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Jan 20

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The kids, part 2: Louis

Meet Louis.  

louis

That’s ‘Loo-ee’ for all you Americans. After all, Louis is 3/4 French Bulldog (with a dash of Boston Terrier to round out his mutt-liness). Weezie and I have had a serious hankering for a puppy since Jacques passed, and this weekend we finally got our fix. Louis is just shy of 8 weeks old and comes from a breeder in Eastern NC where my parents got their dog, Cooper.

Louis has only been with us for a couple days, but so far he’s adjusted remarkably well to his new surroundings. Somewhere under that fur he’s got an on-off button, because he alternates between joyous fits of playfulness and blissful slumber. We’ll get to know him better in the coming weeks, but so far we know that he likes stuffed hedgehogs, snuggle beds, and magnolia leaves.

leaf munching louis

Thanks to the moderate temperatures this weekend, we were able to spend a good deal of time outdoors. Louis enjoyed his new yard and seems content to call Hillsborough home. I did a little work around the house and he tagged right along, so here’s hoping that he’s a proper job site dog…he’ll certainly see plenty of projects over his lifetime. Welcome, pal!

Jan 13

6 Comments

One hot mess

A wise man once said: you don’t own an old house, it owns you.  Every time I begin to suffer the illusion that we’re running the show over here, another issue crops up. Late last week, the house bent me over its knee and gave me a gentle reminder of who’s boss.

We’re continuing to limp along with space heaters while I collect bids for the HVAC installation. To complicate matters, our electrical service has never been upgraded beyond 100 amps. Even a single  A/C compressor would overtax the electrical panel we’ve got. In order to get enough juice for the new HVAC units, and to give us plenty of extra capacity for future wiring, we’re going to jump up to a 200 amp service. Fortunately, beyond the main panel, the wiring in the house is relatively new. Most of the receptacles are even grounded. As with any older home, it’d be nice to have more outlets to meet the constant power requirements of all our modern gadgetry. But we’re fortunate not to have to worry about knob-and-tube or aluminum wiring (perhaps I’m tempting fate with that statement?).

Thursday night I returned home after a late meeting, walked through the back door, flipped a switch and – nothing. No light. One room away, the dining room lights worked fine. But the ones in the living room didn’t. Neither did the outlets – so much for our electric heat. All told, about a third of the power in the house was active. To confuse matters greatly, not a single circuit breaker was flipped in the panel box. I grabbed my flashlight and checked a few outlets for an obvious loose neutral or signs of damage, but it didn’t make sense that the outage was spread across multiple circuits. An electrician had been to the house that very morning to talk through the service upgrade, and he’d looked in the main panels.  Maybe he looked at them wrong?

I was exhausted and went to bed, consumed by worry that we were about to have to rewire the entire house, not just the main panel. Thankfully, my weary musings were wrong. The following morning, another electrician showed up to prepare an estimate for the service upgrade. I’d already rehearsed a pitiful plea that he take a look at our problem while he was there, out of the goodness of his heart, even though it wasn’t a service call.  But, the electrician had solved our problem before I even opened the front door.  He introduced himself and immediately noted that “your main service cables don’t look very good.”  I glanced over and saw this hot mess:

electrical service

I’ve never claimed to understand electricity, but I really, really don’t understand how it’s possible to have power – any power – when your service drop looks like that.  A quick call to Duke Energy alerted them to the issue, and they fixed the cable the same day.  From the ground, the patch looks almost as sketchy as it did before, but I’m going to insist that it get corrected when the service upgrade happens.

For now, we’re back in action, electrified, and fully confident that we’re NOT in control of this crazy old house.

Jan 7

9 Comments

Before tour: the living room

It seems appropriate to introduce you to our living room since we spend nearly all our time huddled up there these days.  It’s home to two electric radiators cranked to maximum overdrive that keep the temperature somewhere between barely tolerable and toasty, depending on the weather outside.

living room 1

This room is in the earliest portion of the house, built circa 1754. The focal point of the space is the fireplace and the formal mantel that extends to the ceiling.  Simple wainscoting lines the room’s perimeter and begs to be painted something (anything) other than the current ghastly shade of salmon pink.

The floors are tight-grained heart pine boards of varying widths face-nailed directly to the joists below. They have a lovely worn patina that only two hundred years of foot traffic can create.  The wood appears to have been coated with wax, but it’s worn thin and we’ll eventually have to figure out whether to rewax or sand the floor and try a more durable penetrating finish. I was squarely in the former camp, while the missus is in the latter, but each spilled drink brings me closer to sharing her point of view.

The ceiling is tall and composed of painted wood boards. At some point in the past, someone tacked up wood battens to hide the seams between the boards, creating the stripe-y look you see in the photo.  I’m not a fan, so I’ll be looking for a better solution in the future.

The volume beneath the stairs houses a full(!) bath, with a minuscule shower shoehorned in below the treads above.

stair bath

Of course, this hasn’t always been the case. Originally this is where the back door was, which led directly to the backyard. When the rear wing of the house was added, the door remained and was accessed from a porch inset into the mass of the house.

rear entry

In this sixties-vintage photo below, I’m not certain whether the back door opens to the porch, or whether a half bath had already been added. A short door that provided access to the space below the stairs now lives in the library and leads to a small storage closet.

sixties living

The proportions of the living room are spot on and it’s a wonderful place to spend an evening. It needs a serious cosmetic overhaul, but its grand simplicity typifies the best of colonial architecture.  One day we’ll upgrade beyond our hodge-podge of twenty-something furniture and restore this room to its rightful role as the formal highlight of the ordinary.

Jan 1

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Pretty ordinary #004: Happy New Year edition

With all that’s gone on at the ordinary this year, it’s sometimes hard to believe that we’ve only lived here since August. I feel good about what we’ve managed to do in the past four months, and I’m looking forward to keeping that momentum rolling into 2013. With central air and a new puppy just around the corner, the new year will be interesting (and expensive) right from the start.

The last sunset over Hillsborough in 2012 was an impressive one. Happy New Year!

ordinary sunet

Dec 25

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Pretty ordinary #003: Merry Christmas edition

japonica

At the side of our house, one of the many camellias in the yard has started producing rich red blossoms.  The flowers in combination with our new gray-green siding paint (more on this soon), make a timely holiday display.  Merry Christmas!

Dec 24

5 Comments

The sasanqua stink eye

People are funny about plants.

As you know, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past months giving our yard a thorough and long overdue haircut. So long as I’m hacking away at a runaway wisteria vine or errant English ivy, I receive plenty of bravos, attaboys and well-ain’t-that-purtys. But the second I grab my pruning shears and step within 15 yards of a camellia or a boxwood or a magnolia, I pay witness to snail’s pace drive-bys, accompanied by menacing death stares.

Yesterday, I chopped back the boxwoods that line the entry walk and pruned up the gigantic camellia sasanqua tree that obscures the front porch. The boxwoods were huge, overly healthy specimens that gave the entry an unkempt, Southern gothic feel. As boxwoods often are, the bushes were victims of their own success, suffocating the woody braches at their core and choking off growth wherever the sun failed to reach.

boxwood gauntlet

I did some research and discovered that the only way to get the bushes under control in a reasonable amount of time was to prune them back…waaay back…to a more manageable size during the colder winter months. They’ll look empty for awhile, but I’m told that new growth will emerge this spring now that sunlight and air can reach the inner branches. After they’ve filled back in, a regular pruning regimen will keep the shrubs to a manageable size, with the thick, billowy growth boxwoods are known for.

entry steps

The camellia is a more perplexing puzzle. As I highlighted a few months back, the tree puts on quite a show in late fall, covering itself with light pink blossoms. But, it also hides half the front of the house and creates mildew problems on the front porch. Then again, I like how it arches over the front steps and the privacy it provides for the porch is nice. I’ve gotten the full range of opinions on how to deal with this tree. I’ve heard everything from “cut it two feet tall and it’ll make a nice bush” to “don’t touch it or you’ll feel God’s wrath”. I think the proper solution is somewhere in between these extremes. I’m going to take a slower, more methodical approach with the camellia, shaping it in such a way that it can continue to be a beautiful specimen, but minimizing its impact on the house. For now, I pruned the young, low braches so that the crown of the tree is higher up and away from the house. I figure if I keep doing this as the tree grows upward, eventually only the trunks will be in the way of the porch, making the house more visible.

pruned camellia

All in all, I really like the more open feel of the entry area.  The 13 steps to the front door make for a suitably grand entry without requiring anyone to run a boxwood gauntlet.

Dec 16

7 Comments

Squirrelly business

Ever wonder what’s in a squirrel’s nest?  Me neither.

But I was given the chance to find out  earlier this week. Before we began painting, we discovered that we had a small family of squirrels living in our attic. The pitter-patter of their feet overhead was the first indicator of their presence.  Frequent sightings of the bushy-tailed critters scampering along the ridge of the roof made me more suspicious. And when a neighbor drove by and announced that he’d seen something crawl into our roof, I knew it was time to face the rodents. A quick climb into the attic revealed a family of three squirrels balled up in the soffit, right next to a huge hole that they’d gnawed through the fascia board. The biggest of the three gave me a defiant look that seemed to say, “Yeah, so?”.

A few days later, I came face-to-face with one of the them as I was making repairs to a window sill on the roof. He stuck his head out of his hidey-hole and chirped an incessant message that translated from squirrel-speak probably meant, “Beat it, scumbag!” It probably HAS been his house for the past two years, but still. I  should have trapped the critters in the attic and relocated them, but I chose to let them be until the painter’s carpenter replaced the rotten fascia board. Fortunately, the squirrel family was out foraging at the time and must have vacation digs in the next yard over because there’s no indication that they’ve tried to return.

Just to verify this fact, I made another trip to the attic on Tuesday, and decided to clean out the nest while I was up there. It was a foul job. The nest was horribly dusty and reeked of urine. Among the things used to build this particular nest were: plastic bags, camellia cuttings, leaves, bark and…a squirrel’s tail. Seriously, squirrels? How can you sleep at night with the full-length severed appendage of one of your housemates wrapped around you?

squirrel nest

I used to think squirrels were moderately cute as they bounded around the yard. That opinion is currently under review after the nest-extraction event.  Know what’s absolutely, 100% super-cute though?  This guy:

frenchie puppy

We haven’t settled on a name yet, but this is our new 3/4 French Bulldog, 1/4 Boston Terrier puppy.  We both miss Jacques terribly.  It hasn’t been the same without a goofy bulldog around the house.  In about five weeks’ time, we’ll remedy that by going to fetch our new furry fella and introducing him to his new house and yard.  I suppose given our current heating situation we’ll need to stock up on doggy sweaters.  Until now, this is not a purchasing activity that has been endorsed in this household, but I’m certain that my wife is delighted by the change of heart.

 

Dec 10

2 Comments

Alternate dimensions

This weekend, I took on a task I’ve been avoiding for some time: drawing floor plans of our new home. When people learn that you’re an architect, they tend to assume that you walk around with plans of your house in your back pocket, ready to whip out at a moment’s notice. Not true; it’s cobbler’s shoes syndrome. A quick survey of my colleagues revealed that exactly zero of us had drawn up their place of residence.

Some architects have little patience for recording the existing conditions of a house. I feel that it’s worth the time and effort to document everything accurately. I measure to the nearest 1/8th of an inch. There’s no rocket science at work here. After roughly sketching the plans, I bust out a tape measure and start jotting down dimensions. The end result of this process is often messy:

Hand drawn plans

After taking hundreds of measurements, the sketches get put into the computer. Using CAD drafting software, I translate the chicken scratch of the measuring process into legible plans.  Inevitably, there are places where rooms don’t quite come together, or dimensions on one side of the house are different than another. This is partially due to the fact that construction is an imperfect process. In an ideal world, a house is square, level and plumb; in reality, they rarely are. Typically, the older the house, the more these discrepancies become magnified. As wood-framed buildings age, they shrink, sag, twist and turn. And in this case, there is a Bermuda Triangle for dimensions just outside the upstairs hall bathroom.  There are two inches missing there.  I looked for them for hours, measuring from every different direction, and they’re just…gone.  Somehow, the house is torqued or racked or something, and I can’t get the dimensions in that area to come together neatly, whatever I do.  Eventually, I had to ignore my  anal-retentive proclivities in the name of sanity.

The end result of all this tedium are plans like these (click on the image to see a larger, more legible version):

Floor plans

With HVAC planning about to start, these drawings will come in handy as contractors do load calculations and map out duct routes. And the next time somebody asks me for plans of my house, I might just have them in my back pocket.

Dec 3

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Oldest and coldest

If you’ve met my wife, you’ll recognize her sharp-witted sense of humor in her description of our home as Hillsborough’s “oldest and coldest”. True to form, the warranty company never followed through on finding a contractor to look at our boiler. Their social media monitoring team was very quick to respond to my last post, however (thanks for reading!). Long story short, after a lengthy after-hours chat with the HVAC tech we called ourselves, we’ve decided to put the boiler out to pasture and start working on plans for a replacement system. I don’t have any clue where we’re going to come up with the money, but them’s just details, right?

We’re adapting, as evidenced by this photo of Weezie decorating the Christmas tree in her bubble goose jacket:

weezie-decorates-tree

Fortunately, it hasn’t been cold the last few days, with temperatures rising into the 70s.  This gave the painters a perfect window of opportunity to get the siding painted.  After more than four weeks of prep work that consumed 75+ tubes of caulk, 70+ gallons of primer and required scraping 20-30 pounds of paint chips off the house, the workers brushed on most of the base coat in a day.

first-coat

 So far we’ve gotten plenty of positive comments about the color, so I feel like we did well.  I like it.

On Sunday, the second coat of paint went on with a sprayer, progressing even more quickly than the first.  As it turns out, the horse-drawn carriage rides for the Hillsborough Candlelight Home Tour depart from the front of our house, resulting in a rather disparate scene once the painters worked their way around front.  Apologies to all  holiday revelers whose photos feature this guy:

horse-painting

The tour, which showcased ten historic homes decorated for the season, was well-timed to sustain our hope that we too will one day count ourselves among those with a well-renovated, comfortable old house, with heatin’ and air and all the rest.  I’ll say this, though: our place might be the oldest and coldest, but it’s sure going to have one of the best paint jobs in town!

Nov 30

3 Comments

Pretty ordinary #002

Though we’ve been in Hillsborough for three months now, until today, I’d yet to venture down St. Mary’s Road on the other side of highway 70.  I was nearby for a client meeting, so I made a short detour on the way back to the office, and discovered one beautiful country road.

st-marys-sunset

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