Knox Hill Project: Weekly Update

A three day weekend allowed for great progress in spite of Saturdays rain. Painting is moving right along and the East facade will be done as soon as the area over the side porch is painted and the windows are trimmed out. The house is MUCH more visible now as one drives down the street and several people stopped by over the weekend to comment on the restoration and how much better the neighborhood looks as a whole.

I also managed to paint the old beaded board ceiling of the original side porch. Even though this will eventually be gone due to the construction of the connecting tower to the new 2 story carriage house it was nice to get rid of that white paint! This space will eventually be taken over by the formal dining room.

Inside work is progressing as well with some demolition of some shortened door frames is taking place. The old doorway to the front formal parlor will be replaced with a new more formal Arched entry with Walnut trim and a fretwork panel in the arch area with a rod to hold the new portiere (drapes) that will go there. Victorian homes in this era often had draperies across doorways as a mean to prevent drafts and close off the formal parlor from the rest of the house

The other doorway added at the turn of the century will be removed to open up the hallway that will pass by the stairs. The space already seems larger at this point. I still have to build the hall wall that will separate this entrance hall from the new kitchen.

We also started cleanup of the old stone steps at the street which had a lot of loose concrete from previous repairs where they 'skimmed' the old limestone steps with concrete. I hope to start on the rebuild of the stone steps later this summer and retuckpointing and rebuild of portions of the front wall so we can install a new wrought iron fence.

HAPPY Holiday Weekend

In Observance of the 4th our next post will be Monday. We will be as susually working on our slice of American History, our1871 Second Empire Cottage this weekend. A safe and happy holiday to all.

Interesting article on Nashville TN in Preservation Magazine

One could draw some interesting parallels between Nashville and Cincinnati. Both have Historic neighborhoods, both had an interstate result in wholesale destruction and both had large public housing projects and section 8 in their historic neighborhoods.

Nashville has embraced preservation and historic tourism and Cincinnati can't seem to wrap its collective mind around the concept. Nashville is successful and well we all know the struggles of the Preservation Community in Cincinnati.

Interesting article and interesting city and would be a good "weekend getaway" for anyone wanting to get ideas on how to turn a city, or neighborhood, around. Perhaps we need to load our city council on a bus and send them there?

http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/2009/july-august/Nashville-cover.html

"Cap and Trade" will destroy Historic Preservation in America

Cap and trade legislation passed by the House and on its way to consideration by the Senate, if passed and signed by President Obama will devastate Historic Preservation throughout the United States and further cripple the United States housing market


As the house legislation is written all homes sales are conditioned upon an energy audit and a new energy rating assessment and energy labeling program for your home that’s outlined in the Democrats’ bill. Your home will be subjected to a new energy rating assessment and energy labeling program that will penalize you for older windows, original fixtures, and dated appliances.



This creates a huge problem for owners of historic homes across the country, especially those who are currently governed by historic district regulations that require that historic elements like windows and historic doors remain unchanged. Imagine being told by the federal government that your Tiffany stained glass windows were not "energy efficient" and must be replaced with thermopane windows! If this legislation happens it will be the law.

You would not be allowed the way this law is written to buy a "fixer upper" which would effectively send many homes to the bulldozer. It would not meet the energy rating and couldnt be sold until it does!





Love you old 1930 cooking stove? Say goodbye to it. Under the energy efficiency regulation you will have to get rid of it if you want to sell your home as you will be required to have 'energy star' rated appliances. You may have to open up original plaster walls to install additional insulation. Love those old radiators? They will have to go as because they will not be efficient.




Do you love your old gaslight out front? say goodbye to it. The legislation requires energy efficient lighting as early as 2012. This legislation will cripple the home building industry as well as it will mandate the tougher California building code for the entire nation which will add as much as 30 percent to the projected cost of a new home which will further cripple the economy.


Why? Analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency shows that world temperatures would be reduced by 0.1 to 0.2 degrees C. In other words, a statistically irrelevant difference that is completely unnoticeable.


The answer is simple: Call you Senator and complain, complain loudly and often. there will be a limited window to lobby against this bill.

Knox Hill Project House: Weekly update

Work (Painting), is progressing nicely on the exterior and I was able to put some efforts back on the front facade and the square bay bumpout. As you all know our front facade second floor roof is slate. Slate is a very durable material and hold up remarkably well. My preference has always been to roof the bump out roof and the soon to be constructed porch roof in slate. The drawback is slate is very expensive and modern slates lack the 'patina' of the originals. Until we locate some original slates a substitute had to be found. I looked at the rubberized slates and just didn't like the look. In spite of the manufacturers attempts to age them they still look new.

So as one might expect I have come up with my own solution. We are using Hardisiding, cut into shake sizes. I then "age' the edges with various tools to simulate wear. This weekend I painted these slates with a combination of flat enameled paints and the end result , from the ground, looks like slate. I can't wait to get the rest installed and get the Cresting in the bumpout roof.

Although it is the middle of summer right now, it wont be long until cold is here and we spent some time opening up a wall in the new kitchen area to get ductwork up to the second floor. When the furnace had been put in by the previous owners they simple built a wooden box in the middle of a room and ran ductwork to the second floor where they then built a 40 foot long "window seat' through 3 rooms to hide the ductwork. Not a pretty or efficient solution. //victorianantiquitiesanddesign.blogspot.com/2008/11/removing-indignities-of-remuddling.html This is also and area that had a "passive" duct going between the two rooms that let air flow from one room to the other. We will be able to install new ductwork inside the wall to get heat and AC up stairs to the bedroom as well as locate a cold air return ducts on the second floor.

In order to get cabinetry installed we will also build out this wall so it is level with the brick chimney in this room to give us a smooth continuous wall surface which will also give us more chase space behind for additional runs for any mechanicals. We have carefully preserved the original plaster wall on the parlor side. This chase run will also be insulated and have fire blocking installed.

All this in addition to yard mowing and clean up. Next weekend we have a 3 day work weekend planned so we expect(maybe) to get the east facade perhaps totally painted.

'Blight" or 130 Yrs of History: Gone in a day

As I posted yesterday I received an call from one of my neighbors Mark Elstun that a house that was under remediation for impending demolition was the victim of an "apparent" arson fire. The city had decided this "blighted' house needed to come down and someone decided to "help' them by setting a fire. A total of two homes were affected and a dumpster (see last photo).The first three photos are of another house on Baltimore and illustrate its destruction yesterday.

So "blighted', a structure so dangerous it needed to come down, took a huge bulldozer to bring it down. Apparently the once pristine Victorian stood as long as she could against the onslaught of the bull dozer.

You have to ask yourself "WHY' our city thinks that the only way to "improve" a neighborhood is to destroy it leaving a vacant lot that will sit there and be overgrown for 20-30 years. I try to understand the "logic" in this but somehow it escapes me. Maybe we should ask our city council and our mayor? There is now ONE house on that block, so Mt Mayor please explain to me how that is a neighborhood any more. What Value have you added? What improvement have you made to the lives of the neighbors? Wait there isn't a neighborhood anymore because you have systematically bulldozed most of Fairmount over the last few years!

When most major US cities have long ago learned that Urban renewal by bulldozer is a total failure our city seems intent on looking like Detroit. Other US cities have programs: "Adopt a house", "New again", $1.00 house, and a host of others to SAVE homes not demo them. Often these programs are funded by state or Federal monies or even Corporation who understand the value of historic restoration and preservation. Why our history is so important.

Maybe Cincinnati is just a "good ole boy" network where city officials and their contractor friends need to keep each other busy? Do we need to keep the dumpster companies in business that bad and what happens to our landfill and how much more expensive will it be to put items there.

Does it serve the interests of the community to put tons of old growth 200 plus yr old lumber in a landfill? Not to mention trim boards, Transoms, original clapboarding, pine floors, ALL material that could have at least helped someone else in their restoration?

"Blight=Bulldozer" makes no sense. It is not cost effective, it takes property off the tax rolls and you and I will pay higher taxes in the future because of a shrinking property taxbase. The preservation community needs to focus more on this issue, In fact it needs to be campaign issue. Council members and this mayor need to come forth with a plan on just how they will stop this practice. No Plan=no vote. Neighborhoods like OTR are at that 50 percent tipping point do we need to demo Price Hill, Fairmount and Westwood as well. What IS the agenda of this city government?

Photos courtesy Mark Elstun

Fire In Fairmount area at house slated for demolition

I just recieved a phone call from a resident in the area that there were some fires last night in the Fairmount area. Apparently at a house that was slated for demolition by the city and was undergoing remediation . Although preliminary, it is believed that the fire which damaged the house and spread to a nearby dumpster was intentionally set. Pictures from the scene will be posted as soon as I recieve them.

Cincinnati Preservation Bargains

This Italianate style two story is located in my neighborhood Knox Hill and is right around the corner on a quiet dead end street, Thompson. This house is move in ready and priced at only 25,000.00, sits on two lots and has updated Kitchen and bathrooms and provides the perfect place to camp out while you restore. Neighbors tell me the original porch brackets are hidden under that siding.

There is allot of restoration going on in the area, including our own and there is a well organized Neighborhood Association and a crime watch.This property is minutes to downtown.

This could be a great house restored and it has a wonderful Brackets on the cresting on the front facade. I could actually see this house with a double gallery style Charleston Porch running down the side where you could sit out of an evening and enjoy the cool, hilltop breezes. There is ample room in back to add a 3 car carriage house and still have a great back yard. There is already a Privacy fence!

This 4 bedroom house is offered by Kathleen Guilfoyle ,513-317-9760, Park Realtors ,513-619-6300. Great "first project"for a new homeowner and you'd have us as neighbors!

Do you know of a great "Preservation Bargain"? A home that just needs a good owner? If so send us a pic and some contact information and we will feature it here.

Cincinnati Summers: How the Victorians Survived

As we all know it is hot right now in the midwest. Most of us are sitting comfortably in our homes in our air conditioning, maybe sipping a drink with ice from the fridge. We tend to stay indoors now with all our creature comforts and it makes one wonder "How did the Victorians do it?"

Cincinnati in the late 1800's was a very different city. people were EVERYWHERE, densely packed together in an urban city. OTR was Packed with people all scurry about on their way to work or shops. The city was well, 'filthy' thick black soot covered everything. Remember Cincinnati was an industrial town. You had tin smiths and cast iron works and they all burned coal or wood for power. Thick smoke covered the valley, the humidity was intense.

It wasn't a safe place either. Where Central Parkway is, built over the famous subway that never happened, was a canal. Boats carrying goods were pulled down it and being water there were mosquitoes everywhere and there was runoff from piveys, the water in that canal was polluted. Poorer kids who lived in OTR would as kids do,if they were not working, remember there were no child labor laws back then, jump in for swim when the police weren't looking. The adults, the men, that is, would stop at one of the many taverns that dotted the downtown for a drink.

If you were poor summers were long and hot and not very comfortable. If you were well to do however you had options. Believe it or not back in the Victorian day in Cincinnati it was not uncommon to have a weekend or summer house. The well to do wanted out of the grime of the city and many looked to the hills above as an option. Some would take the inclines up to neighborhoods above it all, others traveled across the valley to the hills of Fairmount.

These summer homes were opened up in the late spring and the family would "summer" up the hill in their cottage up in the cooling breezes and away from the soot and grime and the "rif-raff" of the downtown. The father of the house might stay in town but more often than not the day to day operations of a business would be turned over to a trusted manager or even the oldest son for the summer and the wealthy would relax the day away. The father might head out to the shooting club in Fairmount and of course the beer garden, while the lady of the house held tea with her neighbors people of 'equal station' , the children would go off to explore the hills often with older sibling or a servant in tow

It was a different era. At the end of the summer the curtains would be drawn and the door simply closed until the next "dog days of summer".

Knox Hill Project House: Weekly update

Exterior work continues with more painting . A key change was the change of the lower porch area from the brighter Yellow to a more mellow "Mark Twain Gold" which is our primary trim color. This allows the stencilled flowers, still in the brighter yellow to "pop' more as a detail.

We also installed corner boards and did additional caulking. I can hardly wait to get the brackets up. and other trim installed

Work continued on painting the stone foundation with "Del Coranado Brownstone" a National Trust color from Valspar. Although we are getting rid of it in the future we decided to put a coat of paint on the outside basement access doors so everything looks nice and clean.

Greg ran the chipper all day Saturday chipping up the collection of limbs we cut and the tree we removed the weekend before.