The Roof

Metal Roof

Sanding and Cleaning Progress

Primer coat

Although we technically completed the overall restoration project a few months ago we and because we still own the house we decided to give the roof a paint job.  The roof is a standing seam possibly made of galvanized tin. The fact of the matter is that we really do not know how long the metal roof has been in place.  Our closest guess is that the roof is at least 75 years old and could possibly be the original roof covering that was installed when the house was built around 1912.  We were pleasantly surprised at the relatively good condition the roof was in when we first bought the house.  We did find some small leaks that were easily patched up and the entire surface is pockmarked with old hail damage but the integrity of the metal covering is not compromised.  The biggest issue is rust. So we decided to give the old gal a roof paint job.
After some research and speaking with local contractors we settled an a three step approach.The first step involved removing cleaning the as much of rust off the metal. Because of the age of the roof we decided to do this slowing with wire brushes and hand held power sander. As you can image this is a slow process but worth the effort. The second step involved brushing on a good coat of primer designed to stop the oxidation process.  The last step will be to paint on a coat of metallic colored paint to give a metallic look of a new metal roof. As you can see from the picture the paint job is still a work in progress. Stay tuned....more to come later!

Catching Up!

Its been awhile since I've posted an entry on this blog so I need to catch up! We finished the project in Oct of 2012, well actually we are still doing some work on the house but the house is now totally livable. The folks that were interested in buying the house back out of the sale but they agreed to lease the house at a market rate rent so we are getting a positive cash flow. So its still a good deal for us.

Rock Pile

Recycled Rock Pile

Nice Rocks!

In the meantime I got busy doing some landscape work in the front of the house. Remember that pile of rubble and stone that was removed when we demolished the wall around the porch? Well, the cut stone came in handy for some low cost landscaping. We also laid down crushed or decomposed granite in the drive way and sidewalk.




One last thing....It's always nice to get noticed. The house was featured in the city's Office of Historic Preservation Jan issue of their newsletter as an example of a substantial restoration! You can check out the newsletter at: http://www.sanantonio.gov/historic/Newsletter.aspx

Very Cool!

Painting the Exterior

The first coat of color was painted on the house today! The colors reflect Victorian themes typically found in houses called "Painted Ladies". Victorian era houses, especially wood and stick homes, were painted in vibrant color schemes that enriched the details such as ginger bread styling typically found in folk Victorian or vernacular styled houses.
The porch decking was also painted and what a difference a little color makes. Notice the color on the porch ceiling, its a pretty sky blue. The word is that traditionally houses in the south typically would have their porch ceilings panted a sky blue color to confuse wasps from building nests underneath porches.
The skirting around the house was installed a few days ago and that also received a couple of coats of paint. Vents still need to be installed and that will be done in the coming days.
We're reaching a point in the project where most of the work is now touch ups and detail work on the structure. We are close to the finish line. We still need to get final inspections on electrical, plumbing and HVAC system. The front porch roof and work on the drive way need to be worked on but we can feel the end in sight!

House is Primed and Ready

A big milestone in any restoration project is when you get the house coated with primer.   Of course there's a lot of prep work that goes into getting to this point.  Ideally you want to scrape off as much of the old paint and get as close as possible to bare wood. In this case most if not all of the paint had either fallen of over time or had been scraped off in previous attempts.  Lead abatement is always a consideration when working on homes built in the early 1900's however in this case there was so minimal paint on the walls that we did were allowed to use a water method to remove any existing paint. Using a gentle power wash method minimizes dust and aerosols. Any flakes that came off were collected and safely disposed according safety protocols. 
After the cleaning of the house the entire exterior of the house was coated with high grade primer. At this point the house ready for it's colors!

Kitchen Work

Kitchen counter tops and cabinets

Butler's pantry

The counters in the kitchen were given a retro look with black and white ceramic tile treatment. This was the decision of our buyers and it looks great!  The cabinets have been installed and primed for painting. The cabinets will be white which will give them a nice clean finish. Between the existing dining room and kitchen a butler's pantry of pass through was created which greatly improved the flow of the house. Cabinets and tile work on the counter tops which continues the tile done in the kitchen add continuity.

The Floors Get A Second Chance!

Before we purchased the house we made sure that the floors that were underneath the nasty old carpeting, paint and linoleum were in good shape.  We discovered that the original flooring was tongue and groove long leaf pine.  Except for some rot we found along in some areas of the house, especially around the old bathroom, the flooring was in decent shape. Nothing that a good sanding could not take care of in restoring the flooring back to life!

Floors before refinishing

Sanding off the old glue!

Looking Good!

Living room floor.

Dining room floor

Finished floor with poly coat.

The entire sanding and finishing of the floors took about 10 days. What slowed the process down was that in some of the rooms the old glue used to tack down the linoleum was especially difficult to remove. Repairs to rotten pieces were also made during this time as well shoring up soft spots in the floor. We decided not to stain the floors instead we opted to put down 2 and 3 coats of clear poly urethane to bring out the grain of the wood.  You can see by the images how the floors eventually turned out....not bad for being under cover for who knows how long!

Restoring Details

One of the biggest challenges we knew we had going into this project was in trying to restore some of the architectural elements and details of the house.   Over the past 100 years the house was literally gutted of its original windows, the original wooded floors had been either painter over or covered over with carpet or linoleum and much of the original case trim around the doors of most of the interior doors was gone by time we acquired the property.  In some of the rooms there were remnants of what was once beautiful base molding that that was paint a bright yellow color!  We salvaged those pieces but because there wasn't enough molding for all the house we decide install a simple, wide base molding to at least give the floor and wall some additional profile.  We did the same for casing around the windows. All the casing had been removed when the original windows were replaced with aluminum windows.  This house was built in 1912 in an era when this types of house had lots of craftsmanship detail such rosettes and plimps around doors, so we speculated that at one time this was the case for our house.

Trim around windows

Detail on porch

Spindles add some nice detail on porch

Harvested crown molding and antique stained window in transom

Since manufacturing and recreating much of that detail would be cost prohibitive we decided to make simple case trim out of 1x 6 pine boards for the windows and interior door openings. We had the carpenters make simple block rosettes to fit at the corners of the trim. 
The porch was relatively easy in terms of finding materials.  Elements such as turned posts and spindles are readily available at either local lumber suppliers or vendors that specialize old house architectural supplies.
The crown molding that we used in the foyer and other parts of the house was actually harvested from a house that was recently demolished. This was nice find as it saved us some significant dollars. Get to know your local old house harvester!
Finally, we installed an antique stained glass piece in the transom located in the foyer. This added a nice touch to the foyer and to the hallway entry.
The point of this ramble is that you sometimes you need to get creative in finding solutions that are cost effective yet stay close to original details.