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Formstone Castle

Monthly Archives: December 2012

Refinished Floors for Christmas

26 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Mike in Alcohol, Holidays, Home Improvement

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Passing out on a heated floor isnt too bad!

Passing out on a heated floor isnt too bad!

Merry Christmas!  Yesterday we celebrated Christmas on the 3rd floor.  The newly oiled floors had only been prepared 24 hours earlier.  We couldn’t wait another hour to try them out.  We’re quite amazed how nice they look for 130 year original floors. They had been covered since 1953 by linoleum and painted long before that.    Here is how we got from that to this:

The colors in the wood are just amazing.  They range from bright yellow to dark red.  Very warm!

The colors in the wood are just amazing. They range from bright yellow to dark red. Very warm!

Going way back to our first weeks working on the house, we see how we got started.  Once the laths and plaster from the ceiling and (super shitty) dividing walls were down, we tore up the carpet and everything under it down to the subfloor.

The layers coming up.

The layers coming up.

In most spots there was carpet on top, masonite under that, linoleum under that and then scattered around we found newspapers dated December 1953.  Underneath were ~7/8″ tongue and groove pine planks painted in maybe a dozen different colors.  These patches told the stories of previous layouts and walls.  We salvaged a few boards when we replaced the bathroom subfloor with plywood.  These board were used to replace board that had been damaged when the house was retrofitted with electric decades earlier.  On this floor we worked for several months as we fixed bricks, erected walls, and did drywall.

Once the dusty job of drywall was finished, it was time to do the floors.  We went over them looking for nails and scraping dirty and plaster out from between the gaps.  Its amazing how much came up from these gaps.

Antique dirt from between the boards!

Antique dirt from between the boards!

We did a little scraping before the first sanding and a little after when it was easier to tell what was wood and what was not.

Neither of us had sanded a floor before.  I had watched some Youtube videos and read some tips.  Everyone made it sound like we were going to ruin our floors.  Even the guys at Home Depot Tool Rental said we should use a vibrating sander and not a floor sander.  I was convinced I’d look away for a second and find that I had sanded all the way through to the joists below.  We were happy that weekend to have a large crew of 7.  Unfortunately, I had caught some sort of stomach bug the night before and was in no shape to be working on anything

The bad reputation of the drum sander turned out to be completely unfounded.  We had intended to rent it for 4 hours in order to rough sand the top floors.  After the 1st hour we decided we’d need to keep the machine for 24 hours just to rough in a single floor.  The cupping of the boards along with other flaws required some serious sanding time even with the coarsest 24 grit paper.  We learned that sanding diagonally evened out the boards faster.

Most of this happened while I was in bed at home so we didnt get a ton of photos that day, but here are some a week later when I did the 2nd floor.

First Pass.  Remove enough to see the nails that were hidden by paint.

First Pass. Remove enough to see the nails that were hidden by paint.

This is the 2nd floor after 24, 36 and 60 grit paper.  Colors in the grain really start to come out after 60 grit.

This is the 2nd floor after 24, 36 and 60 grit paper. Colors in the grain really start to come out after 60 grit.  You can hardly see the thousands of nail holes in this photo.  The 2nd Floor has tons.

After a final sanding with 60 and then 100 grit paper, the colors of the wood just glowed.  There were bright yellows, reds and oranges.  Every board was different.

Siri and I decided that we would oil the floors rather than use polyurethane.  This was the old method of finishing floors.  It has more of a satin finish to it, but that’s what we wanted.  One benefit is that if you scratch the floor, you can just sand it out and oil it with a rag.

Siri and the buffing machine

Siri and the buffing machine

This is the 3rd Floor pretty much finished.  What a transformation!

This is the 3rd Floor pretty much finished. What a transformation!

 

 

Heat, Hot Water, Toilets and Sinks. OH MY!

06 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by Mike in Home Improvement

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This past week we finally got around to crimping our PEX fittings.  We had put this off until we were pretty well done everything else in the hopes that we could rent a  PEX crimping tool for a night to finish it up.  Unfortunately, no where we could find rents PEX tools so now I’m the proud owner of a $60 tool I used for about 2 hours.

All hooked up. The wire nuts on the gray board are currently standing in for our Arduino controlled relay board.

Here is where the bathroom plumbing ties into the core plumbing.  We tested this by running the exhaust through a dryer vent out the window and opening the door on the other side of the basement.  Runs nice and quiet even with the pumps running.  Will likely need to run for a few hours due to the thermal inertia of the house, but once warm, it should only need to kick on every few hours to keep the place comfy.

This photo shows plumbing under the bathroom. The big toilet drain and vent which also serves as the sink drain. The blue PEX is for the sink and toilet. Big red PEX is for the heating system.

Iris had dibs on 1st flush. She couldn’t get enough. Need to put it through its paces, right?

Getting a toilet it was a big deal.  We’ve been having to walk back to the other house each time we needed to go… or use a bucket.

Shower plumbing should be ready to go too, but first Siri needs to get done the tile which should arrive tomorrow.

The Long Road to Drywall

06 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by Mike in Home Improvement

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We’re working on drywall now.  It took a whole lot of hard work to get to this point.   Had to finish and test everything first before we covered it up.  After putting up new walls, this included repairing the bricks, the roof, replacing the plumbing and electric.  Lots of work for sure.  Its a shame it will all be hidden away.  Here is a peek at the work that got us here.

After fixing the bricks and roof, we still had to add nailers for the drywall.  This took a while but with that help of my brother and dad, we got it done.  Very tedious work.

After we got everything up, it was time for spray foam.  We paid a company to do this part.  It took them half a day and they needed a large box truck to carry their machine.  While they were at it, we also had them do the closet / former bathroom / future office / deck entryway.

Spray foam (yellow) in all its glory

More detail in the corner. Walls are only about 1″ thick, but they act as a vapor barrier and are likely way more effective than cramming in styrofoam sheets which is what is likely behind the drywall that we left in place.

On the 3rd floor, we tried our best, without replacing the whole roof, to meet the minimum recommended R value for a roof in our area of R-38.

  1. Inside Air film: R- .61
  2. 1/2″ Drywall: R- .45
  3. 2″ Pink Foam: R- 10
  4. 1″ Air Gap: R- 1
  5. 4″ Spray Foam: R- 25
  6. 1/2″ Plywood: R- .62
  7. 1/2″ Fiber Board: R- .1.32
  8. Rolled Roofing: R- .44
  9. Exterior Air Film: R. -.17

The total R value for our roof is between R-33.36  and R-38.16.  This depends on the thickness of the foam between the joists.

When they sprayed it, they were careful to not make it stick up higher than the joists so it would be easy to install drywall.  They were a bit too conservative in my view sometimes leaving over an inch of cup between joists.  Luckily, even the sealed air gap itself has a value of R-1.

Pretty good on paper.  Pretty effective in the real world.  With just the work lights on, the top floor can get HOT enough that we needed to open windows.  Condensation shouldn’t be an issue inside the ceilings, but it does occur on the windows and maybe even in the walls.

The guest room doesnt have the 2″ pink sheets as we decided that ceiling height for this small area was more important than R value.  There will be some interesting  transition from the stair way to the 3rd floor ceiling here, but we’ve got it figured out.  I’m not too worried.  For over 100 years people lived in this house and I can’t imagine it had more than R-10 and it had visible air leaks (I mean I could see the harbor looking through them).

Iris helping me to lift one of these heeaaavvvyyy sheets while dad does something likely more significant in the background.

After all the insulation was up, we added the drywall.  On the 3rd floor there was lots of cutting as nothing at all is square or level.  We shimmed with wood and still found some spots that would push in.  We did some experimenting and figured out that we could punch a hole in the drywall and spray in some Great Stuff foam which would act as a shim after the sheet was already up.

Walls are up, still need to finish the small pieces above where the drop ceiling used to be.  Dad took care of all that little stuff while I worked on finishing things downstairs.  Strangely the old man seems to enjoy this stuff.

The previous owners only did drywall up to the drop ceiling so we had to do the rest up to the top.  Dad is intent on blending it in with spackle.

Starting to Spackle.  Also, we seem to have developed a black spot in the middle of all our pictures.  Construction and digital cameras don’t mix.

So its coming down to the wire.  We likely have another week of sanding and spackling on the 2nd and 3rd floors before they’re done.  After that we sand / oil the floors.  Hopefully that will be the end of the dust and we can start painting and moving in boxes!

Ban on Formstone?

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Mike in History

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This week we read that the city is overhauling its building codes for the first time in decades.  The new code bans Formstone in new construction.  Below is an article from The Baltimore Sun:

A proposed overhaul of the Baltimore’s zoning code would do just that, banning the faux stone facades on any newly constructed rowhouses. While the city says this would upgrade neighborhoods, some see it as a slap at an endearing if downscale bit of Baltimoreana — akin to prohibiting Natty Boh at the corner bar or beehive hairdos at the beauty parlor.

This news comes the same week that I was able to find historic records from the Baltimore City Archives on past permits (between 1924 and 1961) for hour house including those for its formstone.  Not only does this show us what work was [legally] performed, but when.  Since this is public info, we looked up the houses around us as well.  Here is what we found, starting with ours:

2/15/38 Alter cellar door to storm door   1090 2/15/38 40.00
9/ 8/38 Alt[er] window in side wall 7132 9/ 8/38 15.00
6/21/44 Replace 7 window and one door frame 23493 6/21/44 155.00 6/28/44
10/20/47 Er[ect] wire fence 3 1/2′ high, 64′ long 61097 10/20/47 20.00
8/24/51 Repl[ace] wood fence with [cinder block] fence 119059 8/24/51 180.00 218-220
6/ 4/52 Erect wire fence 129436 6/ 5/52 35.00
4/27/54 Apply Fieldstone 160617 4/29/54 450.00 5/25/54 fam

As you can see on here the permit to Apply Formstone (Fieldstone) was received on 4/27/1954 and the work was completed 5/25/1954″.   1954 must not have been too different around the house than it is now with all the renovations.  This is the same winter / spring from which we’ve found all of the newspapers under the floors and around the plaster.  We also find out when our bathroom window was installed – “Alt[eration] window in side wall” 9/8/38.  This reminds me, we need to get a Sun Paper to put into the walls before we close them up.

The alley next to us had its own entry in the permit office to “erect c. b. [cinder block] fence with gate” in 5/25/1954

From this page we are able to learn about our neighbors house which was listed in old maps as 3 stories, but is now only 2.  “Repair, rebuild walls, stairs, joists, floor, ???, remove 3rd fl[oor]”. from 5/5/1947.  I asked the neighbor and he thinks it was just falling apart, but I suspect a 3rd floor fire.

220 & 222 S Castle were once one lot with a stable.

At 220 next door we find the year they got their Formstone (Stone King) in ’58.  The top line is funny too and give some insights into what was on that lot 100 years ago – “Line manure pit with sheet iron – 8/25/1935

Wired Connectivity Planning

03 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Mike in Home Improvement

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All but two of these are already antiquated; how long until they too are useless?

I call wall plates like these memorial plaques.  They are used to remember technologies of the past and are helpful in estimating the date of the most recent renovation  (RJ-11 phone jacks: pre-2005, S-video: 1990-1995, Composite HD: 2000-2007, Ethernet 1998-2008, etc).  For this reason, I’m trying to convince myself that I don’t need to plan anything at all.  How much longer will I need even a cable TV  connection with everything streaming over the Internet and WIFI these days?

Fortunately, we’re putting the TV right over an old and unused air duct to the basement.  I can run wires through this to the basement where I can set up a media server, DVD player, game console.  No need for wall plates at all plus it keeps any hidden on a shelf in the basement.

Its not that simple though.  I need sensors for our heated floors.  Since I’ve never done this (DIY thermostat or hydronic heat) before, I’ll only have a few days to figure out if they’ll work before I need to cover them up for good.  There are also other projects that might not be done for a while that will require wired sensors or power. One is the temperature controlled glass tile back-lighting in the shower. I’ll need to wire up my temperature sensor on the pipes before I cover them up or I lose my chance.  Central 12v power distribution for gadgets? Speaker wires?… Speakers themselves? (a smart house should have a voice.)  Microphones (a smart house needs to hear your commands.)  I’ll think this over long and hard before we put of the last of the drywall.

*There is one non-electrical thing I can think of needing still: a filtered water line to the bedroom.  This would be great for a glass of water while in bed, or even better, a bedside coffee maker.

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