Ship-lap from Old Heart Pine Siding

Olymipa, WA

In an attempt to live our lives without letting our Freedman's interfere with what matters most, we vacationed over Thanksgiving in Portland, OR and Seattle, WA.  We met with new friends, reunited with old friends, and reconnected with our daughter and her husband.  We took advantage of the beautiful sights.  

Outside of Tacoma, WA

Recently, Greg heard the term from Norm of This Old House on PBS, "respectful restoration".  This describes our Freedmans renovation.  We want to honor the design of the original structure, the materials of the past especially if they are not replaceable, yet keeping in mind the need for low maintenance and conveniences that give a better quality of life.  Cement board siding is not the original board siding, but it does not need to be painted and scraped every 5 years in the Charleston heat.  Greg installed cement board siding on the back of the house. We have an extended platform off the attic space that will hold our central unit and hot water heater.  

Our deck will extend off this back half of the yard.  The stack of bricks above are saved from a kitchen chimney we demolished earlier in the renovation.  They will be used for a brick patio for the front of the yard, just inside our gate.  Our back area is 9' by 27'.  It was used as a drive in the past, but we would rather have the area private and for our personal use.  Carondolet Street just outside our gate is narrow and makes turning into our back area tedious.  Off street parking here is considered a luxury.  

Carondolet Street just outside our back gate

Greg finished mudding the hallway to the back door and did the prime paint.  The doors for the utility room and pantry were trimmed out.  We are continually plagued by all the finish trim and paint work needed throughout the house.  Little by little, we are tackling it.  The hall and bedrooms are finished with their initial paint.

Pantry door just off the kitchen

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We looked for a backsplash tile that would tie in the countertops and blend in with the maple cabinets.  We loved this stone tile look and felt it does the job. The kitchen has a finished look though everything around it is still so "unfinished".  He has sealed the tile and plans on re-sealing our concrete counter tops with an acrylic application sometime this Spring.  

We have been storing the original wood siding with the purpose of plaining the wood down to expose the grain and using the boards in a shiplap application to accent a wall in each bedroom.  We are contemplating whitewashing the feature depending on the color of the wood.  The color of the heart pine is even warmer than I even imagined and adds some fun to our Freeman's.  We don't feel it needs whitewashing.  Many of these artistic applications will add to the conversation and show the age of our original house. This is a labor of love because each board has to be custom fit so they butt together tightly.  Greg has done hand plaining throughout the process. 

Greg does amazing work and I am always surprised by the things we can highlight for others to enjoy. I will add a followup picture to this post when the shiplap is complete.  Our Christmas break will be dedicated to removing more of these boards from the East wall of the house, replacing them with plywood and Tyvek until more cement board is installed.  We have the front room to reframe and sheetrock, our last room of major work.  The 1929 fireplace is a project all its own and it sits between our living room and kitchen.  We have decisions about how the firebox will work, the mantel and other topics as we begin to think of respectully restoring it.  

Below, Greg worked on our wrought iron gate a few weeks back.  We pulled up to find a passerby lounging just inside our gate enjoying the cool of the day.  Greg thought it best to get our wrought iron gate working as the true boundary it should be.  He welded and bolted a piece of iron to the house itself.  

We are deciding on the type of closure for the gate.  Our three front doors off the piazza are on order.  Until the next time, Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Porch Boards Become One of a Kind Kitchen Bar

When Greg removed our porch boards a year ago, he thought he would save them for something special.

The original porch boards prior to being removed.

They were made of heart pine, a rare wood today, but buried under layers of paint.  When he made the suggestion of reusing them, I had a hard time imaging what they might look like.  (A problem I encounter due to no creative vision.)  I let the comment slide, knowing that Greg is the artisan, I am along for the ride.  I had a hard time wrapping my mind around them being worth much and I was more upset about them being in our front courtyard until he found time for yet another project.

 They had weathered 90 years of foot traffic and Charleston humidity and if those boards could have talked, they had seen many styles of cars and various charcters pass by on the streets.  They were a piece of history and putting up with the clutter might be worthwhile.  A majority of this debris ended up being recycled or trashed, the porch boards are protected under the gray tarp.  Did I mention storage is a continual problem on our job.

While our front room is torn down to the studs, and the intense heat and humidity rules the outdoors here in the Holy City, Greg felt he would do indoor finished carpentry.  He began to prepare the porch boards for the bar project by running the wood through a planer multiple times.  It was so noisy, our neighbors questioned what he might be doing.  He worked during the middle part of the day to avoid disturbing them further.   I, too, wore ear plugs inside attempting to get my own work done.

The porch boards are on the far right, and these in the center are ripped to the appropriate size.

Greg ripped the boards down to a 1 3/8" pieces and turned them on end to give the bar a butcher block pattern.  He alternated the light and dark pieces for variety.

I applied glue to the pieces and Greg assembled them because he was on a time crunch to keep the glue from setting up. These processes never go as planned, and much of the beauty of the project is its natural imperfections. The color of the heart pine was so stunning, he decided to go natural with the wood color.  He used a butcher block sealer which is food safe because we will be eating on this surface.

Our island top which is on wheels.

We removed the awnings in early summer and recycled the aluminum.  The letter "M" found on the awnings showed a beautiful green petina.  The letter stood for the Moultrie family who had owned the home since 1940. We are only third owners in more than 90 years.  We thought we would keep this "M" to mount on more of the porch wood with a tribute to the Moultrie family on a brass plaque in the corner.  Greg stained the frame a dark color.  I am so glad I didn't squelch Greg's idea, I would have missed out on a few great conversation pieces for our Freedman's Cottage!

The awning "M"'s plaque.  The wood will be stained and hung on our piazza, Charleston's term for porch.

In the next weeks, Greg is beginning to ready the outside for additional siding.  The end of the house will need to be torn off and rebuilt due to the amount of rot in the framing.  The outside must be completed before the inside can be started. As we look back, we are amazed at how far we have come, but recently a friend came to call.  She said it best when she stated, we still have a ways to go.

Thank you for checking out our project.

Placing Concrete Counters

This experience has been so much longer and harder than either Greg or I expected.  The foundation and underbelly of our cottage had to be replaced except for the two original 1929 rooms.  Greg decided to build three new rooms on the "wing" due to extensive water damage.  He felt it easier to build back new.
We have been enjoying our two new bedrooms and Jack and Jill bath.  While new flooring and tile have given it a updated appearance, trim and final coats of paint still need to be done.  Greg has currently got one coat of enamel paint on all of the bathroom trim you see here, but another is needed.  Also, our final bath mirror has not been installed.  

 Greg installed a modified antique mahogany dresser refinished to act as a double sink vanity.   

 The wainscoting is solid wood and lightens up the small space.  Here is one coat of a bright white oil based enamel which should last for years to come.  He likes the wear of oil on trim though many are choosing to use a latex gloss which is easier to clean up and does not require the drying time. 
The wall color is SW Historic Charleston Eliza Lucas, 125%. This color is carried throughout the master bedroom, also. 

In our front courtyard stood a overgrown bush that rather looked like a tree.  We had long since reduced it's gnarly limbs to a stump, but Greg had wanted to grow vegetables in this plot of soil.  We have missed having fresh vegetables and herbs to pick.  Ethan, our son, was down for SEWE in February and before he left, they both wrestled with this old stump.  It gave a hard fight, but with much digging and prying, it gave up its roots leaving us with a clean slate.  He embellished our soil with mushroom compost and bone meal; planted tomatoes, kale, zucchini, crooked neck yellow squash, green beans, and Brussels sprouts as well as a variety of lettuces.  

 We were able to share many canna lily bulbs with friends and family that were planted here decades earlier.  We have heard good reports that they have been multiplied and are thriving all over Charleston.  If you got some of these heirloom bulbs, we hope you enjoy them for years to come.

A small project we tackle over a weekend was to install a set of metal sconces turned on their end to candle-lever our bar lights over the coming wooden bar. (pictured below)  The flat kitchen ceiling transitions to a vaulted ceiling over the sitting area making traditional hanging difficult.  These sconces were purchased from an architectural salvage store on King Street several months earlier.  We were told they were taken from the Charleston home of  Ted Turner's daughter.  

Greg worked on our counter-tops.  He purchased half bull nose molds and platinum coloring from Cheng, a counter-top supplier.  (The home stores do not carry much in the way of added materials.)  Greg has had extensive experience with pouring outdoor concrete projects, but he had never poured concrete indoors.  These pictures show the bull-nose forms which are filled and then broken off the concrete once it dries.

He taped off the entire area so that our cabinets were not affected.  Added steel to the concrete to bring added strength and keep it from cracking and then he started placing 9 bags of Sakcrete 500.  He had to float and steel trowel it to its finished top.  Both of us were a bit nervous because tearing them out would be a nightmare.  But our worries were futile because as you can see they came out beautifully.  We loved the half-bullnosed side.

This is the raw product.  He covered them in acrylic to make them less porous and buffed them with a wax finish.  Below is the back splash that we are considering to bring the colors of the maple cabinets and concrete counters together.  The concrete feels like a natural stone.

This was a cool and rainy weekend in Charleston and the semi-annual Greek festival was in full swing within our city block.  Moving our vehicles would mean losing our parking space and a rather long walk to the house motivating us to work inside the house.  Last week on Friday, Greg tore out our final room to expose our ceiling beams and open the walls for repair.  He and I loaded over 1600 lbs of debris and took it to the landfill on Saturday morning.  Needless to say, we did nothing else on the house the remainder of the weekend.  We

were so glad to see the majority of our demolition completed.  This is dirtiest part of the job.  Most of this has not seen the light of day in 90 years.  Above is our exposed fireplace, part of it covered in plaster.  Once he sees the condition, we can make decisions on how to repair it.  The kitchen side of the fireplace is in much better condition.  

    One of the most difficult issues we have is storage for Greg's tools and construction debris.  We have no outside storage and want to have things readily available.

Today, Greg opened up the firebox and we were pleasantly surprised to find it in good condition.  Both sides were bricked up.  He is saving these bricks for our patio in the backyard area.  They are much newer than the bricks used for the fireplace.  A chimney was dismantled in the original kitchen.  Those brick match the fireplace and can be used as replacements.  It has been awhile since we updated you on progress.  We hope to see the inside mostly complete in the next several weekends.