Day 10: Jan. 28, 2011

I finally posted photos with the previous blog (Day 9). I haven't yet figured out how to move the photos around, so they make for a pretty clumsy layout.

I started running electrical wires yesterday afternoon and almost got one bedroom completed. All of the work in making paths for heat and cold air should now pay off.

I spent today working on art for a local theater production and am leaving tonight for a weekend job in Muncie. I'll be back in touch on Monday.

Day 9: Jan. 27, 2011

AM

All of the holes for cold air returns are made.

The hole for the bedroom above the living room is most efficiently located right above the cold air return serving the living room. As a result, I've opted for a gravity cold air return instead of creating a chase alongside the front door. My reasoning is that it avoids the question of what shape the chase would take (and how might break up the living roo

m in an unpleasing way). It might lose some efficiency in drawing cold air out of the bedroom, but it will also allow warm air from the living room to filter up to the bedroom. The trade-off should be a wash.

Day 8: Jan. 26, 2011

AM

Made more holes. The going was so slow, I took a break and cleaned up a little bit.

It looks as if I'll have to put a small chase in the dining room, but it will be near the ceiling and on a corner that will only be seen when someone is exiting the kitchen, so it should be almost unnoticeable.

Instead of putting a chase behind the refrigerator, I put it underneath a cabinet, then into the wall cavity, then in a chase on the ceiling.

If I can get all of the pathways created this week, I'll be happy. As I said earlier, the pathways will also help with running electrical lines, so those should go more quickly.

I found a 1948 calendar. Nearby, inside the wall, was a board with a name on it (I can't remember the name right now) and "USA Army." Drawn in a childish hand on the board was a picture of an airplane shooting. I would guess that the veteran's little brother drew it. Anyhoo, I'll save it for the "museum."

PM

I forgot my camera, so will post photos tomorrow.

I've removed wallpaper from a fairly large area in the living room to try to determine how long it would take to do the whole room. The test extrapolates to 12 hours for the walls and another 12 hours for the ceiling. Doable, but time consuming.

I've decided instead to cover the wall and ceilings with 1/4 inch drywall. It should cut the time in half and will produce a better result.

Day 7: Jan. 25, 2011

A slog-it-out day. Made a lot more holes for cold and hot air runs. The old lady (Martha) is currently quite a mess. It's trash day, though, so I'll spend some time getting both bins filled up.

Betsy: give me your input on making those built-in bookshelves by the front door, versus a simple, small chase. I had a friend stop by the house and she remarked that the bookshelves would break up the room. But she also said she liked the idea of having a little entryway area. (So in other words, she was no help at all.) I like the bookshelves, but then I wonder what the north part of the room would be used for. I need some design advice.

I'll take my camera and get some pictures today.

Day 6: Jan. 24, 2011

AM

Roll, Pack!

I've come up with a plan to get heat and cold air returns to the second floor.

I found a hole in the dining room floor for a cold air return in exactly the same spot I would have made one. When that's hooked up, the downstairs ductwork is finished.

To get heat upstairs, I intend to go through the living room wall into the attic by way of the half closet in the bathroom. Once in the attic, the heat will enter the three bedrooms through registers in the ceilings.

Cold air will return through a variety of paths. All of the bedroom returns will be in the floors to draw the warm air down from the ceilings.

One bedroom return will go from the basement into the built-in dining room cabinet, then up through a wall. (I'll cut the drawers in half, but leave the drawer fronts as they are. No one will know the space is being used for cold air until they pull out a drawer.)

Another bedroom return will go through a chase in the kitchen. I'll either build out the wall behind the refrigerator about 4 inches, or else have the air go through the wall until it gets near the ceiling, where there will be a small chase.

The third bedroom will be served by a chase in the living room, right behind the front door. My current plan is to put a 12-inch chase inside a 4-foot set of built-in shelves and display area, as shown in the rough drawing. If you think this is too ambitious, I can cut it back to just the 12-inch chase.

Finally, a cold air return will be installed in the upstairs hallway to draw warm air upstairs and into the hall from the bedrooms. To serve it, I'll put a small chase in the dining room closet.

On the way home for lunch, I stopped in the library and looked in old phone directories to try to learn more about who lived in the house and when it was built. By 1923, there was a Glad A. Hendry and his wife Stella living in the house with their four children. Hendry's profession was listed as "salesman."

In both 1957 and 1967, Orval E. White is shown as the resident. No wife or profession was listed for Orval, although by the later date he was shown as "retired."

A cost accountant for Moore Business Forms lived in the house in 1977: Peter C. Garner and his wife Kathleen.

And in 1987, Harvey A. and Bernice Cunningham lived in the house.

PM

I got the pathway for the upstairs cold air return made. I'll also use the paths for any new electrical lines. We'll need several lines to the upstairs. Right now, all of the bedrooms, the bathroom and part of the basement are on one circuit.

Day 5: Jan. 21, 2011

Weird day.

I left home at 5:30 AM and made it to the south side of Fort Wayne by 6:30. Then I got a call from the Muncie school to which I was headed. School had been delayed, which meant the programs had to be rescheduled. So I turned around and headed back home.

Since I had an unexpectedly free morning, I fulfilled a promise to my neighbor and worked on art for a poster promoting a local community theater production.

After buying $40 worth of ductwork, I made it to the house in the afternoon. I spent a couple of hours looking for routes from the basement to the upstairs bedrooms. In doing so, I traced a couple of electrical circuits. They are a mess. It only makes sense to do some of the electrical work simultaneously with the ductwork, since both will be using the same pathways.

Using the interior wall between the living and dining rooms, I believe I found a path to the center bedroom. I plan to run both a heat and cold-air ducts within the wall.

I started a photo album of the house project at http://lsauer.tripod.com/martha_street_flip.

Day 4: Jan. 20, 2011

AM

I've got another handyman job this morning and school programs all day tomorrow, so won't have much time to spend on the house the rest of this week.

I intend to spend the time I do have in cleanup and looking for that elusive ductwork path to the second floor.

I looked up some history on the house, and something doesn't make sense. The design is almost certainly "Eclectic Craftsman," but the book I have lists that style as being built from 1905 to 1950. Angola was certainly behind the times, so it would take extra time for a new style to make its way here. That would put the earliest date of the house around the 1920's. But the paperwork we have on the house lists it as being built in 1900.

There's also physical evidence for a 1900 birth date being wrong. The woodwork style is too simple for a 101 year old house, and the basic structure is in too good of shape.

Do your papers have any clues to the date of the house?

PM

The house is a mess, but I'm making progress.

I opened the kitchen heat register, which had been hidden behind paneling. It still works. Same with the cold air return in the living room, which was hidden under carpeting. The only HVAC addition I plan on the ground floor is a cold air return along the west wall of the dining room. That will draw heat from the living room/dining room register, and from the kitchen.

I don't plan to put cold air returns in the kitchen or bathroom. An article on duct placement said you don't want kitchen or bathroom smells circulated throughout the house, which sounds like good advice to me.

There was one heat duct in the basement for which I couldn't find a register. I pulled up carpeting and pulled down paneling on the first floor, then did the same upstairs. Finally, while working on the bathroom floor, I looked up and there it was: a register in the bathroom wall. So there's heat in the upstairs after all!

My current plan is to add a cold air return in the upstairs hall. This will draw air up from the lower floor and out of the bedrooms and bath. I will use the chimney-to-nowhere to pump heat into the attic, where I will distribute it to the three bedrooms. (By the way, the chimney ends in that funny chase in the kitchen.) Then I'll put cold air returns in each bedroom or its closet.

I'm also considering putting the new furnace under the stairway in the west basement room. This will get it out of the way, make duct work more direct, and put the furnace next to an outdoor wall through which it can be vented. (If you remember, the current vent reaches halfway across the basement.) I can get everything hooked up and running before shutting off the old furnace and transferring the ducts.

It's snowing outside. If the school at which I'm scheduled to give programs has a delay, the programs will be postponed until Feb. 5, so I may have another day this week to work on the house.

Day 3: Jan. 19, 2011

AM

I plan to continue demolition today and come up with a prioritized task list.

I called about a dumpster. In just a year, the price has jumped from $350 to $500. I'm going to hold off for now. Most of the material I've removed so far is recyclable. If I can find someone who will take the old paneling as wood to burn, I shouldn't have an unreasonable amount of trash. I have a second trash bin (don't ask how I got it), so I'll take that over to the house. I've currently turned the living room into a trash storage area. Over the weeks, I can slowly throw things away. Perhaps we can avoid a dumpster charge.

In fact, so far I haven't spent any money. The door closer was left over from a handyman job.

PM

Got more done than I expected.

The living room false ceiling is all down. I looked up Armstrong ceiling tiles on the web (the tiles say they were made by the company in 1997). Armstrong has a recycling plant in Muncie. Since I'll be painting in Muncie next weekend, I can drop off the tiles then.

I fit the refuse from the first two days of work into the two trash bins (along with my extra bin, I found a bin at the house). For a moment at least, we were caught up with the trash stream.

We will have lots of wood, especially paneling. If you know someone who burns wood and wants it, let them have it. I'm looking up here for someone who wants wood as well.

Since there was no school, I got my little brother, Blake, to

help. He enjoys demolition. He took down the coal bin in the basement, removed paneling from a bedroom, helped me remove the outside electrical circuit that fed one bedroom's outlets, and helped me look for a way to get heat to the second floor.

We found an interesting possibility. There's an old chimney that was blunted in the attic, so it leads nowhere. We couldn't find its bottom in the basement. My current theory is that the chimney was tied to that unusual chase in the kitchen. Anyway, it might provide us with the space we need to run something from the basement to the second floor.

My priority list is currently this:

1. Run duct work

2. Electrical

3. Insulate

4. Bedroom closet drywall

5. Bedroom wall and ceiling repair

6. Bath remodel

7. Kitchen remodel

8. Living room

9. Dining room

Day 2: Jan. 18, 2011

AM

Work starts today. I hope to install a closer on the front storm door and a programmable thermostat. I'll start demolition for the purpose of creating task and priority lists. To keep track of things, I'll put up a dry erase board temporarily.

PM

There were lots of surprises, most of them pleasant.

I got the storm door closer installed. The photos are below.

I decided not to get a programmable thermostat yet. The furnace is currently set at 50 degrees, and it's very comfortable in the house for working. I wouldn't want to set the temperature any lower at night, or paint wouldn't dry, etc.

I pulled up carpeting in all the rooms. In the living and dining rooms, the floor is in great shape around the edge, but it has obviously been refinished. In the center of both rooms, the floor is in much rougher shape. We'll have to discuss whether or not to refinish the rest of the floor. Most people would cover the center of the floor with an area rug, so the unfinished area wouldn't show.

The bedroom floors are plank subfloors, as we suspected. In two closets and one bedroom, the subfloor has already been painted, and the floors are in very good shape.

We have some decisions to make about the bathroom. The

big cabinet won't work as a shower. It's right above the stairway, so when I pulled up a board, all I saw was lathe and plaster. That leaves the only place for a shower in the corner where the bathtub is located. To make a shower in which a normal person could stand, we'll have to come into the area by the window, so we either make the window waterproof, or board it up.

I pulled paneling off in the living room, dining room, kitchen, a bedroom, and a bedroom closet. Instead of lead paint, as suspected, I found several layers of wallpaper. In most cases, I'd be disappointed with wallpaper. But I consider wallpaper a bonus in this case. Adhesive used to hold up the paneling is stuck to the wallpaper, rather than the wall, which should make wall repair easier. I took off small test areas of wallpaper in all three places. It looks as if it should come off easily.

I pulled down drywall from the basement ceiling and a bedroom closet. This will make electrical and duct work in the basement and upstairs much easier.

Speaking of the furnace, I found a cold air return in the living room. It was simply covered with carpeting, as we suspected. I also found a heat vent in the kitchen.

The kitchen walls are in great shape. I'm going to pull off all the paneling and repair the plaster.

I also removed most of the living room false ceiling. Around 60 percent of the ceiling is in beautiful shape. Around the north fan, however, there appears to have been a water leak. Still, I'm considering just fixing the plaster, rather than installing drywall.

There's more, but I'll save it for another post.

Day 1: Jan. 16, 2011

Dave and Betsy closed on the house and received the keys. We talked about plans. We agreed that the living room false ceiling needed to come down.

MacKenzie and I went to the house to try out the key and took "before" photos.