Photogenic

I can remember not too long ago, while laying in bed off of work with a pulled back, where just by chance, looking out our front windows, I saw a suspicious vehicle parked with it's driver pointing "something" at our home.  A flash of light and the convertible Audi left.  

A quick photo of our tourist checking out her photos on her camera.  This photo was taken through our storm window's screen.

This past weekend, it happened again.  On her way home, my wife called to ask me to help her unload her car upon arrival.  As I waited for her to pull into the driveway, I noticed a gray Toyota Camary/Honda Accord with it's hazard lights on, driving slowly up a parallel street, the same street seen in the photo above.  They passed our house then stopped and rolled backward down the hill.  I thought they had mechanical problems or perhaps, God fearing, their brakes had went.  Yet, they stopped.  The driver opened his window and snapped photos of our home.  

How peculiar.  This happened last spring as well, except the driver was female and her vehicle was a dark blue convertible Audi (see the photo above).  These are the only two events that I've witnessed of someone photographing our home.  Perhaps there were numerous other times that we are unaware of.

I find it fascinating that of all the homes on our street of 18th century origins, passersby have the want to photograph our home.

I realize that I am putting a lot of information out there with this blog in regards to our home so I guess some notoriety comes with the territory assuming of course these photographers are aware of such written works of art. However, I am pleased that people find our home interesting and photogenic.  A sense of pride blossoms within when events such as this occur or when a couple walking by make a comment as well.  With as much stress as owning a 260+ year old home can be, having someone say, "I love your house!" is, well, awesome.

If you do happen to see an overweight man grunting while setting a field stone wall or screaming colorful four letter words after doing some idiotic task, like, I don't know, dropping 60 pounds of aluminum on his toe, feel free to say "HI" and chit-chat.  Despite an angry strained face or a sudden profane outburst, I don't bite.

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Hartford Turnpike

Through the hundreds of documents and maps that were sifted through while researching our home, the one lingering (of many) facts there were hard to find was our home's prior addresses.  It seems that addresses back in the 18th century were more of common knowledge of those that lived here.  Meaning, until the advent of the postal system, a person's address was more of, "o'er yer yonder", or perhaps, "a quarter mile on the right past the ol' tree".

The only potential address information I could find were street names.  I obviously know what street I live on now, but asking Town Hall of prior street names was like asking my wife's cat where he hid our sock.  

We searched through dozens of maps from online sources and the local libraries.  Eventually, I came across a map that showed a turnpike running the route of where our street is today.  The map was from the middle of the 19th century.  Apparently, it was also a major thoroughfare from Hartford southward towards Middletown.  The map titled the route the Hartford-Middletown Turnpike.  But, it was the only map to show such a route that I've ever come across.

While at Town Hall questioning her sanity, my wife met a knowledgeable police officer who knew of a stone tablet on our street that he said depicted our street's original name.  When he told her this, the snow covered land was prohibiting any such search for this tablet.  Though each time we passed around that area in our cars, we did a quick look where he had suggested, but hadn't seen it.  I kept imagining this marblesque horizontally laid, square placard chipped away by years of neglect, partially covered by overgrown grass, perhaps even cut in two like so many old tombstones in forgotten cemeteries.  

Today, we found it!  And, I was completely incorrect with the visual description.  I must say, it is in a state of great preservation and well maintained by the owners of the contemporary home which was built near it.

Hartford Turnpike, Mile 6, Runs to Saybrook, 35 Miles, Granted 1802

This monolithic stone epitaph stands approximately three to four feet tall with a bush behind it and mulch directly surrounding it.  It's located roughly a quarter mile from the border of Rocky Hill and Wethersfield on the East side of Old Main Street.

Well, there you have it, our official "Street Sign".

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Touring My Home - Possible Addition

This past month I had the pleasure of being taken on a tour of my own home by Edward Sunderland of Sunderland Period Homes.  Mr. Sunderland was showing me my home, yes, I was the tourist.  Nearly every room was visited by our tour group of two as Mr. Sunderland showcased the details of each room to his pupil.  And there were lots of details.

Before Mr. Sunderland's arrival, my wife and I were contemplating an addition, containing a garage and new kitchen with a wrap around driveway, all in the appearance of 18th century architecture.  I had received an advertisement from Sunderland Period Homes, generically, and decided to contact them for suggestions for our home.  Being a full design/build firm located in Connecticut and specializing in the restoration/recreation of colonial period homes I thought who better to give us insight.

On the Sunderland Period Homes' website, there is a video (seen here:  Collect This) hosted by MSN giving an introduction to their work.  Mr. Sunderland gives a tour of some of his client's homes.  It was at the end of the video that the twin hosts (literally) became a little cocky, joked and asked Mr. Sunderland about the costs of the homes which they toured.  The answer was between 1 and 1.5 million dollars.  After hearing that, I was fearful that this particular contractor was way out of my price range.  Let alone willing to offer free advice.  I figured it couldn't hurt to try.

I drew up a sketch of an idea (albeit, over-ambitious) and emailed it to Mr. Sunderland.  The response I received was not what I was expecting.  He personally responded and said (and I am paraphrasing) that my sketch is not historically accurate and began to dive into the why.  Basically, my Ell's conceptual window fenestration was incorrect, as was the placement of the chimney.

Rear Existing Elevation - As Is (No Addition)
Not to Scale

Proposed Side Elevation of Ell Addition
Not to Scale

It was in that same communication that he suggested a visit to our home.  Why not, I thought.  Perhaps he needed an idea for his next project and besides, I would love to pick his brain, a quid pro quo.  We scheduled for a late Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday came.  I was so excited, like a little schoolboy.  We cleaned our home as best as we could in the days prior.  The day of, I rushed home and eagerly awaited his arrival.  I hate to make this sound like I was waiting for the President to arrive (or some hot model), we rarely "show off" our home, especially to those in the "know".  He arrived exactly on time in an old Subaru that's seen a couple of construction sites.  Quite different from the image one receives of a business owner who builds million dollar homes.

With no delay, after introductions were made, we toured the James Warner House.  The first thing I noticed was Mr. Sunderland feeling my walls.  I'm not trying to be cute.  He actually felt the paneling of my dining room. Seeing the bewildered look on my face, he said he was feeling for the imperfections made by the craftsmen as they planed the surface flat.  Unfortunately, according to Mr. Sunderland, most homes have had their woodwork sanded flat in preparation for painting in recent years.  Mine, sadly, are painted an awful green.  The sanding removes the subtle groves left by the craftsmen 200 years ago, a lost character of the home.  Come to think of it, it wasn't until the previous owner that the home's interior was painted.  Imagine that, 250 +/- years of being unpainted, then one careless owner (or deranged interior decorator) paints nearly everything AND wallpapers whatever wasn't!

With glances around each room, Mr. Sunderland was able to tell me which details were original, or not.  Thankfully, we have many original details throughout our home.  One in particular which stands out is our guest room.  Though our home's records date to around the middle of the 18th century, Mr. Sunderland looked at the details in our guest room and said that it is a transitional and a "newer" room, decorated in the Federal style.  The molding around the windows combined with the mantle points to the Federal period.  Also, the firebox seems to have been modified into a Rumford fireplace.  So, although the house was built circa 1760, the guest room was later modified to the fashion of the times, perhaps closer to the 1800 to 1810 year range, in my uneducated guess.

Circa 1800 Rumford fireplace.

Rumford fireplace, at an angle showing how shallow the revolutionary design was.

Fascinating... Warning, history lesson to follow:

Benjamin Thompson, a.k.a. Count Rumford
(1753 - 1814)

Count Rumford (born Benjamin Thompson in 1753, in Woburn MA, Count of the Holy Roman Empire after his defection to England and deeds for the Bavarian court) was a loyalist during the beginnings of the American Revolution. He left the American colonies after the signing of the Declaration in 1776. Between 1796 and 1798, he published a new method of fireplace construction. It became widely popular throughout Europe and crossed the 'pond' quickly. Along with many homes, the Rumford fireplace was installed in our home during a Federalist period decorating endeavor.  The new design lessens the depth of the firebox, making it quite shallow compared to a "regular" fireplace.  The height was increased and the throat that connected the firebox to the chimney was made more narrow as well.  The sides of the box were also made less square, angling towards the center.  This made the fire in the fireplace closer to the center of the room producing more heat and less smoke with a better draft from the narrower throat.  Better fire, more heat, no smoke, who could complain about that?

From Wikipedia.com

Moving past all the little details, towards the end of our two and a half hour tour, Mr. Sunderland and I discussed the addition. He asked a basic question: "What do you want?" Our most simplistic answer:  A larger kitchen.

We discussed modifying the galley kitchen that we have now and that really ended up simply moving cabinets around.  We were still left with a galley kitchen.  As we reached the rear of our home, Mr. Sunderland entered our enclosed porch and standing in the center, did a 360.  "Here" he said, "I would place the kitchen right here." He added he would remove the ceiling, install beams over head, a few windows, enclose the walls, put in a foundation with decorative stone to match the rest of the house, new wide plank flooring, widen the doorway to the keeping room or remove the wall all together."

Pricing was not discussed.  Well, it was asked, but Mr. Sunderland was hesitant to give forth a number without researching it first.  I'll have to wait and see what he'll come up with, though I fear my piggy bank isn't large enough for the level of detail that Mr. Sunderland is capable of.

Loosing a three season porch for a new huge kitchen... we would need to weigh the pros and cons.  We do love the porch as its shady and cool during the hot summer months. Though a new kitchen designed by someone who's familiar with 18th century architecture is quite enticing.   Another negative, though quite minor, is that I would loose my work area.  That is until I build my barn/garage.

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Stone Wall.

Sometimes I get bored.  I'll start one project and become frustrated with how long it is taking to finish, switch to another and at some point in the future, return to the first project (sometimes not).  So when I started to take apart one of our retaining walls, my wife gave me a scared look.  Call it "deer-in-headlights".

My plan for this past Sunday was to take it easy, what with my squished foot.  Thinking of easy tasks, I ventured into the back yard.  On my way out, I passed one of our sad looking field stone walls.  The previous owner, by her own volition, wanted an o'natural look to everything which basically meant a lack of property maintenance.  She loved climbing ivy plants, the type that root into and damage wood and masonry.  This rear entrance retaining wall was covered in ivy, so much so, that it actually hid the collapsed section of the wall.  It was an eyesore.  So I spent the entire day "restoring" it.  My legs, back and every other muscle in my body can attest to it.  There's no "taking it easy" when working with stone.  I am an idiot.

Before:
Mound of English Ivy.  You cannot tell from this photos but there's a beautiful stone wall hidden underneath.

I tore out as much of the rooted ivy plants as I could.  In doing so, I was also removing the stones.  Those ivy plants dug in deep and with the wall a bit disheveled and leaning outward, eventually, I just tore apart then entire south end of the wall.

Rebuilding:
Bit by bit, I reorganized the pile of stones.  Finding the right stone to fit the corner, or face, is not so difficult, just heavy. Basically, the larger flat sided stones are for the face of the wall and any stone that has two flat faces next to each other make a corner.  All other stones are filler, either for leveling the larger back-breaking stones along the face or within the wall to add mass.  Stone dust is a wonderful filler to fill the voids.  It's similar to sand in that it's a fine material, however, it is more coarse and compacts nicely.  In the photos, the stone dust is the grayish colored "sand".  Luckily, it's the same material used to level the brick walkway.  A surplus amount of it was left around the area.  

Layer by layer, large flat faced stones were placed around the perimeter.  Behind the large stones, smaller pebbles and rocks were stuffed in.  Some stone dust was shoveled around the pebbles until the layer was flat (or as flat as came be).  I hand tamped the stone dust to get it compacted and repeated this process for the next layer.

After trial and error, I eventually got the stones to fit just right.  The shear weight of some of these stones made it difficult to continually place, rotate, remove, etc., especially as the wall grew in height.  Now since this wall was already established, I used the bottom most rows and my eye as a guide to keep the wall straight.  Though, if I were to start this wall from scratch, I would've used a reference line.  Two stakes with a string tied between them makes a great guide for laying the first stones.

I ran out of the free stone dust and was about eight to twelve inches short of the walkway elevation.  I used earth for the rest of the fill and it actually worked out pretty well. I threw some grass seed on top to help curb any soil erosion.

After:

A vast improvement to the Before images.  Notice that the stones are now leaning slightly in as oppose to out, making the wall more stable.

I am pleased with the outcome.  It was honestly my first attempt at a field stone wall.  We have another much larger wall that will need some repair in time.  I would also like to install a small two to three foot high wall along the front of our property.  Done correctly, it will last a lot longer than a rickety fence.  I just love the strength and appearance of a stone wall, don't you?

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Brief Visitor, Squished Foot.

A couple weekends ago, I was clearing a brush of poison ivy, a couple trees and other manly landscaping tasks when a Mercedes convertible pulls into my driveway.  Normally, when that happens, the driver is lost and is making a U-turn.  This driver actually got out of the car.  Perhaps this person needs directions?  I mentally put on my "thinking cap".

Speaking in a rather quick pace, the driver introduces himself (and for the life of me I cannot remember his name). He's in a hurry to go somewhere but felt compelled to stop by as he saw me outside.  He knew my name and said that he was from a few houses down (a home that my wife and I had visited while it was on the market at the same time as ours was).  His home is an 1850's blue colored Italianate styled house.  I knew it rather well.  He goes on to say that he was the new owner of it and started to list what he had done recently to it.

I am still in shock that he knew my name and cannot recount all the details of that conversation.  Except one. He pointed to my roof and said that I needed to try this spray that will remove the black algae, lichen and moss that was growing on it.  Bewildered by his sudden appearance and knowledge of me, I began recounting some stupid story regarding my roof, like a bumbling fool.  "He knows my name, who is this guy?" I kept thinking.

Still in shock, he quickly leaves just as he had arrived.  

As I return to my manly duties, I was trying to remember what the product he was explaining was.  Something about "set it and forget it", like that TV infomercial at three in the morning.  My brief visitor proclaimed that the product will help remove the organic growth and save my roof.  I "google-d" what I thought he was talking about in order to help me recall what he had called it.  I saw the name finally and I remembered.  Spray and Forget.

As I wanted to take his warning of roof peril seriously, I visited my local hardware store and searched for the Spray and Forget display.  There really wasn't one, but I eventually found it with an employee's help, hidden in the paint section.  I saw the price and proclaimed an expletive.  Around $40 for a 32 oz spray bottle that you hook to your garden hose. I suppose that if you use it, and it saves you from having to replace your roof prematurely, then $40 is a small price to pay.  I purchased it with that concept in mind and ventured home.

Today, I took out my monster Little Giant Model 26 ladder.  It's a beast and weighs 54 pounds!  Getting it to work just right without reading directions is like poking a stick into a bees' nest.  You know you're going piss someone off... and it's probably yourself.  

I extended the ladder to it's max height to allow myself to reach the roof.  Then, I realized that I put the ladder in the totally wrong location.  Again, not reading the directions, I had to retract the ladder and pulled the side pins to condense the 54 pounds of aluminum.  That's when it happened.  The ladder slipped, and like a ram rod, fell on my foot.  Though I was wearing boots, steel toed in fact, the ladder's pin-point mass hit just below the tongue and behind the steel toe.  A couple of colorful four letters words were spoken, then I managed to hobble inside.  

My loving wife procured pain killers, an ice pack, some food and water.  I sat on the floor cradling my swollen foot, popped one Advil, ate and drank while holding that iced foot.  I sat there for an hour until I manned up, and after watching a 5 minute video from Little Giant's website, tackled the ladder's relocation and sprayed that damn Spray and Forget roof treatment.

There really is no point to this post except that I felt compelled to share my pain.  I plan on reviewing the Spray and Forget later on, when it's had time to work.  For now, I lay in bed, cradling my gimp foot hoping I haven't broken it.

My hairy foot, 12 hours, one ice pack and 3 Advils later, after being hit by 54 pounds of aluminum.

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