get a little help with this chore.





After raking the stones up a bit, I started construction on the raised beds for the new and improved veggie garden. I'm building four beds out of cedar - three will be 12ft x 4ft and one 10ft x 4ft. After plenty of research, raised beds are the way to go. After the initial setup, this style yields better results and is easier to maintain. I filled them with a bottom layer of leaves and compost, then the rest with topsoil. I'll add a few more goodies and mulch the top after planting.



I also started plants from seed indoors for the first time. This is far cheaper and can get an earlier jump on things than store bought plants. Plus you can get a better variety than the limited selection at the garden center. Just a plaine shelf with flourescent lights and using peat pots. We'll see how this works out.



So I had 7 yards deilivered of topsoil. About half went into the beds and half will go on the yard after I get a delivery from my dad. He had to replace his main sewer line so I got about a yard from that. He is also getting sidewalks redone, so I'll be getting a few more yards that I'll use to fill where the concrete came out before I add the topsoil.



Once I get the spring yard work done it'll be back in the kitchen.

Winter Standstill

Not much to report lately. Caught a nasty bug. I have enough energy to go to work and keep the fire going and that's about it. Before things came to a complete hault I was slowly adding coat of mud to the kitchen. I have just about two complete coats done. Also trying to get the rest of the paint stripping done.









I also went through all my door hardware and put together enough solid brass sets for the 1st floor doors. Then I polished everything up on the buffer and installed everything. That's about it lately......