We are still in negotiations with family members, but hope to continue restoration projects.
Vintage homes are full of charm, but there is simply NOTHING charming about vintage electrical, or vintage plumbing.
Or vintage Roofs for that matter!
Originally, the house had a cedar shake roof. The ridges were decorated with iron, and a row of painted shingles in a diamond pattern. There were gutters in-set in the roof (this system supplied water for the 2nd floor bath).
Generations later, the iron ornamentation was removed (was seen as being "old fashioned"), the inset gutters proved to be a poor design, and a layer (or two) of asphalt shingles now cover the cedar shake.
The asphalt is worn, there are roof leaks, and one of our top priorities is replacing the roof entirely. We hope to get this done spring of 2012. While it would be nice to go back to cedar shake, budget constraints have us contemplating architectural steel, or asphalt.
Architectural steel has a lot of appealing features. I understand it is lightweight as compared to asphalt, and is supposedly lifetime guaranteed. We are still doing research, but here are are couple of examples.
I like the looks of this "
cedar shake" roof
This "
slate" is a look that would be similar to the black asphalt that is on it now.
Until we can do the total replacement, we have had to tar a few places which were leaking badly. Since the initial 2009 flood, roof leaks have caused additional damage to the 2nd floor boys room, and down into the first floor music room.
We patched the places we could see as problematic, and seem to be OK for now.
The house has been closed up for the past 2.5 years. The first winter, we heated the house to just above freezing. Last winter, we had the pipes winterized. Despite this, the water line to the 1st floor toilet burst. We opened the plaster in the 1st floor bathroom to take care of this. The dishwasher also seems to have sprung a leak, but nothing has been done about that yet.
This past weekend (Saturday) we had an HVAC guy out to service the boiler so that we can heat the house this coming winter. The timing was less than ideal, to start with, we were busy prepping for a big fundraiser at our farm the next day. We had no issues with the boiler, but it's probably no surprise that one of the water lines burst while testing (upstairs boy's room again!) My husband spent the better part of the afternoon mopping up water.
I had hoped to start working on the 2nd floor South bedroom, as it needs the least amount to get it habitable-it pretty much just needs a LOT of painting and one window replaced. I was looking forward to accomplishing SOMETHING. (It's easy to feel overwhelmed at this stage looking at all that needs to be done.)
Instead, we need to move all the furniture from the North bedroom to the South bedroom, so that we can test the radiator in the south bedroom (without causing further damage to the antique furniture being stored).
Alas...
