YEAH, WELL, IT'S BEEN A WHILE, HASN'T IT?

I haven't been so well this spring. First some extreme shoulder and back pain, then my dreaded hay fever, which hasn't shown its face in two years, came back with a vengeance. Add to that that I no longer have internet at my house (nor phone), and you'll see why I have been away.

But the work hasn't stopped. I decided to redo my kitchen as my wintertime project, and here it is a week past Independence Day. Well, my ceiling is done, anyway.

 

Empty shelves and dropcloths. The sheet strips keep the few kitchen necessaries I didn't move to the other room from becoming trashed during the ceiling project. You'll soon see why.

The shelves are from the fifties or sixties, maybe even seventies. The windows are mid 1800s, installed in 1939 when the Izbickis turned it from a derelict into a home.

The door, lower panel to the left of the door, door frame and fireplace surround are all from the early 18th century. All other paneling around the mantel is 1970s. Nice work, though.

All original woodwork was painted, then stripped in the 20th century. Basic Cape Cod style homes were seldom varnished or shellacked.

 

Obviously taken in winter. January, in fact.

Clay tile pipe for the old woodstove with nice fluffy asbestos around it. It has been filled with mortar but can be put into service again. I have no intention of doing this. The ceiling is 4x8 fiberboard with lattice strips hiding the joints. It was skim coated with some sort of drywall mud, which cracked and crazed, then the sheets began to disintegrate and bow downward.

 

One of the cabinets, presently housing essential potables. This will become the stereo/bar/TV shelf and the shelves above will have strange art. I do not need this much space for dishes, which will become dust catchers anyway. So will the art. The potables don't last that long.

The door to the laundry/mudroom, eighteenth century. Note the chopped off lower rail. This door was not original to this spot, and if you read on, you'll know why I know that. The refrigerator space is under the second story stairs, a steep ship's ladder type. I had suspected this was an old entry to the cellar, but unless it had a real ladder, this was not the case. Not enough room for stairs and no signs of wood stair attachment points.

A veritable time capsule of wallpaper, including newsprint from the oughts and teens. Note the plywood wainscot below. Definitely not eighteenth century. So it has to go, to be replaced with antique southern yellow pine in a board and batten style. The next phase of the Kitchen.

Ah! This is the thing for which I was searching. Plaster! With horsehair and jute fiber binders as well.

An old brass light switch, very dangerous. It has been disconnected and the wires removed. I have also removed all of the overhead lights in the house. I HATE overhead lights, as they spread harsh light and detract from the overall Colonial appearance. Or any other old-house style as well.

Original 18th century finger latch, showing wear from fingernails on the pine door as well and wear on the hand-forged metal. The keeper used to be a bit to the left, if the old screw holes and wear marks on the metal are to be believed.

That darned plywood panel again... soon to disappear forever!

The dirt work begins. Stripping wallpaper is the easy part. The ceiling has been furred down and leveled, just like the living room. The original joists show the lath and plaster marks.

Holy Hell! The ceiling has been lowered almost five inches on the outside girt and nearly two at the fireplace girt! These people were plumb level crazy! Note the up-and-down saw kerf marks on the joists, prolly from a local water-powered sawmill.

Mid 19th century casing trim cut into blocks and used as nailers. Good looking trim, that. I doubt it came from The Standish house, though.

The fiberboard came down is two by eight foot strips, all filled with all manner of nasty surprises. Rat and mouse feces abound, along with stamps, buttons, board game pieces, and effluvia from upstairs. Yes, I wore a respirator and kicked out the dwawgs when I did the work. This particular piece had a rat's nest in it.

Complete with Bre'r Rat. Mummified, of course.

This pic is archaeologically significant. It shows the joist above the door into the mudroom. And just why is it significant? Look at the plaster lines; they prove a plaster ceiling once went from one side of the house to the other. The door, though old, was added later. Along with the entire wall.

 

Just like the living room, the end girt is made of pine and the chimney girt is chestnut. In Colonial houses, Plates carry the roof rafters, Girts join the plates together. Sills are what the wood studs sit upon above the stone foundation. This particular pine girt (originally the end of the house) has been chiseled out to allow old electrical lines to be passed through. They never intended for the girt to be exposed, and at the time of this photograph (January), neither did I. I intended to do the same faux/hand hewn ceiling joists running the opposite of the joists, so the hacked out holes didn't bother me.

 

Then, like a dream, the snow melted in February! I had stripped the entire ceiling but I needed fresh air, and I figured this was a temporary aberration. It wasn't; by March, daffodils were blooming. So I took advantage of the weather, suspecting heavy wet snow would follow. It did, look back in the blog. I had to shore up the barn roof, as it was beginning to collapse. Wet snow might finish it.

New rafters from 1825 hemlock

Temporary ridgepole supports from the same, originally sleepers from a Pennsylvania barn.

Back in the kitchen, I found a deep check in the chestnut chimney girt. Since it holds up the joist tenons, I decided to screw it back together. For luck. The screws were hidden upon finishing. But if I was going to cover the joists and girts anyway, why should this matter?

 

An electrical line I had to abandon. It was at this point that I realized a problem unforeseen; the shelves were built long after the ceiling, and removing the latter would leave a huge gap of almost seven inches on the end wall (three or four here).

  

 

Other, larger critters lived in the ceiling for a time; one left this huge turd. A coon, most likely.

 

 

Now, at this point, I must confess. I am the owner of this house, but whatever lives here lets me do so at its/their pleasure. I am here to do its bidding.

I'm convinced of this.

So when it tells me to do something, I do it. Sure it seems to come from my own mind, but I know better.

Case in point.

After stripping the ceiling and removing all the blocks, dirt, fiberboard and nailers, I stood with my ass against the sink one night and looked at it carefully. Through the door to the front 'porch' (a term for a Cape's 3x3 interior foyer), I could see the living room ceiling, with its faux joists running the opposite way. I liked the view and was contemplating on just what I needed to do to copy that ceiling in this room when I suddenly knew. I COULDN'T DO IT.

I had to expose the original joists and plaster between them.

I HAD to. It's what The House wanted.

I tried to argue with it.

"But it'll show all those plaster lines! These joists were never meant to be exposed! And what about those damned gouges in the end girt? They'll show!!!"

Grrrrr....

"And do you know how much trouble it is to install drywall between joists, then to float it and paint all those joints cleanly?!! Do you??!"

I sighed and resigned myself to The Farm's Desires.

I only hoped it would look okay.

 

 

First task; installing blocking and nailers for the new trim that would have to be installed above the shelving. I had no idea just what it would look like, but I knew how wide it would have to be.

I also needed to add a joist above the windows. The old joists were on sixteen inch centers and the space above the windows was twenty five inches wide. And where would I get a rough sawn joist with dark brown patina?

In my garage, of course. I collect such things and actually brought a stack of them from Arkysaw. But the original joists had up and down saw kerfs from a water-powered sawmill, and my Arky wood had huge circular saw marks. Oh, well. Donatello Nobody.

 

I installed 1x4 nailers (scarfed from a demo in Hadley Mass for free, my favorite price) to the joists and installed R13 3 1/2" fiberglass insulation. Not as thick as in the living room, but it'll have to do.

 



Blocking for the 'high' end of the ceiling, almost ten inches higher than the removed dropped ceiling. Note the light orange stripes on the scrollwork trim, the removed trim's ghosts; this person didn't like the 'settled' lines of the 326 year old house and straightened them.

"Didn't you have any toys as a kid?" Ray asks Egon Spengler in "Ghostbusters."

"We had a slinky, well, half a slinky. But I straightened it."

That's the way I feel about 'straightening' and old house's lines. Don't.

I decided the space was too great for a single horizontal piece of wood, so I kicked out the top block 1.5 inches for a two-tiered, corbelled effect.

 



 

Still have to deal with those damned gouges...

 

 

Plaster floating begins after the drywall is screwed to the nailers. First thing is to use a hard plaster between the wood and the drywall. Oh, actually, first I cleaned then lightly sanded and varnished the joists to make sure the excess plaster would wash off and the up-and-down saw kerfs would stand out.

The plaster lines faded with this action; still there, but much less visible.

 

 

I removed the loose wall plaster and screwed pieces of drywall to the lath.

 

 

Then I used the same setting-type hard plaster to smooth the wall, finally floating it with drywall mud. As in the living room, I left the ridges high and made the plaster purposefully uneven to mimic a Colonial style of plaster.

 

 

The girts truly show with this style of wall treatment.

 

 Drywall floated, first coat.

 

 

Easter Sunday, I remove that ugly plywood wainscot. And look what the Easter Bunny brung me!

 

 

A piece of ORIGINAL paneling matching the one by the door to the porch (go back and look to the left of the door, near the floor). But this one has PAINT, so I can do a sanded core sample and see what the original color was. I have no intention of stripping it, either. It will be a museum window. Note the missing piece broken at the top where a nail snapped the grain line.

 

 

Corner cleaned and ready for new electrical lines, outlets, insulation, and wainscot.

 

Ceiling and plaster walls finished and painted. I always intended to do a Wedgewood blue here. Cool versus the warm of the wood

 



 I even cleaned the woodwork and transferred appropriate pieces of pewter, crockery, and old bottles onto the mantel. Thanks for collecting Colonial decor, Ma!The pic is of The Standish House, of course. If you look really closely at the kitchen window, you can see this same scene in the painting! No? I just realized I never took good pics of the new trim. Maybe if I look back...Nope. I'll include some as I start the wood trim phase next. Note my Colonial desk in the porch, in front of the front door. Front doors in Capes are seldom used. Note that I removed the door entirely; I also removed the mudroom door. This really opened the kitchen, but both will need to go back when the cold weather returns. It was ninety two here yesterday.

 

It inspired me to install under-the cabinet lights and a spice rack. I have yet to put a wood strip up to hide the lights, but wait until you see what I'm doing with the lighting! That'll be next, and it won't be six months before the next post....I'm working on it as I write. Well, not literally, or you'd never get this.

NEXT: Wainscot and lights.