Our Old House - in the beginning

In the beginning (our 1st year): From moving in in July 1985 til late fall.

When we purchased this old farmhouse back in 1985(original part built in 1894) we were young, optimistic, and perhaps foolish. This house was very run down, and like my wife said in an earlier post, probably only a very few years from being condemned. But I convinced her that I could handle the remodeling involved and little did I realize what I was getting myself into. I had very minimal skills at the time - just enough to make myself overly-confident (delusional).

This house had no central heat, only a small oil space heater in the dining room. It also had very minimal electrical service. The 2nd floor had only one ceiling fixture in each bedroom and no outlets. The 1st floor had a few outlets, and that was it. Consequently, in order to get bank financing for a mortgage, we had to upgrade the electrical service to 200A and wire the entire house for outlets, electric baseboard heat, other appliances, etc. After getting a bid from an electrician friend of mine for around $2000 plus the heaters, I decided to educate myself and do it myself. So we had the trench dug for the new underground feeder, I installed the new 200A service entrance panelboard, and ran all the wiring. Alot of dirty, hard work - tedious, and time-consuming. But fortunately at this time all the exteriors walls of the house were still uninsulated so I was able to fish cable "relatively" easy.

I had a very basic understanding of electricity before - now I have a very thorough working knowledge of it. I generally learn by doing lots of reading  and asking lots and lots of questions until I feel comfortable with the task at hand. I always err on the side of caution - probably too much so, which sometimes hinders me getting started on a new project.

We also purchased a Vermont Castings wood burning stove. I installed an 8" stainless steel liner inside the existing brick chimney, which did not have a flue liner. This was a safety measure.

The other thing I did that first fall was to paint the metal roof. The roof was badly rusted and after doing some research I found a product manufactured by Dean & Barry called MZP (Metallic Zinc Primer). This stuff ran about $60.00/gallon and a gallon weighed about 20 lb. due to the amount of zinc in it. The zinc settled in the bottom half of the can, but once stirred up (took time) it thinned out like water (but still very heavy). This stuff was amazing - I brushed it on the really rusty metal (one coat) and it held up for about 15 years before showing signs of needing to be redone - which we did about 3-4 years ago. I could not find this product anymore, so ended up using a Sherwin Williams product the second time. Don't know if it will last as long. The nice thing about metal/standing seam roofs is that they last forever - all you have to do is paint them every 15-20 years.

My beautiful wife, meanwhile was busy designing and creating gardens and landscape projects. I will discuss this, along with our "early years" mowing problems trying to keep 4 acres mowed in my next posting.