Formal Dining Room

The floor in the dining room is done.  There were also other finishing touches that needed to be made.  The room is  big and we have held some big dinners in it.  This is a great room for entertaining and we are proud to finally be able to show it.  Many great meals are sure to be served here!

A couple of sets of ugly pipes ran through the room.  They were for the radiators upstairs.  Nothing would make them look attractive and since we never have problems with them, we decided to encase them.  These are finished at the ceiling and floor and now they fade right into the wall.  Hiding the pipes gives the room a much more "finished" appearance.

Insulation

Since the carpet downstairs is up, it is time to insulate.  This is being put up under the floor joists in the cellar and should help save on heating bills this winter.  The planks in the living room and parlour are pretty tight as it is and no air is getting up from below, but insulation can't hurt!

This product will hold up well to the sometimes damp conditions common to cellars.  Also, since the furnaces are also directly under that section of the house, it's not quite as frigid as one might think.  Either way, you can't go wrong with insulation in an old house!  This is a wonderful way to insulate an old house because you don't have to tear anything up or close it in.

The open house is on Saturday, November 5th and a lot will be done by then!  This obviously isn't something that is necessary for us as owners who will be moving out, but we wanted to see it done because we  believe in energy conservation and that old homes can be as energy efficient as new ones.

Hit the Floor!

This is the large dining room which is the third room on the first floor.  This carpet was in really bad shape and had to go.

This is enough laminate to cover 300 sqft of floor, which is the approximate size of the room.  There will be a few panels left over.

This is a big job.  The old carpet was torn out and there was a lot of glue on the floor beneath it.  i

As of right now, we are about 2/3 of the way through.  It really brightens up the room!

This was the floor underneath. It seemed to be a very nicely configured parquet.  Not sure why it was covered.  But there was a serious layer of glue on it and it was never going to be salvageable.  We had no choice but to put down a new floor.  Laminate seemed to be the most durable and affordable option.

We hope this room will be done this week! 

Wierd Window

This is the window that goes nowhere.  The porch and closet are on the other side.  One way we can guess that the closet in the living room was an entrance at one time, is that this window would have been right outside it.  Once the porch and closet was added, the window became obsolete.  Luckily, they kept the frame and just filled in the open area.  The shelves are a sturdy metal which we have painted to match the frame.  The ceiling moulding that is going in this week will be painted to match.

This is our make-shift liquor cabinet!

Just Fix It!

This is where we are with the upstairs kitchen.  There was a full counter against this wall and Gary had tiled it along with the back splash above it.  The counter eventually warped and cracked.  Something had to be done.  However, with all of the stuff that needs to be done with the house a full second kitchen remodel didn't seem to make sense.  We figured the best plan would be to at least return the room to a "clean slate' sort of state.  Since the house is for sale, the new owners might have their own ideas.  I think it would make a wonderful laundry room.  Someone might even want or need to use it as a bedroom.  For that reason, we aren't even sure we want to mount a new sink just yet.  Rather than install cabinets, we have a large, well-made free standing unit which is old and unique.  It needs a backing piece and we'll put on on that matches the newer style bead-board.  With out it affixed to the wall, the next owners can move or use it however they want.

Restoration is a lofty goal, but this section of the house was a late addition. In fact, from the construction we've seen, it looks like it might even have been a porch that was eventually enclosed.  What we do know is that there were four layers of floor tiles with various areas exposed.  This made for a very uneven floor. We opted to put down a sub floor and will put new tile over that.  Also, the wall board had been added on to enough that it was time to take it off and start again.  When we pulled away the hutch against the back wall, we found the floor board were mismatched and hacked together, so they couldn't be saved. We put up a neutral board in its place that won't need to be painted. We will put a small quarter molding over it at the base once the tiles are down.  If the next owner wants a color, they can choose it.

The rest of the room is being painted and non-working lights have been replaced.  The original tile appeals to us so we are keeping the back splash.  We also put a sub-floor layer down in the hallway that leads to the kitchen and will put down the same tile.

Our main goal is to create a clean base layer.  What was there before had gotten into pretty sad shape. It will be very nice once it's done and everything is cleaned up.  Stay tuned!

Next Up (and Down!)

The dining room needs to be finished with moulding.

The carpet has to come up.  There is a sub-floor under it and we can't restore it to the original surface.  This room will be getting a Pergo laminate in a light finish.  When this is done, we will probably put a cover back over the fireplace.  We have too much to do right now to even think about installing a gas insert.  That might still come later on.

Right now the room needs to be finished.  A few years back, we pulled down acoustic tile and put up a real ceiling.  We painted the room the yellow that it is now.  Then the guy who was helping us out just disappeared.  After that the roof required a full tear-off and replacement.  Then the sump pump had to be installed.  Other more important mechanical issues put the finishing of this room on the back burner.  Hopefully be the end of next week, it will truly be "done."  Stay tuned!

Preservation Conference Activities in Black Rock

Buffalo Religious Arts Center

Thursday, October 20, 2011, 1 pm

Buffalo Religious Arts Center

Tour Time:  1:00 p.m. 
Admission: $10.00
Located in the former St Francis Xavier Church (157 East Street) was established in response to over 70 churches closing inWestern New York.  It is our intention to collect and display art objects from these closed places of worship and at the same time maintain and protect this architecturally significant building.
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This gorgeous building provides a beautiful back-drop to the Dayton House.  When you sit in the back yard, you see the clock tower.  A climb up the tower is excellent exercise -- and the trip back down is a doozy!  There is a crack in the north facing clock and if you look through it, you can see over Grand Island.  Here's a shot taken from the sky lift we rented to paint the eaves and brackets for the front portion of the house.

If you have a chance to visit the museum, stop by to see the house...maybe we'll see you on Friday!

Good Old Floor!

The carpet in the front parlor and living room was pulled up as planned.  There were some really bad planks that had to be replaced.  Every plank was checked and shored up.  The floor is now solid.  This was the floor the house was built to have in 1840.  Back then, floors were painted and plain.

This is the same section I showed with carpeting a few days ago.  The color we chose was "Antique Brown" and we are very happy with it.  The boards in front of the fireplace tell us that the mantel here was for a working fireplace and not just put up for show to cover something up.  That would make sense since it lines up with the chimney that serves the boilers.  This would be a great place for a gas insert and it can be easily vented and the gas lines would be very accessible via the cellar.

Here's the big picture of the floor and room.  We have put down an area rug but I snapped this picture before that.  The room is simple, which is how we like it.  Now that the floor is back I can't see it ever being covered up again.

Thermostats

Upstairs

Downstairs

The Dayton House heats with two boilers on two separate meters.  There is currently just one hot water tank.  The boilers just had their yearly service.  We do this every fall in preparation for the winter.  This year, we replaced both thermostats.  The upstairs one has more programming features than we will actually use but it's there because the one we first put in when we painted the room was rectangular and we needed to match the template in order to not have a patch of unpainted wall.

Radiant heat is steady and dependable.  It is dust free and thus great for people with allergies.  It is wonderful to have warm towels and a place to set damp gloves, scarves, etc. after being out in the snow.  The house has very thick walls that help hold in the heat.  The cost to run two boilers is a lot less than one might expect for a big old house.  With newer mechanics that are serviced regularly, we do pretty well.

Big Bedrooms

City bedrooms tend to be small, but this house has large ones.  We have always used the front room as a bedroom although the former owners purposed it as their living room.  Here is the section where the bed is.  There is plenty of room to fit a King and you can move around it without a problem.  The closet is in the corner.  The fireplace is closed up.  The mantel is a good example of the simple style of abundant woodwork in the house.

This alcove is part of the bedroom.  The arch is lovely.  For a while, we had a bed in there but it can get cold in the winter!  If you look under the window, you'll notice that the wood moulding goes all of the way down to the floor. The window casings are original and the same style throughout most of the house.  The front windows used to be six over six but someone knocked out the original fretwork so now they just hold a single pane. However, they are still original to the house and made of old-growth wood.  With three windows and a West facing exposure, they let in nice light during the day but not so much that it's overly  bright in the morning.  This is a fine bedroom.

The Barn Loft

The "garage" at the Dayton House is actually a barn. This is the loft.  That's a lot of extra space for storage -- and it would make a nice office or outside space. 

This is the view from the hay loft.  The door opens and you can see the side yard from a unique perspective.  I don't know how many city houses still have their barn intact, but this one is.  The square footage for the footprint is 432 feet, but you get the same amount of area upstairs too.  It also has a drain so when you clean the floor, you can hose it down and the water will drain.

A barn is a unique and useful part of this old house.

What's Next

The rug in the front of the house has to come up.  The original pine plank floor is under it.  A couple of planks need to be replaced.  The rug was put in for a tenant who complained that a lot of cold air was coming up through the basement.  For energy conservation, the barrier was needed.  But it's seen better days and has to go.

Now-a-days there is this bubble type of insulation which we are going to put up under the floor, between the joists.  The floor will get painted again.  These old floors were always painted.  We never opened the other side of the door way that held the pocket doors, so we're going to try it just on the minute chance that both doors are in there.

The historic landmark application mentioned the floors that were under the rug are important, so that's why we are going to expose them.  We'll post pictures of the project and just hope it really can be done.  Sometimes you don't know if something is possible unless you try but unfortunately, not all things are possible.  But we aim to make this work.

Stay tuned....

The Other Bathroom

Here's a small section of wall in the downstairs bathroom.  This one is right off the kitchen, so it serves not only as a bathroom, but has a little extra storage.  There isn't a single room in this house that doesn't offer some sort of storage or another.

This shelf area is a bit of a mystery too.  One guess is that it used to be a door.  The wall on the other side is in the dining room and the moulding along the floor looks as if was pieced in exactly where this shelf sits on the other side.  This bathroom is the area at the back of the house that juts out on the North side of the building.  In back of it, is our back stairway/laundry area.  There's tons of storage there.  The next item on the list for this bathroom is to put an exhaust fan in.  The area on the other side used to hold two hot water heaters, so there are already holes for venting in the brick wall.  It means we are set to vent a fan out there without having to do anything major.

There are three things this house has plenty of.... storage, mystery and projects to do!

Old Style Bathrooms

We have never opted for much updating for the bathrooms in this house.  Old style bathrooms aren't to all people's taste, but they go well with this house and we just couldn't see how built-ins and acrylic tubs/surrounds would work. Gary had put in a tall vanity with an old sink which he had salvaged.  We loved that thing.  For one, it was tall so if you  had a bad back, you didn't have to bend over to wash your face. 

Alas, the plumbing under it wore out after a while and the drain was not a standard size and we could not find the right size fittings no matter what we did.  We replaced it with a simple vanity but didn't go with anything fancy  because this house is not fancy.

Here is the old tub.  Even for a claw foot, this one is bigger and deeper than most.  There's another downstairs but it is smaller.  This one is a real good soaker.  Tall men have lived in this house, so the shower is set up high.

A big stall with a tile surround would be nice -- but it just doesn't seem right.  Maybe some day another owner will want to do that.  The bathroom is very big as it is, but there is a closet that is two feet deep and runs the length of most of the room -- so there is ample space to knock that down and put in a deep stall.  There would probably still be room for a tub... but I'm not sure it would be big enough to keep this one.

There is only so much modernization you can do that will look right in a house this style and I admit we could have been more "decorative" with what we've done.  However, there may be a fine  line between old style and historic kitsch.  We've opted to stick more to "old style" by keeping it simple.