The Classics: Homes, Tomes and Automobiles

Recently, I read a Facebook post from a fellow preservationist I believe many can relate to.

"If people thought of old houses like classic cars - I would have so much "free " time . No 55 Chevy ever looked better by ripping off the fenders and replacing with fiberglass & removing the bench seat for an 'open' concept." *

I can understand the sentiment. Occasionally, someone asks me why I care so much. Comments and questions like "it's just a house" or "is it really worth all of this?" are not as rare as I might like. They do give me an opportunity for what I see as very simple questions that might open the eyes of another to the cause.

I can give anyone empirical evidence for why original is best (not to mention greener, cooler [okay, this one might be subjective] and less expensive) in many, many cases. What I had trouble with is finding a way to show why old houses should be saved whenever possible (hint: it's possible about 99.8% of the time).

This is it. Think about your favorite old car. Imagine the line of the pin striping and the curve of the glass. Consider the gleam of the body work and paint. Picture the upholstery, perfectly lined and waiting for the road trip of a lifetime.

You'd never let someone put a crowbar to it or send a sledgehammer through it because it was easier than repairing the damage done by the kid who ran a red light or opened their door too fast. You wouldn't rip out the upholstery because someone spilled their juice box or coffee. You'd never let sell the original window or mirrors or fenders to someone because they're not new.

The same things that make those classic cars special - something nearly everyone can agree upon - is what makes a classic home special. They don't make them like this anymore.

To someone, this home is historic - it holds their history. It holds memories of coming home from a hospital with a new baby, cleaning up scraped knees, checking under a bed for monsters, getting letters from 30 miles away because Grandma's on vacation and wrote home. They're the memories of day to day life for someone, good or bad, and the walls hold those moments and a few mementos to boot. To those people, it's probably not just a house.

This home has lived more than four times longer than me and is well on its way to outliving everyone on the planet. Isthmus House is 105, the oldest person alive is about 115. As one of the first homes in this neighborhood - one of the first neighborhoods in Madison - it qualifies as historic in my book.

Financially, this is a great investment but that's not usually what people are talking about when saying "all of this." They're talking about the late nights scraping sealant off of tile, long days of hunting down the right hinges and repairing a window frame or a faucet.

Those days and nights are worth it because I can rest easy at the end of them knowing that I did something good. I used my hands (that aren't naturally skilled at things like plumbing and carpentry) and my mind (that's not predisposed to great mechanical workings but is fine with hard work) to help something bigger than myself. I'm giving the next generation a tiny piece of history, complete with plaster walls, 7-inch baseboards actually made of wood, wavy glass windows and Douglas Fir floors. I'm showing them that older things can grow with us and can survive us and that the feelings they give aren't unique to an era or even a specific century. I'm giving a mom or dad a place to enjoy the home of their great grandparents knowing their kids can play safely while they cook dinner or make a sack lunch.

For me, it's knowing that this home and its past is someone else's future - everything it's meant to a family in yesteryear and everything it's seen. Anyone who knows me well would say I'm rarely sentimental but it's important for me to know that I'm saving the home some future family will love. That makes this old home's restoration completely worth every second of every minute of every long day. What more could I ask?

*That preservationist is Nicole Curtis. I try to always give credit where it's due and I have to credit her for setting me down this crazy path and thank her for contributing to my obsession over original anything and everything. 

For the sake of artistic license and the need for a rhyme, we're calling today's post a tome. Thanks for understanding :)

The Last Change... This Time

In an old home, old things gain new life. Yes, it's probably a little on the cliché side, but it's also true. 

At the House on the Isthmus, lots of things have been repurposed or restored. My kitchen island used to be a dresser and I'm fairly certain its top used to be a table top of some sort. My coffee table - the first piece of furniture I ever restored simply because it was just like my parents' coffee table - used to be a chest. My dining room table was my great grandmother's and I bought the chairs off of Craigslist. The list goes on but I'm sure I'd spoil a surprise or two intended for later if I continued.

One piece that's maintained a fairly regular life cycle is our new upstairs bathroom's vanity.

Two years ago, it was a dresser. I refinished it before even buying Isthmus House, intending for it to become the downstairs bathroom vanity but the plumbing was going to be prohibitively expensive to move so it sat as the sideboard in the dining room for a little while. 

Once it became painfully apparent that we didn't have enough counter space in the kitchen (about 7 square feet - The Roommate and I found ourselves using bar stools for extra counter space), it converted again; this time to a kitchen island in October 2013's Sometimes Things Change...

When it came time to plan for the upstairs bathroom, I was determined to use a freestanding vanity. Although I'd hoped to use a double vanity, there was logistically no way and eventually I hunted down another period correct dresser off Craigslist to become my vanity... and found that I couldn't talk myself into cutting into it. 

After a bit of hemming and hawing, The Roommate and I took the original dresser - turned sideboard turned island - upstairs and dry fit it in the space where it was a perfect fit.

I thought about leaving a wood top on it and just putting a billion layers of marine sealant on it but ended up going with soapstone instead. Soapstone is a period correct option for counters in a 1910 home and it's wonderful for many reasons.

Because the front of the vanity is curved, I chose to take the wooden top off for the fabricators to use as a template. It was going to be a super tight squeeze to get in a faucet, sink and a back splash but we narrowly made it with my only 19-inch deep dresser turned vanity. The top is deeper than 19 inches but it's the inside of the vanity measurements that count. 

For reference purposes, I had to have 24 inches in front of the toilet for code which left me with about 20 inches to the facing wall - aka the only space left for my vanity. A standard vanity is 21-22 inches but, since I didn't have that to give, we consolidated a bit. Choosing a smaller sink (only 12 inches) and a smaller three piece faucet - also period correct with chrome cross handles - gave me just enough area for the fabricator to worry less about having holes too close to each other which can lead to breaks in the stone.

Believe it or not, getting the top was the easy part - if easily most expensive at around $600 for a fabricated remnant. 

We resumed with the dependencies from last week:

To rough in plumbing, the plumbers need to know where the drain will be. That means that you need to make a decision and stick with in. In this case, I chose dead center so that the stone fabricators could put the cuts dead center as well. 

Because the plumbing was roughed in, I could determine where the holes in the back of the vanity needed to be to get it flush. To create the holes, mark where you need them and use a drill + bit + hole saw. Hint: do not saw into your plumbing and, as usual, wear protective gear. (No, I didn't cut into my plumbing.)

In the morning, my soapstone installers came and laid the top and installed the undermount sink (they threw in a Kohler sink for cheap cheap including install!). A few hours later, my plumber was back to connect the tub, place the toilet and connect my drain and water lines. 24 hours would have been better post-sink install but the installer and I had a little miscommunication and I lost about 24 of my 28 hour dry time I'd planned for when they couldn't make it.

To get each trade in and out easily, I'd pulled the drawers out of the vanity until I could cut them to get around the plumbing trap.

There are a lot of steps (although I think it went quite quickly) and I didn't take great pictures while I was modifying our lovely vanity so I found a very helpful tutorial replete with comprehensive pictures from our friends at HGTV to walk anyone through a conversion of their own.

After all of the drawers were cut, all of the plumbing installed and everything wiped down (because, so much drywall dust!), we had a vanity! 

What do you think of this version? I think we'll keep it just like this.

  

Construction Project Management... Why Dependencies Matter

While it's true that I have no intention of taking down my Christmas lights outside until probably June (cold is an understatement in Madison, WI), the rest of the House on the Isthmus is slowly recovering from the holiday season with decoration removal and a deep cleaning. 

Having less stuff out and about and more time at home means we're also getting to more updates on the restoration (like those ever really stopped!). With tile going up last week in the upstairs bathroom and getting some decent dry time in, we were finally able to get in for some wiring because, really, I’d like to have light in my house!

It’s funny (peculiar, not ha ha) how much the skills from my day job as a project manager go into the house. I plan most things to the nth degree. The spreadsheet that I treat as my project plan of sorts is all tabbed out by room in addition to full house projects so that I don’t confuse what goes where, when and how.

One of the best things about my spreadsheet is that it makes dependency tracking a lot easier to predict. For example, the proper way to install simple trim in a room is casings before baseboards. If casings aren’t milled and in before your baseboards, there are going to be problems.

Bathrooms and kitchens are notorious for lots of dependencies. Electrical and plumbing shut off before demo, framing before rough ins, rough ins before walls or ceilings or floors (oh my!), walls and ceilings and floors before fixtures, etc. This is, regrettably, not an exhaustive list but something that must be considered when you’re booking contractors (I dislike electrical fires and floods as a rule, licensed professionals help avoid them) and setting your timelines since they can’t do their part until the guy or lady before them is done.

I'm a fan of working top down. Ceilings followed by walls followed by floors. It's way harder to not get mud or paint from your ceiling on your new floors (even if they're covered) than it is to not get thin set from your new tile floor on your ceiling. 

Once our newly replaced wall was up and inspection passed, it was time to finish the electrical. That meant installing sconces, the heated floor thermostat (warm toes in winter!) and the exhaust fan. There had never been an exhaust fan in this bathroom before (you don't need one if you have a window, per code) but I maintain that no one's going to open the window in January in Madison to get rid of steam from the shower!

My electrician was surprised by just how challenging my sconces were to hang. It took a few tries because of some funky mounting hardware but two hours later we had sconces, complete with Edison bulbs.

The exhaust fan went in with no problems but there are a few things to know if you're thinking about installing one at your house:

1. The amount of noise exhaust fans make is listed in sones. 0.5 to 1.2 is really quiet and anything under 2.0 is generally considered to be quiet so it won't sound like a plane is taking off in your bathroom anymore! 
2. DO NOT vent your fan into your attic. This is horrible for your attic and you'll get all kinds of nasty things growing in your rafters, never mind the ice dams you'll be facilitating.
3. An exhaust fan does still run on electricity - don't put it directly over your shower.

Final switches in and a thermostat (did I mention warm toes?!) and we were good to go!

This was an important step because it meant my plumber could get back in to set my finish plumbing!

Normally, I’d show y’all all that now… but then I’d reveal too much! Tune in next Thursday for how the refinished dresser turned kitchen island became a vanity – complete with sink and running water!

One more day!

My deepest apologies, but this week's issue will be delayed one day because we have no interwebs at Isthmus House!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's update!

The First Resolution I Might Actually Keep: A Story of Tile

Kids, it's a New Year and with that comes resolutions. So many resolutions!

While I could do the usual, "exercise every day!" (doesn't work like that in real life) or "go carb free!" (with my sweet tooth?) it seemed much more practical to focus on finances at the House on the Isthmus. We've poured a lot of money and time into this project. While you can update a kitchen for a few hundred bucks (really - read up here), there are other things that don't meet that requirement.

One of those things was my upstairs bathroom. If you remember, we were talking about the cement board going down for tile just before our mini-hiatus/Christmas special about a month ago.

As one might imagine, more has happened since then.

Once the cement board was down, it had to be waterproofed. If you've never seen what happens to walls when they're just wood and water gets behind them, let me tell you, it's not pretty.

The pretty things are fun but they usually don't really matter. What matters is that systems are sound. The electrical, plumbing, HVAC and protection from water need to be excellent. Nonetheless, I was thrilled when this step came and went because it meant we were starting on the pretty stuff. Come on, everybody likes the pretty steps, too.

Finally, finally the tile was going down! We were somewhere around day 20 on this shell of a bathroom at this point.

Over the cement board on the floor went hex tile. Now, you may have seen this tile on a recent episode of Rehab Addict where Nicole helps the LeBron James Promise Foundation repair a home very similar to mine for a worthy family. I assure you, mine came first but I applaud their selection!



Hex tile is always a beautiful choice for an old home as hex tile would have been in many of these homes the day they were built. Hex tile is so named because they're tiny hexagons. Nowadays, they're sold in sheets. The sheets are cut into the appropriate size and shape with a utility knife and individual tiles can be cut with tile nippers as necessary (tile nipping isn't as easy as it looks in my experience).

I strongly recommend laying out the sheets before you put down thinset. If even one black tile is out of place it will drive you insane forever.

Slowly but surely, the floor went down, making sure that we didn't tile over any of the necessary plumbing.

After the floor was laid, it was time to start on the shower surround. 

Naturally, I went with a complex but popular pattern called herringbone for the shower surround. Further following my nature, I did it in white subway tile! 

More than anything when working on a herringbone design is making sure the first row is perfect. Otherwise, when you get to the ceiling or the top of your section, it may be painfully obvious that nothing is straight.

With a spacer between every joint, the tile painstakingly went up, with frequent steps back to check for uniformity and always going in little areas so that the thinset didn't dry out while perfection was being obtained.

To cut the little partial tiles, we used a score and snap. It's a tool available at any major home improvement or tile store and it does exactly what it sounds like. First, we score the tile where we want it to break before pushing at that scored mark and breaking the tile where we want. It gives a clean, precise line with no wet saw. 

A final capping of bullnose tile (a little rounded top tile that makes the edges look finished) and we had a gorgeous tub surround. 

Our last step for the tile was to add a nice, dark grey grout containing grout boost so that I don't have to seal it every year. This is a pretty obvious win.

I think it turned out even better than I hoped. Fortunately for my resolution, I saved about a thousand dollars by making affordable tile choices with slightly fancier designs or installation. Unlike a similar bath that could easily hit well over $1300 for nice tile, our whole room was completed with about $400 in tile from a surplus website with free shipping and a home improvement store in town. 

Now if only I could turn the light on in there...

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from the House on the Isthmus! 

Updates will be back next Thursday and if you're looking for some reading material, fear not, there's plenty on the right side of your screen!