Knox Hill Project: Weekly Update

Our Kitchen is finally gutted! Although it has only taken a few weekends it seems like an eternity. I hate removing plaster walls, its messy, dusty and takes forever. But we are at last there.

Of course its interesting to see all the changes that occurred. We have been able to deduce some more about the construction date of our kitchen. We know that our house originally had a separate 'summer kitchen" built behind the house and this room was built later. We now think this addition was built about the time gas lighting was added to the house. We have been able to determine this based on the fact that looking at the second floor it is obvious the gas lines were run and the floor was then put down. Had this been and "update" we would expect to have found evidence the flooring had been taken up in order to run the gas pipe. In the older parts of the house you can clearly see this.

We do know that they retrofitted that "New fangled" electricity later as you can see on the second floor where they removed flooring to run the wiring. I suspect that was done about the time they added indoor plumbing. the cast iron soil lines of course will be replaced with more modern PVC drain lines and new venting. The "maze" of wiring updates is truly scary. At some point they added "modern' Wiring and basically 'spliced' off the knob and tube. RESTORATION TIP: When I am starting a new restoration, I always disconnect EVERYTHING from the breaker box and then run some new circuits properly grounded with new boxes in strategic locations throughout the house. I do this because until you start really restoring you have no clue what is going on electrically behind those walls and you do not want to put "high load' power to old on old circuits.

You cant "assume' that just because you see a grounded box and new romex that it runs from the circuit box to the outlet. Far too often you will come across "splice jobs" like this. People added more wiring as needs changed but often didn't think about the load of what was running it. For example the entire kitchen was run of one 20 amp breaker!

Work also continues on the paint removal in the formal parlor where we found original stencilling. Although this removal of the later paint layers is a real pain, there is no way that paint would properly adhere to the surface as there was some sort of varnished or shellacked top coat put over the original milk paint. This also allows us to properly repair the inevitable cracks in a 130 year old wall and have a good surface for paint and wallpaper. As I said last week, it is our intention to restore the stenciled area as a frieze and duplicate it on the border of the ceiling. After some careful research of the ceiling it appears it was either painted or wallpapered as I can find no evidence of and stencil work. I did find evidence that the ceiling once had an elaborate plaster medallion based on paint level changes.The color of this room really intrigues me as I must confess it is a unique color. It is hard to accurately depict with the camera but the best way I can describe it is "copper penny". Clearly they had a very specific look in mind when the house was built and I must imagine by oil lamp it must have truly glistened. Especially contrased with teh hanging rail which was gold leafed. This was not a 'stock' color of the time , although everything was pretty much hand mixed. They had to have brought someone in to do this work as this finish was beyond the realm of the typical painter of the day. Perhaps one more weekend and this room will have all the later paint removed and I will have a better view of how it looked back in the day.

Knox Hill Project: Weekly Update (Great Finds)

A good friend of mine , and fellow historic preservationist, recently commented to me that this house just keeps "rewarding" us for bringing it back to life. Certainly it is a house no one wanted in a neighborhood no one was interested in(then), had we not come along when we did it is likely this house would have been a vacant lot now, and its history not known or forgotten. This weekend the house rewarded us again!

I have been working on the parlor the last couple of weekends, trying to get us a 'clean room' in which to relax in while working on the rest of the house. One of the problems with the parlor was several layers of paint on the wall and a crazing or cracking of the surface. This is generally cause by a failure of the paint bonding between layers of older paint. You most often see it when latex is put over an oil paint or sometime (rarely) due to special finish or glaze. At any rate people generally just keep painting over it and unfortunately it just keeps coming back. The only real solution is to scrape the surface or sand back to the problem layer.

As we plan on using a combination of stencils and wallpapers in this room, both walls and ceilings, so this had to be corrected, otherwise we were just wasting our time. So we were faced with the "daunting' task of doing this entire room. I began scrapping this paint and found if we went all the way down to the original first painted surface we had a good base. It is rare to be able to get down to an original painted surface on a 130 yr old house. The only exception might be if the walls were wallpapered a few years after the walls were painted. In this case, the incompatibility of the paint layers made this possible.

The wall was originally a Lt Reddish "terra cotta" color. This was extremely in fashion in the 1870's. What we didn't expect was what I found next! while scraping a couple of inches below the wooden hanging rail, I suddenly saw a darker red paint! I immediately slowed down and did a careful inspection of what appeared to be part of a stenciled design. Some very careful removing of the top layers of paint revealed this Neo Grec/Renaissance Revival stencil design! I was elated. Given that 'revelation" I wondered if there was anything above the hanging rail, ( as wood have been fashionable at the time), sure enough I was rewarded with a larger more elaborate design above the handing railing.

For someone who restores old houses, this is "holy grail' type of find. It is rare to be able to actually find something like this in a an old house, because it is usually impossible to get at the original paint layer. More importantly with a cottage and not a "Grand home" this was not an everyday feature although you did see it from time to time. Some thing I might "expect' to find on a Dayton Street Mansion, not a humble cottage.

AND it looks like it is in overall good condition! That is because the plaster under it is in good shape. Fortunately having restored work like this as a historic restoration artisan, I can 'fix this up as good as new and restore it to its original glory.

It will of course mean a 'modification" to our decoration design for the walls. What I will do now is restore this area and treat it as a "top frieze' for the wall. I will run a stenciled line below the lower section and then continue down the wall with wallpaper. I originally planned a stencilled and papered ceiling so what I will now do is take the top design and "flip it up on the ceiling with the same background color as a border band around the ceiling, then transition into the other stenciled panels I planned and the center wallpapers. It will add another incredible chapter to the house restoration!

I will carefully trace this design, scan it, and then print it for transfer to a stencil laminate. We will no doubt add this along with several other period designs from other house I've restored, to our period line of historic stencils that will be available when we get our Historic design shop next year.

Work also continued on the removal of plaster where the new doorway to the kitchen will go and some door frame removal and relocation on a old doorway that will become a solid wall in the first floor bath. Things are humming along now and I wonder if other pleasant surprises are around the corner with our restoration?

Knox Hill Project: Weekly Update

The heat of summer has gone and working either inside or out is great. Things are moving along with the project and this week continues our work on the front formal Parlor. Now you may ask why we are working on this particular room when obviously we have a ton of things to do. Well we are working on all the basics , getting wiring updated plumbing runs (things like that but one of the goals is to have what I like to call "sanctuary space'. A relatively done, painted walls new floor "clean room' that can be closed off from the rest of the house when done and be a place where one can "get away' from restoration for a moment in a nice clean space and relax. Now we wont be putting up the Bradbury papers or installing a chandelier just yet but it is part of "reclaiming' space in the house and it keeps you kinda sane during all the stuff that goes on.

This week I began taping the arch which will be covered with architectural panels and trim. I am, not looking for 'finished look here, rather getting the tape on and a couple of coats floated on it, This week I got the drywall mesh 'bedded" and next week I will get on some top coats. The fireplace in our Parlor is strictly ornamental so I began covering over the old opening it over with drywall. I also insulated this space as well so there is no cold infiltration. The Cast iron fireplace will have a summer cover year round on it.

When the last furnace was put in (gas forced air) the chimney has been professionally relined with chimney tile and tuck pointed. Now this house will be total electric so we really wouldn't need a chimney BUT we have decided to have a pot belly stove down in the basement "bar room" which we can use as supplemental heat. Or in case of electrical outage cause by winter storm as an emergency heat source. As a result this chimney work is not wasted. We had it inspected and it is in perfect shape so our plan is to but a new dual wall pipe down the chimney liner ( for added safety), that will allow us to use the potbelly as supplemental heat source.

So in addition to some spot sanding of the plaster walls in the Parlor I am also making some small crack repairs. The plaster in this room is in remarkably good condition for 130 yr old house. I feel like I really "lucked out" on the woodwork. The woodwork only has two coats of paint and both are latex so it come of easily. Our woodwork appears to be white oak looking at the area below the outside 'surround' trim that was never stained. We do know the woodwork had been 'faux grained' unfortunately there is NO WAY to remove the paint without taking the graining so in a future episode I will be showing you how to do a faux grain finish. There will be a ton of cleaning and "picking" to get all the paint off to ready it for finishing but I am amazed at just how well the heat gun did on a low setting at removing the paint. I do not recommend the average home owner use a heat gun but rather use chemical stripper. Use of heat gun takes allot of skill and you have to be very careful not to overheat an area. This is especially critical on window frames where dust and debris can settle in the weight pockets and be ignited through heat transference from the surface in. So unless you have been doing this for 20 years, DO NOT use a heat gun unless the wood has been removed and the stripping is being done on some sawhorses.

Our baseboards are cleaning up well. The quarter round is missing the the formal parlor. Fortunately the dining room still has it so I can match the profile, I suspect this are may have been carpeted at some point and the yanks the quarter round out. They must have done it recently as the area under where the quarter round was only has one coat of paint.

I was able to get one window and the baseboard on one wall stripped in just a few hours . Of course I have those damn replacement windows to deal with but I can faux finish them out where they will blend in. Eventually I will build new period windows.

The kitchen has been gutted down to the studs! Its awful dusty work and I am glad that it is done. We should be able to start wiring and reframing soon!

Over the weekend our realtor Cathy Frank stopped by and I gave her the updated tour of the house. There were other houses we could have bought but I am glad we bought this one. I was also talking with one of our neighbors who commented on with our pumpkin , gold and green colors how "fall like' our house looks.

Knox Hill Project: Weekly update

Another productive week, I really like when that happens:

Finds and Archeology. It seems every week we find some of Antone Nagele's handiwork. This week it was what I think was, a piece of a decorative Lintel.
The other "find" was piece of original window detail trim. This is the outer detail piece that was on all our interior doors and windows. This piece was left from where a workman built around the detail when constructing a wall for the added bath in the kitchen area. This is great because we now know what the profile looks like and that will aid us in selecting a proper trim detail. Otherwise I would have had to guess.

The big project was getting the opening for the Renaissance revival arch done that separates the formal dining and front formal parlor. This archway will be trimmed out in wood and will have a portier (drape) on rod with an arched fretwork panel above, When creating an arch in a small house where you want to emphasise the height the arch should always be as high up as possible and you want to make sure the scale looks right. Our ceiling is 10 foot and our doorway is 48 inches wide our "arch" area is 2 feet. The eye is drawn upward thereby giving the ceiling a sense of greater height.Of course you have to make the arch and ours was formed from two pieces of 1/4 inch OSB. The arch opening was drawn using a string and pencil and was cut using a rotozip. The doorway opening is 12 inches wide. The two panels are connected with 11 1/2 inch wooded nailers to provide a place to screw in the drywall. This entire assembly is then screwed to nailers in the rough opening.

The opening is then drywalled and in a future installment (down the road a bit) we will cover building the architectural wood trim and panels that will finish out the arch. This archway will be repeated where you transition from the stair hall to the dining room as well. Although this is a small cottage we are endeavoring to add nice detail to it.

The elusive historic views

Like most old house people sometimes you'd like to hop in a time machine, take a digital camera and go back to your house a 100-125 years ago and just take a few snapshots!

This photo is one of the ones I received from the Nagele's, who owned our house back in the day. At first glance I was confused as to just what and where I was looking. I ran this through some limited photo enhancement I have to clean up the image somewhat and realized that I was looking across the street from our house and the three houses in the background are the 3 across the street from us the small Italianate cottage and the two Second Empire cottages, all still standing but in various stages of remuddle.

What threw me was the one on the left. As you can see from the photo I shot from our second floor the small windows that were once on the front are long gone replaced by vinyl siding. It was also hard to make them out because of the trees and bushes in our front yard at the time and the 'wooden sidewalk' threw me. Of course I then had to remember that the garage cut into the front yard hillside next door wasn't always there and at some point there was a connecting wooden walk up in the yard to the house next door.

The things you learn from old photos but I'd still like that time machine!

Our House: Photos from "back in the day"

If you own a historic house, there is nothing like obtaining photos taken back in the day when your house was built. All houses "evolve' over the years. Needs change, rooms and porches are added as families grew or fashions change. Seeing your house before all those changes happened is well, " uplifting". It is a glimpse back in time. You can stand in the same place as the photographer who took the pictures and say this is what things looked like 100 years or more ago. As someone who has owned dozens of historic houses over the years, it is rare to find them, unless your house was a landmark example owned by a famous person or an architect designed house. I've only lucked out twice on finding photos. The first time on a 1906 mission Revival mansion I owned in Meridian Park in Indianapolis which was designed by Architects Rubush and Hunter and The Joseph Werne Mansion in Louisville, a Chateauesque 4 story Brick and terra cotta Mansion I owned. Werne was a jeweler and designer who once worked for Tiffany. Finding photos of an "everyday house" is almost impossible, it is the proverbial "needle in a haystack". Had it not been for an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer on our preservation and restoration efforts in Knox Hill, I doubt these photos would have ever reached us. This happened because Al Nagele saw the article . He is the 80 year old grandson on Antone Nagele who owned our home. These photos are around because Cassie Nagele,a family member, collected them as part of genealogy research she was doing on her family history. A Special thanks to them both. Here it is our house "back in the day" with the Nagele family out front. This photo gives us a clear view of just what the stone wall looked like, note the elaborate stone reversed brackets on either side of the entry steps. With this photo we will be able to make duplicates and restore the steps and entry to their original configuration. We know this is a very early photo for a number of reasons. The tree is front of the house is small and probably planted after the house was built. Also we know a full width front porch was on the house at some point ( due to the stone footers we found and downspout tiles we found placed six feet out).We also know that the house eventually had a wrought iron fence in front at some point. This photo probably dates to the late1870's. We also see the original shutters on the house. Based on our paint research we know the house was painted a buttercup yellow with brown trim and green door and based on the value differences in the photo, they confirm it. Also note that off to the left you see no houses going up MacBrayer which were built in the 1880's. It is interesting to see the lack of trees. Today the area is heavily wooded and its easy to forget that it once was meadowed hilltops and farmland.

This photo shows Antone Nagele and his workers (perhaps other family members) at his business on Western Hills Ave. Note the cut stone stacked off to the left. Imagine loading those into a horse drawn wagon for delivery to a construction site. Back breaking work.

The next photo is clearly taken later and is identified as Tony and Bill, I presume Antone's sons. In the background you can see the Free classic house built across the street from ours in the late 1890's(it still has the original metal roof) That house, as well as the other cottages, still stand across the street.

This photo is an early one of the Antone and Anna Nagele's and some of their children. Is appears to be a 'studio piece" done at a photographers studio.

This next one is of Anna (later in life) I am not sure of the location but given the window in the background is different it is not the house. However, it may be the detached summer kitchen that was behind the main house.

This was in the front yard as we can see the wire fence that ran along the west side. (we found remnants of this fence).

The last photo shows the Nagele's in their carriage, clearly they were a family of some means.

This brings me to my point. Historic Preservation matters. It is not just the architect designed mansions that are worthy of keeping, the cottages that make up the bulk of Cincinnati are just as important as they provide a slice of life, hey tell a story. A story about the people who built Cincinnati, who lived here and worked here.

Had we not come along when we did and saved this house, I have no doubt that it would be awaiting a bulldozer or already be gone. When we senselessly tear down houses because at that moment they are on hard times and don't look "pretty" and in that process, we destroy our history. The photographs become just photos, because the PLACE, the home is the connection that makes them relevant. That's the reason we save houses. To preserve a sense of place. So I put to those that continue to demo "blighted' houses in this city, what purpose does it serve? It removes part of our history, it cant be recovered once it is gone. It cost the taxpayers monies and it leaves a vacant lot. Cincinnati's historic legacy should not be a bunch of vacant lots or 20 years from now some ugly tract home. Common sense dictates that our city is more valuable, more interesting by retaining our history not destroying it.

Knox Hill Project: Weekly Progress Report

Momentum is building on our house project on several levels. This weekend was my first week to see our house without the sun blocked out by the house behind us. The level of light in the back rooms and back yard, which had always been dark is like "night and day". Once teh scrub trees are removed the south side of the house should be nice and sunny.

Part of the 'destruction' of the House behind us has led to another round of Urban Archeology! our neighbor found this along the property line. I wasn't sure just what this was at first, but it appears to be a circular whetstone that was probably handheld and used to polish the stone. It has a smother side and slightly rougher side.

The other Major find was another piece of Antone Nagele, (the stone cutter who owned our house), handiwork. This was face down in the dirt and I assumed it was just another piece of stone, like we have found all over the grounds of the house. However, when I flipped it over we saw the lettering. Based on the lettering designs of the times it would appear to be the last two letters "AN", no doubt just a fragment of a much larger stone. At first I thought tombstone but this is too thin to be a tombstone and in fact I am betting it was a name of a building, maybe an apartment or commercial building that would have had a corner stone with the name in it. When we remove the foundation for the old summer kitchen and carriage building we are going to do some serious archaeological digging. We continue to find stuff like this all the time and it is significant to the history of the house and Antone Nagele.

Now that we can see the back room we decided it was time to begin demo. Based on the what we know and dating by materials we know that back room remodel dates to around 1900-1910. All the soil pipes are cast iron and the walls that make up the rear bathroom on the first floor are plaster of a style and consistency that indicates early 1900's.

Apparently the summer kitchen was in use for quite some time as there are pipes leading from the main house out to the summer kitchen foundation and there is a drain pipe leading from the footprint of that building into the rear of our house. It has of course been cut off so we know that use of the summer kitchen continued for some time and it was later that this room became the kitchen. There had obviously been a couple of remodels of this bathroom the last likely occurring in the 1960's based on the design of the medicine chest. This rear room must be completely taken back to the studs and floor joists. A big project but things should go pretty quickly and we already made some good progress over the weekend.

With the house behind us gone I put a good coat of the tinted primer of the south wall of the house, This will be followed by one coat of paint. Because of window and door configuration changes on this elevation, which will connect to the new conservatory, we will re-side this elevation from top to bottom in Hardi Plank in the future so for the moment this is more for the benefit of our neighbors who can now actually see the back of our house.

Overall it really was a busy weekend and we got a lot done in a very limited time. I am looking forward to the deconstruction of the later side porch soon so we can move on to the next plase of the project.

Cincinnati Historic Preservation Bargains

Another Cincinnati Historic Preservation Bargain, this generous sized, Brick Front Gabled Victorian sits on TWO lots. This 3 bedroom 2 bath residence at 1921 Fairmount has a full basement and an usable attic space, the home has a formal dining room and parlor. It is a single family residence and is a bargain considering its brick and sits in the Knox Hill Neighborhood. The extra lot allows for a generous garden or future resale for infill development and is minutes to downtown via the viaduct. Other homes nearby in similar condition are priced in the 40-50K range .This is a great opportunity to be part of a growing neighborhood experiencing a renaissance thanks to an active neighborhood association.

Home is offered at ONLY 9900.00, Listed by Steven Alexander of Eurie Realty 513-271-0990.

MLS Number 1189630.

Do you know of a Preservation Bargain, a home that just needs a preservation minded buyer? If so email us with information, a contact, and a clear picture and we will feature it here.

Knox Hill Project: Weekly Update

Interior work was going on in several areas of the house this 3 day weekend. After long consideration we finally determined the master bath suite configuration. One of the hardest parts of old house restoration is creating a bath space that will not only flow well but have a historic flair. This space was carved out of what was the "pass through bedroom" that you had to go through to get to the front master bedroom. We originally planned on creating a master bath and a guest bath in this space along with closet space but after trying several layouts we felt that the space was better suited to just one bathroom with ample walk in closet space, a shower, twin sinks, toilet, and a oversized Whirlpool tub.

Once that space had been drawn out you really need to know what the floorplan looks like in the "real world" and to do this you can either tape this out on the floor or you can do what we did, lay out pieces of wood indicating where walls will be. Once you have it laid out in actual space you can make adjustments "in the real world' before you have wall in place. For example, once things were laid out we determined we wanted the toilet and shower areas separate from the general bath space so we could use a higher cfm bath fan and insure moisture is removed effectively so we decided that single pocket doors will be a way to separate this space. In order to maintain light and visual flow a wood door which will have a Victorian design etched glass panel in it will allow additional light. We also decided on a pocket door going into the master suite closet, again with a glass panel to allow light. We also are incorporating a stained glass window into the hall way which will allow additional light into the space.

The hall way represents another change we must make. As is typical of Cincinnati Second Empire Cottages the ceiling slopes from the front to the back of the house and the ceilings in the rooms do the same. This change is subtle due to the size of the upstairs rooms about 6 inches per 10 feet, however in a long hallway (16 Feet) the slope is visually disturbing which is why we will lower the ceiling slightly in order to achieve a nice flat ceiling. We will take the lowest point as a reference and the change will be minimal . This is especially important since the ceiling and walls in this room, will be wall papered.

We actually got alot done over the weekend and even began hanging some drywall on the closet.

Of course all the work above means that we have mechanicals to run and additional chases to make. In this case two in order to run things like Pex plumbing, electrical and drain lines. We are only removing plaster where absolutely necessary. This will allow us to also insulate the drain lines. Sound deadening is very important on drain lines above living spaces. We also are opening back up the Formal staircase area at the bottom step which originally curved around into the entrance to the formal dining room. This will be a somewhat detailed project as it will require complete removal of the bottom tread and riser and custom fabrication of the new piece to duplicate the original which was 'hacked' into over the years by changes in the floorplan in that area. While the walls were open it was a great opportunity to remove the old knob and tube wiring which has simply been left in the walls when the electrical had been updated over the years.

In my "spare moments" I continue to work on the woodwork stripping. As it turns out our floors were in really good shape (in some areas). Unfortunately we have serious losses in some areas thanks to old cold air returns , electrical and HVAC updates and general abuse of 130 years rendering some areas gouged. As much as I would love to save them they are likely beyond that. With the new square edge oak flooring we will have floors that should last for the next 130 years of the home's life , plus the added benefit visually of inlaid borders. Although it's a major expense I think the house will be worth it. All in all a busy weekend of house work.

Knox Hill Public Relations

Saturday I gave a tour of the neighborhood to Margo Warminski at Cincinnati Historic Preservation. We discussed local preservation issues and moving our neighborhood forward and saving as much Historic Fabric as possible.

Most think of this neighborhood as just small cottages. However there are several fine mansions in the neighborhood as well, such as this fine brick example.

As is often the case when I give walking tours of the neighborhood I spot details on houses or an angle at which I had not looked at a house before. Case in fact that this columned porch may have been salvaged from the devastating fire that destroyed the German Social club up the street. This detail was pointed out to me recently by a regular reader of my blog. This house is an excellent example of Victorians " Keeping up with the Jones". This once modest Italianate cottage has had several additions over the years including the aforementioned porch columns as well as a later towered addition on the left. This house may have one of the best views of the valley bellow, and the city however.

This is a nicely detailed brick cottage that also has had some changes over the years. Note the small gable on the front and the enclosure of a porch added during the craftsman era. Although this house appears diminutive from the street elevation, it actually has a walk out lower area and is quite deep.

Although most homes in area were built between 1840 and 1880 there are some later examples like this 1895 Grand towered Queen Anne. I strongly suspect that under the 1930 siding lies elaborate cut shingles and banding.

This block shows a smorgasbord of architectural styles including Second Empire, Italianate and Gothic.

One of our neighborhood association projects is a self guided Historic Architecture walking tour brochure that we hope to have out next spring.