This client called me after they purchased this house in 2007. At the time they had been living in France and wanted to renovate the house. There is the Main house with a large El off to the left of the front and a 10ft bump out across the entire rear of the first floor of the house with a flat roof. The house also had another perpendicular addition off of the rear that very well may have been a summer porch converted into a small kitchen. This space was in very poor shape.
Rumor had it that the house was used by the underground railroad, but of course I had no proof! However, during the renovation, I located a small door at the bottom of a rear wall in a pantry under some shelving. I opened the door and accessed a space in back of the chimney that could have squeezed in two or three people. At the very least it was an interesting find!
We undertook the renovation of the house removing a couple of walls adjoining two bedrooms so we could add a master bathroom. We removed the plaster from multiple walls and a few ceilings. There was a very steep and narrow set of stairs to the third floor which at some point had been lived in. Typical of these old houses there were newspapers and the like pasted over the insides of the rough roof and knee wall boards with the intent of providing a draft stop or insulation. There was a hole in the chimney that had been covered over where a stove pipe had entered the chimney indicating that the space was occupied at one time.
We built a code approved flight of stairs from the second-floor hallway stair landing to the attic space. The entire attic over the main part of the house became a living space completed with its own tiled bathroom, two skylights and closet.
We made multiple repairs to the structure, replacing corner posts and beams in several locations and replaced several areas of studs and braces. We moved walls and replastered where needed. The walls and roof were insulated.
The master bathroom had a new walk-in shower with new plumbing and fixtures. We moved several of the old door units into new locations.
We removed the window sashes and installed 48 new Andersen Insert windows.
We framed a hip roof where the flat roof was on the rear bump out. We put a new cedar roof on the house replacing the old and deteriorated asphalt roofing. We replaced all of the rotted trim boards and repaired any bad clapboards and added gutters around the entire house.
We repaired the old summer porch and put in new footings to support the structure and winterized it. We built in a custom kitchen in the space after removing the partitions.
We restored the front entryway and two French door units, including milling all the exterior thresholds with mahogany. Any interior trim we installed was custom milled by us.
All of the old wide pine floors had been refinished and some replaced with old salvaged pine boards.
I designed a three-season sunroom and we built it on the end of the building.
This project was multifaceted with so much detailed work on this house that it would take hours to mention it all.
Highlights
Built approx. 1820 to 1840. This house was renovated by us in 2007.
We added the master bathroom and removed the wall between two of the existing bedrooms to create a master suite
We built a custom kitchen with open shelving instead of the typical wall cabinets
The exterior clapboard siding and front entry were both completely restored
We built a staircase to the existing attic and renovated the attic space into a bedroom with two skylights and its own bathroom
All of the 48 window units sashes where replaced with Andersen A-series insert windows matching the historic sash configurations
We also replaced the majority of the roof sheathing the exterior trim and applied a cedar roof with wooden gutters
The wide pine floor board were left in place, repaired and refinished
