17?? house Job

[Tom King]

This is the 1755 Edward Dromgoole house. It started life as a Glebe house for the Anglican Church in VIrginia.  Edward was one of the first Methodist Circuit Riders assigned to a circuit in this country.  He met a girl at the first Revival he was preaching at, and they married soon afterwards.  Francis Asbury spent more time here than anywhere else.  This house became the home base for the beginning decades of the Methodist Religion in this country.

The house was last lived in until the middle of the 20th Century.  It had never been messed up with remodeling or such.  In a very protected spot back in the woods, it has not suffered the typical fate of such old houses of having stuff stolen out of it.  It remains pretty much untouched as it was built in the 18th Century, but needs a Lot of help caused by neglect.  It's an important site for the history of the Methodist Religion.

This is what I do for a living.  It's called Historic Preservation, but sometimes involves some Resurrection.  People never stop saying, "Oh, this is just like the This Old House TV show!", but actually it's not.  That's a remodeling show.  This is putting them back as close as possible like they were to start with.

The foundation was built from stone sitting right on top of the ground.  Any mortar you see in the pictures was added in the 20th Century.  Sometime after the house was built, they came back and dug out a basement, digging right down next to the original foundation wall on the inside.  They laid bricks against the dirt thinking that would hold it in place.  It didn't.  Most of the foundation tumbled down into the basement.

Long story short, our job now is to jack the house back up to the original level.  We'll bolt treated 4x6's to every stud.  Those 4x6's will bear the weight resting on a treated 6x6 outside the foundation wall.  Once the house is up, and resting on the new legs, the old foundation will be disassembled, substantial modern concrete footings poured down where they won't be seen, the stone walls rebuilt using mortar inside while leaving the look of dry stacked on the outside, and the legs taken back out, and so forth.

This picture is after we took off the lower siding boards that were in bad shape anyway.  Above that level, the orginal Heart Pine siding looks to be in pretty remarkable shape, but I wasn't called to this job until after the Old Brunswick Circuit Foundation had wrapped the outside with OSB, so we'll see what the rest of the siding is like some time later.

The Builders Level is one I bought new in 1975.  It still reads dead on because I've taken care of it.  Estwing hammer hanging on the old foundation...   This is the back wall.  It's almost unbelievable that there is still barely a little support still under the diagonal braces.  If that support hadn't been there, the whole back of the house would have been a pile of rubble on the ground.

The Old Brunswick Circuit Foundation is a 901(c)3 organization, so all donations are tax deductible.  They are just now working on getting a website up with pictures and a PayPal donate button.  So far, everything they have done has come mostly out of the Board Members pockets.  I've been after them for years to get a webpage up, and they have finally decided to do it.

This is the house on my website that I designed a water proofing system, and installed for the basement on my "basement waterproofing" page.  I've used similar on other old houses, but this one was quite a bit different because of the danger of further collapse.

 

[wtnhighlander]

Sweet, Tom! I enjoy these historic restorations.

[wdwerker]

I love your attention to detail and blending modern knowledge & techniques with careful old world craftsmanship.

[Tom King]

Thanks.   Although the sill looks like it still has some intact sections, termites have hollowed out the whole insides.  We're not going to be purists enough to hew another 34' long beam.  The only part that will remain visible is the inside surface above the foundation wall in the basement. That surface will match the old sill sides, but the rest will be built up of treated lumber.

The studs above the sill level are still hard as any rock.  We couldn't pull out but about half of the old Rosehead nails that the siding was nailed on with, but saved what we could.

I do enjoy it.  I got bored with new construction years ago.

[drzaius]

Looking forward to more of this project. I love historic restorations.

[Woodenskye]

Tom, this is really fascinating and the work you do is second to none.  I have a few questions.  1) are you restoring the entire house to its original condition?  2) how long will a project like this take you to complete?  3) what is the end result?  Will this become a museum, historical landmark, etc..

[Tom King]

1) Yes, original condition.  Anything less is remodeling.

2) I don't do estimates or deadlines.  A person would need to be a lot smarter than me to look at stuff you can't even see yet, and tell not only what needs to be done, but how long it will take, and how much will it cost.  It takes as long as it takes, and costs what it costs.  This is just the back of the house.  Everything else we open up will present some new puzzles.  I'm 67, and will be very lucky to have enough years left working to be able to take this one to the end, and will also be lucky if they can raise enough money to keep the project going.  I've worked on it several times over the past seven years when they save up enough money to be able to do what's necessary to barely keep it hanging on.  They're finally getting better at raising money.  I have another job waiting for me to start that will take a couple of years, but I was afraid that this house might not last long enough for me to take that much time away.  I can't work on but one job at the time.

3)  Both.   They have great plans, but the main effort right now is preservation, which includes not only saving the structure, but history.  Such museum houses are all I've worked on for a good while now.

It's still there because it had a Cypress shingle roof on it for the first 150 years or so.  I found one of the original shingles.  It's had a very thick tin roof on it since then, and it's about done too.  A Cypress shingle roof will be next up after it's leveled up, and sitting on a good foundation.

[Mick S]

I'm very interested in following this project. Thanks for posting it!

 

[Tom King]

I won't be posting daily updates here, or even on my website, but I'll try to remember to add something when it looks like it might be interesting.  There are long periods of nothing but work with little to show for it doing this stuff.

 There won't be any woodworking for a long time now.  I'm intending on doing a journal on the shutter job we did this past Winter, but am using a laptop now, and putting a good computer together in my spare time.  It's no fun doing much on a laptop that's really too full to add many pictures to. I haven't even updated my website in months now, but do have a lot of pictures.  I expect woodworkers would like to see a more detailed journal on the shutter project.  There was about 500 sq. ft. of hand planing on that shutter job.  One picture can be seen in my "blacksmithing" thread in this forum.

[RichardA]

Tom, just bring us what you can, we as a group love seeing the work of a craftsman of any kind. The fact that you are a part of this group of miscreants, you can rest assured that we will follow along. For that we thank you!

[treeslayer]

 great to follow along with this Tom, i worked here for about 5 years http://fourmounds.org restoring two old mansions and 15 out-buildings including a huge barn. you're absolutely right it's restoration and NOT remodeling by any means, it had it's own original woodshed that i worked out of. working there taught me many new skills and gave me an appreciation for the old ways, straight slot brass screws, 3 to 7 piece moulding and it's on the National Register of Historic buildings so everyone had their eyes on what i did, thank goodness i had a wide variety of tools to work with including a W&H moulding machine that saved my butt many times.

[Coop]

Tom, really cool project. Can we see a pic of the outside of the whole house?

[Eric.]

Very cool stuff, Tom.  Do you have a pic of the whole house for us?  How long will a restoration like this take?

[shaneymack]

This is awesome. If you can take as many photos as possible and post them here that would be appreciated!

 

Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Tom King]

If you look on the bottom of the home page of my website, there are a couple of pictures of parts of it that were taken in 1972.  That was taken before they wrapped it with OSB and housewrap.  They ended up doing more damage than good by putting that stuff on it, but know better now.

Some number of years.

Treeslayer, Cool project too!

[treeslayer]

14 minutes ago, Tom King said:

Treeslayer, Cool project too!

thanks Tom, money was and is an issue at that place, they operate as a B&B and and use that money and grants to maintain and keep the place up and running but it was a cool job.

[Alan G]

Very cool. Thanks for posting it here and giving such a great explanation. Looking forward to following along!

[Tom King]

Yesterday, we started taking this brick wall down in the basement.  It's right inside the right end of the foundation wall shown in the first picture in the basement.  This was their method to keep the basement walls secure, that didn't work.  This is the only one of these still standing.  It has to come down so we can put some temporary supports under the floor joists while we put a jack under every stud, get the house back up to proper level, and take the sill out to be replaced.

The bricks are all good quality, handmade (of course) bricks that were fired pretty high.  They are all a pretty dark color (except the few you see closest in the picture that were some later replacements in a repair) , which indicates the high fire temperature.  They match ones in the chimneys, and the foundation under the single room, built in 1777, that the two story part was added on to.

The mortar is, of course, lime mortar, so it comes apart pretty easily, allowing us to save almost every brick.  We ended up with a few over 200 from the first days work, and we're only maybe 1/4 down that wall.  It's several bricks thick.

The only part of the original foundation left is under that doorway in the first picture.  It was protected by a back porch for over 200 years.  It has the large rocks shimmed up by thin slivers of the same sandstone that the ground around here is full of.  I had thought that  it would be good to have some of those thin rocks  when we start rebuilding the foundation to match the original part.  I had thought that they used the pieces that they had cut off of other rocks.  We'll end up with some slivers that we make too, but it would be good to have some to use to start with.

The space between that brick wall, and the outer wall is JAMB PACKED FULL of these rock slivers of all shapes and sizes that I'm sure they had left over from building the foundation, and needed something to do with them.  I won't have to look far.

We also found a couple of completely intact, probably 18th Century glass bottles, but haven't been able to identify them yet.  The closest I've found that look similar are "Pain Balm".  I expect stoneworkers's backs needed some of that.

 

[Woodenskye]

Tom, what is the most interesting thing you have found in a place you are restoring?

[Tom King]

I don't think like that.  I'm always thinking about what I need to do next, and usually can't remember what i did yesterday.

One interesting thing I found, that would be interesting to woodworkers, is a mallet I found in an early 19th Century house behind the kneewall on the top floor.  I'll see if I can get some pictures of it.   It had obviously been used by the wear on the face, but the maker made a mistake, and ended up with a knot in the handle.  It broke at the knot, and he just tossed it behind the wall that would not be accessible again, only to be found 200 years later.  I had to go back in there to run some invisible ductwork, and wiring.

That mallet was made from a tree branch with a hatchet.  The head is offset relative to the handle.

[Eric.]

I love this project journal.  I hope you keep it updated as much as time allows.  Still waiting on pics of the house as a whole... 

[Tom King]

Here's a picture from a different angle than those on my homepage.   This was taken in the mid 20th Century after the last people that lived there had been moved out for a while.  The single room to the right was where they lived after they first got married in 1777.  The two story part was added a few years later.  It's alot better built house than it looks in the picture.  It was not thrown up fast and cheap.  

The little room added on the far right must have been for firewood storage.  According to the framing, there was orignally a chimney there.  We'll rebuild a stone chimney there at some point to match others found on the property.  Sometime after that chimney either fell down, or was torn down, they started using a wood stove in there.  The little porch roof in front of the single room (I call it the Honeymoon Suite) has been long gone.  That roof stayed there long enough to leave us the only intact window sash, and the original front door to the Honeymoon Suite single room.

[Marmotjr]

Loving this Tom, please keep us posted.

I'm a little confused though with your last post.  Picture was taken mid 20th century (around 1950 or so), after the couple that got married in 1777 moved out?    I'm obviously misreading the post, but it makes for a good for sale ad:  "For Sale:  250+ year old house, 1 owner, Handy man special".

[Tom King]

We spent several days taking apart the brick wall in a previous picture in the basement.  We saved almost all of the bricks, and hopefully have enough to do brick repairs needed, like to the tops of chimneys, with exact matching bricks that can out of the same clump (kiln).

We have the back wall ready to jack, and we raised it an inch today.  It went right up once we had everything ready.  I use 20 ton jacks, which are overkill, but I like it to move when I say move, and they don't lift much with each stroke.

The second jack from the left is in a space where I removed one stone.  The sill over it is just a shell left by the termites.  I'm planning to leave the end of the sill from there to the corner behind two doors, so people can open them to see the original framing method.  I'll fill that part of the sill with concrete, but from the left of that point I'll just leave a thin layer on the interior, so it will look original inside the basement, and build it back out with treated lumber where it won't be seen.

I didn't want to cut that corner stone, but the spot over the second jack is not strong enough to lift the whole corner, and worse around the other side of the corner.  The corner post, and sill right at the end is still intact, and hard as a rock, so I had no choice but to cut that stone to jack under it.  I wanted to save the framing for future display, and the stone can easily be replaced when we build the new foundation.  The mortar you see between the stones was added in the 20th Century with portland cement mortar.  I had to peck it from around the small stone with a 1/8" pin punch because it was harder than the rock.  The original stone work was dry stacked.  I'll use mortar when we rebuild them, but it won't be seen without getting down on your knees and shining a flashlight in the right crack.

The first picture shows the lower part of the brick wall in the basement that we left in place to hold that end of the support beam for the jacks.  The dirt under the original location of the outer stone walls is too disturbed from the wall tumbling in to give us enough support for the jacks.

Tomorrow, I'll pull a line and straighten out the whole length of the back wall before we carry it all back up to proper level.   We'll probably have to go around to the next side to jack the whole house up before we can lift a single side all the way back up.

Once it's up to proper level, 4x6's will be bolted to each stud with the lower ends of those "legs" resting on the 6x6 sitting on the ground right outside the foundation in the first picture.  After it's back up to proper level, sitting on the new legs, the stone foundation remnants can be removed, footings dug, concrete poured, and the wall rebuilt to look like it did originally. Inside the basement will also get new footings dug, and the inside wall built up to meet the outer part above ground.

If anyone is inclined to ask me when we will be finished, it won't be next Friday at 2:30.  The only thing I can tell you is that it will be done to look like it would have originally, only this time it will be built to last.

 

 

[Tpt life]

I have never lifted a house with less than 20s. Ease of use is always better on quality jacks made for those kinds of weight. Was the foundation mortared originally or was that a later addition?