Day 13

August 5, 2010

So I didn't make it over to the house today. I could make excuses, such as the fact that I had derby practice or have to prep my classes I start teaching in 2 weeks, but I really watched So You Think You Can Dance (and then went to roller derby). So, I have to give up control and let Alok post. Here he is...

Jessica

I learned today thanks to Vicki D's industrious researching efforts a la the Quincy Public library newspaper archives (a resource I am duly impressed with and had no idea existed) that the first owner/builder of our home, one Mr. Weems, had his funeral at the residence. Well, I guess his family held his funeral at the residence. Additionally, one other funeral of a distant cousin or something was also held at the house. I apologize for the lack of details but I left the articles at work. Anyway, So two funerals. As a digression, this I believe legitimizes our house as a valid Haloween Party site. (I don't think they have plaques for that.) Also, Mr. Weems' daughter was married at the house, 150 guests were invited. Quite a party.

When we were inspecting the house we saw that there was some fire damage up in the attic. The wood that was used to replace the damaged wood looked almost as old as the original wood. If I remember correctly, the fire occurred in 1914.

Well, today I went over to the house and scraped some wallpaper. It was the wallpaper on the plasterboard around the unmasked windows. It really does take forever to scrape that old cardboard off to uncover the soft plaster underneath. I have requested a consult with our resident Quincy plaster expert and I look forward to finding out just what the heck to do with these plasterboards, and how to transition or match them to the old plaster.

Before I started scraping...


and after.

I think that is about another four to six hours of scraping there in the picture. I think my shoulders are going to look like Scottie Pippen's after I'm done scraping this stuff.

Okay, here are two pictures of the house from the front. I am posting it for two reasons. #1 we need to pick paint colors. Not really sure what to do. Suggestions? Thinking maybe a shade of blue for the body and cream of some sort for the trim. #2 I am obsessed with the fact that the section of house hanging over the front door is leaning down to the left. Can you see it? It is literally driving me crazy. I watched a few videos on youtube yesterday on how to use bottle jacks to jack up part of your house. Anyone have experience with that...seriously driving me crazy.




Charla, Jessie's mom really went all out tonight. She shampooed the carpet in the first floor addition and also sprayed bleach all over the mold in the addition closet... Here she is in full bleach-bombing regalia. The carpet looks awesome, thanks Charla.


Bob, Jessie's dad also showed up and was recruited to do work as well. He continued in the ongoing battle against wallpaper by climbing up on the ladder, scrubbing the walls and chiseling away at the brown/purple stuff found all along the edges of the plaster. Here he is hard at work scraping and scrubbing.


I have to give Charla and Bob extra credit for sticking around and working despite the fact that the air conditioner was not really cooling the place and it was around 85 degrees in there. Elsewhere on the house the roofers continue to work in this heat wave as well and hopefully the weather cooperates and they can keep up their good work. They are almost done with the roof over the mold room. Looking forward to getting that room cleaned up.
-Alok

OK, I have to add on again. (Sorry, Alok). He is not wrong. The fact that he thinks the front of the house is slanted is literally driving him (and me) crazy. It is allegedly structurally sound and the contractor said leave it.... and our whole west side of the house is slanted down (see previous fun house door picture). Leave it or try to mess with it? I say leave it if it's not dangerous, as to not break down part of our house by literally jacking up something that doesn't need it.

Jessica

Well, I spoke with my father who is a structural engineer and he said that the added decline of the roof may be of concern. The contractor looked at it for purposes of determining whether it would support the weight of the roofers as they installed the new roof. Secondly, I pulled off the latticework (i was the first to do so) on the side of the porch to look and see what the post was placed on. Of course, it is a cement base (that has probably settled) but more worrisome is that the post itself has been haphazardly mended by stray 2*4s. So, Ms. Jessica (get the last word in) Snowden Patel, I think the slanted roof is worrisome, and thus is legitimately driving me crazy.

Alok "Booya" Patel