118 Henry Street

But not the clouds.

Got a fair amount of work done on the (planned-to-be) upstairs study this morning. I got up about 6:30 in hopes of getting a jump on the day. It’s rained 3 or 4 days of almost every week this spring and been unseasonably cool. We don’t so much mind the temperatures in the high 60′s to low 70′s but the lack of sunshine has everyone a bit stir crazy. The rain for this week stopped last night. Today, though cloudy, has been pleasant.

Of the two windows remaining to be restored in the upstairs study, I got the glass panes back in one. Each glass pane takes 8′ linear of caulk, 4′ of window trim, and 10 1/2″ brads. For a complete 6-over-6 window that’s 96′ of caulk (almost a half tube), 48′ of window trim (6 8′ strips) and 120 brads. It doesn’t seem like that much when it’s all put back together.

The bad news for the day is that I’ve shattered (pun intended) my old record for breaking panes of glass.

The rules for constructing new houses rarely apply to an old house like 118 Henry Street. Floors are not level, ceilings aren’t parallel to the floor and corner angles are not increments of 90. When reading books on the various techniques involved in house restoration, you must learn to translate before applying. For example, if you read “Measure the distance….”, that means “Cut to fit”. Don’t worry about the numbers on the tape measure, use an old piece of trim or rig up a caliper out of scrap wood to get the right length. If you read, “Insure that the line is level…”, that means “Make all the lines in the room visually parallel”. Lastly, if you read “Mitre the corners…”, heaven forbid do not assume 90′s. “Split the corner angle” is what will work the best.

Almost any “science” used in new construction will be magically transformed into an “art” when applied to work in an old house.

So it is with the window sashes and the panes of glass. The glass “lights” of the windows are approximately 9-7/8″ by 13-7/8″. The word “approximately” most definitely applies to the original wavy glass from 1921 with the side measurements varying by up to an 1/8″. Don’t even assume that the panes are rectangular. Similarly for the openings in the sash: approximately 10″ by 14″ and rectangular only in theory.

On other days and other windows, I’ve test fitted every pane on a sash before starting the assembly. This is important because the panes may fit partially down into the rabbits and look like they fit. But, when the trim is nailed in place, it puts extra pressure on the trying-to-bend pane and cracks a corner or side. My old record for broken panes was 2 on a window.

This morning, I forgot this step and before I knew it, 3 panes were in with no problem! Why do we assume good luck will continue? By the time I’d finished, I had cracked 5 panes of antique wavy glass. My haste and hubris had destroyed almost a complete sash worth of the old glass. Ah well. Of the glass panes I cracked, 4 can be trimmed and used in the downstairs windows as replacements.

Before stopping work upstairs, I gathered all the remaining old glass panes, the new ones I use as replacements, and the remaining window’s sashes. After clearing the table, I carefully test fit every pane.

We bought a stove last night. For all the time I’ve been at 118 Henry Street, we’ve not had a cooking stove, just a small microwave. The Hucks’ had an electric stove that they were determined to take with them. My determination, pretty much from day one, was to have a gas cooking stove. Like so many of my ambitions and visions for 118 Henry Street, this was not something that could just be “bought”.

The kitchen remodel done in the 1970′s was very much a snapshot of the stylistic vision of the time. That is to say, dark, mass produced, and painfully bland. The old kitchen chimney with its original thick, cool skin of plaster was completely covered in plywood and drywall. The heart pine floor, covered once long ago with real linoleum, was covered again with a layer of particle subflooring and urine yellow colored vinyl. The original cabinets, sink, and/or counters were completely erased and replaced with dark wood veneer cabinets available at any discount construction supply store. As best I could tell, only a small shelf and the door/trim molding remains from 1921. Even the original panel doors were discarded and replaced with hollow core, veneer door-a-likes. I suppose that, rather than cut the old doors to fit the new floor height, it was “easier” to replace them.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I disliked the kitchen. I flatly hated it. Way too much like the brick ranch ghettos that I had escaped.

The raw capacity of my distaste was most blantantly expressed when I removed that icon of the 1970′s kitchen: the stove island. Of course, every remodeled kitchen must have miles and miles of counterspace and volumes and volumes of cabinets. Unfortunately for the design vision of the 1970′s, the kitchen at 118 Henry Street was laid out and sized in 1921. Actually, as 1921 kitchens go, it is a large and “modern” one. With all the available wall space taken up with miles and miles of counterspace and volumes and volumes of cabinets, there was only one place to put the electric range: the middle of the floor.

Suffice to say, the Reverend Rufus Morgan, when he designed 118 Henry Street did not design the kitchen to have the cook stove in the middle of the room. As such, the stove island and its hanging cabinets, completely disrupted the walking flow of the kitchen and used up every remaining bit of space.

I attacked the island with a vehemence completely out of character with the reverent, respective demolition I’ve done to any other part of the house. The cats ran and hid, DeShawn fled to the playroom and was not the least interested in the violence revealing itself in his safe zone. By the time I was done, I was sick to my stomach and the house, clearly, was upset.

The first Mrs. Hucks died of cancer about 3 years before I bought 118 Henry Street. When I was removing the built-up closets in the master bedroom, Lilly Boyd told me she remembered Ms. Hucks very sick in the bed, the closets on either side of the bed’s headboard. Alec (Elliott) and Lilly Boyd have lived at 117 Henry Street since the 50′s and were good friends with the first Ms. Hucks. Ms. Hucks would bring Lilly and Elliott sweets on the holidays. At the time of my purchase, I asked my realtor why J. B. seemed so anxious to sell the house. “Anxious” as in “jumpy” or “physically agitated”. My realtor, an older lady, replied with the pragmatism and practicality of her experience: “Because of the current Mrs. Hucks”.

118 Henry Street has always spoken very deeply to me. Carole, my fiance’, has no doubt that the history of the house still resides here. We are very blessed that the history has mostly been good. I felt very badly, not so much about the fact that I removed the kitchen island. But more about the anger that I let overcome me. Since that day, no matter how much I shake my head at the repair decisions of any former residents, no matter how short-sighted or tasteless their vision, those days belong to them. Not to me.

What about the stove? We’re making arrangements to go pick it up in Uniontown, PA. It, like me and 118 Henry Street, is a relic. We’ll know more shortly.

Spent this weekend working on areas of the house that have occupied most of my time for the last 20 months: the (planned-to-be) upstairs sitting room and the yard. The upstairs sitting room was originally a bedroom. The family that I bought 118 Henry Street from had used it as a boy’s bedroom for 30 or so years. I’m using it as a classroom and laboratory for learning many of the restoration techniques needed to work on the house.

The current milestone for the room is to finish the window restoration. There are four double sash, 6-over-6 wooden windows with brass weatherstripping. The destruction phase of window restoration starts with disassembling the windows down to the frames, removing the weatherstripping, weights and pulleys. Next, removing all the glass from the sashes and stripping all the paint from the sashes and frame. The window sash trim is saved but the middle parting bead and weatherstripping are completely destroyed in the process. Total time for destruction phase: approximately 3-4 hours per window.

The construction phase of window restoration begins with gluing and clamping the joints in the sashes, then epoxy repairs for all the cracks, checks, gouges and other damage. After sanding the sashes and frame, two coats of acrylic primer are applied. Next for the frames, 2 coats of the final color paint. The pulleys are driven back into the slots near the top of the frame and the weights are rehung using cotton sash cord. Brass weatherstripping for the top sash is done at this phase too. Total time for frame restoration to this point: approximately 2-3 hours per window. There’s a little more work to be done to the frames during the final assembly of the window.

The sashes still have significant work left at this point. The glass is put back in place using a small bed of silicone caulk on the rabbits. Instead of glazing compound, I’m using a 1/4" window bead trim to hold the glass in place. The window bead is mitered and nailed in place using 1/2" brads. My attempts at using an electric nail gun for this have completely failed, so I’m placing and driving each nail individually; ten per pane. Developing the skill to drive the 1/2" nails less than 1/8" away from the glass panes is a source of great pride to me. A bit of silicone caulk is used to fill any gaps between the miters or between the window bead and the sash rabbits.

After applying two coats of final color paint to the sashes, I cut and nail on the pieces of brass weatherstripping. There are three pieces of weatherstripping on each pair of sashes and four pieces on the window frame. I’m amazed and very pleased at how well the weatherstripping seals the windows from air leaks. Total time to restore the sashes: approximately 4-5 hours per window.

Final assembly of the window consists of hanging the top sash, installing the middle parting bead, nailing in the frame weatherstripping for the bottom sash and hanging the bottom sash. The refinished sash bead is nailed back into place and the final step is any paint touchup that is needed. Total time for complete window restoration: approximately 10-12 hours per window. Total cost per window: $50-$75.
For the upstairs sitting room, I’ve already done two of the windows completely. The frames have been restored on the other two windows and as of today, the remaining four sashes are repaired and primed, ready for putting the glass back.

Some notes for you readers who may be questioning my sanity for this amount of work and wondering why I don’t just replace them:

• The current windows have lasted over 80 years with virtually no maintenance except painting. I would expect them to last another 80 years after the work I’ve done on them.
• At $50/hour, total restoration costs would be $550-$675 per window. Anyone who has priced quality replacement windows can tell this is not out of line for top quality wood windows.
• The current windows and glass are irreplaceable architectural antiques. Why not restore them?

For more information about window restoration, see the link for Historic Home Works in the links column.

Regards the work on the yard, I cut down another tree. My 1/2 acre had 33 trees when I moved in. Many smaller trees were growing in the shadow of larger trees, some were stunted by disease and some had never been trimmed in any way. The 10" diameter, 50′ tall pin oak I cut down today is the 12th tree removed. There are still 2 more I’d like to see cut but will need a professional arborist to avoid collateral damage to fences and other trees.

The tree I cut today was rooted not 8′ away from a very old pin oak that’s almost 3 foot in diameter. Both trees were suffering from the proximity but the smaller tree was much more lopsided and bent. Trees are like any other cultivated plants, they must be thinned and pruned for the healthiest life.

One last event of note for this week was replacing the hot water heater. DeShawn, my grandson, and I had been doing without hot water for over a week while I found time to take off work and be home to call the plumber. The bad news: $500 and the old water heater couldn’t be removed from the crawlspace because of the gas pipes hanging too low. The good news: hot water, of course!