So far, after two years, we have been able to remove the cheesecloth wallpaper from all the walls and ceilings. The outside is in terrible need of a paint job... but as soon as we paint, the taxman will hit us hard, so we are working from the inside out. We have completely rebuilt almost half of the 50+ windows, making sure that each has the old wavy glass. We were fortunate that a neighbor replaced his old windows and gave us the old sashes. Repairs have been made to some of the floors and some have been beefed up to accommodate the planned marble flooring. Electric wiring has been run in each room and awaiting the installation of 200amp service and panel. Plumbing plans are in the works now; the plumbing was re-done years ago but is still very simple in design and will not accomodate our plans. The kitchen plans have been drawn and windows have been raised for the kitchen counters to be installed. Our biggest problem is the leveling of the house. The four fireplaces have sank and made the inside un-level. We have had estimates from 5k-24k to have the problem corrected, we will be pondering that for a while. So, without leveling the house it prevents us from hanging wallpaper and so forth, however it does allow us to make all sorts of other repairs and projects. We have removed all fire places, about 3600 brick had to be removed one by one. Pam and the kids got the job done!!!
We love to sit out on the porch during the day. The rockers are all green now and there are nine of them, five downstairs and four upstairs on the veranda. The street we live on is very busy with walkers and during Halloween it is the busiest street in town.
All of the woodwork in the house is coated with shellac. After 89 years of wax and dirt build-up the end product was dark black with an alligator texture. After several gallons of denatured alcohol, steelwool, and lots of elbow grease, we were able to brighten up the wood. The leaded glass in the front door lets in rainbows of light in the afternoon. There are four fireplaces in the house, the palor, our bedroom, the dinning room and a childs room (to be the entertainment room when he moves out).
After removing the cheesecloth wallpaper we were left with shiplap walls and ceilings. Oh yea, and like a bazillion tacks that were used to hold the cheescloth. There were all those little strings, we just took a propane torch and burnt them. Then we pulled many tacks, set and spray painted what was left. Then we are using a heavy duty wall-liner, from The Warner Company, its a paper put up like wallpaper as a base for paint or paper. We are very pleased with it because now we do not have to remove any trim to install sheetrock. We didn't want to lose the depth of the trim or any of the moldings. The room we are working in now will be called the ballroom ... because the furniture in it will be ball and claw feet. The one with the fireplace is the palor.. can't do much there as it is really un-level and we are afraid it will tear the wall-liner. However, it has these great pocket doors that lead into the dinning room. Can't wait to get to these two rooms.
Pam and I have been together for some time, we purchased the house and have worked on it together. We were married in the ballroom July 21,2002, before we took the wall coverings off. We both work full time and work on the home nights and weekends. We have 6 children between us, three boys and three girls. Our home is located in the city on a corner with nine large pecan trees.
We have come to the conclusion that we are going to have to remove all of the fire places. The cost to have them levelled and then have then repaired is going to be cost prohibitive. Then after the repairs we would have to get new flues (sp) and inserts installed. So it will be better to remove them and install new all the way around.
We have also started to get the bids to get the repairs completed on the outside of the home and have it scraped and painted. Hope to have all the outside repairs and paint completed by this September.
