The Beginning of Porch Repair

The uniqueness of our front porch is one of the features that attracted us most to our home.  This porch spans the entire width of our house and circles around the turret to create a nice living space we hope to enjoy for much of the year.  Sadly this was one area of the house that was neglected over the years before we purchased this house.  But with the help of Pat Drury and his team from Drury Designs, today marks the beginning of the repair work to our porch.

The first day of porch repair

We have been very impressed with Pat's previous work including a few historic homes in De Pere, as well as the creativity and spark he brought to the work at the restaurant S.A.L.T.  It has been great to work with someone with as much enthusiasm for preserving the historic features of our house and using as much original or reclaimed materials as possible.

The Drury team begins work on the porch.

For our porch there are a couple areas of concern that Pat and his team will be starting with.  First, we have a few stone columns with wooden pillars that years of water damage have taken its toll on.  In the photo below, you can see the the worst section of the needed repairs -- a leaning stone column.

This would only be acceptable in Pisa.

Another area that will be repaired is our front step.  It is old, cracked, and actually crumbles apart when it is used.   I am sure it has been an eyesore in this neighborhood for years, and we won't be the only ones glad to see it replaced. 

The crumbling steps

While this is just the start of this project, we are very excited already.  We will be reporting more on the progress as the porch project continues!

The Study Bathroom - Windows

New windows can really make a difference in a room's appearance... especially if the room is rather small and dark. The bathroom off of our study is a perfect example.

Before, the windows didn't open, and they looked like this:

The view from outside.

Not being able to open the windows would have been really hard. Even if we don't open them all that often, it's still nice to know that we have the option. 

Now, the windows look like this! These are triple-pane, awning-style windows.

This bathroom has a lighthouse/nautical theme. 

The bathroom feels so much brighter now.  Thanks, Window World for your excellent service and product!

Adding a Pantry

Even though our house was originally built for a family of eight, the size of the kitchen is much smaller than most would expect.  While it was similarly sized to our previous house and we felt right at home with its cozy size, it was missing one thing we liked at our other house -- a pantry.

The fridge in its new home.

Pantry installed with no doors yet.

We decided to make better use of the space that was once a breakfast nook.  We had Randy Buell of R&J Custom Furniture, Cabinets, and Trim make us some new cabinets that would become our new pantry.  He also added a nice wine rack in the space above the refrigerator to close the space in. 

Our new pantry and wine rack.

In the space where the refrigerator originally stood, Randy made us some new base cabinets, a butcher block counter top, and fit in an extension to hanging cabinets that blended in well.  

The new counter top and cupboards being installed.

The new cabinets and butcher block where the refrigerator once stood.

Naturally, a project in an old home is not without its challenges.  It turned out that the walls where the wine rack was to fit were not exactly square and it was a bit too snug.  Luckily, Randy has his belt sander with him and a rubber mallet.  A few runs with the sander and then a series of whacks with the mallet and the wine rack was in place.  

Randy Buell getting the wine rack in place.

A World of Difference: Windows

It can be difficult to preserve the original look and feel of a historic home. Though we want to do as many things as we can to keep our 1902 Victorian looking as historically accurate as we can, we knew that keeping the original windows wasn't going to work out for us. There were so many windows that had broken or missing panes, we didn't see it as an option to keep the original windows. Not to mention that the Wisconsin winter was fast approaching, and we wanted to have as much insulation between the inside and the outside of our house as we could get.

A missing corner piece of one of the old windows.

A crack in one of the old windows.

We gave Window World a call, and Art Lane came over to look at our project. I did a walk-through with him, and we came up with 26 windows that we wanted to have replaced.

Levi and Eric from Window World came to our house over a period of three days to install our new windows.  They removed the old windows, insulated the weight pockets with spray foam, and installed the new windows. They did an amazing job, and we would highly recommend them to anyone who is considering having any windows replaced.

Before: the north side

After: the north side

Most of the windows are white vinyl, but some have an oak finish on the inside to match the surrounding stops and trim. They had many options for us to choose from. We went with the colonial-style grill pattern in the top half of each of the triple-pane, double-hung windows.
Not only does our house look so different now that we don't have any broken windows, we also have the peace of mind knowing that we have a lifetime warranty in case one of the new windows gets broken.

Future blog posts about the windows will bring you on a room-by-room journey with before and after pictures of what the room looked like with the old windows, what it looked like with the new windows, and (hopefully!) what the windows look like now. I'm making all of our curtains with my new sewing machine, and as I get finished, I will post a picture of what the finished product looks like.

Keep checking back to see our progress! 

Trimming up the Trim

Of all the rooms in our house, we liked the original color of the walls in the dining room the best.  A nice robust green color, it reminded us of the color in our dining room we had at our previous house.  While we've had a number of rooms already painted (kitchen, bathroom, sewing room), we felt that the green in the dining room was nice enough to keep as is.  Even with the nicely painted walls, this room still needed some attention -- the base trim.

The trim as it was when we moved in.

Although I am generally not a fan of painted trim, the white color does go well with the green walls.  The problem was that the paint had flaked off and was showing many signs of age.  All it took was a fresh coat of paint and our dining room trim was looking like a nice clean inviting space again.  

A fresh coat of paint makes all the difference.

Fixing a Drip

Wisconsin is known for its rough winters. They don't call Lambeau Field the 'Frozen Tundra' for nothing!

Our home was a foreclosure property. The bank didn't want to pay the heat bill, so after a while the heat was turned off. Unfortunately, the water wasn't completely drained out of many of the pipes before that was done. Water in pipes and fixtures + freezing temperatures = burst pipes and damaged fixtures.

The faucet in the 2nd floor bathroom was one of the fixtures that was damaged. Chris at Sinclair Plumbing thought that the water freezing in the faucet may have expanded and created a small crack. Over time, and as the faucet was used more, the crack got bigger and bigger, until every time the faucet was used, a little puddle of water formed under the sink. We obviously needed to get a new one.

I wanted to make sure we got a new faucet that would look nice with the original pedestal sink, as well as one that was known for its quality.  We decided to get a faucet from the Leland collection by Delta. It's a cute little teapot-style faucet in a brushed nickel finish.

We had to survive without our sink for eight or nine days. Then, Rich from Sinclair Plumbing was able to come over with our new faucet and install it for us. As soon as I turned on the bathroom light, the bulb burned out. He offered to change the light bulb for me, so of course I took him up on it! Customer service at its best!

The new faucet looks great.

Our sink without a faucet.

Our new faucet, along with a clean sink and a de-cluttered bathroom!

New Garage Doors

Although the detached garage is not an original structure and was built years after our home, it is certainly old as well.  The doors on this garage were heavy wooden doors that probably took a small army to install.  When we moved in, only one of the doors actually had all its hardware and could be opened.  The other door was just panels stacked on top of one another, missing hardware and held together by gravity and a prayer.  

The original garage doors.  The one on the right did not open.

We knew that replacing the garage doors was something that should be done before winter.  Wisconsin winters are no time to leave a vehicle outside unless you want a healthy dose of scraping windows at least twice a week.  Since our previous house had only a one stall attached garage, we were anxious to actually have both vehicles inside for a winter.  

John from Alpine Sales and Service gave us many options to choose from for our new doors.  His website has a great tool that allows you to upload a picture of your current garage and see how various doors would look.  This gave us the opportunity to find doors that would compliment the age and style of our home.  

Two beautiful, working doors.

John worked for two rainy, cold days to remove our old doors and install the new ones.  Not only did he replace the doors, but he installed new tracks, openers, and a manual disconnect lock.  There is no service door on the garage and this might come in handy if we ever lose power.  He certainly went above and beyond for our installation and tackled the challenges of working with an older structure.  With our first snowfall earlier this week, it was great to have our vehicles tucked safely inside the garage where their windows remained dry and frost free.