118 Henry Street

(Hopefully) you’ve been checking for updates to 118 Henry Street, wondered what happened and (wishfully) wanted some more. The short answer to the “what happened?” is we lost our internet connection for 5 weeks or so. Well, that’s not exactly the true story. while it took only 1 day to terminate internet service with the local telephone company, it took the local cable company 3 weeks (no joking) to decide that the special mail offer didn’t apply in Chester. And, oh by the way, there is no cable modem service AT ALL in Chester. Subsequently, we lost our position with the phone company and got on the “approximately 2 weeks” reconnection list. Note to self: in a small town, don’t terminate your current internet service provider before you’re sure your new internet service provider can deliver the goods.

With a renewed and stable internet connection comes a new side project in the restoration of 118 Henry Street; by end of year, our online diary will take up residence in a new location complete with domain name and, gasp, photographs. No matter how slowly, the wheels of fate do indeed continue to grind.

For a bit after losing an internet connection, work continued at a largely normal pace. Progress continues on the upstairs west bedroom despite finding a section of wall plaster that had loosed from the lath. A few drywall screws reattached and stablized the surface and patching plaster make relatively quick work of the crack. This time of year, with the leaves coming off the trees, the room is bright with sunlight continuously after 10ish or so in the morning until sunset.

De-Construction continues on the upstairs bathroom. All the paint has been scraped from the walls. About 1/3rd of the woodwork (not counting the window sashes) remain to be heat-gunned and scraped of paint. This last week, we removed the carpeting from both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms. God bless PO’s (previous owners) everywhere.

Just this weekend, we removed the carpeting from yet another room. Work in the dining room revealed more of the house’s heart pine floors in beautiful condition. DeShawn has always called this room “the Green Room” because of the lime/avocado green paint that the PO’s applied to the walls, woodwork, doors, built-in china cabinet (including brass drawer pulls), and windows. The green was somewhat tolerable with the grey/tan carpeting, but now, the reddish orange pine floors make the walls look like the color of glowing green pea soup.

The only carpet remaining in the original house is on the stairs and the hallway. Before we can take this up, I will need to have 5 door thresholds made to replace the ones discarded on carpet installation. Made of yellow pine, the thresholds are 4″ wide and almost 3/4″ thick. Strictly custom lumber yard. The floor in the rear addition is carpeted (of course) and, unfortunately, directly on the subfloor. We’re going to have to leave it be for a while longer.

Speaking of the addition, the latex sealer/coating the PO’s had put on the flat roof began de-laminating this summer. It lasted a whole 2 years. This is probably pretty good considering that latex sealer is not recommended for builtup bituminous roofs. Funny thing, it won’t stick. Like most projects at 118 Henry Street, at least half of the time is spent de-constructing past efforts at repair or improvement. A 6 hour Saturday to remove the old latex coating with a pressure washer, and a 4 hour Sunday to apply an appropriate fiber based coating will get us thru the winter. A return engagement with the fiber based sealer next summer will set us good for 4 or 5 years. Sooner or later, I’ve got to tackle the flat parts of the reverse dormers that are also coated with the white latex.

We completed one of the side projects this weekend in addition to the carpet removal. Last summer, I rescued a table from the side of the road. The table’s PO’s had apparently used it as a shop table. There are several saw cuts in the edges of the top. Looks like a very bored dog chewed at the feet too. Old house, new furniture? Not on your life. I’m not so sure we should own expensive antiques, just old stuff. Anyway, finally got all the old finish sanded off of what appears to be maple(?) wood. We refinished with white pickling stain applied like paint. Carole will put the finishing touches on it, most likely, stenciled morning glory vines and flowers.

I had to buy a new orbital sander to finish the table. A couple of weeks ago was some kind of sun flare or moon phase or planetary alignment that caused several of my most used tools to fail miserably. Scratch one shopvac. Scratch one orbital sander. On the injured reserve list, the string trimmer (again), and, sigh, the lawn mower. Did I mention the chainsaw? The final tally was: new shopvac, new orbital sander, parts for the trimmer, water in the gas for the lawnmower, and fouled spark plug for the chainsaw.

Last weekend, I finally trimmed up the magnolia tree in Carole’s side yard. Easily 60′ tall and definitely 3 1/2′ in diameter, big and old are appropriate adjectives. This task has been on the honey-do list for a good bit as several limbs at the 30′ level touched the roof of her house. Said limbs provided squirrels a quick trip to her attic. Twelve hours over 2 days, 6 of which in the tree, are only the first part of the squirrel solution. Next is to repair the holes the rats with furry tails chewed in the roof eaves to get into the attic.

Random notes for those interested: 1) Lucinda Williams, 2) The Power of Full Engagement.

Next weekend is the annual Hillarity Street Festival in Chester. We will be preparing all week for our big city guests. Preps include mowing the grass (last time this year!), fixing the grill (a must if hotdogs are really on the menu), and cleaning house (like normal people do…not like house restorer’s do).

DeShawn and I spent most of the weekend at Carole’s house in Columbia. With only a few days left of spring and the official beginning of summer fast approaching, these last 2 days have been hot and muggy.

Before leaving on Saturday morning, I barely managed to make the milestone of having one of the pair of sashes completely painted. The final coat of semi-gloss “sawgrass” tan on the interior facing side of the sashes was totally dry and cured when we returned home to 118 Henry Street today. The heat in the upstairs of the house bakes the paint to a hard, shiny finish. It was a close call this afternoon not to put the last coat of paint on the other pair of sashes. But, in the final decision, mowing the lawn won my attention. The weather forecast for next week includes more rain and the grass would be unmanagably tall if I waited another week.

The lawn mower was in the first set of tools purchased when I moved to Chester 2 autumns ago. It’s a relatively high power push type, moving along at a pace determined solely by the driver, with no self-propulsion. I almost bought the ultimate in yard exercise machinery, an old fashion mower with the spinning curved blades. The prospect of hand sharpening the blades, however, caused me to hesitate. And, a mulching mower is important when 20+ trees with leaves are part of the landscape.

Acreage at 118 Henry Street is about 0.5 with rough rectangular dimensions of 100′x200′. Assuming the mower cuts about a 20″ swath, that’s about 2 miles of pushing a mower up and down the hills in my yard. It takes about an hour and a half at a good walking pace, so that sounds about right for the distance. With the cardboard box, packing materials and all the pieces on the driveway, Kent Vines had come over to watch me assemble the mower when I brought it home. He asked me if it was self-propelled. When I replied in the negative, he sincerely and graciously offered the use of his riding mower should I ever need it. Poor Kent had no idea at the time about the madman newly nextdoor with the nefarious plan for self abuse.

Carole lives in an old house too. Almost a perfect example of tidewater folk architecture, her little house with wooden clapboards and tin roof is undoubtedly over a hundred years old. One of the oldest houses in the neighborhood, it was originally a farmhouse with no indoor plumbing. It’s easy to think of history in terms of the famous people and grand deeds recorded by the victors of human wars. But real history is about how everyday was lived by the normal people of the time. Carole’s house on Maple Street is a time machine back to the ordinary, everyday farm family around the turn of the century.

Carole at the Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower Birthplace, Sherman TX

431 S. Maple Street, Carole’s old farmhouse

We created two significant piles of yard debris on Maple Street this Saturday. There’s a terribly old and huge liveoak tree at the back of Carole’s yard that’s over 3′ in diameter and probably 250+ years old. Unbelievably, within 6′ of the big oak, had grown up a magnolia tree. Although 10″ in diameter, it wasn’t very tall and was heavily leaning in an attempt to get some unfiltered sunlight. Carole said that it had been there for as long as she could remember. It took me about 20 minutes to get it on the ground and about 2 1/2 hours to get it cut up and moved to the side of the road for next week pick up. Pile #1 is approximately 20′ long, 6′ deep, and 5′ high.

In the ensuing clear cut that followed the magnolia tree, we created Pile #2, appromimately 10′ square and 6′ high. Pile #2 was created from bushes, vines, 2 or 3 dozen small trees and anything other leafy plant standing higher than 3 inches tall that was in my way. The “reclaim Carole’s backyard” project had originally started last summer. Even though I did have a mattock, not much happened on the project until I bought a chainsaw. This weekend saw the most of it done. There’s still a sizable area behind some wire fence that will get down before winter.

Despite the quantity of yard debris we generated this weekend, Carole and I made time to stop by her, and my adopted, parents today. Jean and Deucey have been married since the dawn of time. She’s in her early 70′s and he made it to 82 this year. Deucey was mixing up some spray insecticide when we arrived and Jean was at the sink, washing an early season round of cherry tomatoes. After visiting a bit in the kitchen with Mom, I went outside to check on Deucey’s garden spray operation. He had just finishing spraying the tomato plants and had stepped on a fire ant mound in the garden. Several ants had bit and stung his sandaled feet. We talked while he cleaned off his right foot and applied alcohol to the stings.

South Carolina is not as bad as Florida but we do have our share of insect species. A large part of every summer is spent fending off the mosquitoes, killing the fleas, avoiding the fire ants, spraying the aphids, and, well, you get the picture. Of course, battling the fire ants was most of what Deucey and I discussed. Shortly, he grabbed a shovel and we determined to find some queen ants. He and I were walking the yard looking for mounds like two kids off school for the summer with nothing better to do. All this at 92 degrees in the noon day sun. After digging up a half dozen or so, we got distracted by some buried bricks and while we dug them up, he giggled about a treasure marker.

Deucey has worked hard for over 70 years, most of it physical work, outdoors, in construction. Although the years have taken their toll, and especially the last 4 or 5 have been hard on his mind and his health, you and I would be blessed and proud to find ourselves at 82 years old with his stamina and energy.

There is an often repeated joke that Satan used to live in Columbia, South Carolina. But he moved to hell to escape the heat.

I finished assembling the last window sash from my adventures on Monday. Last night I primed a single stick of window trim to be ready this evening. It went together super easily, super quickly and, thank goodness!, no more broken glass panes. After the assembly part, I caulked the 4 sashes to seal up the window trim.

A side note on technique: I used latex gloves for the first time tonight. They made the job of caulking much less messy and did great things for my caulk-spreading-finger technique. The only down side was the lack of breathability. By the time I was done, my hands were drenched with sweat inside the gloves.

The work tonight seemed to have more the right feel and timbre than this last weekend full of frustration.

DeShawn has stayed with Carole and his mommy, my daughter, Elizabeth in Columbia since Saturday. They went to the beach in Charleston overnight on Monday and from all reports, had a wonderful time. While they were at Fort Moultrie, Carole read the rules from the park signs to DeShawn. One of the rules was that there was no climbing on the cannons or the great earth embankments that shield the gun emplacements. It’s very easy for me to see in my mind’s eye, DeShawn listening seriously to the “rules” and trying to make sense of them. Carole related how, upon seeing the first embankment, DeShawn immediately began running down the steep grass slope. When reminded not to climb on them, DeShawn retorted, without a break in stride, “I’m not climbing on them. I’m going down them!”

This time he’s spent with them has, besides a great emptiness, given me loads of opportunity to work on 118 Henry Street. In retrospect, this probably contributed to my haste and urgency this past weekend.

The rhythm and pace of my work on the house changed when DeShawn began living here. Before, I might go days without doing much or maybe only work on the yard. Then, as the motivation built, I would work, more or less obsessively, for a few days or a weekend, accomplishing large, quantum changes in the house. Finally, again reverting to a less active stage for a bit. This timing allowed me great flexibility to procrastinate or activate as my moods colored the days.

Since DeShawn came, such motivational laziness has not been possible. Although I have, every day, some time to work on the house, the total amount is smaller. These everyday, compact intervals has caused me to be more journey oriented than goal oriented. Planning has replaced daydreaming and, generally, I’ve been better organized. I’m less manic and more careful, making sure each hammer blow or saw cut or tape measurement is quality.

So, like a kid on Halloween, bag filled with candy, this weekend I was given way too much time. I established goals instead of milestones and, of course, hurried to meet them.

I very much have missed him and am very excited he’s coming home tomorrow!