Cottage Archaeology

Just about done

2008-04-29T19:40:00.002-05:00

Everything's slowed down considerably here at the cottage, and with good reason: We're done. No, we're not so naive to think we'll ever actually be done, as in for always and forever, but for the most part, we can now proudly hoist the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner and be secure in the knowledge that we've officially closed out this phase of our cottage rehabilitation project.

Why, just look at the kitchen:

... and compare to the kitchen we moved in to:

Almost done

2008-04-08T23:02:00.002-05:00

We're just about finished. Here's a view of the lake:

Easy access to the throne

2008-03-05T23:17:00.002-06:00

Al's been spending the last couple of days hanging doors. For a little cottage, we sure have enough of 'em! Nine interior doors, in fact. All of the original doors have been gone for quite a while (the notable exception being the bathroom door, for modesty's sake). A couple of the old veneer doors were put on special temporary assignment as dumpster ramps, for it was a lot easier roll a wheelbarrow chock full of debris up a ramp than it would have been to yank it up to the floor of the dumpster. The new doors are solid, a classic six-panel design. They'll serve as particularly sturdy ramps in, oh, about a century.

Although we're doing one-for-one replacement of all of the doors, we've slightly changed the position of one, and modified the swing of at least two. Take the bathroom, for instance. When we moved in, to enter the tiny bathroom you'd push the door inward and to the right. The bowl was hidden by the door, so you'd have to shut the door whenever you felt the urge to relax on the throne. It entailed a small bit of maneuvering.

We changed the layout so that we still push the door inward, but it's to the left. It gives the room a whole new feeling! Now you can access the throne without needing to shut the door.

Why you would actually want to do that is beyond the scope of this post, however.

February update

2008-02-19T22:01:00.003-06:00

Winter's chill and snow have slowed work a bit. Here's the view of the deck through the kitchen door tonight:

But there has been significant progress in the kitchen since our last installment:

Ready to throw in the trowel

2008-01-17T23:02:00.000-06:00

Our friend Eric has nearly finished our fireplace:

He'll be back tomorrow to set the hearth stone in place, then Al will attach the mantel, and the fireplace store will put the front back on.

Special props to my friend Jim, who suggested the title of this post after building his own fireplace.

More buried treasure

2008-01-09T22:54:00.000-06:00

After seeing the posts (first and second) about some of the interesting artifacts we've recovered while deconstructing the cottage, lots of people have asked "how much money have you found?" Visions of sacks of Franklins lining the walls helped fuel the actual demolition process. Quite frankly, Franklin, we would have been very happy with just a few C-notes.

Well, I hate to tell you the final results: we uncovered very little currency... and that's a real shame, especially considering how much we're paying for all these renovations!

Perhaps someone can tell me whether this aluminum coin is legal tender. Somehow, I doubt it.

Happy colorful new year

2008-01-01T21:14:00.000-06:00

Almost a month has gone by since our last update. The drywall crew finished just after Christmas -- they were busy hanging, taping, mudding, sanding, texturing, priming... and reading this journal. What a small world!

Our friend Naomi found us a good deal on paint. The timing was perfect, for the walls were ready and Mrs. Yuhas had plotted out the motifs for each of the rooms. (Mrs. Yuhas now answers to "Queen Motifa.") Here's the kitchen after we got through with it:

Remember the pink room? It looked like this before we moved in:

Hold on to your hat -- it's no longer pink!

Here's the green room when it was still green:

... and today -- not a speck of verde! Alex had fun in this space:

I'm overjoyed by Queen Motifa's color selections, but feel a tiny bit bittersweet about the radical changes, because my former names for all the rooms will now be a little more difficult to justify. Those who have followed this journal since its early days can perhaps appreciate the angst rising within me prompted by all these changes (newcomers to the Cottage Archaeology blog can catch up by reading this post from August). So it's with a great sense of joy that I can announce that the blue room has become the "new hue true blue" room! Mrs. Yuhas updated the scheme to better reflect 2008's sensibilities, naturally, and two of the walls are a tan color. Here's Cassidy in the former vivid blue room:

We rang in 2008 with a makeover of the new hue true blue room:

Can you spot some of the other changes? There's a whole new door, and it swings the other way. This required us to move the light switches to the other side. But the biggest change is the floor is now several inches higher -- it now matches the height of the kitchen, and the deck outdoors. This little modification kept Al busy for a while. It's all in a day's work for Cottage Archaeology Man!

Ready for drywall

2007-12-08T21:56:00.001-06:00

The last couple of weeks have been busy at the cottage: the insulators sprayed foam under the floor and blew cellulose in the exterior walls; Al leveled out the floors in preparation for hardwood and carpet; and the drywall guys loaded up the joint with sheetrock:

They'll be back next week, and soon the house will begin to look like a home.

Kitchen progress

2007-11-26T23:44:00.000-06:00

A lot's been happening in the kitchen. Most important, Al has redecked the floor, replacing the odd-angled floorboards mentioned in a previous post with OSB; he also put in a window where there was none. Here's the latest:

Compare that with the original, pre-move-in picture:

Whew. We're now ready for sprayed-on insulation under the floor in the crawl space, and cellulose in the walls and ceiling. After that, it'll be time for drywall, then real hardwood floor, kitchen cabinets, and a myriad other things.

The why-to-for of spongy floor

2007-11-18T21:27:00.000-06:00

A few things struck us as "we'll need to fix that eventually" when we first toured the cottage back in May. One item on the list was the sponginess of the kitchen floor. It was so bad that every time someone walked over it, the silverware in the drawer jingled. It wasn't until we pulled up most of the layers of the floor that we realized the cause. It's apparent in this photograph of the subfloor, after all layers of underlayment, linoleum, vinyl, foam, and veneer woodlike flooring had been removed:

The section on the left was original construction, the right side was an addition. It's easy to spot the demarcation point. In fact, it's easy to see where the original wall plate had been fastened to the subfloor deck. The original planking on the left had been laid properly, at about a 30 degree angle. I don't have a protractor handy, but I'd estimate the addition's planking was laid at about a 60 degree angle, which caused long runs across the floor joists. The planks visibly deflect when walked on; the situation wasn't much better when all the layers on top were present.

Al's ripping up the remaining odd-angle planking. It will be replaced with an engineered oriented strandboard.

More artifacts

2007-11-06T22:41:00.000-06:00

Hello again. The last couple weeks have found us busy with plenty of interior work, which I'll share with you in good time. For now, this post is filled with more artifacts -- from the ceiling and crawl space.

Our carpenter Al has really gotten into this archaeological stuff. He's read some of our earlier posts about the nifty period items we've found, and has truly gotten into the spirit of discovery. In fact, all of the items shown in this post were collected by Al.

The first few items were found in the attic. This chair, for example:

We'd take it down to the lake and have a little picnic, if we thought it could support the weight of one of us. Or even our cat.

The matching chaise doesn't look like it could bear much weight, either:

Somewhere under the dust and grime are some vivid colors, I'm almost certain.

Say, while we're in a picnic mood, let's not forget the cook stove, also from the attic:

Flatware is a necessity, too. This fork was retrieved from the crawl space:

Also in under the cottage were a few tools of various utility. This saw may have come in handy at some point in the distant past:

Pliers are important for most any job -- except when they've been rusted shut and are growing barnacles:

And finally, perhaps the most intriguing artifact we've seen:

En garde!

Al at work

2007-10-26T20:04:00.000-05:00

Today was a big day at the cottage: Gary and I pulled wire; Dan and John put all our ducts in a row; Andy consulted with us about insulation; and Al thought about his next move:

He's been keeping a to-do list on an old board. In the photo above, he had just crossed off a few items, but added several more.

I don't know what we'll do when he's finished.

Knock down that wall

2007-10-10T22:14:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite movies is the hysterical "Johnny Dangerously," released in 1984, starring Michael Keaton in the title role. He's a gangster working for the Jocko Dundee gang in early 20th century New York. Dundee's rival is Roman Moronie, a heavily-accented thug given to occasional, memorable, almost incomprehensible invective-laced tirades. For instance, he called his enemies "bastages," "iceholes" and "corksuckers."

Dundee and Moronie each own nightclubs. At one point in the film, Moronie discussed some club renovation plans with one of his henchmen, saying "knock down dat wall, knock down dat wall, and knock down dat farging wall." Johnny, coincidentally, happened to be flying overhead in a small airplane, and dropped a small bomb on Moronie's club -- knocking down all those walls and then some. Moronie's response to all this, amid all the dust and debris, is "now I'm really angry."

That's the only thing I could think of while I knocked down dis, ah, this wall:

Of course, we had pulled down the drywall some time ago, but we figured we could salvage at least part of the wall -- our own renovation plans called for us to remove one part, and carve out a pantry in another section. Looking at the condition of the studs (seven of which weren't long enough and were actually two smaller pieces spliced together), we decided it would just be more prudent to knock down the whole farging thing. So, about five minutes after I took this photo, the bastage was relegated to the history books.

It was a quick demolition, but not quite as efficient as Johnny Dangerously would have handled the job.

Hip surgery

2007-10-08T20:48:00.000-05:00

I'm learning about all kinds of things during this project. For instance, I now know the difference between a gable roof and hip roof. I learned, specifically, that our cottage has a hip roof. Through sure-footed detective work (easily accomplished when the only things left standing are studs and subfloor planks) I learned that an addition was put on the cottage at some point, which comprised about half of the modern-day kitchen and half of the modern-day living room. The transition was easy to spot: for one thing, the ceiling heights weren't the same on either side (see the kitchen before shot that clearly shows the decorative timber-like beam in the kitchen at the delineation point); and the subflooring planks were laid out at an odd angle, which contributed magnificently to the kitchen floor's sponginess factor.

Al pointed out where the addition's new roof had been grafted onto the original cottage roof. This had concerned him almost from day one, because it appeared that the original, short rafters at the hip roof end actually ended at the edge of the old roof. Aw heck, it's easier to just show the picture:

Anything below and to the right of the diagonal rafter was original roof; the added roofage is left and above. You'll note the rafters (which are on wide 24-inch centers) are broken at the old roof edge. In other words, there's nothing to keep the thing from crashing down under the weight of a very heavy snowfall, perhaps.

We decided to remove the living room's flat ceiling (seen above as joists at the bottom of the picture) in favor of a vaulted ceiling. We figure it's an extra flourish to make the joint look bigger, and, golly, now's the time to do it as the place is all torn up anyway. The next photo depicts the same roof, minus the diagonal rafter, but with many new rafters added. And, oh yes, a lot of vaulted ceiling joists, too.

Al and his crew must have had some fun with this. We feel confident the roof can now withstand many feet of snowfall. Bring it on!

Stove removal

2007-10-02T20:36:00.000-05:00

As much as we admired the rustic feel the wood stove lent to the joint, we decided to get rid of it, for two reasons. First, it took up a hell of a lot of space in the living room. Second, every time we spoke with our insurance company about the cottage, they'd always ask about it. We got the impression that such a device could be, at worst, hazardous, and at best costly in terms of premium payments. So it went.

Here it is, with part of the faux brix peeled off the nearby wall:

Shortly after this photo was shot back in August, we arranged with our neighbor Gary to have it hauled off the premises. If memory serves, his brother in law could use it, so we said "take it away!" That left the six large tiles (or would you call them bricks? They were thick enough) on the floor to remove.

Those six bricktiles popped out easily -- a little pry and they were free. One broke when I placed (dropped) it on the floor. That left us with five of the heat-resistant beauties. I ended up giving them to Gary, too, figuring he might have some use for them. (Some of the more choice materials ended up being salvaged for either Gary or our other neighbor, Will. In fact, there were two nice six-panel closet doors we didn't foresee using, and Gary happily took them. After taking up space in his garage for a month, he sheepishly asked me this past weekend if I'd mind if he put them by the street to see if a passing motorist could put them to use. He propped them up at the end of his driveway with a "FREE" sign. Within 45 minutes, Gary had solved his problem.)

But I digress. The bricktiles rested on a foundation of concrete, or what my friend Bergie likes to call "cretis." I figured a few blows with the sledge would pulverize the concrete.

It sort of worked out that way. I was expecting to be able to peel the concrete from the wooden subfloor. But again, another one of our cottage's many surprises! Whoever installed the stove poured the concrete directly on carpet:

Kitchen before and during

2007-09-30T08:16:00.000-05:00

Here's what the kitchen looked like before we started hacking away at it:

You see, it had most of today's modern conveniences, items at home in the typical American kitchen, such as a an oven, countertops, cabinets, fridge, ceiling and the like. And of course, a kitchen sink.

It looks a little different now:

All that stuff has long since been jettisoned, lovingly tossed into one of our four (so far) dumpster loads. About the only original items remaining are some windows and studs. Also seen here are some of Al's items. This is his workshop while he puts up new rafters in the living room.

More on the floor

2007-09-23T23:57:00.000-05:00

Under the floor, to be precise.

This first photo depicts the vinyl flooring found underneath the wood-like veneer and padding in the kitchen:

The small dots resembling bullet holes were where the nails went through. The nails were holding down a layer (and in some areas of the floor, many layers) of padding.

Underneath the vinyl was this colorful linoleum sheet flooring:

Perhaps one of these would make a nice background to this blog?

Beam me up

2007-09-22T09:43:00.000-05:00

Oh, how I delight in making up silly headlines like this one.

The subject of today's journal entry is the cottage's main beam. In our last installment I hinted about our biggest issue to date: in his first expedition to the crawl space, Al noted that the main beam at the west side of the cottage had rotted away from the foundation. It had drooped about 2.5 inches, which naturally caused all the floors and walls above to sag proportionately. Apparently the stone on the exterior isn't watertight; years of seepage had destroyed much of the underfloor structure, including box joists and plates. It's amazing to see what a little water can do to a strong material like lumber. Ever think of what it can do to your stomach?

Here's the before picture, showing the hole in the foundation where the beam once rested:

In the picture above, Al had already replaced the plate and joist, with treated lumber. He had also poured a new, deep, concrete pad on which the beam would ultimately rest. The scrap concrete it's sitting on here (at right in picture) was bearing the weight of everything.

In addition to the west end, the beam also sagged elsewhere throughout the building, namely everywhere it wasn't supported by a pier. This caused the floor to develop a mountainous profile. If you were to walk from east to west through the cottage, it felt as if you were crossing the Appalachians, Rockies, and Sierra Nevada. Standing in the bathroom felt as if you were in the head in a cruise ship cabin, minus the rocking motion.

Al spent the week addressing the problem. At first he tried jacking the beam at one of the sags. Unfortunately, forty-plus years of gradual deformation wasn't going to be undone in a matter of minutes, and the beam lifted off the piers on either side.

He ultimately settled on raising the floor, then sistering microlam to either side of the beam. (It was relatively easy to do all this jacking, because we had filled up three (so far) 20 cubic foot rolloff dumpsters with old drywall, flooring, and the like, making the cottage a mere featherweight.) Here's how the west end looks today, with the microlam securely in its foundation pocket:

My, these renovations are getting expensive!

Eat at Joe's

2007-09-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

I ripped up some more flooring this weekend and came across this, which begged for a blog entry of its own:

This was the one of the layers of flooring in the Alien Room closet. At the top was wall-to-wall carpet and padding. Immediately below was a thin layer of masonite, painted white. Next was this signage, resting on a thick hunk of fiberboard (think very thick cardboard, though a little softer). This all rested on standard wooden slats.

The reason we're tearing all this up is because Al, our carpenter, needs to access the cottage's main beam, which ends near the R in Refreshment. The reason he needs to access the main beam is because the end of it (under the R) is not tied to anything, causing a two-inch sag in the floor around here. It's a mess, but fixable.

Here's one indication of something wrong with the beam. This is the Alien Room closet doorway, showing the settling of the wall over where the beam dropped:

Exterior before & after

2007-09-06T21:37:00.000-05:00

One of our first posts showcased a photo of the cottage a couple weeks before we closed on it. Here's another glimpse:

And today, after a bit of work on the outside:

Mrs. Yuhas figured this is the face of our cottage to our neighbors and passersby, so some effort ought to be expended to give the joint some curb appeal. She's responsible for most of these changes:

Large shrubs removed.
Central air conditioning installed.
Satellite dish removed.
Lava rock dug up and replaced with mulch.
Light fixtures by garage door replaced.
Sidewalk installed.
New stoop built.
Crawl space access improved.
New plants planted.
Trellis installed for clematis.
Shutters added to windows.
Birdbath added.

Weird dream

2007-08-27T21:03:00.000-05:00

This morning I laughed myself awake from an odd dream I was having.

Our experiences with the cottage rehab so far have been enlightening, and often downright surprising. Things like severed headers above doorways; repairs halfway made to floor joists; lack of anything square, plumb, and level; and burned, short, and otherwise recycled 2x4s used as studs, to name just a few. Construction techniques so haphazard that we just shake our heads in disbelief. In fact, our noggins are sore due to the constant slapping of our palms against our foreheads.

A previous post detailed some of the substandard electrical work found throughout the place. I must have had this on my mind as I fell asleep last night. In my dream I envisioned a previous electrician wiring the house so cheaply that they didn't use circuit breakers.

Instead they used circuit benders.

A well ventilated home

2007-08-26T22:56:00.003-05:00

We hit a milestone this weekend: all the walls (drywall and/or paneling) have been removed, clear down to the studs.

In the ceiling

2007-08-23T21:58:00.000-05:00

... and walls, all kinds of nifty treasures have come pouring out. First, a small bottle:

No clue what it once contained. If you have any idea, no matter how outlandish, leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

Next, some Marlboro 100s. These dropped out of the living room ceiling, with the pack and loose cigarette landing at my feet:

They were probably a little too dry to smoke.

What this Prestone tag was doing in my ceiling remains a mystery:

When was the last time your mechanic tied a tag around your radiator spout alerting you to the date your antifreeze was installed and the "gallons put in?"

A previous post mentioned the Zonolite Man. Here's his trusty steed, the Mule Hide Roofs mule:

So far two used Raid Fumigators have fallen out of the ceiling:

This screwdriver will come in handy at some point:

Ah-hah! Something bearing an actual date, likely to be around the epoch some of the work was done to the cottage:This is a significant find for several reasons. First, the date, June 1955. Whether this is when the first joists were hoisted, or if it's when an early cottage expansion took place is anyone's guess, but at least this artifact won't need to be sent to the boys in the lab for Carbon-14 dating to determine its age.

Another interesting observation is the layout of the calendar page, with the week of June 5-11 prominent, but also showing all dates of each specific day of the week. Note the ornate decorative borders around the days. The two-color letterpress work is of very high quality.

Lastly, the week's motto at the top is particularly poignant: "Courtesy is to business what oil is to machinery." Insightful words, those.

This adapter could let you power a small appliance from an ordinary light socket:

This could have been put to good use in the bedroom that had just one outlet -- at lightswitch height.

The following fell out of the hallway ceiling:

It's a good thing I was wearing a hardhat at the time.

These final three items were found in a bedroom wall. How about the still-sharp pencil from the Old Ironsides Battery Works in Campbellsport:

A quick web search turned up a few paragraphs on the Old Ironsides facility:

Fond du Lac County: Old Ironsides Battery Site, Hwy 67, Town of Ashford. FCEDC has been working closely with Fond du Lac County on the sale and redevelopment of the old Ironsides Battery site, approximately 1-1/2 miles outside of Campbellsport. The Ironsides property was the site of a battery manufacturing and battery reclamation business from the 1930s until 1990. The property was contaminated as a result of the battery manufacturing and reclamation that occurred on the property over the 60-year period. The EPA conducted a $390,000 decontamination of the property, and the Wisconsin Dept. of Commerce provided a $100,000 Brownfield grant for remediation and redevelopment. The County received DNR environmental closure of the property in mid 2004. FCEDC worked closely with a number of private sector clients interested in the acquisition and redevelopment of the Ironsides property during 2005.

(From the Fond du Lac County Economic Development Corporation 2005 annual report.)

Next, a cobweb-covered shirt hanger:

Finally, an old candy wrapper:

And there you have it -- a dozen disparate reminders of an innocent time, when people only worried about courtesy, skating, bugs, and antifreeze.

Vermiculite

2007-08-17T00:01:00.000-05:00

Say hello to the Zonolite Man. This five decades old drawing appears on an empty bag of Zonolite brand vermiculite insulating fill. (Classic 1950s styling -- I'll bet the Zonolite Man's car was replete with tailfins!) The bag itself was found in the rafters above the kitchen ceiling, under several inches of actual vermiculite. Apparently the people who insulated thought that by laying empty bags in the rafters (they also used old roofing shingle boxes, rugs, and other handy material), the vermiculite wouldn't percolate through the ceiling drywall.

The Zonolite Man and I have become close friends. I've learned that vermiculite is a fireproof mineral that attains its small nuggetlike characteristics during an exfoliation process after being mined. It's like mica. It can be used horticulturally, as a soil conditioner. An informative Wikipedia article suggests that over 35,000,000 homes in the United States are insulated with vermiculite. When it pours out of the ceiling it creates a lot of dust, which is why I always wear gloves, safety glasses, a condom (just kidding!), a hardhat and mask when dealing with the stuff. I'm concerned that the Zonolite Man did not use a respirator when installing the product. I hope he didn't fall ill.

Even with all the personal protection devices I employ, vermiculite has found its way into places I wish it hadn't, like my ears. A load went down the back of my shirt and ended up in my butt crack. Yick!

Here's a photo of a large mound of the stuff in the dumpster. Can't you just smell the dust?

This post dedicated to the memory of my dad, Harry Yuhas, an active gardener who frequently used vermiculite in potting soil. Today would have been his 81st birthday.

What to call the rooms?

2007-08-12T23:02:00.001-05:00

There is a little controversy in the household regarding the names with which we refer to the cottage's individual rooms. Some are easily agreed upon, such as "bathroom," "kitchen," and "living room" (though we often speak of the latter as Cassidy would have when she was a few years younger: "livering room"). The trouble ensues when referring to rooms by a major spotting characteristic -- interior color. Now that several have been denuded of drywall, their original colors have vanished.

The traditionalist in the family (me) clings to these quaint names, as if we had a long, storied relationship with the rooms in question. In reality, the first thing we did when we took possession was to merrily plot the new color scheme, and shortly thereafter, the walls -- and most traces of former colors -- came tumbling down.

One such example is what I will forever refer to as the "blue room," the room immediately between the kitchen and garage. Alex took down the blue paneling -- the blueness of the blue room -- in one of the first tangible actions of the remodeling. Mrs. Yuhas refers to the space as the "sun room," but with its placement on the north side of the house, it doesn't see much direct sun. (Truth be told, there are four east-facing windows, but we're always still asleep when the sunshine might come pouring in.) The previous owners called it the "game room." Clearly, conflict. You'll read Mrs. Yuhas's rebuttal when she starts her own cottage remodel journal.

There is one bedroom not referred to by color (which happens to be beige), but by an unusual Rorschach pattern on the wood veneer on the inside of the door. Long after the door is removed and hauled off to the landfill, we'll lovingly call this master bedroom the "alien room."