OrchardProperty

From Hudsonic

Our house was built in 1904, in an early California Bungalow style. It has some external Arts & Crafts/Craftsman styling cues, such as rafter tails, a clipped gable porch, purlin braces, and tapered square 3-beam columns.
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But it also has some distinctive features, such as the hip roof (8/12 pitch), and a strip of leaded glass across the top of the living room picture window. The original leaded glass was simply a grid of 2-inch squares. But the lead had deteriorated so much that the window was sagging out of the frame, so we replaced it, and could not resist making it more colorful.

40-IMG_0544-leaded_glass.jpeg

Casement windows flank each side of the living room's picture window. These (and the small, high one inside the entry-way) are the only casement windows in the house, all the rest being simple 1/1 double-hung. (Aside from the non-openable piano window in the living room, and the missing window in the back bathroom.)

The front door is 40 inches wide with beveled glass. The porch is about 12 feet wide, which is about 1/2 the width of the house. The house is rather narrow, being only 26 feet wide on a 41-foot wide lot. (The interior dimensions of the house are roughly 25 x 50 feet.) There is a 10-foot driveway on one side, and a 5-foot walkway on the other.

There is a small entry-way, with curved crown to the 9-foot-high ceilings. Decorative scrollwork is molded into the plaster in the enry-way and living room. Pocket doors enter into the dining room which is the last room to share the curved crown (but lacks the scrollwork.) The dining room's exterior wall is almost completely filled by a bay window. The inner wall shared with the kitchen is shared with the kitchen door, a fireplace (with a riveted hot water heater concealed in the wall), and a built-in china cabinet.

The attic is completely unfinished (it is "only" 7-1/2 feet high at the peek), and there are no dormer/gable windows (yet!).

<img src="55_fir.jpg" align=right> Interior doors are 5-panel, similar to this one from the Simpson Door Company. http://www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Detailed/10376.shtml in several widths: 28", 30", 32"

Much improvements are in order:

Repair:

  1. plumbing
    1. added trap and vent to washing-machine drain in laundry room
    2. replaced leaky galvanized water pipe with copper in 3 stages: under-house, supply risers, and main.
    3. replaced leaky cast iron drain pipe with plastic, added vents
  2. opened painted-stuck windows
  3. fixed holes in Garage Roof

Update:

  1. added a pull-down ladder for attic access stairs (http://www.homestore.com/HomeGarden/HomeImprovement/HowTos/HowTos/CRHO_AddingPullDownStairs.asp?poe=homestore)
  2. replaced some knob-and-tube wiring with modern grounded wiring and junction boxes
  3. added some more attic venting, and roof insulation --need to add much more insulation
  4. added motion-sensing lights in the driveway
  5. todo: sheath the cripple walls in the crawl space

remodel:

  1. scraped off old acoustic spray from ceilings; patch and paint
  2. stripped many layers of old paint from woodwork (mostly heat gun, future infrared paint stripper)
  3. stripped many layers of old panelling and wallpaper from walls
  4. patching or re-drywall walls and add wallpaper or paint.
  5. stripped many layers of old flooring from floors
    1. installed new flooring in nursery: Marmoleum
  6. replace new light fixtures
  7. todo: kitchen:
    1. tbd: kitchen floor (cork, bamboo, ...?)
    2. countertop: Armstone enviroglas
    3. cabinet facings: replace bottom cupboards with drawers
    4. add a dishwasher
    5. add a kitchen exhaust vent to the outside (current arrangement "vents" to the attic)

see also

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