Revisited II

  Talking with one of my neighbors yesterday, and getting the grand tour of her house, inspired me to revisit this blog. Like me, my neighbor has apparently done quite a bit to restore and improve her home to get it to the amazing condition that it is currently in. So many striking similarities between our homes. Hers built in 1920, mine and 1861, but construction methods, dimensions, roof pitch, type of windows, etc. were all so very much alike.

       So, I got inspired to post some of the most recent completed projects at my house. By far, the one improvement that I'm most proud of was the reinstallment of the original 1861 arched front doors. An earlier blog entry covered the discovery of the original doors down in the garage. Our friend and incredible carpenter Andrew, restored the rotted remains and then I assisted him with reinstalling them into the original jambs which were still intact(buried under plaster)!

I also finally got around to replacing the garage. The old one collapsed before we purchase the house, there is an earlier blog entry that shows where Robbie and I pulled the rest of it down with my truck and then cleaned up the site. I opted for one of those prefabricated metal garages so is to minimize maintenance and upkeep. Amazingly, the color I chose online matches the color of the house nearly perfectly! 

We also tore down the room on the back of the house. We called it the mudroom, the previous owners called it the back kitchen. Whatever you called it, it was a mess!, and the walls and floor were all rotted out. I poured a new concrete slab for the floor, framed out new walls, and I hired a roofing contractor put a brand new roof on it. 

   

 

There have also been about a thousand minor projects focusing around small details and styling improvements. However, the front door, the garage, and the mud room were major victories. The 2026 working season is right around the corner, so I'll update the blog if anything spectacular occurs. 

BAVIDOS Revisited

      Two and a half years ago I concluded this blog. The old home was cozy, warm, and being lived in, but was it finished?  No, it was not finished, she will likely never be finished but rather a continual work in progress. My wife and I along with the help of some friends, have been going over each room inside. We've fine tuned each one and added detail to all the charm that was inherently there.

     I thought it might be nice to revisit the blog and show what the rooms look like today. I'll touch upon some of the things we've added and improved upon.

  When you first enter the house, the hallway is directly ahead and the staircase slightly to the left. We created an accent wall to the left, just below the stairs:

       

To the right of the entrance is the dining room. In here we installed new yellow pine flooring, grand crown moulding, and a rich blue paint:

To the left of the entrance you will find the living room.  New carpet, wallpaper, and re-painting the trim white was all that was needed to brighten this room up:

  

From the the front entrance, walking down the hallway will lead you to the kitchen. The original upper cabinets were restored, as was the sink base cabinet. New quartz countertops, tile backsplash, wallpaper and white wood trim, completes the transformation:

Up the staircase and to the right is the bathroom.  Here we installed subway tile, wallpaper, and a new ceiling:

     On the outside, we painted the sheds to match the house:

We have not done anything with the bedrooms so far, but they are not in need of much short of a fresh coat of paint.  And that is where we're at today June 2nd 2024.  We will keep plugging along, and if anything significant occurs, I'll update & share it here.

Fritz

Epilogue

     Just a few days shy of a year has passed since I concluded this blog.  The house continues to be a home, and it continues to evolve bit by bit. In the past year a few projects have been completed.  I edited the final post to include photos of the library, which received southern yellow pine hardwood floors stained in a golden oak tone.  The kitchen cabinets were completed and hung as well as the doors installed on the sink base.  The living room received new carpeting and a new tile hearth in front of the wood burning stove.

    Most recently, the front porch was renovated. The front porch had been an eyesore since I purchased the house. All four support posts were rotted away at the bottom, the beams that hold up the floorboards were rotted and the porch floor was sagging, and the entire porch was pulling away from the house on the South side. It took eight weeks of weekends but the structure is completely solid and sturdy now. The area under the porch which had been filled in with chicken wire and stucco, is now filled in with bright white lattice.

   The house looks so much better from the front, I can't stop smiling when I look at the photos.  Its is a 100% improvement in the curb appeal. I wish my friend Robbie could see the end result, I think he would be proud of the end result. Perhaps he is smiling as he gazes down at it from heaven.

    So here are the during and after photos of the porch. I hope that in a few years, Robin and I will retire to this house and spend some time on this porch.

    

    

Wrapping it up! (final blog entry)

 It's been awhile since I've updated this blog. Mostly it's because somebody's living there now so it's kind of hard to photograph their domicile and invade their privacy.

 The bottom line is that the house is being lived in and it's now a home.  Other than finishing up some wiring and electrical work and some trim work and little detail work it's pretty much done.

  Yes, there's still some painting that needs to be done and we probably need to put down a new tile floor in the bathroom. 

   The house finally has heat, and while I never really concluded or wrapped up the story about the boiler, I did snap a photo of the finished project in the basement with all the lines going up to the cast iron radiators. The radiators by the way, do an amazing job of providing heat to the home.  They've also been using the cast iron wood stove in the living room.

manifold to radiators

Also worth mentioning,  my cabinet maker Andrew re-created the original upper kitchen cabinet with the original glass front doors and hardware. He's the same guy who built the heavy sink base support cabinet for the 180 pound cast iron farmhouse sink.  

And finally, the hardwood floors got installed in the library.

  I still go up every once in awhile and do a little bit of work here and there,  but mostly it's in good hands.

So, I think this is where I'll wrap up this blog.  It was a long 5 year project, but I took it from a falling down mess to an inhabited home.  There were times that I got frustrated and wondered what I had gotten myself into, but there was also a lot of pride that came from the progress.

I hope that someone out there enjoyed watching the transformation. 

Stay Well & God Bless,

Fritz