Cool

During this, the hottest week of the summer, the house and those working in it got a reprieve. Air conditioning!

Super Quiet Outdoor Units

Just yesterday, our HVAC contractors completed the installation of both outdoor units and fired them up. By the time the morning dawned, the house had cooled from a sweltering mid-90s interior temperature to something in the mid-70s. We had prioritized getting the HVAC working for a couple of reasons. First, to knock down the humidity in the house so we can further diagnose the continued water intrusions in the old basement by drying it out. Second, to cool the house down so we can acclimate the hardwood flooring over the next week and ready it for installation.

The hardwood floors themselves are a work in progress. We had hoped to refinish the existing yellow pine under the newer oak that we had taken up in the living and dining rooms in the old house. Unfortunately, after seeing several workers literally put their foot through the floor into the old basement (there is no subfloor), we have concluded that the boards are too brittle and dry-rotted to function as an unsupported floor. Instead, we have chosen to take up the re-usable old floorboards in the living room, dining room, and converted bathroom on the second floor to use as borders in the new part of the house. We will lay a modern subfloor in the living and dining rooms.

Family Room Fireplace

In a bit of serendipity, our design/build partners happened to be antique shopping over the weekend and stumbled upon 475 square feet of 1850s vintage hardwood flooring measuring nearly a sturdy 1-inch thick in Orange, VA. We quickly grabbed it and will be using that flooring over the new subfloor in the old part of the house, keeping it period-authentic if not original to the house. It is in great shape, and will look fantastic once installed, sanded, and finished.

Work continues on many fronts as we move toward a late-August occupancy. Most of the window and baseboard trim has been installed, the interior doors were being installed today, and the fireplace box has been constructed in the family room. One of the upstairs bathrooms has 90% of the tile installed. The masonry contractors will be completing new piers for all four external porches in the next few days. Built-in closets are taking shape quickly and will be done shortly.

Over the weekend, we are hoping to see the painting contractors come through and spray-prime the entire second floor. While the house won't be "done" when we inhabit the premises in 6 weeks, the second floor has been prioritized so we have places to sleep and shower.

We have also begun to work on antique elements that can be added to the decor. Our antique newel posts have arrived in boxes, our designer acquired old corbels for the shelves in the walk-in pantry, we have ordered reclaimed doors for the back entrance and screen porch, and a number of antique light fixtures have been purchased. We are still seeking a wash stand for the powder room, and matching leaded glass windows to surround the driveway entrance to the mudroom. Finally, our designer has located the coolest looking interior door handles and mortise locksets that one could imagine. We can't wait to see them installed.

Drywall

Well, most of it is dry, anyway.

Stairwell

Archway into Library

In one day of feverish activity, a rugby side worth of guys rolled through the house hanging drywall. Every surface was covered, save for maybe 5-10% of a few upstairs rooms. A smaller group returned on the following day to finish the job.

Over the next couple of days into yesterday, 3 guys taped and mudded all of the rooms, completing roughly 90% of the work as the holiday weekend approached.

For the first time in 6 months, you can no longer see the old bones of the house. At the moment, it looks a lot like any other house under construction, with the only visible old features consisting of the staircase and the original heart pine floors on the first and second levels. That will change when the doors, windows, trim and other distinctively "old" features re-appear inside the house.

Wet Media Room

In other developments, water is wet and old foundations leak. The continued rain in northern Virginia has put our water management system in the old basement to quite a test. Unfortunately, we are still working to perfect the approach. The main issue with old foundations is to realize there is nothing you can do to keep water out entirely, but instead work to channel and remove any water as soon as it gets in.

Our foundation contractor installed drain board along the walls leading to perforated drain tile under the slab, which then flows to the sump. One of the problems has been due to the fact that the sump pump hadn't been installed yet, and so water was just overflowing the sump itself. The bigger concern is that the drain tile isn't catching all the water and it is just running onto the basement floor. Clearly this is, shall we say, an unfavorable condition for what will be finished space. Work continues to address the situation, which is not holding up anything else at the moment.

At this point, the renovation moves into the installation of finishes, the last stretch of work. In the next couple of weeks, all of the window and door trim will be installed. Work will begin on tiling the bathrooms. Most importantly, we will be attempting to pull up some of the original flooring to patch parts of the living room parlor floor. We are hopeful that the entire first floor of the old house, the front bedroom, the laundry room and the second floor hallway will be finished with restored heart pine flooring from the original house.