High & Dry

    Ever since posting that picture the other day of the house with all the snow in the yard I got to thinking that maybe I should go up there and check on the situation.

    I actually have not been to the house since November, and I did read that that area of Pennsylvania got about 15 in of snow. I also know that It's been raining pretty hard on and off where I live for about 10 days.

    As a result of all that rain and the thawing and melting of all that snow, many homes in the neighborhood where I'm currently living have flooded basements, mine got a little bit of water but both sump pumps have been running non-stop.

    I figured that the basement of the house in Pennsylvania might have seen some water as well so I went up there yesterday. I had a pleasant surprise when I went down into the basement and found everything to be completely bone dry. I guess all that concrete work that I did on the North side wall and regrading and sloping the yard really paid off.

  

While I was there I unhooked the Christmas lights and removed the timers. Everything in the house appeared to be exactly as I left it with the exception of a walnut on the third floor that my friend the squirrel bought in. That squirrel is sort of my full-time caretaker, he watches over the place when I'm not there.

I took a picture of the house as well as a photo of the Delaware River and the Roebling bridge which you can see really well this time of year when all the trees are bare and have no leaves. You can also see where the town snow plow knocked my mailbox over, but that's okay I'm not really getting much mail there anyway. I've attached the photos to this post.

Happy New Year

 Here's hoping that '21 brings us all health & success.  On a personal note I'm hopeful that this is the year  I get the plumbing & heat finished in the house and perhaps get it able to live in.

  For today, let me post an old photo of the house when it was a home.  A nice wintery scene complete with lots of snow and a tree swing for the coming springtime.

 

Happy Holidays

      I took advantage of some warm weather this year and hung my Christmas lights on the house.  The goal was simply to do a better job than last  year, which was not a tough goal since last years lights were an embarrassment.

     I find it strange that Christmas lights are the hardest thing to photograph, too much daylight and they don't show up at all, but as soon as the daylight goes away, they glare and look blurry on the photo. My wife Robin and I took nearly twenty photos with our digital cameras and our phones but nearly every one came out terrible regardless of what settings we put them on. The best result I got was on a video I took with my phone.     

     Anyhow,  here are the two pictures and the video of the lights. They definitely don't capture it well though.

End of season odds & ends

       For the past 4 years the work season on the house has been April through August due mostly to my budget and the weather(temperature) This year, the budget was a little larger, which allowed somewhat constant work through till October. However, the money has run out and now my property & school taxes are due.

     Also, working during the cold winter months is not do-able, and while I did manage to get the boiler hooked up and test fired, the big delay of getting running  water from the well to feed the boiler resulted in not being able to complete the install. Therefore I once again have no heat for this upcoming winter season.

      The take away from all of this is that the work season for fixing up this house has come to an end for 2020.  I'll post updates when I can as they happen. At the end of each season, there is always some "winterizing " that needs to be done, so yesterday my wife Robin and I finished up some odds and ends to prepare the house for the long cold season. 

   We cut the grass, removed the A/C & closed and locked all the windows,  and we took all the paint and freezable liquids back to NY with us. we shut off some breakers and purged all the water from the well tank so it would not freeze.

      In an attempt to make sure the well pump feed pipes do not freeze, we backfilled dirt around the well in the backyard using my truck with the snowplow attached as a "yankee bulldozer".   I got a few pics of the end result:

 

     We also mixed & poured concrete in the basement behind the brick wall I built:

11/27 edit:  here's a shot of the ledge all cured and with a barrel sitting upon it where the water heater will be.

    

      Lastly, we put a few of the kitchen cabinets in place. They're not fastened to the wall yet, but it gives an idea of how it will look.

   Until next time, peace and good will.

Before & After (4 years of change)

    For those who are not aware, I bought my Lackawaxen house in 2016.  I got it real cheap due to the condition that it was in. A quick look at the early entries of this blog will show some of the poor condition, but to really appreciate how bad it was, click this link:  https://www.oldhousedreams.com/2016/03/22/c-1900-lackawaxen-pa/

     Around the same time that my wife Robin and I were placing a bid on this house, Kelly featured it over at Old House Dreams. When I learned that our bid had won the house, I joined oldhousedreams.com and began posting on that thread. It was there that a few members suggested I create a blog and document the rehab process.

       It has been almost exactly four years (first post 10/1/16) since I created this blog. I was thinking about it a few weeks ago, and I thought it would be neat to be able to see the before and after shots of some of those original views that Kelly has in her thread over at OHD.  I downloaded some of the old 2016 photos and then loaded them onto my mobile phone so I could see them while at the house(there is no cell reception there).  Then I captured the same angles/views as they are now in 2020. 

      I blended the pairs of photos together side by side so as to see the contrast and appreciate the progress. Please take a moment to view them and comment either here or at the thread at oldhousedreams.com

Thanks, Fritz

 

edit 2022:  kitchen cabinets installed with original upper doors & hardware. 

Come right this way Fortunato.

       

    The entire time I was building it, all I could think of was Poe's Cask of Amontillado.   But no, unlike Montresor,  I am no mason and I am not building a brick wall to seal a jester into a niche of my basement.

     What I am doing is building a short decorative wall behind which I will pour concrete and create a ledge for the water heater and water softener to sit upon.  It was real nice to mix the mortar in my cement mixer and use a garden hose with a sprayer now that I have running water in the house.

     Hopefully I'll never have to truck dozens of pails of water up to the house again. I should have fixed the well years ago! The photo of my finished wall came out dark and unclear, but I'll post more as the project continues.

 

 

    In other news, a giant tree limb came down in the side yard. Nothing like the one that damaged the roof and window from that hurricane back in August, but concerning nonetheless.

That Blue House

      On the week of July 4th 2018 I began painting the exterior of my house. Yesterday, I finished it.  It was the North and South facing sides that needed completing due to their extreme height. The front and back had been done, but I touched up a few spots on those sides as well.  I just need to paint the white trim now around the windows.

     Here's a few shots of "That Blue House".  Ignore the unpainted "mudroom" around back in the last photo, that is likely going to be torn off the house when construction is done. I'm just storing tools and lumber in there.