Eureka Victorian Restoration

Before and After

2011-10-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Every once and a while it's important to take stock of your seemingly endless project and highlight achievements through a series of satisfying "Before and After" photos!

Before, Apple Tree (see previous post on subject for more info)

After

Before, Front Porch

After (also see previous post for more info, and this one too)

Before, Skirting (more info)

After, almost done

Before, Front Parlor

Later, but not quite done

Before, The Second Parlor (see flooring post)

Later, not quite done on this one either, but it looks better!

Before, Stairs

In progress, stairs

Before, Stairs

In progress, Stairs

While clearly there is work to do, a lot has been accomplished! And I didn't even mention the Mystery Door, or Mystery Well!

The Front Door Saga Comes to a Close

2011-10-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

The front door story -- We searched Eureka and beyond thinking we could find a replacement door similar to all the lovely Victorian doors we see around town. In the end, short of a custom made door, we decided to work with a local door supplier and come up with a new door from Simpson Door Company.

The people over at Forbusco Lumber in Fortuna - and Eric Negrete put to door together and did the installation. It's always a challenge working around an old door sill.

While it's not a traditional Eureka styled door we were able to order one that matched many of the 5 panel doors that are inside the house. We have a half glass with the nine panels of varying sizes combines with the bottom half matching the 5 panel look. The door was outfitted with new hardware from Nostalgic Warehouse; here is the Victorian Plate with Victorian Knob.

We ordered the door primed and we now needed to pick some colors for paint.

To recap, we started with the porch and door, as always happens, once the porch was replaced then to front door looked especially bad. Once we ordered a new door it was primed at the factory and installed with a new frame to replace a hundred years of paint and abuse.

Our next job was pick some Victorian door colors and paint it up. Thee coats of paint latter the door is now done (we still have the masking on the windows, waiting for a curtain).

Taxes, Disasters and A Victorian Restoration

2011-06-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

I know that house blogs are supposed to be about how much fun it is to scrap paint and find missing treasures, but since this year has been a year of fire, flood, and tornadoes it seemed like a good time to talk about bad things. I thought it might be useful to talk about our experiences with some the tax issues we have faced in our Eureka Victorian Restoration.

There are no pictures at tax time so I added a picture of out house jacked-up getting ready for a new foundation.

After the 2010 earthquake we clearly had some damage and there was no State or Federal largess that offered to pay our cost even though it was a declared State Emergency.  There was no direct aid, so we where left with the working with the regular tax code.

One thing about old houses is that they are disasters waiting to happen. Maybe it's an earthquake, fire, tornado or a flood, but it's always something.

While local governments may have some form of property tax help for restoration including historic preservation or historic easement, Eureka has no such help for single family houses. You should check with the local assessor, city and county offices to be sure.

Property Tax Relief.   In our case after the earthquake we pushed the city to re-asses our house, thereby immediately lowering our property tax. The City was happy to do this because they get reimbursed by the State of California due to the disaster declaration (kudos to local Assemblyman W.C. Chesbro).   This was easy to do, we just provided the contractor's cost estimate. This also protects you from being re-assessed after the repairs have been completed.   In the end your property value stays at the pre-earthquake level and we have a nice new foundation.

Income Tax Help. Earthquake insurance is pretty worthless in California - high rates and even higher deductibles.    So you're on your own - until tax time.   Keep your records you can deduct a portion of the uncompensated or uninsured loss - it doesn't matter if its a declared disaster or just bad luck. There is a formula that calculate the uncompensated loss as a percentage of your income and a portion is then a deduction from income.   We had something like $30K in damages and were able to deduce $12K from our federal income.    In the end the cash tax savings is only a small portion of the loss, but in those cases where your house has taken a real beating in can be a substantial deduction come income tax time.

That's all there is.

Porch and Skirting - Redwood Salvage

2011-05-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

April 2011 -- Eel River at Fernbridge

After the earthquake in 2010 we had a foundation put in to replace the old post and pier that was knocked over by the quake. We salvaged about half of the redwood skirting – we cut off the rot, cleaned and sanded some of the old paint off. Now its going back up – primed and fresh painted.

The reclaimed skirting was also used on the new porch. All the redwood needed oil based primer, which we love putting on, only drawback is we were painting inside in the winter and we had to shut the heater off to avoid the huge fiery conflagration.

The end of the rains. We have had months of regular rainfall on the North Coast. The rivers were all running high, as you can see the Eel River is big and muddy. Now that the rain has let up we were able to get out and put some paint on the porch and install more of the skirting around the foundation.

Original redwood skirting cleaned and trimmed - ready to put up on new porch

Here's a warning. As we cleaned and trimmed the old siding I thought it would be easier to nail the skirting up and then sand them in place --- bad idea --- the belt sander is heavy and designed to be used on a flat surface --- not in a vertical position where the weight just pulls you down. I also got a face full of paint dust and chips.

Looking for a Victorian Front Door

2011-03-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

Eureka's Victorian houses have a unique front door style that probably grew out of the isolated nature of the area, the ready supply of redwood and the craftsmen of the area. As you look around Eureka you see great original doors everywhere. I walked around my street with my camera to record of few of the doors. They are mostly half glass single doors with added details like the sun-burst pattern. not all door are in great shape, but even the shabby one show the original styles.

Our Front Door with George's Ramp

My job is to now find something for our house that will match the new porch - our current door is brutally ugly (see on the right) and must go! I'm looking for ideas about a new door. I've searched the thousands of used doors at Urban Ore in Berkeley but found nothing in the right size that works. Despite the wealth of doors in Eureka we have not had any luck with craiglist or salvage in Humboldt County. If you've got any ideas, or a nice 34' door let me know.

Apple Pruning Season in Humboldt and the Tsunami

2011-03-14T12:15:00.000-07:00

Friday's Japanese Tsunami hit hard north of Eureka up in Del Norte County. There were evacuations in the low lying areas of Humboldt County but no damage here. This does remind us of the January 2010 earthquake and the similarities between the coast of Japan and our fault laden coast.

It's mid-march and the north coast rain is relentless. We tried to sneak a little painting between the squalls but gave up early. Instead it was time to look at the old apple tree in the back yard. The tree looked pretty bad, it has produced a small crop of small spotty apples of an unknown variety.

pruning the mystery apple tree

Restoring an old house is always about more than just the four walls, it's also about the garden and the people who have lived there over the past 100 years. If we can bring back the apple tree then that's part of the restoration too.

Julia has used her recently acquired knowledge of apple tree trimming and proceeded to give the tree a long overdue and much needed winter trimming.

The tree needs a trim

"Yes, that's where I threw my hat"

New Victorian-Style Porch

2011-02-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

We've added a new porch recently, and to our surprise, a charming dog came with it!

So far we've painted the railing, but there's still more to go.

We tore the original porch off as part of our foundation work. We had a Victorian reproduction made of redwood designed and built for us by Dane Cowen from Ferndale. He handcrafted the pieces, we painted them, and he put the whole thing together!

(Before)

New Nail Gun!

2010-11-04T16:10:00.000-07:00

There has been an exciting development in my world of historic renovation. New nail gun! Here I am breezing through some home repairs! We had to take the skirting off of the house to replace the foundation, but its going back on, thanks to my new nail gun.

Foundation Work is Underway - first things first

2010-05-12T21:11:00.000-07:00

More unsolicited advice to home restoration fans. A new foundation will just make you feel better. Even if its not the most visible or glamorous part of a remodel, the real aficionados of vintage houses will always comment on a new foundation. So the Eureka Redwood Victorian has a shinny new concrete diameter foundation and a 3 ft wall. The house has another hundred years.

Despite the great work that George is doing on foundation work, we still have some troubling jobs. The house has several feet of skirting around the base of the house. This all needs to be removed and hopefully replaced once the foundation is poured in place. Unfortunately we see a lot of nice new foundations covered by pretty unsightly paneling and siding. Our plan is to carefully rescue the 3 to 4 inch vertical skirting, clean it up, remove a fair amount of rot and then re-install as much as we can.

The Slow Road to Recovery

2010-05-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

The January earthquake is a distant memory, but the house is still jacked-up and waiting. We have had great luck with local contractors. Some advice to Humboldt County Restorations --- just call George Kurwitz, the legendary Humboldt County foundation and house moving contractor. George has been working on the house for a couple of months now, we are in no hurry and the work is getting done.

You can see some of the damage, both piers moving off post and in those cases where the posts were secure the earthquake splits the posts.

After the quake George jumped right in and put in the cribbing to make sure the house didn't slip anymore.

The next step is to put in a new diameter foundation and a concrete wall to connect the foundation to the house. Stay tuned.

Lucy, the restoration dog, is surveying the damage to the carriage house.

After the Shake --- Eureka's January 10th Earthquake!

2010-01-29T16:34:00.000-08:00

Humboldt County got a good shaking on Jan 10th with a magnitude 6.5 earthquake. The quake was centered in the Pacific Ocean northwest of Ferndale, but it came ripping into Eureka. The little redwood house was rocked. It's now been several weeks and the damage, which initially appeared minor, has become clear and more widespread, but ever so subtle.

The post and pier foundation was suspect to begin with and we had budgeted some funds for foundation repairs. But after the house shifter northward while the foundation stayed put, a large number of the post were moved on their piers and the pier were pushing the house skirting outward.

Our neighbor's house took a nose dive and is rapidly headed for the street. Here is a picture of the County Sheriff looting the house.

The only houses that seemed to take a beating were the old post and pier foundations – anything with a moderately current foundation came through just fine.

It's now looking like we will be the proud owners of a new foundation in both the house and the carriage house. Eureka has some of the finest experts and putting houses back on their foundations. I'm looking forward to seeing our little house jacked-up and getting a shinning new foundation. You will love the pictures.

What's next with our floors?

2010-01-10T15:24:00.000-08:00

We are facing the great floor puzzle. We have pulled up carpets and vinyl by the tons and now we are actually getting to the wood floors. Our house was not some fancy upper class house with hardwood oak or maple floors; in fact we have mix of redwood and more redwood floors. We’ve found some nice tongue and groove floors in one bedroom and in the kitchen, many of the other rooms having broad planked redwood subfloors that are now exposed.

The North coast of California, including Eureka, was a very isolated area with no rail service until well into the 20^th century. As a result of this isolation many of the houses had only softwood floors, mostly redwood, and very few original hardwood floors, or so we have been told.

Once we got to the redwood floors we called in the carpenters, floor restorers, and everyone with an opinion, to come up with a plan to deal with the floors. The floor experts are pushing for new hardwood floors, while we would like to find some way to use the wide planked floors.

We are looking for others who have had these redwoods floors to help make a decision about new hardwood, or trying to "finish" the redwood planks, cracks and all, or some other plan.

Here is one of the redwood plank floors --

It takes a village to restore a house

2009-12-19T18:00:00.000-08:00

You need a crew to fix an old house. As we take on the Eureka Redwood house we are ripping out carpets, flooring and old wallpaper. We are pleased can report that we have been lucky to convince family member and friends to pitch in to help get some nasty jobs done.

Talking friends and families members into helping out should be a fundamental part of the house rehab. We are taking our house back to the bare walls and floors so there's always lots of jobs for those with a strong back and a weak mind. This both saves my back and makes the worst jobs a lot more fun.

We have been working on the little redwood house in Eureka for a couple of months now. We have been tearing out old floors, walls and ceiling while fixing old heaters and some shaky plumbing. Our work crew has included Pam and Bob as well as Julia and Jamie Burkhart. Everyone has put there backs into the hard work of ripping, prying, hauling and dumping a hundred years of soiled carpets and water stained wallpaper.

Our kids are taking on the big jobs of pulling up tons of linoleum. We have also talk our friend Dave into spending a few days working the big crowbar and pulling up two layers of linoleum in the dinning room (once the shag carpet was taken out). Dave has a strong back and that comes in handy. This is Dave pulling up the first layer of linoleum tiles and plywood. Note you can see the second layer of green flooring.

The kids have been great workers, here is Jamie and Julia taking on the parlor floor.

First things First! Carpet!

2009-12-15T16:14:00.000-08:00

A couple points worth making about removing carpet

1) a lot of bad thing can be fixed by ripping out old carpets - that old abandoned house smell gets better when the old soiled shag is gone.

2) carpet removal is easier than removing tiles or vinyl floors - so start with the easy stuff.

3) secrets for carpet removal include a good sharp carpet knife, if the carpet is nailed down well you can cut it in 3ft strips and the pull away. We found about half the carpet is really nailed down and the other half barely attached to the tack strips. You never know until you start taking it out.

4) getting the carpet tacks out. The older the carpets the more carpet tacks, nails and screws have been used to hold the old carpet in place. Once the carpet is out and headed for the dumpster then the work of nail and tack strip removal begins. Don't waste your time with an old pair of pliers because it will take forever. After the first day we bought a couple of Dasco Pro12 Pulling Claw Bar.

Here's a look at the house before anything has been done.

First things first! Get all the carpet out the house to Reduce Funky Smells and Terrible Ugliness.

Here is a photo of second parlor, pre-carpet removal.

Here's Pam using the shopvac to clean under the old carpet, but above the old linoleum in one of the bedrooms.

At the end of day the old carpet is just a heap...

Seaching for the Right House

2009-10-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

Eureka California must be the Victorian house center of the West Coast. In some odd mathematical computation it was found to have the highest number of Victorians per capita.... I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but there seem to be lots of great old houses thought out Humboldt County and especially in Eureka. Best place to start in Eureka is the Eureka Heritiage Society.