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November 28, 2005

Playing jokes on the contractor

I've heard anecdotes from a few different people about homeowners a hundred years ago hiding bags of money in their walls to protect it from thieves. All of the stories end with either a contractor or new owner finding the loot, and the sums have ranged from twenty dollars worth of rolled pennies to thousands of singles in a potato sack. My contractor and I have had a long running joke about who the money would belong to if we found it while working on the house. A few days ago, he told me he was going to take out the cracked bricks around what's left of the fireplaces on each floor. I bought a few bags of plastic treasure coins and stuck them up in the chimney. When he took the front bricks out, these dusty gold coins poured out all over the floor. It took him a little while to realize they were fake, but I heard from the workers that he was dancing around for a few minutes before he noticed they were plastic.

Posted by shahnandersen at 10:17 AM | Comments (3)

November 24, 2005

One little thing at a time...

A new water main was installed this week. The old water main was lead and had been leaking water into one corner of the basement for a long time. when I first came into the basemen and it was filled with detritus, I thought the dampness was coming from leaky walls. But when the old lead main was sealed up and the garbage removed, the basement dried immediately. I was trying to figure out how long it's been since anything new has been added to this building. When I bought the building, the electricity had been off since 1997. When we started interior demolition, it didn't appear that there was anything even remotely new, so I'm guessing it's been some twenty or thirty years. It's a nice milestone to be able to mark the first new thing being put into the building. Up to this point, all of the work we have done has been destroying things. I was thinking the other day about how long this house has been in existence. It's been standing there for almost 150 years. Right now, it's been there five times longer than I've been alive. If I live there for 50 years (essentially the rest of my life) then I will have lived there for a quarter of its two hundred year existence. It might be a good idea for me to curtail such deep thinking by checking the expiration date on the food in my refrigerator before I eat it.

Posted by shahnandersen at 12:00 PM | Comments (3)

November 16, 2005

The joy of waiting

I spoke with the Landmarks Preservation Commission earlier this week, and they told me that my plans for the next phase of renovation cannot be done at staff level, they must go to public review. This means that my proposed floorplans have to go to a committee that gets to poke and prod them to their satisfaction. Additionally, the plans have to go to the community board for public input at one of their upcoming meetings. The LPC will listen to the community boards' input, but is not required to act on any of the communities' suggestions. On top of that, I have had a humdinger of a time with my bank getting renovation draws set up. I paid for the first phase of work out of my own pocket since I was excited to get started. I'm now to the point where I really can't do any more work until the renovation loan kicks into gear. My bank, which for now will remain unnamed, has been a huge pain in the ass getting this things going. I am forced to sit and wait, while winter approaches and the house rots a little more.

Posted by shahnandersen at 01:37 AM | Comments (6)

November 03, 2005

Details, details, details...

As I mentioned before, there aren't a lot of original details left in this building, but of those that were salvagable, these are my favorites. The wainscotting around the windows on the turret are almost completely intact on all three floors. The top photo is of the second floor, where there is less wainscotting and more window, and beneath that is the third floor, where there is more wainscotting and less window. I love the way they look, but I wonder, should I remove them and have them restored, or try to restore them while they are still attached to the walls? If I remove them, it will be much easier to add new insulation underneath and fix the draft problem with the window frames. I am, however, afraid of what may happen to them if they are removed.

Posted by shahnandersen at 03:28 PM | Comments (17)

Petrified rat redux

I was recently informed that the "Petrified Rat" I was so excited to find in the backyard was not a rat at all, but actually a squirrel. There is some question as to whether this squirrel did in fact stumble upon the "One Ring" as I mentioned in the "My Brownstone" section of this site.

Posted by shahnandersen at 03:11 PM | Comments (1)