We decided on a beadboard ceiling, made easier by using pre-primed MDF planks. They were attached with adhesive and 1 1/4" nails. It is almost done - just a final strip at the top to complete. We'll be painting it porch ceiling blue. Wallboard and trim is next!
We are now wired for power and lights! We did some prep work by pre-drilling holes to the basement to feed the wires. While doing that it was discovered that the sill closest to the door was fairly rotten on the inside. This will require some more work - namely adding a 2 part hardener then filling in the void. More to come on that work once the material shows up. Meanwhile, we put up the insulation which is working very well. Temp was only a few degrees cooler than kitchen this morning after a 25 D night. Next step is to install the ceiling material - right now beadboard is the leading contender.
Okay - here's the wallet. It is fine leather that has hardened over the years. The name on the inside is Convers Purington, a well known Bowdoinham name. It is dated 1867. Inside were 3 $5 bills from the 1860's and 1870's, also 4 or 5 $1 bills from the same era. They were folded up tight and were ripped but you can make out quite a bit. These are "green backs" as signified by the green reverse side. There was also a calling card from S D Thorn who published the Bowdoinham Advertiser. We're not sure of the owner or vintage of the boot - it is made of leather and is fairly good condition. The bottle is blown glass, maybe an apothecary bottle? And the last item looks to be something that many young men would carry folded up in their wallets - yes, it appears to be a prophylactic. We checked and they started making them with rubber in the 1840's so this appears to be authentic to the times. This made for lots of fun on Halloween night with our special guests, the former Town Historian. We'll do some more checking and see if we can get some hist
ory on Mr. Purington for a future post.
Halloween is over and we're back to work getting ready for the electrical installation. We decided to remove all the sheathing to make it easier to put up the drywall. This involved removal of a lot of blown in insulation done when the second story project was accomplished. One shot shows the very old with the new of the second story project - that is a dead space created to run the plumbing and shore up the floor beams that had hacked into previously. The string represents a chase for the electrical to run up from the basement. The open spot on the end wall is a hollow area between the formal front door and the outside wall. This is where the treasure was found. More on that to come soon.
When last we left the exterior was virtually complete. We've moved inside after quite a break. First up will be electricity and for that we need to remove some boards to run the wires. We finally found some buried treasure! In a deep dark corner stashed away for who knows how long looks to be a wallet of some kind, a boot, a bottle, and half a top to a barrel. We'll try to research their origins or at least their contents soon.
The trim installed today has its first coat of paint. The long view almost looks like things are done. Just a bit more outside then on to the interior with wiring, insulation, wallboard, ceiling, interior trim - wow, hope we can finish before the first snowfall!
Patched in the trim over the kitchen window and installed most of the trim at the far end. There is one more long piece to install over the roof, then an ogee moulding to tie things together. Next step for now is to paint - we need to get a piece of flashing to put between the last trim piece and the roof. We were able to salvage a lot of trim pieces from the old porch so everything blends in rather well.
Sorry it has been so long for an update. Jen painted the exterior of the porch to match the rest of the house - Nantucket White and Pure White. We're getting close with the outside work. Final trim and some clapboards on the main house need to be installed - hopefully this weekend. We had our first real frost last night so the porch served as a storage for late season plants. Hopefully more updates over the weekend.
Here we are adding the many clapboards, some quite short, around the door. Ran out of clapboards. Time to stop!
Here is the view from the kitchen door of the pocket french doors (with plastic protective covering) in.
Completed siding the road side of the porch. The different colors are because some clapboards were pre-primed and others were scraps from the inside of the porch. We also had to blend back into the main house so there are some patches there too. I know they don't match up in the corner but that is because a goal was to have a full clap at the bottom of the windows and the top. Once everything gets painted Nantucket white it shouldn't be very noticable.
Here's the before and after - unfortunately we'll be returning to the before to correct a few mistakes. Things started out okay but if you zoom in close, you can see a couple of cracked clapboards which will not do. Repairs should be fairly simple. It's nice to see what the final product is going to look like though.
An early start allowed for completion of the roof shingles. There's still a piece of flashing that needs to be installed between the sidewall and the roof but that will come later when the trim is installed.
Flashing between the window frame and sheathing is woven all the way up so any water will be deflected down and away from the window. Once all the shingles and flashing are installed, the window can be set for good. Here the plastic protective film has b
een removed.
Had some help this morning. It's so much more efficient with one cutting, one passing and one on the roof installing. The first four courses were pretty easy as there was minimal cutting. Once we got to skylights, it was time to do a lot of measuring and cutting since a single shingle is 36" and there is about 40" between the skylights.
