15 January 2017
We really did plan to save the built in dining room cabinet intact. But certain aspects of (our) reality forced us to change our plans. 1. The cabinet could not stay in the kitchen. We have to move it to repair the floor and foundation. 2. The cabinet was very heavy. It would have taken 4 people to carry it out of the house. 3. The floor in the kitchen and dining rooms are not in good enough condition for four people to walk across them carrying a large, heavy cabinet (as you will soon see). 4. We needed to detach it from the wall so that we could remove the bead board on the wall behind its right side. 5. We had to take one side off of the cabinet just to detach it from the wall. So we decided to dismantle it completely with the intention of building something similar to it later on using all the parts.
This really opened the space up, so we'll call that a silver lining.
We discovered that during some previous repair work to the south facing wall, they had decided to install some insulation. They had access to the tops and bottoms of the stud cavities, so where they could, they pulled fiberglass batts through the cavity by tying a piece of rope to the batt and pulling it through. In a couple places they left the rope in the wall.
It appears that, over time, much of the fiberglass was absconded by resident rodents for use as bedding in other parts of the house. You can see in this photo that the paper backing in still in place, but all the fiberglass is gone.
Here's the kitchen with all the bead board off.
Then we took all the wainscoting off the walls in the dining room.
At this point we are finally starting to get a really good look at the structural problems in this area of the house.
I had to jack up this wall slightly just to be able to open and remove the door on this wall. It probably hasn't opened in decades. The windows in the dining room are 3 of only a half dozen or so that are actually built to have rope and pulley counter balances. The majority of the windows in the house do not appear to have had them. The window frames are solid with no evidence that there were holes for the pulleys or access panels for the weights. Almost all the sashes however have grooves in the sides for ropes.
And then it was time to remove the dining room floor.
I love opening this stuff up and trying to figure out what order things were done in and why they were done. It is apparent that one of the main structural problems we have here, is that a lot of the structure is basically gone. Disintegrated would be the proper word I think.
As bad as all this looks, there are a lot of interesting clues here that hopefully will allow Amy and me to put together the history of "the old Doc Phillips place". We're thinking that there might have been 5 or 6 significant stages of remodel work done to the house. Coming up next, removing the kitchen floor.
We really did plan to save the built in dining room cabinet intact. But certain aspects of (our) reality forced us to change our plans. 1. The cabinet could not stay in the kitchen. We have to move it to repair the floor and foundation. 2. The cabinet was very heavy. It would have taken 4 people to carry it out of the house. 3. The floor in the kitchen and dining rooms are not in good enough condition for four people to walk across them carrying a large, heavy cabinet (as you will soon see). 4. We needed to detach it from the wall so that we could remove the bead board on the wall behind its right side. 5. We had to take one side off of the cabinet just to detach it from the wall. So we decided to dismantle it completely with the intention of building something similar to it later on using all the parts.
We discovered that during some previous repair work to the south facing wall, they had decided to install some insulation. They had access to the tops and bottoms of the stud cavities, so where they could, they pulled fiberglass batts through the cavity by tying a piece of rope to the batt and pulling it through. In a couple places they left the rope in the wall.
It appears that, over time, much of the fiberglass was absconded by resident rodents for use as bedding in other parts of the house. You can see in this photo that the paper backing in still in place, but all the fiberglass is gone.
Here's the kitchen with all the bead board off.
Then we took all the wainscoting off the walls in the dining room.
At this point we are finally starting to get a really good look at the structural problems in this area of the house.
I had to jack up this wall slightly just to be able to open and remove the door on this wall. It probably hasn't opened in decades. The windows in the dining room are 3 of only a half dozen or so that are actually built to have rope and pulley counter balances. The majority of the windows in the house do not appear to have had them. The window frames are solid with no evidence that there were holes for the pulleys or access panels for the weights. Almost all the sashes however have grooves in the sides for ropes.
And then it was time to remove the dining room floor.
I love opening this stuff up and trying to figure out what order things were done in and why they were done. It is apparent that one of the main structural problems we have here, is that a lot of the structure is basically gone. Disintegrated would be the proper word I think.
As bad as all this looks, there are a lot of interesting clues here that hopefully will allow Amy and me to put together the history of "the old Doc Phillips place". We're thinking that there might have been 5 or 6 significant stages of remodel work done to the house. Coming up next, removing the kitchen floor.
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