Blog Archives

meet the neighbors

9/18/2011

We welcome a visit from across-the-street neighbors who are old hands at the adventure we've embarked upon. Tom and Luis have renovated several historic houses in the area, including this 1768 home Governor Holley grew up in, which was a museum for many years, before they bought it from the town of Salisbury. Their Holley-Williams House (like our Holleywood) was in the same family for 150 years before it became a museum showcasing 19th century domestic life. (One of our daughter's favorite birthdays was one she celebrated there, a dress-up party complete with vintage petticoats and corsets.) When the house became too much for the Salisbury Association to maintain, Tom and Luis bought it and launched a restoration campaign to bring the place back to its former glory, devoting loving attention to each detail, from fluting of grand Ionic columns on the front porch to enhancing grain of wide planks in the antique barn. Having completed its revival, the challenge is over for them and they're making the home available for someone else to enjoy. (See sale listing here.)

Below, Luis points out that the fireplace in our den which I thought was black marble is actually glass painted Chinese-style on the inside. "Beaux Arts!" he informs, admiringly.

in the tower

9/14/2011

Special care must be taken with old glass in the tower. Here, Charlie gingerly removes a pane for glazing.

sliding door

9/13/2011

We shifted a door (and its molding) two feet to the right to provide better access to the hall bath on second floor.

true colors

9/12/2011

Hard to believe, it's already time to pick paint colors for the interior. (Exterior colors will remain the same.) How to choose? Remember the Chobi rug for the dining room? Chris the decorator suggested picking a palette from those colors, keeping to the soft, muted earth tones historically at home in Italianate houses, as seen at Villa Farnesina and others, shown below.

putting in a new window-- simple as 1, 2, 3

9/10/2011

After marking out reference points, Bill cuts thru plaster, removes wood laths, launches into two layers of brick.

Ah, renovation. People who have been through it know you can't change one thing without altering another. Like, putting in a bathroom on the third floor. We discover this requires adding a new window. Three challenges:
1. Approval by Historic District Board (check)
2. getting through two courses (layers) of brick, and
3. centering the window (for aesthetics) inside the wood trim that wraps around the house, so when you see the window from outside, it'll appear to have been there since 1853.

it takes a village

9/9/2011

We are lucky to have some of the most skilled artisans in the area teaming up for this project. Here, masons, painter, carpenters and contractor gather on the front porch (at my request), just before knocking off for the weekend.

mott and matt

9/9/2011

The vintage Mott tub from a second floor bathroom is going back in. However, the new bathroom plan is reconfigured and to make sure it'll fit comfortably under the window, Matt cut out a sample bathtub in balsa wood to let us try it out for size. Weight difference between sample and original tubs: about 1000 lbs.

mud season makes us grateful for built-in boot scraper

9/6/2011

What with all this rain, we're appreciating the lovely hand-forged boot scraper on the back steps leading from kitchen porch. I hadn't realized how valuable it was until I saw a less lovely one on ebay for $185.

keeping order means keeping to schedule

9/4/2011

White painted fireplace in the parlor will be stripped down to tiger-eye marble.

Piles may seem haphazard but if you look carefully, there's a method to the madness. Electrics in one corner, paint and plastering stashes in others. Even though floors will be redone, walkways are protected by "red carpet" butcher paper. Removed items are labeled and saved, preserved for future use on the job, or for posterity, as were original front doors, partially seen on the right.

Removed items are labeled and saved, preserved for posterity, as were original front doors, partially seen on the right.

ton of bricks

9/3/2011

We decide on bricks made the old-fashioned way: by hand. This ensures historical-looking color variation in the new chimneys. The bricks were shipped from North Carolina before Irene hit there, fortunately. They come marked with what seems like a superfluous caveat: "Once these bricks are laid in the wall, they become the property of the purchaser."