Big Red

New member of the family.

2010-01-09T12:19:00.002-06:00

The newest member of our family...his name is Winchester.

"Winnie the Pooch" for short. He's a healthy 8mo. old

English Bulldog that we got from a very nice family who is

relocating. He's too damn ugly not to love.

Ashley's first response when I brought him in was "My god, what

have you done." but she's coming around.

He listens to commands pretty well, and has been

excellent on a leash for his age. He's pretty excited to be here,

as you can see.

Our other dog, Ace, has his own feelings for the moment which he's

sharing pretty well in this photo. They are definitely the "odd couple".

knock knock...

2009-07-10T23:38:00.002-05:00

I had been planning to finally do an update to this blog...we have been working on lots of projects inside (Elena's bedroom, finishing the upstairs hallway floors, landscaping) and then we got a knock on the door yesterday. To keep the story short, it was a group of girls from Canton. One of them lives in a house similar to ours and she had picked up a postcard (I think from a garage sale)that reminded her of her house...but it was ours. So they drove over to Wyoming to track the house down.

We were thrilled. This image shows a tremendous amount of detail about how the house looked circa 1907. Right off some things stood out to us- the original railing on the sunroom roof was much more ornate. In fact, the wall of the sunroom was totally different. Additionally, the railing on the turret roof was in plain sight! There are window details that have changed and even more amazing..it appears the paint scheme was different than it is now. There appears to be a 3rd color (or use of red) on some of the detailing! It's totally amazing how one small black and white photo with some heavy "haze" can provide so much information. We've been playing detective since we got it. Can you spot the well in back?

Captain Nemo called. He says turn it up to 11.

2009-01-31T12:53:00.008-06:00

Or: hot water heating system has gone kerplunkity plunk.

The first few months of winter, we seemed to be in pretty good shape. The heat was working fine, although we began to notice a gurgling sound in the pipes. You see, we have baseboard hot water heat. Over about a week, the gurgling sound began to seem more pronounced. I also noticed that the tankless water heater was working round the clock to keep the water heated. What's more, the pressure seemed to be dipping....I thought that maybe we had a leak somewhere in the system, but I couldn't find it. I put some additional water and pressure in the system and hoped for the best.
It seemed to be ok for about a week and then the pressure took a nose-dive. Heat in the house began to drop.
Finally, the tankless boiler stopped firing...and that's when the fun began.
The first picture is how the system was....
It turns out that the pex connections had begun to leak in several places....including one over a foundation wall, such that it wasn't readily visible. The leaks were causing the system to constantly have to add water and then heat the new water...eventually the cycling fried the controller board on the boiler.

After a couple repair bills for people who had no idea what they were looking at, I managed to get a really awesome company called Wayne Heating out. They gave me the bad news.

1. (I knew this one, but had hoped to deal with it later in the spring) The pex connections were failing. The early plastic pex connectors have a tendency to fail under heat loads. This meant that I'd have to track down all of those connections and have them replaced. That meant cutting holes into the ceilings of the two rooms that had ceilings in the basement to locate the piping and joints. The second picture shows one of the pex connectors and the next photo shows a sample hole.

2. The system had some issues. As it was, it was going to cost a substantial amount for the controller replacement. Additionally, there is an "acid wash" that several of the companies that came out told me would need to be done for the system as it has small diameter "tubes" that can become clogged and less efficient. All three companies that came out agreed that the cost of getting the existing system ship-shape was probably better spent by upgrading to a larger system. The choices varied, but essentially they all came down to a larger tankless system capable of higher BTU output, and a recommended secondary hot water tank for domestic hot water that pulls the heat from the tankless boiler. In addition, the newer and larger systems don't require the acid wash.

So, we hired Wayne Heating to put in a Weil-Mclain system (insert Tim Allen grunts here). They agreed to do a significant part of the labor including the replacement of all the pex connectors with a brass version by the brand name of "Shark-bite" and to do a couple other things...1. add a hot and cold outdoor spigot for the driveway. 2. connect the water on the first floor bathroom sink. 3. Move one radiator from an upstairs room to the basement. 4. Install an extra baseboard from the attic into the basement. 5. Reconnect one of the baseboards in the entryway that wasn't connected to the old system.

They also recommended that instead of having the whole first floor set of baseboards in one big "loop" that we break that loop into two. This allowed them to set up a much larger feed pipe to the two loops and substantially increase the amount of hot water going through the loops. What does that mean? It means that the back room off of the kitchen and the kitchen are both now as warm as the rest of the house.

The last picture is of the new system.

They were very busy, but managed to get us worked in and had the system put in and all my extras taken care of in just under 3 days. We rented a hotel room for a couple of those, and we toughed it out for a few days with cold water. You haven't lived until you've taken a shower or two with water that is about 40 degrees. Good times, good times.

This may put an extension on how fast we get around to painting the exterior this summer....but that's ok.

Elena's Birthday Party

2008-12-08T15:55:00.001-06:00

Elena had her first birthday in the house!
The downside was that we about froze everyone to death. We also had a little girl get her finger scraped up in a door...and I had a really bad cold and wanted to be in bed...but other than that it was great.

The cold came from a couple culprits...1. It's a good idea to make sure you don't have any windows partially open when the temperature is about 12. Also, if you replace batteries on the heat control, make sure you've turned the heat on. Otherwise your house will be about 58 degrees and your guests teeth will be chattering.

Also, there seems to be a rule that if 4 or more girls get in a group (it only takes 2 boys) then somebody is going to get hurt. One little girl accidentally shut a door on another little girl's finger...fortunately it wasn't broken or in need of much more than a princess band-aid.

As for my cold...I was a pretty worthless host. I had spent all morning in bed, and pretty much spent the party thinking about being back in it.

Fortunately, Elena had a great time. She really likes playing with other kids and really enjoyed the games and toys. We're pretty happy that she's willing to share most of the time.

Little shop of Christmas Horror

2008-11-23T23:10:00.005-06:00

Haven't gotten anything done on the house these last couple weeks. Putting up Halloween and then moving on to the Christmas decorations has kept things moving. Something I should have anticipated, but didn't was that it wouldn't matter if I have my workshop set up...I'd end up having some things to make as Christmas approaches.

First up: Elena is getting ready for her first Kindergarten play. I offered (or was it Ashley offered?) to help out with a set prop. It's the "street sign" for Candy Cane Lane. It's made from 3" pvc, a dowel rod...a couple wood balls and a plastic oversized christmas ornament...oh and then the carved sign of course. It stands about 6' tall. It's mounted in a Christmas tree stand and is relatively light. It shouldn't be too much trouble to move around. Which is in direct opposition to the machine that made it.

I like to think of each sign as preperation for trim work I'll have to duplicate next summer. I hope to have more updates on the house soon. Seriously. No really. I mean it.

Up and away

2008-11-06T08:47:00.002-06:00

Our first Halloween in Big Red is over. Elena's first costume (a bat) didn't make it through our halloween party. In all the excitement, the ears got broken and the costume lost a few pieces. The excitement, of course, being a sugar fueled mob of children running about the yard and through the house like a band of Hell's Angels at a pig roast...not that we mind.

Her last minute choice for trick or treating was Supergirl. She tried very hard to get me to dress up as Superman, but I refused. I couldn't subject the world to seeing me in blue tights. I'm sure the neighbors already have concerns about the eccentric fellow who moved into that nice red house. Squeezing my body into spandex would just confirm their worst fears.

We knew we'd probably have a lot of trick-or-treaters, but WOW. Our house seemed to become a central location to park and a prime place to visit. Many neighbors we hadn't met came by to introduce themselves and to let us know they liked the decorations. More than one told us how nice it was to see the house so alive and lit up. Men, in particular, wanted to know how we did the "magic mirror" in the large window on the porch.

The most common comment was "So...what do you plan to do for Christmas?"
Now we have to figure that out.

I plan to get back to our regular programming next post with some updated pictures inside the house and a discussion about water leaks that occur before a party. Ugh.

Viva Halloween

2008-10-12T21:00:00.002-05:00

Because of the volume of children in our immediate neighborhood...I've decorated the house in a "halloween meets las-vegas" style. Plenty of bright lights to go with the spooky decorations.
Generally speaking I think it's fun. Based on the number of cars that have slowed down to look..then drove around the block and looked again, it seems to be a hit.
The only thing we leave on after about 9:30 p.m. are the two items in the attic....the underlit face, and the blacklight ghost on the side.

In other news...the area beside the garage (in the alley) is cleaned up. One big dumpster of rubble later and the pop-up camper and my little trailer are stowed back there and off the drive-way.
It looks much better.

This week is going to be filled with cleaning and last minute decorating. The party is next Saturday. We temporarily pulled up the plastic on the floors and have hidden all the paint, tools and other renovation material that we've become so used to living with in the house. By Halloween, that will all be back and we'll be working on Elena's room.

A bit of a stretch....

2008-09-27T11:26:00.002-05:00

Ok..this isn't about the renovation work, but oh well.
As Halloween fast approaches, we have started to think about our annual Halloween party.
Elena has been on a disney Haunted Mansion kick since her trip there this summer with her Grandparents.
One of her "ideas" was that we should have the pictures that she saw in the Haunted Mansion in the foyer....As the walls "stretch" they expand to show gruesome fates for the people in the pictures.
I checked online and even a low end set of prints was pretty expensive...what to do? Why not paint your own?
I found some long narrow canvases at "Big Lots" with awful flowers painted on them for about 8 dollars a piece. I primed them, and then used my projector to sketch the original paintings on them (I found photos of them online). Then I spent a couple evenings painting them. I think we're going to hang them in the "round" living room, between the windows.
Now that those are done...it's back to work. I'm working on the walk-in closet between the Master bedroom and the bathroom. I've stripped out 3 layers of linoleum flooring, removed the wallpaper and filled the cracks in the plaster. Today I'll be painting the closet, with hopes of getting the flooring situated tomorrow...and somewhere in there I need to start getting the Halloween decorations out of the garage attic.

A little glue and some love

2008-09-17T17:06:00.002-05:00

When Jason (the previous owner) told us that there was some woodwork under a bench in the garage I got excited. I have been doing woodwork for a number of years...sometimes successfully and without loss of limb. I tried for a week or two to focus on the house and work on the growing list of things that needed work inside, but I just kept thinking about the stuff under the bench.
Eventually, I gave up and started digging through it all. I found pieces to this table under the workbench. The top had cracked and it appeared the table had been disassembled and just stuck under the bench as a "worry about it later" project for some previous owner.
A few hours later, I'd applied some glue and clamps and ended up with this. I didn't even re-finish it. I just put on a coat of refurbishing oil and called it done.
Little pieces of the house continue to reveal themselves as we work....glimpses into the previous owner's lives. It really makes the hard work worthwhile.

Lipstick on a 118 year old pig

2008-09-17T10:56:00.002-05:00

Not all of our renovations are "long term". In some cases, we just need to get some areas of the house ready to use...with long term plans to overhaul/renovate.
One area is the full bathroom upstairs. Avacado green bathtub and sink are on a short list of key items to ditch sometime next year. In the meantime, we've just been trying to make it more friendly...we added a wall mirror over the sink and have put some temporary flooring in over the beat up linoleum tiles.
We finally got the back room loaded with our dressers and storage racks for clothes. We decided to keep dressers out of the Master Bedroom and create a "dressing room/closet" room in the back. I'll try to post some pictures tonight.
We're trying to balance our desire to keep moving forward on the house with our desire to actually do some living in it. I'm trying to get a little something done every day, without treating every day like it's a second job.
Halloween is coming up, and we always have a halloween party...so at some point I'll be moving from renovation to haunt-o-vation. The decorations will come out of the attic sometime this weekend.

Butternut galore

2008-09-07T00:47:00.002-05:00

When we first looked at the house, this was a huge part of what "sold" me. I've never seen a set of railings and stairs with such figured wood. They're stunning. We've been living in the basement while we work on the second floor (bedrooms) and it's easy to forget this is there. As we get close to moving in our bedrooms, I look forward to seeing these every day.

A-Door-Able

2008-09-04T22:35:00.003-05:00

I still have more cleaning/polishing to do...but the door knobs are going to be great. The other style of knob (closets, inner doors) are brass with a copper back plate. I've learned something about doors in old houses..they get a bad rap.
I've heard a variety of complaints about how they are hard to close or open, and how annoying they can be. My experience is that after 20 - 30 coats of paint, a "lip" develops on the edges of the door. You may be suprised how much easier they open if you sand/strip/plane off that lip.
Additionally, I've found that many doors that don't seem to close properly have inappropriate screws in the hinges. In earlier times, people used what they had on hand whether it was a good fit or not. Check yours out, you may find that you're one .15 cent screw away from a door that closes and opens just fine.

Don't Fret...

2008-09-04T19:42:00.002-05:00

One of the unexpected and wonderful suprises in BR (we're friends here. I think we can call the house BR and not make her angry) is the vast amount of wood detailing that was carefully removed in the 60's or 70's and put into storage in the attic and garage attic. We knew what was in the attic when we bought the house, but had no idea what waited for us in the garage attic. There was fretwork for the entryways into the dining room and formal living room...as well as the original fireplace mantles. There are columns that need to be put back into the living room...and it was all there waiting for us like a secret gift from the house to us. Now we're looking for any photos we can find or any indication anyone in town might have about where some of the wood items belong (those big floor to ceiling columns go somewhere in the living room, but where?!). Some of the pieces need a little TLC, but that's ok.

Next spring will bring a new round of floor refinishing on the first level, and we'll begin putting the puzzle pieces back in place. We can't wait.

Before and after Master Bedroom

2008-09-04T18:24:00.005-05:00

OK, so most of the pictures I post here will also be in the gallery if you don't want to read our ramblings. I thought some of you might be interested in specifics about what we're doing.

The master bedroom isn't the first room we started on, but it is the one that is closest to completion right now. We've removed paint from the transoms and all the harware (hinges, window pulls, transom hardware). This isn't fun work. Paint stripper is bad enough to smell, but the mess from 100 years worth of paint is significant on it's own. We've also removed the old carpet, sanded the oak floors and restained and polyurethaned them. We painted the walls and trim. We spent about 6 hours cleaning the corbels at either end of the arch in the room. If we didn't have the finished basement to live in, we'd have never been able to focus so much attention on trying to get it right.

BIG RED isn't just chewing gum.

2008-09-04T14:08:00.005-05:00

I had hoped to begin posting something sooner, but diving into the restoration took priority. As we head into fall, I thought maybe it was time to get serious about creating a site for everyone who is curious about how it's going.
We have a community of interested and well meaning people who want to know how we plan to treat the old girl. We have family and friends who are caught somewhere between two sentiments..."you lucky dogs" and "thank god it's not us". We feel the same way.

Who are we? I am from Canton, Illinois originally. I went to "NMSU" which is now known as "Truman State University" in Kirksville, Missouri. I met my wife Ashley (originally from St. Louis) there and we ultimately moved back to the Peoria area for work. I am the head of the IT division at a company in Peoria. We have a daughter, Elena, who began school this year and calls our house "the castle". We also have a dog "Ace" and a cocky cat named "Wampus".

After living in Spring Bay, Illinois for several years, we decided to start looking for a larger house. We didn't know how "large" that would become. Ashley found the house online and convinced me to drive out to look at it on Mother's day. We thought the same thing most people do when we saw it..."Wow! That house is awesome. It needs work, but can you imagine how beautiful it could be?" We decided to get a look inside and contacted the realtor. As we looked through the house, Ashley began to squeeze my hand HARD. From the amazing woodwork throughout the house, to the original pool table in the 800 square foot attic, we became hooked. By the time we walked out the front door, we'd made up our minds.

Buying the house turned out to be a pleasure. The family we bought it from had put a great deal of money, labor and love into the home and under different circumstances would never have moved. We bought a house and gained new friends in the process. They passed on a huge assortment of knowledge about the house, the town and life in Big Red. The work they did set us up very well to continue the process. Without that foundation, our job would be much harder.

Why "Big Red"? The house has been called that for many many years because of it's primary color. There was a brief period many years ago when it was painted white, but it didn't last long. As far as we can tell, red was the original color...and for those of you dying to know...yes, we'll be sticking with it. I don't want to be run out of town on a rail.

Now that we have that out of the way, I'll begin to post some pictures of our progress inside and tell you about our plans.

You can always jump to the web based photo album by clicking the slide show photos on the left side.