DIARY OF A RESTORATION PROJECT
or
“Preservation On The Rocks”
April 26, 2002 –
Closed on the house today. At the closing the current, soon to be
former owners seemed a little jumpy. They kept looking at their
watches, and hopping around in their seats. They were dressed up to
go somewhere and were anxious to get there. Later, I realized that
they were probably leaving the country, or at least the state. Then
they started telling us about the ghost of The Countess that had been
seen in the house at times. Not by THEM of course, but by others,
also long dead. Thanks for sharing that detail NOW! We signed the
papers anyway and everyone ran away from the lawyer’s office as
fast as possible. I think I heard laughter in the parking lot.
We drove over to the house, which is located in the Rocks Village
Historic (or Historical) District is located in a town called
HAVERHILL. When we got to the house, we practiced pronouncing
“Haverhill” for a few hours, while we were drinking the champagne
left by the grateful (and relieved) former owners. Then, we decided
that we REALLY lived in “ South” Merrimac because it was easier
to pronounce after you had been drinking.
Exercise: say Haverhill three times real fast, correctly.
Restoration work: None
April 27-30 –
Long weekend, didn’t do much at the house but look for frogs in the
basement. We also determined that the basement is ideal for storing
wine. White wine goes in a deep hole in the basement floor that
looks like an old well. The water also shows you where the water
table is, all the time. Handy. What’s a water table?
The red wine goes in a brick lined cave where the old furnace was.
We didn’t check the temperature but we are sure that the wine will
be OK. Especially since we only buy three bottles at a time. Then
we drink them over the next 2 days. There seems to be plenty of room
for more bottles when we have money again. Like never
I was so concerned about all the work we had to do and the fact that
I had sweet-talked my lovely, wonderful, gullible, arthritic wife
into still ANOTHER restoration disaster that I had to go fishing with
my brother in law, Mike. Mike has been married about a year, I have
been married for over 30 years, ergo I had much wisdom to impart.
Besides, Mike had some beer.
May, 2002 -
May 4th –
Our furniture, which had been stored in Columbia, South Carolina for
about 3 years after we moved from Chester, Connecticut (another
diary, another restoration, for another time!) The movers from South
Carolina called from the wrong side of the “Rocks Bridge”. This
old green historic span connects West Newbury with Rocks Village.
Their van was too heavy so they had to find a way to get to us via
I-95 & I-495. We explained this by cell phone and they left.
They arrived about an hour later and started to unload as the sky
darkened and the rains came.
As we tried to do a running (literally) inventory check we noticed
that they only had about half our furniture, and half of that was
broken or water-stained and moldy. Naturally, the water stains and
mold were on carefully preserved photographs and framed paintings.
If they had been on our old, moldy furniture we wouldn’t have
noticed, for a while anyway. I think the furniture would have been
safer on the ORIGINAL “Mayflower”. I know the “crew” would
have worked harder.
The worse news? They lost my best fishing rod! This means WAR! The
war of Northern Aggression is about to start over. Don’t be
messin’ with a mans fishin’ pole!
May 5th - (Cinco de Mayo!) Paralyzed with fear &
apprehension, we opened more boxes and still more wine. The fear was
that we would run out of wine before we ran out of boxes. We had
plenty of both so we went to bed. “Cinco de my - - -!”
May 6-11, 2002
Writing by the week is better for a diary. That way it seems like
you really got something accomplished. This week we opened more
boxes, scraped some paint off one wall, found a hardware store, a
lumberyard, and a package store nearby. We now know we can buy milk,
bread and eggs within 2 miles, guns, liquor and ammo within 6 miles,
and four different ice cream stands within 4 miles in any direction.
I can also walk to the river to fish. Good week. Oh, I forgot, we
haven’t seen any ghosts yet. A very good week!
May 12-18, 2002 –
Met some of the neighbors. Nice to know many of them drink. Not that
this is a pre-occupation with people who restore old houses. It’s
just that after sucking down or sniffing in plaster dust, attic
insulation, or basement dirt all day, you really need to open a
bottle of wine and pretend that the “workers” just left (the
imaginary ones, because you couldn’t afford to hire any) and walk
around to critique their work.
This week we worked in the yard and started to do some real work
inside. Since it was both Mothers Day and my daughter’s birthday,
I got Nelle a new putty knife and promised to work like a slave for
her all day. The kids tried to help too. However, Elizabeth had a
prior commitment and got her hair and nails done, and Tommy got a
speck of dirt under his contact lens so we had to go to Home Depot
(20 miles away) to get him some protective eye gear and gloves.
Then, after stopping at a Farm Stand for pie and doughnuts, Starbucks
for coffee (another 10 miles) it was kind of late when we got back to
help Nelle with the ceiling. She had an ice bag strapped on her
shoulder, a putty knife in one hand and a scraper in the other. No
eye gear, no gloves. But we helped her down from the ladder and got
her some ADVIL so she could make us lunch
Without hurting her shoulder or arm too much. After all it was
Mothers Day.
After lunch, Tommy had a great idea; we really should buy that new
lawnmower so he could mow the lawn for us. So he and I jumped in the
SUV and went out in search of a mower. As we left, I think I heard
Nelle shouting out something about hyperactivity and staying on task
or not listening to her or something like that. Since we had the
cell phone with us, we knew she would call if it were important.
By the time we got back with a new mower, (I don’t remember now how
Tom talked me into a $3,500 John Deere Riding machine when we had a
yard the size of a Half basketball court) Elizabeth was home with
new hair and great nails. She really wasn’t in the mood to scrape
old calcimine paint off the ceiling and besides I had gotten them
tickets to Incubus on the Internet for her birthday and she had to
get ready. That’s when we remembered that we forgot to buy gas for
the mower. We called up to Nelle that we would be right back and did
she need anything? She mumbled something from the top of the ladder.
It was either “have a good time, I know I will” or “I need
primer and more ADVIL” We couldn’t really hear her, but we still
had the cell phone. I think Tom and I were bonding pretty well on
these little trips. He was getting to learn a lot about “period
restoration” and I was hearing a lot about his life. Perhaps a
little too much. He had just gotten laid off and I was afraid he was
going to hit me up for some cash so I just kept talking and changing
the subject. I didn’t want to hurt his self-respect or deny him
the chance of experiencing true, character-building poverty by giving
him money. He would just resent us later and besides I had my eye on
a new fly rod and the stripers were coming up the river soon. Is
that wrong?
This time, when we got back, it was time for Tom to take a shower and
get ready to go to the concert with Elizabeth. I got mad and told
him he had to mow the lawn first. He did this in about 5 minutes with
the new ride and only clipped half of Mom’s new flowerbed.
I checked on Nelle. Whoops, she really did want primer and more
ADVIL. I felt pretty bad so I got up on the ladder and started
scraping away.....Hmmmm, what the hell is this stuff on the ceiling?
The layers from first or oldest to last included:
Wood lath - These were actually hand-split 7/8 inch boards with
horsehair plaster on top of that, finished with a nice veneer
plaster, then 2-3 layers of “calcimine” paint, the worst stuff
to try to remove in the world because new paint won’t stick to it,
but then they had painted it and then wallpapered over the paint,
painted it again, and then, to cover up the cracks, gaps & holes,
they had smeared a concrete-like swirl finish for the final layer.
Great. This concrete crust had been slopped on to the side walls and
also used to fill some fist sized holes in the wall. I scraped like
mad for about 5 minutes and then told Nelle, she really looked like
she could use a glass of wine. I hate it when she drinks alone so I
stopped to open a nice bottle of Zinfandel.
After we had a few glasses, sitting outside in our old Adirondack
chairs (thanks to Pam & Tony) we went back inside to stare at the
ceiling.
I think May ended about here. June, 2002 diary entries to come
later. Probably in November, 2002.
STOP - end of Part I – submitted to Port Planet – published in
early Nov, 2002 issue
