Rehab of a 1957 ranch house

[poppy]

My cabin project has been on hold for about 6 months, for a variety of reasons; one of which is this ranch rehab.

To make a long story short, my wife died 3 months ago, the condo is on the market, and I just closed on a fixer-upper about 2 1/2 miles from my farm.  I'm moving back to the country.

Here are some pics. of the new compound which consists of a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 7 room ranch house; a 24x32 pole barn; a 12x16 barn; all on 3/4 acre with city water and septic.


View from the west.



The front looking from the paved road.



View from the south east.



View from the south.



The rear view.



The view from the end porch looking to the east.



The southern view from the porch.



And the abandoned house next door (more on that later).



The 24x32 pole barn with concrete floor and electric and the 12x16 red barn to the left.



View from the edge of the "back 40" with the nice hickory tree on the right.



Standing in the driveway looking northwest to the horse farm across the road.

The next set of pics. will be inside the house with some potential plans for upgrades.

[kenhill]

So sorry to hear about your wife.  In reading your posts, it sounds like the country is where life soots you best.  Please keep us posted!

[MountainDon]

Hey poppy. I'm sorry to hear about your wife's passing.

That looks like a nice piece of country.

[rick91351]

Poppy sorry to hear about your wife.  I wish you the best.

Blessings

Rick Russell

 

[bekahe]

So very sorry for your loss.  Looks really beautiful, and green:)

[poppy]

Thanks guys and gal.  I married a city girl who didn't want to live in the country.  Her father tried to warn her when he said that "you can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy."  

Hopefully I didn't bite off more than I can chew.  This was a foreclosed on property that was appraised at $80,000.  I bought it from the bank for $22,500.  The market is a little depressed around here.  

Here are some interior pics.  The original 1957 house was a 4 room 26' x 30' one bath house with a porch with hip roof off the end.  At some point a 12' extension was put on the rear which added another bedroom, bath, and new kitchen.  The old kitchen became the dining room complete with an electric furnace in the corner.  

Another modification changed the porch into a family room and laundry and added another porch and deck in the rear.  So the original house was basically doubled in size.



The original living room and the front bedroom.



Looking back towards the original bathroom with the 2 original same sized bedrooms on the left.



The original bath showing the closed up window when the back additional was added.



The front bedroom.



The current dining room that was the original kitchen.  There is a covered up flue to the right of the furnace.  It appears that there was a stove in the living room originally.



The current kitchen with cheap cabinets.



The old back bedroom and the new bedroom leading to the new bathroom.



The new bathroom.



New bath garden tub.



The new family room (original porch).



Most of the original flooring is 3/4" T&G pine, I think.

I have a number of ideas for improving the floor plan.

1.  Tear out wall between living and dining rooms; tear out original bath; remove furnace and old flue making a 17.5' x 25' great room with wood stove.

2.  Turn family room into master bedroom suite.  One challenge here is that the old porch ceiling was about a foot below the main house ceiling, so the new family room has a 7' ceiling.

3.  Reduce size of new bath making a hallway behind where the original bath was to access new back bedroom.  Close up door between back bedrooms.  

4.  Rehab the kitchen perhaps into a retro 50's style.

This would turn the house into a 6 room open plan keeping 2 full baths and making 4 bedrooms.

My son and I will be starting initial demolition in early July and see what we uncover.

I may put together the original and proposed floorplans and get some input from you guys and gals.  I'm looking to do most of the demo. myself and hire out most of the real work.  Will keep you posted.

[mldrenen]

so sorry to hear about your wife, poppy.  i'm glad to see you finding a positive outlet for your grief in this house project.  it sure looks like a screaming deal for $22k.

as for the flooring, i think you have oak.  one of the easiest ways to identify oak, is those small lines parallel to the grain. 

this is pine flooring:

http://countyfloors.net/store/listing_image.php?productid=17542

this is oak:

http://www.stoneagearchitectural.com/images/products/small/new%20oak%20flooring.jpg

will you rehab this house before working anymore on your farm? 

[Sassy]

Sorry to hear about your wife, Poppy.  Looks like you'll be pretty occupied w/the remodel of the house, though.  Wish you the best.

[Don_P]

Poppy, I am sorry.

Yes the floor is red oak, small medullary rays, white has larger ones. The cj's in the low ceiling may be able to be raised one by one, it will become clear when you get it opened up.

[OlJarhead]

My condolences Poppy.  I've very much enjoyed your posts and cabin topic and had no idea.  I hope your new project will provide a great deal of renovation for the home in need as well as the soul.

[poppy]

Thanks for all your replies.

It's funny, when I first looked at the flooring I told my son that it was oak, but for some reason thought it looked more like the pine in my old house on the farm.  In any case it is in pretty good shape and will take to a refinish quite well.

The plan is to get the house rehab going with contractors so that I can get back to the cabin build on the farm.  I've got too much invested in time and design to abandon that project.  Besides it has always been a dream to self-build my own new house/cabin.

Don, when the old porch was closed in to make the new family room the old hip roof was left in place and a new roof built over it to match the original house.  I'm thinking that there is quite a bit of structure above the ceiling to contend with.

I'll certainly give it a good look see though, to determine if there is any practical way to raise the ceiling and thanks for the suggestion.

[Dallas2build]

Poppy, I echo the sentiments expressed on here by so many others in regards to the passing of your wife.  I am truly sorry and can only hope that time will ease your pain to a bearable level.  My thoughts and prayers are with you and your surviving family members.

Great looking piece of property Poppy and a great price I believe.  That shop and barn alone have so much potential it gets me all excited.  The house should be a relatively straight forward remodel. (OK, I know there is no such thing)  I am looking forward to keeping up with your progress and hope you will keep us up to date.

[poppy]

Here are the original and proposed floorplans.  The dark red walls are from the original 4 room house and the lighter red walls represent the later additions.


The rear addition didn't make much sense to me.



The blue wall sections are filled in doorways or new walls.

The existing wall between the dining and living rooms is load bearing, so there will need to be a header or braced timber placed to support the ceiling.  The roof is supported at the outer walls by the rafters.

The kitchen will be all new.

The biggest challenge will be the new master suite, but if I can pull it off, it will turn this vintage ranch into a 4 bedroom (actually 3 BR's and an office), 2 bath, 1500 sf pad.

Any suggestions are welcome.  

[poppy]

Been doing some traveling, but have pulled off some wall coverings to assess the walls.



Under the wallpaper in the living room is a closed up flue pipe opening, which leads me to believe that there was some kind of stove in the LR before they put the furnance in the dining room.



Under the paneling in the family room on the previous outside wall of the original porch is some pine sheathing.  Once I get all of the paneling stripped, I may consider making the sheathing the finished wall in the new bedroom suite.  For those who may be wondering as I did; there is no insulation in this 1957 outside wall.



The other walls in the FR had the paneling nailed directly on the studs.  Notice that they used foil faced insulation with no air gap.  I wonder if it would be worth the effort to strap the walls to provide a gap? 

[ben2go]

My condolences to you and your family.


The air gap to remove and prevent moister build up.Isn't that supposed to be between the insulation and outside sheathing with a moister barrier on the inside between the studs and wall covering(drywall)?You are in a northern climate where I am in a southern climate.I dunno if this will make a difference.

By the way,nice score on the property.

Hope things come out good for you to finish the cabin.

[poppy]

ben, I'm not sure how to answer your question about the insulation, etc.  I need to research some more and will also welcome more comments from others.

Here's some pics. of the demo. work so far.  First I brought enough stuff to set up one room to "live" in during the de-construct/construct phases, plus ladders and tools.



While I was in my friends car heading up to the White Mountains of NH my son called to tell me that he found, not one, but 2 free room AC units near his home in St. Charles, IL and did I want them.  Since I was planning on buying an AC unit for $120 at Costco, I jumped at the offer and  picked them up when I visited him over the 4th. 

The AC units are under all the other stuff that I had at the condo that was needed to set up a room for one.



As soon as my son came down to help with the demo., he suggested we start on the big stuff and stage it on the porch before the dumpster showed up.



It didn't take long to strip the kitchen.



Some of the staging on the porch.



The sink/counter from the newer bathroom is good enough to reuse with new fixtures.



Then we moved to the older bath which will be completely removed to help make the new great room.



The 20' dumpster arrived at about 1:30 p.m. which was pretty good timing since we had staged the kit. and both baths as well as the old furnace.



My son did some dumpster diving a couple of times to reduce the volume.



One surprise was that there was an outside wall at the end of the current family room/original porch.  Another surprise was that the concrete floor of the laundry room on the other side of that wall is the roof of the original cistern.

I was planning on removing that wall to make a larger space for the new master suite, but my son suggested that I redesign the suite and leave that wall where it is.  I will strip the old clapboard siding so that it can be sheetrocked.



The view after we got the old bath stripped. 



One goal while I had the help and the dumpster was to remove the old flue.


Things are starting to open up as we stripped the load bearing wall between the LR and DR.  Note the lack of basic carpendry skills on the header. 



We left the airhandler intact for now, but got rid of the old electric furnace.  I think I need an HVAC guy to do a system check on the airhandler and outside compressor, before going any farther.

Note the snow shovel.  It makes a great dust pan for drywall.



People do some dumb things when "moderizing."  This carpet was installed before the toilet.  Carpet in a bath is bad enough, but don't put it under the can. 



After getting the newer bath stripped we could see the old fake brick siding.



The son agreed to beat up on the flue from the attic on down.  He got dirtier than me that day.



I kind of hated to do it, but we decided to take down all of the LR & DR ceilings as well as the FR ceiling which needs to be raised a foot.



The flue is gone.



And the dumpster is about full after a day and a half of effort by an old man and his son. 

[ben2go]

WOW!  Moving right along. 

[Mike 870]

Poppy, I'm really sorry to hear about your loss as well.  My condolances. 

You're really moving along fast on the rehab.  I was down in Shawnee State Forest backpacking a couple weeks ago, after the backpacking trip I wen't looking at some land for sale in Otway.  After that I kind of drove randomly on some country roads and passed over into Adams County.  I was thinking, hmm I wonder if Poppy is around here working away...

[Tom]

Wow! is there going to be anything left when you're done deconstructing? 

Are you "flipping" this, or will this be where you will live?

When my mom passed, Dad just stopped doing things. He sees only the bad in his life. I'm glad to see you putting yourself into this project.

I enjoy watching your progress

[poppy]

Mike, I was not at the house on the 12th, but was from the 13th until the 16th.  Shoot me a PM the next time you plan on being down this way and I'll give you directions to the Chateau.

Tom, I'm not a flipper even though I might flip out from time to time.    This will be my home once the condo sells.  I could have saved more of the existing structure except that the original builders did some dumb things and my kids want me to do it right.

Here is the latest update.  I hired a local 18 yr. old boy to help out before he goes off to college.




Before the help showed up, I took out some walls to prepare for the new hallway at the corner of the new great room.




Here he is scrapping tile off the hardwood flooring in the old hallway.



He suggested a bigger hammer when the rotten kitchen subflooring wouldn't pry up.



We wondered why the dinning room ceiling was sagging until we saw what the dumba__s did when putting in the electric furnace and ducting.



This helps explain why the old porch/FR had a less than 8' ceiling.  This pic. shows how the new ceiling joists were put in below the rafters.  They could have easily picked up another 5 1/2"  if the bottom of the joists had been aligned with the bottom of the rafter ends, but wait there's more....



They would have had to move the roof braces up and would also have had to move the existing porch rafter ties up as well.  If you look closely you can see the old ties at the edge of these two pics. (darker wood with bird poop).  They took the easy way out.

After raising the floor 2" to match the main house, I will need to raise the joists 14" which should be doable.  The current plan is to make a 14" 45 deg. chamfer on the two outside walls.  It would be easier to make a square box, but I think the chamfer will look better.



We broke out the sledge after finding a serious water problem in the kitchen floor by the back door.  We had to take it down to the joist strapping.  When the kitchen addition was put on they used 2x8 joists on the old sill plates and since the old kitchen/current dining room floor had 2x10's (I think), they needed to build up to the floor level.  2x6's were used as strapping under the first subfloor which is 3/4" plywood with some kind of vinyl cladding on both sides.  On top of that was 5/8" ply with vinyl tile for the finished floor.



It's not obvious from the pic. but there is one big piece of the vinyl clad ply that is over 9' square.     Does anyone have any idea what that stuff is?  They used it for subflooring on the whole back addition.





We knocked off for the week before getting all of the rotten kitchen subflooring up as well as the plywood that was under the dining room carpet.  Unfortunately hardwood was not used everywhere in the original 4-room house.  Even so, the dumpster is full. 

[ben2go]

Making good progress.I never seen vinyl clad wood. 

[Tom]

Seeing some of the building techniques makes me feel better about my lack of talent in this area. I can tell myself, "At least I wouldn't have done THAT 

All I can say is that anyone sneeking through that door in the dark will either have a long step down, or they'll end up straddling a floor joist which will have them screaming at a very high pitch 

Enjoying your progress Poppy

[poppy]

We hit it fresh again this morning and got all of the rotted subflooring up in the kitchen, the tile in the laundry room, and the plywood in the dining room.



Before the help came, I took out the archway between the two back bedrooms.  That is the old outside wall (so load bearing); they didn't seem to be too concerned about taking out several studs.



This is a repeat of a pic. from the previous post above the old furnace.  My help wondered why the floor was springy near the old furnace.  Well of course they just cut a couple of the floor joists and let them dangle. 



Speaking of load bearing walls.  This image is in the kitchen where they cut into the outside wall to make an archway and pass through.  Depending on the kitchen cabinet arangement I will need to do something to shore this wall up.



I let the kid do most of the heavy lifting today. 



We got all of the plywood up from the dining room.  Except for the sagging floor by the furnace, the subfloor is in pretty good shape.  Now I just need to find a good deal on some 3/4" red oak T&G flooring to match the living rm.



We stagged the 5/8" plywood in the kitchen for later reuse; probably for kitchen underlayment for linoleum.

The dumpster is more than full and will be gone tomarrow.  Now it gets serious and time for HVAC, electrician, plumber, and carpender.

I'll be hitting craigslist on a daily basis to find kitchen cabinets and appliances; bathroom fixtures; a wood stove; replacement windows; flooring; and anything else that will save a buck. 

[poppy]

Here's the latest rehab update.  I brought the boy back again to help put in the cribbing to support the ceiling in order to remove the load bearing wall.



We got the first temporary support in which took too long, but I had never done it before. 



We moved to the other side and was able to make one 14' 2x6 do the job.



I sent the kid home so I could have all the fun taking out the wall.  Here is one of the studs; kind of unusual to use that low of quality for a load bearing wall in a 1957 house. 



The wall is gone and it's begining to look like a great room.  This is the view from the front door.



And the view from the kitchen.



This is a mock up for a 6"x6" post to support the beam that replaces the load bearing wall.  The end studs stick out about 1", so if I leave them in place and put the 6x6's against them, there will be a recess that is 1" wide by 3/4" deep.  The next pic. shows the interface between the end stud and the top plate.



I'm thinking of leaving the top plate in place also and placing a 6" wide beam up against it leaving a recess like on the ends.



It seems to me that it will be much easier to leave the end studs and top plate where they are.  What you can seen here is one of two roof braces that meet up with the top plate.  What do you all think?     (the ceiling is not bowed down, I forgot to adjust the camera)

[poppy]

Been hitting craigslist about every day to see if I can find things that will work on the rehab.  Here's my latest finds.



Got about 50 sf of red oak for $40 which may somewhat match the existing floor.  Here's a repeat of a previous closeup of the old flooring.



I mentioned that I may do a retro kitchen and have been searching for 50's cabinets and appliances.



This is a cook top from a 1956 house.  Note the color coded knobs and burners, and yes, it's pink.



And the matching wall oven that had barely been used.



The wiring for the cook top appears to be too small for 220 volt and I haven't found the wires for the oven yet.  But here's the wiring diagram pasted to the side of the oven (at least part of it)  I'm assuming the oven at least is 220.


I only paid $50 for the set, so I'm not out all that much if they don't work out.

I have a line on a full set of metal cabinets (8 wall, 7 base, and a pantry) from a 1954 house, but am still haggling on the price.  The guy has had 4 different ads on craigslist since May with these prices in order: $800, $500, $1000, and $950.  He has Emailed me two counter offers just this week.  If they were a GE set, I would have them by now, but they are a little less quality than GE's and I don't want to pay too much.