We had an uninvited visitor storm into the area this weekend, going by the name of Irene. She put a damper on some of the planning and work to be done on the renovation of the Humphreys House. Now, this home being over 100 years old has seen its share of hurricanes and has lived through them, but being a new owner I was nervous that the sustained winds that were supposed to come with the storm would knock an old tree down onto the home, or worse. Luckily, we survived, with only a small leak and some branches down in the backyard and so we were able to continue on with the plans for renovation.
Back to the plans….As you can see in the photos below, there is some extensive work to be done, but nothing that is out of the realm of possibility. You must look beyond the water damage and old kitchen to see what is just ahead. I envision the home with warmth and joy and know that all of the hard work will pay off. Besides, this is not an instant gratification type project. You must realize that the larger items will get taken care of upfront, but many of the renovations will become a part of our daily, weekly lives. Any home requires upkeep, this one just needs to catch up as it has stood empty for years.
We have begun to remove the kitchen all the way down to the studs in the walls and clear to the subfloor. A discovery in these old homes is that instead of removing the old before updating with something new, i.e. wallpaper, flooring, what have you…they just put the new right on top! Clearing the floor and walls is like eating a gobstopper, there is always a new layer to be discovered. The clearing out of the old is not going directly into a dumpster, as the cabinets were made of some nice solid wood so we are setting aside anything of potential value either to use within the home somewhere, or to give to someone else to make good use of. Once the kitchen and baths are clear then we will begin work on the walls. There have been some leaks over the years, and it seems we can fix them up fairly easily, or so we hope. Not completely sure until we get into the wall and see what has been discovered. With the rain we have had recently, only two of the damaged walls seem to continue to show leaking and both stem from windows that will need to be resealed. Getting storm windows as an outer layer of protection will also help as we have already seen in one window where there was previous leaks. Some of the damaged walls will need to come down and be replaced with new drywall, while others may just need a new coat of plaster. As for the windows, we have a couple broken panes on the large windows upstairs, and those will need to be replaced, but we will be keeping all of the old windows with the stained glass, as the beauty is far to valuable to just get rid of.
Follow along with our trials and tribulations, and all of the new discoveries to come.
