The Secret Life of the Home
This is the title of an extra fascinating section of the totally fascinating London Science Museum*. But it could also serve as a sub-title for this collection of photos.
During the repair phase of our repainting project we were treated to some behind-the-scenes looks at our house's structure. Some of what was discovered was perplexing and made upgrading more difficult (like the zany original wiring that's now been made all modern and safe). But most of it was just really interesting.
Beginning with the wooden skeleton. The very experienced guys we had doing the work were impressed with the solidity of the basic construction. Our house's bones were put in place back in the day (mid-1930's) when 2 x 4 meant a board that was really 2 inches by 4 inches. Here's a look at some of these beauties, in the living room walls where they were awaiting new wiring to be strung amongst them.
Another "they don't build 'em like that any more" aspect of the house is the sub-flooring. The guys pointed out that not only are the sub-floor boards individually nice and thick, but they were installed diagonally over the floor joists for extra stability, which wasn't always done. You can see this technique here, where the flooring had to be removed in the powder room. (It had become warped from—guesses? anyone?—toilet overflows.)
Of course this extra solidity made it extra hard to put the new commode in there. The sub-flooring had to be cut away because new commodes have to be placed a different distance from the wall than old ones. One of the delightful details I would have been just as happy never
knowing about. But I'm glad I didn't have to do this work!
Upstairs the walls are as solid as the floors. The studs in these rooms have shiplap boards nailed to them, over which, originally, wallpaper was then hung. On the right you can see what these walls looked like before being sheetrocked over in the guest room. (Click on the image to enlarge.)
The goofy folks we bought the house from in 1980 "fixed it up" by putting 8' paneling (the ceilings are 9' high!) on all the bedroom walls over the shiplap. We
wished so many times that they'd just left the wallpaper and let us redo it the way we wanted. We really wished they'd left the popcorn texturing (complete with 1970's disco sparkles!) off the ceilings. But it's all gone now, finally! Except in the 2 undone bedrooms.
The guys worked fast taking off this paneling (which we had simply painted) and putting up the sheetrock, but I was able to catch my study, on the left, with its wallpaper still intact. What a lovely green! Not!
Although we didn't redo the bathrooms (saved for another day, and perhaps another lifetime!) we did have new GFI plugs put in. Doing that in our bathroom required the removal of our medicine cabinet, revealing another good example of very sturdy construction. Not to mention a collection of used razor blades (already cleared away when I took the picture on the right) that had been slipped down the convenient slot at the back of the chest. A little bit of americana right in our walls, from the days when flat razor blades were the only home shaving option.
Finally, below is perhaps the most amazing behind the scenes glimpse. I got to see how our windows work! Who knew!?
I only knew that most of the windows in our house didn't work—that is, they wouldn't stay up without props. Once, I even came close to seriously injuring fingers between the top and bottom sash of one of these antiques. But how are they supposed to work?
We got all the windows repaired in the repainted rooms, since in order to do this, the molding all around them has to come off. Best to do that before you paint, right? And when you take the molding off, this is what you see:
The weights suspended by these ropes (the breaking of which, by the way, causes all the problems with windows crashing down) are really heavy! They move up and down in these little channels, one pair on each side of the window. Who thought this system up? It just seems so quaint to me and I was very pleased to get to see the mechanism revealed.
Next up: "finished" product photos.
*Read about my visit to this wonderful museum last fall right here. And you can see a bunch of photos I took there in this Flickr set.
During the repair phase of our repainting project we were treated to some behind-the-scenes looks at our house's structure. Some of what was discovered was perplexing and made upgrading more difficult (like the zany original wiring that's now been made all modern and safe). But most of it was just really interesting.
Beginning with the wooden skeleton. The very experienced guys we had doing the work were impressed with the solidity of the basic construction. Our house's bones were put in place back in the day (mid-1930's) when 2 x 4 meant a board that was really 2 inches by 4 inches. Here's a look at some of these beauties, in the living room walls where they were awaiting new wiring to be strung amongst them.
Another "they don't build 'em like that any more" aspect of the house is the sub-flooring. The guys pointed out that not only are the sub-floor boards individually nice and thick, but they were installed diagonally over the floor joists for extra stability, which wasn't always done. You can see this technique here, where the flooring had to be removed in the powder room. (It had become warped from—guesses? anyone?—toilet overflows.)
Of course this extra solidity made it extra hard to put the new commode in there. The sub-flooring had to be cut away because new commodes have to be placed a different distance from the wall than old ones. One of the delightful details I would have been just as happy never
knowing about. But I'm glad I didn't have to do this work!Upstairs the walls are as solid as the floors. The studs in these rooms have shiplap boards nailed to them, over which, originally, wallpaper was then hung. On the right you can see what these walls looked like before being sheetrocked over in the guest room. (Click on the image to enlarge.)
The goofy folks we bought the house from in 1980 "fixed it up" by putting 8' paneling (the ceilings are 9' high!) on all the bedroom walls over the shiplap. We
wished so many times that they'd just left the wallpaper and let us redo it the way we wanted. We really wished they'd left the popcorn texturing (complete with 1970's disco sparkles!) off the ceilings. But it's all gone now, finally! Except in the 2 undone bedrooms.The guys worked fast taking off this paneling (which we had simply painted) and putting up the sheetrock, but I was able to catch my study, on the left, with its wallpaper still intact. What a lovely green! Not!
Although we didn't redo the bathrooms (saved for another day, and perhaps another lifetime!) we did have new GFI plugs put in. Doing that in our bathroom required the removal of our medicine cabinet, revealing another good example of very sturdy construction. Not to mention a collection of used razor blades (already cleared away when I took the picture on the right) that had been slipped down the convenient slot at the back of the chest. A little bit of americana right in our walls, from the days when flat razor blades were the only home shaving option.Finally, below is perhaps the most amazing behind the scenes glimpse. I got to see how our windows work! Who knew!?
I only knew that most of the windows in our house didn't work—that is, they wouldn't stay up without props. Once, I even came close to seriously injuring fingers between the top and bottom sash of one of these antiques. But how are they supposed to work?
We got all the windows repaired in the repainted rooms, since in order to do this, the molding all around them has to come off. Best to do that before you paint, right? And when you take the molding off, this is what you see:
The weights suspended by these ropes (the breaking of which, by the way, causes all the problems with windows crashing down) are really heavy! They move up and down in these little channels, one pair on each side of the window. Who thought this system up? It just seems so quaint to me and I was very pleased to get to see the mechanism revealed.
Next up: "finished" product photos.
*Read about my visit to this wonderful museum last fall right here. And you can see a bunch of photos I took there in this Flickr set.
3 comments:
wow, yeah, those window weights are cool.
what did you do with the razors?
Razors got thrown out, sorry if you wanted one 8-)
I knew how windows worked but didn't know that laying floorboards diagonally was an upgrade (I did my porch diagonally just 'cause I thought it looked cool)
@hal if you're interested in old safety razors I have a couple of your grandfather's around here somewhere
Post a Comment