TOO HOT FOR WORDS

So I haven't been posting much. We had a nice cool spring up until mid-June, when nineties became the norm and the same number applies to humidity. We'd get a week of mid nineties followed by a couple of days in the eighties with lower humidity, then back to the oven. Jeez, it's why I left the south. Everyone says it's the hottest year they ever felt, but I haven't seen the season stats.

(As I finally post this on September 28th, the temps have moderated this week down to the seventies and sixties. We even had a thirty seven degree morning. So I'm doing better, but this was the hottest year on record in CT and RI, so there. Nyaaahh).

So starting in mid-June, I took to the basement. I know I'm supposed to be working on the kitchen trim, counters and lights, but my dirt-floored cellar is the only cool place on the property, so I have been busy down there.

First order of business; open the cellar window under the bathroom. Warm air enters and leaves as cool air. Not exactly a window, it's a hole that allows really large mosquitoes access.

 My water stash. You never know when the well might stop working due to a power outage. Yes, it's potable. Yes, it's a lousy picture.

Begin by setting up a workbench near the chimney stack.

Remove the old kerosene barrel frame...as well as the wood walls around it. Most every piece of wood down there shows powderpost beetle damage. Most has got to go.

 

And just WHERE did it go? Out that damned mosquito hole, of course! One of my two readers said that it looked like the house had vomited wood, and so it does. Hey, Jay! And it did, with my help. Very little was worth saving, as it was beetle-damaged. Infested? Possibly, but it's easier to get rid of than to treat. I WILL be treating the entire cellar with Boracare once it's cleaned out. Behind the wood is the area Speckle ate. I guess I'll have to get some cedar shakes to repair it, though I will eventually strip the entire back side to expose the original siding. All in good time. Instead I expanded the electric fence to give her some incentive to stop eating my house.

This was a potato bin. I will be turning the cellar into a cool storage facility in time.

One of the five original joists from when the kitchen was the only room. Though they look completely compromised, the damage has left more than half of the thing intact. I can work with that.

I chopped away most of the compromised wood and was left with this. It is quite solid. Note the hand-hewn joist to the left.

One of two original sill plates from the 1690 house. Still as solid as when it was built, prolly because they are chestnut. Bugs don't like chestnut. I assume they've been down here since 1700 or so. The plates, not the bugs. Then again....

Removed the bricked-up cellar window, beyond which, the 1939 bedroom addition looms. This window was used as a coal chute at one time; holes in the floor show where hot water lines fed radiators before 1938. Note the brick and stone pile below; it came from the chute. A perfect place for a wood rack.

This post below the chimney girt joint needed resetting. I jacked the girt just enough to take the weight from the post, then put a flat stone beneath it. Once the jack was removed, the post and stone were tight and nothing moved.

What's left of the old 1690 structure was used to korbel out the hearth when the chimney was built. It must have been a hell of a substantial structure if the timbers are to be a guide. These were 5x5 joists, or so I suppose, as they are twelve feet long and have square ends. Tenons with trunnel holes can be seen at the end of the joists. Note the hand-hewn joists and chimney girt above.

The area behind the torn-out wall by the kerosene frame. Note how the joints between the stones are not opposite one another as they should be. One on two, two on one; that's how walls are built from stone. I am of the opinion that this wall was either a later addition or rebuilt by a moron. There is a squared-off pile of washed-in soil is at the base; it was built up behind the removed frame wall. I had some time to look at this because I also put a chair, reading light, and a couple of tables from this camera position. I spend evenings down there when it's too hot in the house. Usually listening to Old Time Radio.

This joist was shaved down and new 2x lumber was added to it, effectively sistering it. The sisters were set to be supported by the wood above the door, which was also replaced.

Apparently someone else had the same idea years ago, but they did it badly. The sisters also had boring beetles throughout. I removed them and shaved the joist; it was fine.

The joist holding up the floor of the porch. It is an 'entry' to you rebels; we Yankees call the little four-by-four portal inside the front door a porch. Personally, I like the southern ideal of a porch being forty feet long, where I can live half of the year. This ain't the south; the bugs keep you inside in the summer and the snow does the same in the winter.

It shows a little deflection after three hundred years, and is, believe it or not, quite solid. The room above is too small to lift, though I will be lifting the joists below the kitchen.

Those striated pieces of wood above the joists are thin pieces of chestnut, somewhat worn from absorbing moisture of the cellar, then shedding it. These are 'sleepers,' strips of wood that are placed below the slabs of chestnut flooring above. The flooring has no tongue-in-groove design, and needs the sleepers to keep the cold air from seeping back up into the room above. It's an eighteenth-century thing.

Unfortunately, due to their thin construction, the constant moisture gain and loss, and the weight of the heart pine floor on top of the chestnut floor, the sleepers have desiccated and rotted, collapsing below the floor. So the floor above has no support in many places and moves as it is walked upon.

What to do?

I had to think on this one.

.

I decided to remove as many rotted sleepers as I could after removing the plywood some moron screwed to them from below. This was likely done to hide the damage when the house was up for sale. I saw the cheap repairs and bought it anyway. But what could I do to replace them? I needed to make up for the lost sleepers.

A hint; look at the far joist......

So I decided to get out of the cellar and do some yard work. Here is my 150 year old boxwood, replanted last year. The plant is growing (see the greenery in the middle? Boxwoods grow very, very slowly), but I just HAD to turn the old branches (trunks) into arms on which to hold plants. I cut some teak, sealed the trunk ends, and screwed the teak to the trunk ends (after squaring and levelling them, of course). Teak is very resistant to water infiltration.

Apparently it was a cool weekend in the summer.

I cleared the old garden, which had been taken over by poison ivy. I itched for a week.

I cleared by the south wall, but left the peonies (in the center) so I could divide them in September. Wait! That's now! I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend.

My yews, which show damage from the big wet snow earlier. They are recovering nicely.

Morning glories before planting in the ground. They are quite huge now.

Speckle panting through her teeth.

 

Speckie and Cheerio enjoying Cheerio's new window seat. She pretty much lives there, watching the birds. She gets very excited when the chipmunks emerge. Note the wires on all sides. I have no Teevee, internet, phone, or cable, but I got wires. Speaker wires, mostly, so I can listen to radio in the cellar, attic, back room and back yard. I get GREAT radio here; eight (and sometimes twelve) different community and public stations. I support the most needy.

A collection of wood windows from the greenhouse, wood frames long rotted away as I cleaned the pile. But the glass that was left is Colonial! Very distorted it is, he said in his best Yoda voice.

Some chestnut sections from a torn-down church behind the glass. Wormy on the outside, clear on the inside.

Some pics of the yard after the spring-planted grass has established itself. Under the apple tree, to the corner, and beyond.

 

Back to the cellar as the heat returned. I cut the area below the damaged joist to ready it for the new dropsill that will support the lifted kitchen ceiling. Here you can see the solution to the rotted sleepers. Wedges hammered into the flooring joints so that the floor will lift when the joists are jacked. The wedges are installed from both sides of the joists. No nails, no glue. Just pressure.

 

 

I already showed you this pic, but now it makes sense. It's section of sleeper-free flooring ready for wedges. You have no idea how much trouble it is to get the old sleeper material out....

 

What, you thought restoring an old house is like what you saw on TeeVee?

Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!