For the last 3 days, Alok has been taking a workshop on how to repair old double hung windows. Being that we have about 60 windows and these windows are about $1000 each to replace, the workshop was well worth it. He was actually the only person at the workshop from the area (it was in Hannibal) and he said he learned a lot. You can check out the workshop, as well as other workshops, offered by Bob Yapp at www.bobyapp.com. Once he gets those started (probably not until the spring), we'll keep you posted.
I took some more front of the house pictures, as seen here:
.
Notice the new wood around the bottom on these few and the cement posts
Front view, again.
Then, my mom went to work on the yard and I went inside and worked on stripping out more wallpaper out of the apartment. Here is it when I started (my mom came in and did this for a bit as well):
And here is the finished product:
I needed help to disconnect those two light fixtures before I could continue, although most of what you see left is paint.....
After getting most of the wallpaper off of these walls and developing a major blister, I decided to move on to something else. Being on the house tour this weekend in Quincy, I couldn't help but think of the second staircase that old house have. I continued to examine this area to figure out where our staircase went:
Staircase looking closet in the apartment
Ceiling in the hallway that goes to the basement.... right above the apartment closet
Then, since I was on my own, I decided to just see what lies beneath this staircase shaped closet shelf. First I started by innocently peeling off some of the wallpaper in the closet (yes, that was all wallpaper). Here is some of the original layers of wallpaper:
Then, I decided to use a crowbar. I have never used a crowbar before, and getting it jammed here, made me doubt my decision to proceed:
But I am persistent and tried again.
Alex couldn't bare to watch it.
Woo hoo! I finally got the board off.
So here is what lies beneath:
What I believe to be original wallpaper. That board directly down is an old stair... I think
A better pic of the wallpaper
The old stair and you can get some idea about what the original molding probably looked like
This is what it looks like underneath.... I'm not sure what to make of this
I then propped up the board that I ripped off so I could climb up with a sledge hammer and try to look at what was going on in the wall. You can see my hole directly ahead here:
I couldn't see anything. I got a flashlight, looked through the hole and can see wood (I think), but I have no clue what I was looking it. I tried to use my camera to see, but here is the picture I got:
That didn't help. I wanted to keep destroying this closet, but we had to leave. Oh, BTW, this was not all in vain. When I peeled away the wallpaper, I discovered more mold (this closet was next to the mold apartment closet so that is no surprise.
I also took a few videos today, but for some reason they won't load, so we'll have to wait for those.
Jessica
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