Posts by milton

Evan’s carpet soffits

Posted on 6 August 2013

One of the joys of buying an old fixer-upper is discovering all the wacky things that previous owners have done. Humility of course tempers the pleasure, as a boy can’t help but wonder which of his design decisions will turn out to be the avocado fridge of 2013. Sometimes, though, the universe is generous, delivering a detail so outrageous as to preclude introspection.

My colleague Evan recently bought a fantastic little Cape in Watertown, MA. It’s a solid house in a great neighborhood, and just the right size to be manageable. And it gave us all the gift of carpeted soffits.

But maybe the best detail was evidence of a previous layer of carpet.

Categories: Found, Seen, vintage

Tagged: 1950s, carpet, kitchen, soffit

Paul’s house in the woods

Posted on 4 August 2013

I first heard of Paul Koval years ago from a graduate of the Cabinet and Furniture program at North Bennett Street School. I was complaining about the paucity of really good cherry lumber at the big wholesale yards where we usually buy our hardwoods. I think it was Sam Chase who said to me, “Well, there’s this guy, and he’s out in the middle of nowhere, but he has some amazing stuff — wide cherry and air-dried walnut, really gorgeous.” I called the number on the little slip of paper that Sam gave me, and crossed my fingers. Wood guys can be a grouchy bunch, wary of greenhorns wasting their time, and I was newly enough in business to still feel like an impostor. …

Categories: Found, trade secrets

Tagged: Ashby, coffee table, furniture, George Nakashima, maple syrup, Paul Koval, sugar house, walnut

How hot is it?

Posted on 18 July 2013

We work with wood for a living, but I think we should all qualify for dual degrees in carpentry and meteorology. This week in particular, thoughts of structure and fine joinery have been pushed aside by more pressing concerns: How to avoid heat stroke. We watch the thermometer and try to chase the shade around the house and speak derisively of people who spend their days in air conditioning; doesn’t help much. It can be curiously comforting, though, to get an objective confirmation that it’s really bloody hot outside, and that we’re not making it all up. In this light, I was delighted to see that the tar patches on the road around Peters Hill in the Arnold Arboretum were starting to bubble.

Of course, I had to poke my finger in to see if there was a liquid center.

I should add that I spend much of my time driving from job to job these days, and the guys on the crew take the brunt of the weather, hot and cold.

Categories: Seen

Tagged: Arnold Arboretum, Hot, Peters Hill, tar bubble, weather

Addendum: Plumbers and carpenters find a third way

Posted on 13 July 2013

Before:

Cast iron waste line in bath floor with cut floor joists

After:

Complicated bathroom floor framing to accommodate plumbing

Closer view of complicated bathroom floor framing to accommodate plumbing

Leo Tuccinardi, our plumber, is technically proficient, but we really love him because he talks to us. I think we spent an hour or more staring at this small bathroom and making sketches on scraps of 2×4, but we figured out how to accommodate both the pipes and the floor structure. The final framing layout bears almost no resemblance to anything you’d find in a carpentry textbook, but I’m pretty confident that the 12×24 tile in the finished bathroom won’t crack.

Categories: Structural work, trade secrets

Tagged: bathroom, floor framing, Plumbing, structure

Burl theft

Posted on 12 July 2013

Yesterday at lunchtime I stopped by Houghton’s Pond in the Blue Hills Reservation outside Boston to let Musti and Luc stretch their legs and pee on trees for a few minutes. As we were walking, I saw an oddly damaged white oak tree. As we got closer, I realized that someone had gone at it with a chainsaw, attempting to cut off a large burl from the base of the trunk. Late last year, a number of stories in the local media suggested that the illicit removal of burls from public trees was becoming an epidemic. The Boston Globe described a chainsaw-wielding thief cutting burls off trees in the Fenway Victory Gardens, and another story described similar vandalism in Mount Auburn Cemetery. In this case,…

Categories: Seen

Tagged: Blue Hills, Boston, burl, burl theft, Houghton's Pond, vandalism, white oak

Force of habit

Posted on 9 July 2013

We saw hints before we started the project that there had been a fire at some point, but we weren’t sure of the extent. The fire predated the current owners, and they weren’t aware of any lingering issues. When we opened up the walls, it became clear that the fire had been quite extensive. There was charred framing, lath, and sheathing throughout one of the rooms, as well as evidence of a less-than-careful repair job. Large areas of framing and sheathing were painted white, presumably with a shellac-based odor-blocking paint, and other sections had been crudely replaced. One inside corner, though, was particularly troubling. It wasn’t just ugly, but seemed like it might be structurally insufficient. The post was painted white, so…

Categories: Found, Structural work

Tagged: Fire damage, force of habit, jacks, post, structural work, why buildings stand up

Also found in the bathroom

Posted on 7 July 2013

I guess there’s something about bathrooms in Jamaica Plain. We found this ring tucked behind a vanity cabinet during a whole-house renovation a few years ago. When it turned up, I anticipated a tearful reunion scene when we presented it to our clients, but the ring wasn’t theirs, and they didn’t seem especially impressed (I thought it was pretty cool). Our current clients were more excited about the dentures.

Categories: Found

Tagged: bathroom, diamond, found, Jamaica Plain, ring

Found in the bathroom

Posted on 2 July 2013

Someone tucked these dentures behind the beadboard behind the vanity cabinet in the upstairs bathroom. Were they playing a prank, or was this some kind of time capsule? I regret to report that my squeamishness prevented me from thoroughly examining the materials and detailing in the teeth. Perhaps I’ll have more to report later… We found the envelope in the space under the bathtub, in the same bathroom as the dentures. The addressee is Ethel Beaument (sic). I got sucked into the website of the Jamaica Plain Historical Society recently and discovered that Ethel Beaumont seems to have been the granddaughter of a Col. Frederick Beaumont, an early owner of the house we’re working on. The account suggests that some version of the…

Categories: Found

Tagged: 1925, bathroom, bond recommendations, dentures, found, Jamaica Plain

On the source of the historical enmity between plumbers and carpenters

Posted on 21 June 2013

We are accustomed to seeing framing notched, drilled, and otherwise modified by plumbers trying to fit their pipes into houses built before indoor plumbing was de rigueur. This bathroom floor is a bit extreme, though, as the floor joists are almost entirely cut away, and the cast iron waste pipes seem to be providing the only remaining structure. And the cast iron wasn’t in great shape either:

By some miracle of gravity and hydrodynamics, the space below the hole was not filled with sewage.

I should add that our plumber, Leo Tuccinardi, of Pipe Connections in Watertown, MA, has the utmost respect for wood framing and its role in keeping buildings upright.

Categories: Seen

Tagged: cast iron, cut framing, joists, Plumbing, structure

Lost the bet

Posted on 8 June 2013

Starting a new project is fun and challenging on many fronts, but one of my favorite parts is developing intimacy with an older building, starting to discover its quirks and secrets. We’ve just begun work on a magnificent Victorian in Boston; the front façade is voluptuously ornate, with no less than six different styles of window trim. Notably odd, though, is the fact that two of the windows are missing — filled in with clapboards. When our clients bought the house a few years ago, they thought this was pretty puzzling. They assumed that someone with a limited respect for the house’s history had taken a shortcut during an earlier renovation, and they were hoping to restore the windows some day. As…

Categories: History

Tagged: horsehair plaster, mystery, victorian, windows