Our Home Renovation

Today when we cleaned out the fireplace, at first it appeared that the logs were some sort of electric comtraption, as a cord was coming out of them. After investigating further, we discovered that there was a bare bulb hidden under a bowl (or maybe old light fixture globe), wrapped in red cellophane and covered with logs. Unfortunately the cord was too deteriorated to plug in and see how well the electric fire worked.

Update: This “quick history” is missing a lot of details. A more complete version can be found here.

You may have read how a little trailer led to our buying the Sheridan House. I haven’t, however, posted yet about the interesting history of the Sheridan House. As a bonus, I’ve got a few newly-acquired photos of the interior from days gone by. This short history isn’t meant to be exact or exhaustive, but more just to share the interesting story of the house.

The Sheridan House was built in the early 1920s. A few years after being built, the original owners sold it to the Buist family who I bought it from this year. (Don’t worry, the interesting part is still coming - that wasn’t it…) Mr. Buist passed away sometime prior to 1975 when his wife died. Their son, Charles, took care of the house for the next 30 years. The lawn was kept mowed and overall the property was maintained so as to not be an eyesore. Nobody has lived in the house since 1975. In 2005, Charles passed away and his son is the one from whom I bought the house this year.

So, we’re the third owners of the house and I have to say that it has been a very satisfying challenge to try and fix up the Sheridan House while still maintaining the character and respecting the sentiment and emotion that it represents for the descendants/family of Mr. and Mrs. Buist.

Here are a few photos of the interior of the Sheridan House as it appeared from 1975 until 2007. Click to see them larger.

As promised, here are some photos from the flooding this week. My brother (who is a photographer) took these photos. Thankfully, even though more rain was forecast for the past two days, very little ended up coming down. The ground is still so saturated that even the quarter-inch we got last night put a lot of water on the roads.

(Click the photos to see larger versions)

Last night we finished getting the old wall removed and got the new beam in place. Even though there was no doubt about the beam holding the weight, there’s always that moment of anxiety when you remove the temporary support walls. I’m happy to report that the house didn’t fall down and that the beam is doing a great job holding it up. I’m really excited to get the drywall/plaster done in here to see how will look all finished.

Just a quick update on the bathroom. The tile around the tub/shower turned out great:

I used a matte white tile for the field and a double row of khaki colored accent tiles all the way around with bright white unsanded grout.

The floor is slate with a natural gray colored grout. Both the shower and the floor still need their final cleaning, ao the floor especially will look a lot better than it does now.

Still to do: wainscoting on the walls (hopefully later today), paint, trim, install light above sink, mirror above sink, sink and toilet.

There are a few things in the Sheridan House that I have spent literally hours trying to figure out the best way to make them work. One of those things is the kitchen cabinets. A few things we know for sure:

• We want to keep the existing cabinets
• We need to add a section of cabinets for the area next to where the stove will go
• The base cabinets are about 4″ lower than normal
• The upper cabinets come down lower than normal
• A dishwasher (we’re not 100% sure we’re going to add one) requires about 2-2.5 more inches below the countertop.

Here’s some photos. (click to see them larger)

So, we can leave everything as is and build the new lower cabinet to match, and have the stove surface stick up 4″ above the counter. Or, we can build the new section at normal height and have most of the counter low, but the new ‘end’ high. Or, we can raise the whole counter a full 4″ to normal height and the stove fits normal and there’s room for a dishwasher. But then there is almost no usable counter space because that leaves about 9″ between the counter and the upper cabinets. You see the dilemma? I’ve literally spent hours pondering this and trying to come up with a solution.

Here’s what I think will be the best compromise…Raise the counter 2.5-3″ so it’s barely lower than normal, probably not noticeably so. Shorten the upper cabinets by a total of about 2.5″. I should be able to take about 1″ off the top and 1.5″ off the bottom of the cabinet doors. I think that between those compromises, we’ll get everything we’re hoping to - a dishwasher would fit, there’d still be about 14″ of clearance between the counter and upper cabinets, the stove would only be ~ 1″ higher than the counter and the character of the original cabinets can remain mostly intact. There’s still the issue of how to raise the counter, but that’s another kind of problem that is more fun to figure out because one way or another it can be done.

Any other ideas? There’s a bunch more photos of the kitchen posted on Flickr.

Here is a series of photos showing the front of the Sheridan House before, during and almost done. A couple things to note: You’ll have to excuse the garbage cans in front of the house, as Friday is garbage day and they’re full of plaster debris so I didn’t feel like dragging them out of the way. Also, there are still shutters to be put up. If you’re anxious and don’t want to wait until both sets are up, you can look at the photos I just uploaded to Flickr and see how the small (bathroom) window turned out with the shutters.

It’s so good to finally see things starting to come together. The new front windows make a HUGE difference and the shutters will really bring everything together and add the extra cottage appeal that the house deserves. (As an aside, the shutters I’ve mentioned a few times are original from the house. They were taken down when the aluminum siding was put on a while back and haven’t been back up since.)

Here’s a few other exterior photos (click to see them larger):