It's very hard to talk about what we plan on doing without discussing the work that has already been done. If you haven't already done so, we suggest reading The Nightmare and see the work we have already completed. The following projects are like a "To Do" list of projects to be completed.
I think our biggest and most important goal is completing the repairs and the painting of the outside of the house. The building envelope needs to be sealed to protect the interior from further damage. This includes removing all the old paint, repairing the rotted areas with replacement wood or epoxy, filling all holes with epoxy, priming and painting with the best quality paint available. The remaining 60% or the built in gutter system needs to have metal replaced as necessary, primed and lined with a product called "Peel & Seal". All windows need to be removed, the frames rebuilt with epoxy , glass replaced, all glass reglazed, window weights ropes replaced, window weight cavities insulated with rigid foam, sashes and frames primed and painted, windows weatherstripped and the interior frames that have been painted; stripped and refinished. If this sounds like a lot, mutiply it by 93 windows. On top of this, there are about as many additional stained glass windows that are in various stages of needing repaired. At the least, all stained glass windows need to be reglazed. We contacted two people/companies to repair the stained glass. One wanted $1000.00 just to estimate the repairs and the other wanted $90.00 an hour to make repairs. Needless to say, this was just too expensive and the stained glass windows will have to wait until we either learn how to do stained glass, find someone interested enough in the project to help us at reduced pricing or wait until we can get a grant to repair the stained glass windows. The good news is that the original stained glass manufacturers are still in business and matching glass is available. We have purchased glass sample sets from these two companies in order to match broken panes. We have repaired one of the two matching wooden framed stained glass windows in the servant staircase by removing glass from one and installing it in the other. The repaired window looks beautiful and is inspiration as to how wonderful the other windows will look.
We have installed modern, custom full glass storm doors over the five of the seven exterior doors for energy efficiency. We intend on applying a wood vinear over the metal doors to make them appear as wooden ornate screen doors. We also need to weather strip all original doors. The door on the third floor, which was not original, was replaced with an appropriate used door after the fire department kicked it in to access the fire in 2000. All the doors are non-standard size but this one is very small and a custom storm door was unavailable. We suspect that this third floor door, with it's metal fire escape was installed about 1948 because of a fire ordinance for the Mouse Palace Motel. We intend on keeping this door because if it was a good idea to have a third floor fire escape then, it is still a good idea for the safety of our family. The last door, in the dining room needs to be removed and a window built to replicate the original window. More good news about this house is that people, uncharacteristcly, did changes to be reversed. The door in the dining room still has it's stained glass transom which is covered up by the raised wooden panel that belongs below the window. This makes reversal of this door a very resonable goal.
Outside we want to level the flat limestone walks that have settled below ground level. Some of them that we have done already were done by digging out underneath a corner, jacking them up and stuffing rocks and mortar underneath to hold them in their correct position. A faster way to level these stones would be to do mud jacking but none of this has ever been done. We want to relace the inappropriate concrete stepping stones on the North side of the house with flat rock, as was used in the other walk ways. We have obtained a good portion of the the flat rocks but the rocks need to be cut and moved into place. We have a concrete saw and a front end loader to move the rocks but other projects have put this project into a holding pattern. The driveway, orignially dirt, was replaced with concrete at some point. The driveway has a sharing agreement with the companion house at 524 Union in the deed. Unfortunately, since the driveway is extremely thin, if one car from either property parks in it, there is no access for any additional cars. We would like to widen the driveway and replace it with colored concrete, stamped to look like paver stones, replicating the stone foundation. We have seen concrete stamps on the internet that would do this job nicely. The textured driveway will make it very difficult for snow removal. We want to put piping underneath the concrete and connect it to the boilers to aid in snow removal. (Remember about hiding 21st century technology in a 19th century house?) Eventually, we would like to regrade the front yard and create an English Garden type of lawn with a lot of flower beds. We also want to ad a sprinkler system to keep things looking beautiful. This would incorporate the original cistern as a water source and possibly a small well for replenishing the cistern water during dry spells. Last, we would like to recreate a miniature version of the fountain that originally adorned the historic Fremont Park down Union Street.
On the front porch, we need to replace the temporary supporting timbers with matching columns to the originals. There are many companies that produce columns but none with capitols similar to the originals. We have taken one of the original capitols, meticulously stripped and repaired it. We have the materials to make a mold of the capitol. We intend on casting new capitols. They will either be of structural material or casted as a shell and mounted over a structural smooth column. We also must repair the front porch decking where necessary. Keeping paint on a horizontal surface is very difficult. We would really like to coat the decking with liquid wood epoxy that we use to solidify the rotted wood but the product is very expensive. We have tried an experiment on the porch at the companion house at 524 Union. We have removed all the paint on this deck and coated it with fiberglass resin. We still need to coat it with polyurathane paint. We will see how this experiment holds up and possibly use this procedure on the Cross House. Experimenting on a different property will allow us to make sure that we cause no harm to the Cross House with an experimental idea that sounds good in theory.
We have redecked the roof on the front porch and replaced the five inches of asphalt shingles with new asphalt shingles as a temporary measure. Since this was accomplished, some of the other asphalt porch roofs have shown that they need much the same treatment. The roof over the carriage porch has decking sagging in and is leaking badly. This is the next roof to be rebuilt in a permanent fashion with temporary replacement asphalt shingles installed. The main roof on the house has asbstos tile shingles over the original wooden shingles. These are in reasonable shape but many are missing and not readily available. The whole house needs to be reshingled in a historicly appropriate material so porches, dormers and the main roof are all the same materials. Since the house has been on fire three times that we know of, including two fires that have burned the roof, it is surprising that the house is still standing. We would love to have an original cedar shingle roof but this would be an unacceptable fire risk that is not worth the possibly of permanently losing this important historic structure. An appropriate material used at the turn of the century would be a slate roof and could potentially last over one hundred additional years. Unfortuantely, this type of material is extremely expensive. We have considered the new rubber slate shingles. The look absolutely authentic. What concerns us is that we worry about UV causing cracking like it does on tires. We realize that the product is made for this purpose and UV resistant but because it is so new, we worry about it's longevity. The cost of this type of shingles would be about one half as much as slate but would only last half as long. Fifty years for a roof is still not bad. Other options would be a metal roof. New metal comes in styles of cedar shingles. Metal would also be an appropriate material for the turn of the centrury. The last and least desireable option would be to use a very high quality asphalt shingle. This would be the least expensive option but would have the shortest life. Part of our goal is to look at the long term health of the house and do things to the best quality as possible so it will last as long as possible to ensure that the house never becomes this deterorated again.
The back porch is a basement roof and it leaks terribly. After we had termite treatment, we removed some of the wet plaster from the ceiling (underside of the porch), there were thousands of termites in there. We had that area treated again. Our solution is to build a slight pitch to the back porch and put a rolled rubber roof on the back porch decking so the water that lands on the decking will roll off the edge. While talking about termites, this house a smorgasboard for them and they were allowed to free feed by previous owners. These house eaters even made it up to the first floor oak flooring. When we remove any area to make a small repair, it regualarly turns into a giant project because the temite damage was previously not exposed. If H.C. Cross hadn't built the best house that money could buy, this house would have collapsed a long time ago. Because of it's quality, it has survived and is repairable. We have not seen any active termites in the house since very early. We want to ensure that we remove this potential catastrophic problem permanently. We have had termite baiting around the house since 1999 but continue to regularly find termites in wood out in the yard. Our challenge is to remove these destructive pests permanently.
On the inside of the house, in the kitchen we need to gut the whole room. Plyood was previously applied to all the walls and ceiling to cover the really bad plaster. We want to strip finish stripping all the paint off of the chimney in the room. We would like to install a reproduction or modernized antique stove in front of the restored fireplace. We want to strip all the painted woodwork in the kitchen and refinish it with stain. While the walls are out, we will rewire the kitchen and fill the exterior wall cavities with rigid foam insultaion. The kitchen, on the East half of the house was part of the area most eaten by termites. According to an article when the house was built, the original floors were maple. From what we've seen, the floorboards are very eaten by termites and not salavageable. The floors in this area are also not very level because of sagging in the termite eaten joists below. Our present plan, although subject to change as the house tells us what it wants and needs, is to remove the floor down to the joists and brace the joists that need it. We will then fill in the area between the joists with plywood, creating a flat kitchen floor with the tops of the joists exposed. The reason for this is that we intend on installing radiant heat in the floor and pouring mortar over the tubing to create a level flat surface and we need to remove as much of the flooring depth so that the new floor will have the same depth and the original floor and not be a step up. After the mortar bed is installed we will install some sort of tile on the floor. At the turn of the century, a kitchen would have had "kitchen furniture" in it, such as a hoosier cabinet. Our plan is to install cabinets that are built to match the original ones in the butler's pantry. We hope to top these off with granite or slate countertops and an old fashioned sink out of the same material. We would also like to modify the original built in icebox and install a refrigeration unit so that it can be used as an additional refrigerator. All modern appliance, such as the dishwasher or refrigerator will be built into the cabinets and faced to look like cabinets. The kitchen will be modern in every way but will appear to be from the turn of the century. The kitchen will also be rather plain in appearance because it was originally a servant's area and the owner of the house probably rarely set foot in the kitchen.
The first floor bathroom is already gutted because of water damage from the fire. We have already insulated the exterior walls with rigid insultaion. The the window sashes have been repaired and the woodwork has already been stripped of paint but not refinished. The bathroom door still needs to be stripped of paint and refinished. We want to build a small, floor to ceiling cabinet behind the door to allow for linens in this primary bathroom. Rewiring and drywall still need completion. The plan is stain the woodwork ebony to match the white with black vein marble on the walls. The color theme of the room will be black and white. The tile floor will be sacrificed in order to use this tile to make repairs to damaged tiles in the entry foyers and to the bathroom on the second floor. The current mortar bed will be removed and the floor will be prepared the same way as the kitchen's. Radiant heating will be installed and the floor will be tiled in white and black marble to match the walls. The bathtub will be replaced with a clawfoot tub with a hand held shower. The toilet, with it's separate tank will be converted into a high tank toilet. Plans for the sink are really unsettled. The current sink is not in very good shape. The sink will either be refinished or replaced. The individual two spout faucet will be replaced with a fauct with a mixing valve above the sink in plain view. This is not historically correct but will allow use of the sink in the fashion that modern people are used to. The faucet will look like it was an early modification, possibly done by the original owners. The finish on all the fixtures will be nickel, which will blend well with the black and white motif. We would like to wallpaper the room in a Japanese Carp pattern of black (or navy blue) and white, sold by J.R. Burrows Company. They also sell lace curtians in the same design. We are considering sandblasting the pattern onto the lower panes of the windows to provide privacy on a first floor bathroom.
... To be continued.