Two month update, moving and renovating

A little over two months ago, on a cold frost morning, I started renovation work on my newly purchased 1850’s colonial wreck. I had a little under three months to decorate five rooms - three bedrooms and two studies / home offices - and self move 90 miles from NJ to NY. I planned one mid week solo trip north and every weekend with the family. I knew it would be hard, but I had plenty of time, right?

I now have two weeks to go and don’t have a single room finished. I’m now planning on three bedrooms and my wife’s work from home office. Every task has taken so much longer than I estimated and I doubled all my estimations because of the age of the house. I even allowed time for adapting to US building practices and my ‘lost in translation’ conversations in Lowes and Home Depot . . . Skirting boards are base boards this side of the pond.

I quickly found that 15 amps at 240 in the UK is more than enough juice to run a shop vac and sander on the same circuit but trips when you have 20 amps at 110v. So I improvised and adapted, ran extension cables from ground floor to first floor and even then, the lights dimmed everytime I started sanding the floors.

And then there’s been all the unplanned fixes in the fly. We now have an understanding that everything that was there before we moved in will break. I’ve had to replace kitchen plumbing, install new backdoor locks after it decided to jam up for no good reason. One of the main waste water pipes in the basement now has buckets collecting water when it rains even though no gutters feed into it.

I have come to hate previous owners over use of power tools and nail guns. Every screw head is stripped and most ‘screw holes’ are drilled out, resulting in fixing and rehanging almost every internal door.

I have come to love the original floor boards. I think they are old growth pine, probably white pine. They are tough, have a tight grain and although there are many knots, they look beautiful when sanded and coated with tung oil. And I love tung oil. I am yet to find a downside. It is easy to apply, I use a 9 inch roller. It smells nutty rather than toxic but the smell is gone once it dries. The wood has a rich deep golden hue.

I was very down about the town I’m moving too. It seemed dead and too close to a strip mall that had sucked the life out of the main street. However, two very good cafes have opened and have been visited regularly for a welcome lunch time break. The community has a large Latin American community and with it are a couple of really great restaurants with what feels like authentic Mexican food. This week my CSA starts at a local farm shop and I’ve discovered a really good small grocery shop that specialises in local and organic, the way it should be. Most of the fruit and veg is sourced locally rather than wrapped in plastic and flown thousands of miles. The people who work there are super friendly.

Spring lasted a couple of weeks and now it’s full sun and humidity. I’ve not lived in a hot place without AC before, so it’s a bit of a challenge. Ceiling fans bumped up the priority list. I’m painfully aware of how the sun tracks across the house and my bedroom with it’s three windows has a good eight hours of afternoon sun. Long term, I’ll be growing some vines to take out some of the heat and stop the sun shining in. In the winter, the leaves will be gone and the sun will be a welcome addition. In the short time, I decided to invest in some Smart Tech and install automatic blinds. I’ve coupled them with some Smart Thermometers that measure temp and humidity and set some seasonal rules so they automatically close during the hot months before the sun hits the windows. (I tried programming my lovely wife with a similar algorithm as she gets up later than me, but it didn’t work . . .).

I know this year I have to focus on the house. My instincts and desires are to be outside, planting. That has to wait. I’ll have to settle, in the short term, with a few herbs. I also know that the best time to plant trees was last year and the second best time is now. So not planting trees this year is doubly painful. I’ll just have to make sure I have an awesome plan in the few months so I can at least start some autumn planting.

I’ve always loved working with wood, being amongst trees and building things with my hands. At the age of three, I wanted to be a woodsman. Lower Hudson is good tree country which can’t be said for where I lived in New Jersey. The basement is large and unfinished. As part of the renovation project I will build myself a woodworking shop. A few years ago I read “Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life” by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles. (There’s a great summary here: www.sloww.co/ikigai-book/) It’s about following your passion and what you’re good at, and woodwork fits for me. It’s also about doing something the world needs and what you can be paid to do. The world needs more things made from wood and not plastic and earning some cash would be a nice bonus. I also think Ikigai is very compatible with Permaculture. My first project was to invest in a table router and make my own trim. The initial cost is high. However, I bought 6 inch boards which I ripped down to just under an inch, then added decoration with the router. The cost per foot was six times less than buying the pre-made stuff which was either mdf of unknown origin. I have half a dozen rooms to fit out, closing the gap between the skirting / baseboard and recently liberated wooden floors. Doing it this way requires time and initial investment, but will pay for itself and is an enjoyable task.

I’ve also documented dozens of tasks and should pick up some PEP / PEA badges when I have time to write them up and submit. You may or may not have noticed but this is my first post for quite sometime. I’ve been rising with the sun and crashing, exhausted into bed when it sets. This weekend I took a day off, my first in two months and I could little more than sit on the sofa and catch up on some rugby matches on TV. I’m now in my final two week stretch. On Saturday I pick up a U-Haul and haul the big stuff I couldn’t fit in the car - tables, book cases, sofa etc. Then one more U-Haul the following weekend for desks, beds and plants. I’m going to be full time renovator for at least a year maybe three. I can’t continue to work the days and hours, I’ll need to have a day of rest and get out and enjoy the trees, hiking in the near by hills and mountains.

Lovely update, thanks.
I had to chuckle when you referred to Dutchess County, New York as a "hot place" sure it's hotter than someplaces...
... but there are many more that are much hotter.

Melissa Ferrin wrote:Lovely update, thanks.
I had to chuckle when you referred to Dutchess County, New York as a "hot place" sure it's hotter than someplaces...
... but there are many more that are much hotter.

I’m sure, it’s all relative. Good to know I made you chuckle.  I’m originally from the UK and managed fine with a couple of desk top fans on the handful of hot days we had every summer. We used to say that the definition of an English summer was three hot days and a thunderstorm.  (Although I hear climate change is making hot spells more frequent for longer stretches.)

The farm and research center in Spring Valley might be a good day trip. The pioneer research in biodynamic agriculture was done there and it is a peaceful and beautiful place with great nourishing energy.  Threefold Farm/Fellowship Community, you can volunteer for an afternoon of (easy, laid-back) farm work and see happy cows.

glad to hear from you, edward!  sounds like a bit of a slog, hopefully it’ll be a bit of relief for your ‘timer’ to run out, even if you’re not as done as you’d hoped you’d be. maybe afterwards, you can continue working while taking more breaks of the tree-filled sort.

Edward, if I might make a suggestion? If you put a powerful whole-house fan in an upstairs window on the hotter side of the house - *facing out*, then open one window in each room, just an inch or two, within just a couple minutes of blowing, the whole house will drop to a noticeably cooler temp, even on low. Much less expensive than a/c, and likely far healthier, overall, as well.

Edward Norton wrote:

I also know that the best time to plant trees was last year and the second best time is now. So not planting trees this year is doubly painful.

Around here, the best time to plant a tree is the fall. As much as renovating is the priority, if there are some trees you know you love, consider pushing a few seeds into dirt just as a break!

Carla Burke wrote:Edward, if I might make a suggestion? If you put a powerful whole-house fan in an upstairs window on the hotter side of the house - *facing out*, then open one window in each room, just an inch or two, within just a couple minutes of blowing, the whole house will drop to a noticeably cooler temp, even on low. Much less expensive than a/c, and likely far healthier, overall, as well.

Carla, what a great idea. I’m wondering if I could pull cooler air from the basement  . . . i guess my house is quite leaky, so probably not. I’ve done some searching for whole house fans and most appear to be permanent attic installations. Do you have a picture of what one looks like?

Jay Angler wrote:Around here, the best time to plant a tree is the fall. As much as renovating is the priority, if there are some trees you know you love, consider pushing a few seeds into dirt just as a break!

I’m definitely planning to put something in the ground in three or four months from now. Thanks Jay.

Some years back, we were able to rescue an exhaust fan. It is of great help. Ours looks like this one.

To keep wasps and such out of the house, I made a cage of 1/4 inch hardware cloth around it.

The one I used to have was a huge, heavy, old, incredibly powerful attic fan that we added an extra board to, on one narrower side, so it would fit the rather large window. I'd say it was probably 30 inches by 30 inches... But, it looked much like the one Joylynn shared.

If you need to put a screw back into a hole that's stripped out, just take a few tooth picks, dab a bit of glue on them and stuff them in the stripped out hole. Cut them off flush when they dry.  Then drive your screw in.

It is good to hear how you are getting on with your renovation. I read that you should ask a friend how long it will take you to do a job because they are less optimistic than you are. E.G. Mr Ara said he would get the tiling in our shower room finished "this afternoon". I reckoned it would take him a week. I too, was over optimistic as it took him two weeks! Remember, of course that, notwithstanding the questionable DIY of previous owners, houses do not like new owners when they first move in so there are always many things (that worked perfectly well for the former owner) which will break as soon as you look at them. The opposite is true too as our current house does not want us to leave and whenever we are going out to do something regarding our move, something goes wrong - the car had a flat battery then a spring in the suspension broke so it was undrivable. I have told it that the new people will love it (Mrs Buyer said it had a "good feeling") and we have had no problems since. Oh dear, I think I am becoming stranger as I age.

They are tough, have a tight grain and although there are many knots, they look beautiful when sanded and coated with tung oil.

Due to the 1850 vintage & the description of the wood & the use of tung oil the odds are high that is heartwood of Longleaf Pine. Beautiful wood that will last almost forever.

Edward: if you have a cool basement, you don't need a high pressure fan upstairs to cool the house, just a cheap lightweight one, and it won't pull so much in from the air leaks. Open something in the basement, and just barely move the air out, you'll be surprised how much it will help. High power fans are great, if you have a lot of coolness you can move around, but if you have nothing but hot air to move, they pull in so much heat that the thermal mass of the house (and all mass is thermal mass, jut smaller amounts that a good solid slab will have) heats up and in the long run makes the house hotter. Try the slow fan, you might be surprised.

Good solid drapes are definitely your friend in both winter and summer. I have added a bar with  clear shower curtains on it between the windows and drapes, makes it so we can have light but less temperature modifications.