The house has been moved over 9' and lifted. This of course if obvious if you walk or drive by. As to why do that(?) We wanted the house with its new addition to be more centered on the lot, moved a bit off of the driveway and out a bit from the cedar tree. I was convinced that it would be too expensive to justify moving it but it was not! And like most trade offs in the renovation is was a now or never opportunity. The benefits were the house that got moved is very solid with portions removed that would not have tolerated the move (and were structurally deficient). We will have a new foundation that has not settled 4-5" front to back. The old one had. And with the house 8' in the air you can really evaluate the chimney, hard wood floors and joists. The next steps are to remove the old brick piers (all the mortar so far has literally let you take bricks apart by grabbing them (Oyster tabby apparently is not meant to last a century, or at least not the Oyster tabby used on this house!)) and build the new foundation.
We continue to work with Cape Fear Solar to include solar arrays on the new house and garage. There is quite a bit of work to figuring out where to fit arrays that will not be shaded. We have some large Pecan trees to the south of the (what will be) new garage. But with no electric system existing now is a good time to add the arrays and wiring.
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This is one of the windows sashes from the store. All the windows were saved along with the casings that they were in so that they could be restored and reused. I was the proponent (I think the only one) of doing this so I am working to get these ready restored and installed in the garage. I have removed the glass so that the wood joints could be worked upon. The pieces of the window are typical (tab and slot) slot and tenon but the joints were nailed. The nails have not held up so I am putting in posts (dowels) in the joints. I have these back in VA while work goes on on Broad St. I have new glass for some of the sashes and will put back in the glass removed from others. None of the glass appears to be very interesting so probably was replaced at some point. For all I know these windows were added some time after the store was built which we think was in about 1885. They appear to be old growth pre wwII but hard to say much else date wise. I am priming and will try and glaze some today. I used to do this a lot working on old houses around Detroit as a teenage house painter. We would periodically crack a pane of glass and have to replace it.
We got our renovation plans approved by the BHC last night. Presented the move of the house to the left and additons. Signed off on the order to move it today. We are having Devooght move it as they did such a great job on the Duncan house on Front street. Our little house will be a walk in the park by comparison. I will post more of the plans in the restoration page. We are planning to reuse as much of the hardwood flooring as possible as well as windows and siding from the store. Since as you can see in the photo above the windows in the store were rather different than those in the house they are being rebuilt and reused in the garage. There is a loft above the garage where we can use windows, flooring, beadboard, beams and the freezer door as well!
So shameless plug for this little tool. I picked it up on a recommendation from the Craftsman blog site https://thecraftsmanblog.com/. Which is a site and person dedicated to saving old houses. And an advocate of saving the old windows in our old houses too. But this tool was recommended for scraping lead paint. It attaches to the hose of your shop vac and voila! You scrape along the peeling paint and almost all of the chips get sucked into the tool and deposited in the bag of the shop vac. I am using it on the ceiling beadboard and crown molding that is left. You can see in the background that the plaster and lath were removed below the crown molding which is actually a very good thing. Will make is easier to run new electric and insulate the walls. But if you are faced with scraping lead paint, get this tool.
Work has been paused on the property now that the store is down. We are waiting for our architect to draw some plans for a small addition on the left (East) side of the house (where the store was). We would like to add a small bedroom and kitchen plus a back porch. And a garage hopefully with a loft. And solar and batteries since we are completely rewiring or starting from scratch on the electrical. Along with plumbing and everything else besides the structure. Solar just seems like a good idea especially with the back of the house facing south, the tides in Beaufort getting higher and the hurricanes more frequent. I just feel it is time to do whatever we can personally without waiting for more efforts at the national level. Okay off the soap box.
Once we have the plans we will get on the BPC meeting schedule to get approval for the additions and moving the house. Only about 9-10' to the left. We have an estimate from the firm that moved elevated the Duncan house so nicely which we have accepted. We just have to figure out where it will be centered with the new small addition. So probably not too much happening from a construction/restoration stand point until late October. But we will be ready to go once we get BPC approval. With July 1 here we are back in town in time to rescue a bunch of bricks that were in the dumpsters. The bricks were from the foundation of the store and had Oyster Tabby cement holding the piers together. This was (according the Wikipedia) brought to America by the Spanish and used from Florida to North Carolina. It is made of burning oyster shells for lime and mixed with sand and more shells. It tends to be much easier and softer than modern concrete which helped with rescuing the bricks.
We have quite a few bricks and they were not supposed to have been thrown out. Others from the neighborhood have unfortunately also been taking our bricks out of the dumperster and putting them in planting beds even after being told in at least one case not to go in our dumpsters to get them. I understand that the dumpster in the street may look like it is public property (thanks to the neighbors throwing their smelly trash bags in there as well, not!) but that trash is not up for grabs. And we would have gotten the bricks out ourselves given a chance. Well enough complaining! The architect was out on Friday with a crew to measure the residence and put together plans of what is there now that the store is gone. We are pleased that the store did not collapse on its own during deconstruction. It was structurally unstable and could have easily collapsed bringing the house with it. They were attached through a common wall(s). In other news we have a house mover lined up to pick up the house an move it over. We want it centered on the lot more now that the grocery is gone. How much it gets moved depends on the additions we do which depends on plans from the architect and approve of the BPC. This will all take time so Superior is looking to plywood and tar paper the East wall while this all gets settled. The plan for the store and house is to take apart the store and restore the house. The store had been structurally compromised beyond salvaging. We had a professional house inspector, professional builder, licensed structural engineer and architect tell us the store (structure pictured on the left) could not be saved. We are salvaging as much of the truss beams, windows, siding, floors and beadboard as feasible. This salvaged material is old growth wood and can be used in restoring the residence and any addition we may put on. We are donating the AC units (four of them since there were four apartments) to Restore in Morehead City. We have the deconstruction of the store structure approved by the Beaufort Preservation Committee. The town was going to and had been planning to condemn the structures which we not habitable. But instead we bought the property after a long process of looking for other options in Beaufort to replace or augment our Orange street house, Watson Hall. We are fortunate to have a house we love in town and can take on this project without waiting to move in as there will be a series of actions that need to be done to get us to a restored house with garage or workshop. Such as picking up the house and centering it on the lot. Rewiring, replumbing, installing new HVAC and of course a new roof all need to be accomplished as well. Much more to go...
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AuthorRobbin Roddewig has always been interested in history and loves working with wood. Archives
December 2021
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