Day 381

This is an article I found in the Beatrice paper today. I was quite excited to read this. Jonathan and I had already considered adding our house to the national registry. We missed being part of this by half a block. We are just north of Garfield street.

Treasures of the past

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Posted: Thursday, April 29, 2010 6:00 am | (0) Comments

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Photo by Scott Koperski/Daily Sun staffThe house at 613 N. 11th St. is the only Colonial Revival-style house in the new 11th Street historic district. The style is reflected in the house’s elaborate wrap-around porch and classical columns.

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By Scott Koperski

Daily Sun staff writer

The Gage County Preservation Society held a meeting Tuesday in celebration of two Beatrice streets being declared historic districts.

The districts are both sides of North Seventh Street between Garfield and Washington streets, and both sides of North 11th Street between Garfield and Lincoln streets.

Laureen Riedesel, secretary of Gage County Preservation, said they have been working to get the two districts added to the National Registry of Historic Districts for nearly 12 years.

The process was a lengthy one due to the amount of history that had to be uncovered.

Once enough background information was obtained about the style of the houses and who built them, Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture out of Omaha began to prepare the applications.

The two applications, which were each more than 30 pages long, were turned in to the National Registry in August, 2009.

On Jan. 20, Riedesel was thrilled to hear that both of the applications had been accepted.

“There’s a lot of pride with the realization that it’s not just your imagination that this property is special,” Riedesel said, “Somebody else has looked at it and realized it was special, too.”

There is no cost to become a historic district, and no money is awarded, either.

Jim Spangler, Gage County Tourism Director, believes that having the new historic districts will bring more tourism to Beatrice.

“It is a known fact that towns that have more historic areas draw more people to the community,” Spangler explained. “It just gives us more things people who are interested in historic preservation can enjoy.”

Spangler has a walking tour planned throughout the districts. All but a few houses are occupied, but Spangler would some day like to be able to take tours through the unoccupied buildings.

The new districts could slightly increase property value, but Riedesel doubts that it will see much of a change, other than the fact that people may do a better job of maintaining their “special ”property.

“Ordinarily, sometimes people pay a little bit more attention to the property and may make more of an effort when others realize the house is significant,” Riedesel said.

She also pointed out that while some people will only buy historic properties, others will stay away from historic property because they fear strict rules and regulations with a lot of required upkeep.

There are other historic buildings in Beatrice, but Seventh and 11th streets are the first two districts, according to Riedesel. They are entirely residential.

Total, the two districts have 51 contributing buildings and 12 non-contributing buildings. Seven of the buildings in the districts are garages or other outbuildings.

For a building to be considered contributing, it must have a maximum of one major renovation that does not alter the stylistic integrity of the building.

If the property has two or more major renovations, it may still remain a part of the historic district.

Should the owner of a house now considered contributing decide to renovate it later, it would then be considered non-contributing.

Owners can get advice from the National Registry and other historic groups regarding how to make alterations to a property without losing the contributing status.

Riedesel pointed out that some upgrades are essential to make the house livable.

“The goal is to keep these properties viable,” Riedesel explained. “Nobody wants to live in a house that originally had no plumbing. You have to make compromises. Some of these houses are from the 19th century, but we’re in the 21st.”

The two districts will be named after their respective streets, the North Seventh Street Historic District and the North 11th Street Historic District.

Individual homes will be referred to by the name of the original builder of the house.

The properties build dates range from 1884 to 1959 and significantly vary in architectural style.

Building styles include, Three Queen Annes, three Colonial Revivals, 18 Craftsman style, two contemporary designs, one Ranch-style, Five Vernacular, one Renaissance Revival, one Minimal Traditional, one Shingle, one Folk Victorian, one Gothic Revival, two American Foresquare, six multiple influences and two primary influences.

Properties deemed non-contributing were not designated a specific style.

Two meetings were held with the homeowners to discuss the new historical districts and go over any concerns they had. Riedesel said that only one property owner took convincing to establish he historical districts.

“People were under the impression that being on the National Registry means there’s going to be lots of rules in place,” Riedesel said, “but actually, those kind of rules are ordinarily local ordinances.”

The event to celebrate the new historic districts was held in a historic house at 613 N. 11th St. to celebrate the upcoming preservation month of May.

At the meeting, owners of the houses in the districts were presented with a heritage award for outstanding contribution to historic preservation in Gage County.

While happy to finally get two, Riedesel hopes to eventually see more historic districts pop up in Beatrice.

“The preservation group is very excited to see this happening,” Riedesel said. “We hope that it’s just the start of the establishment of a number of historic districts in Beatrice.

Day 379

Bees:

Wow!

Today started out quiet and normal. The kids and I worked on our schoolwork. We had our lunch, and went to get some groceries. On the way to the van, I went to see how the bees were doing. The exterminator had sprayed them a few days ago. We knew that many of them were dying and hadn't seen much activity. But then there were a couple of cool (almost cold) and damp days. These are the days that we didn't see much of the bees anyhow. But today it was going to be sunny and almost 60 degrees, so if there were any still alive we would probably be able to see thing flying around.

Sure enough when I went to check, I saw some. But not that many. I had been hoping not to see any, but it was still looking like they were slowly dying. After we got back home we went into the Tower Room (living room) to watch a Bill Nye the Science Guy. Ella got up to throw something away, and came back to tell me that she saw two bees flying around in the bathroom. So I got up, grabbed the bug stray and headed for the bathroom. When I got in the landing room, I realized that it was a few more than the two bees I was expecting. So I got the spray ready and stepped near the bathroom. When I saw that there are around 50-75 bees buzzing around in a very agitated state, I decided that it was just time to pack up the kids and go to the park. One or two bees is no big deal but when there is more than 20, well, lets just say I was ready to get out of there...

On our way to the van, I look up at the area over the back porch (where the bees have been living) and saw well over 100 bees buzzing around up there. So over to the van and the park. While at the park I called Jonathan to let him know what was going on and I called the exterminator.

After 2 hours of playing at the park, the kids were asking to leave. Weird, I know, the kids have never asked to leave the park before. We drove slowly back home. I parked in the alley so that I could get a look at what the bees were doing. I could still see them flying around outside. I left the kids in the van and went to check out the bathroom. I was actually a bit surprised to see not one bee flying around. There were many dead or dying bees on the floor. There were also dead and nearly dead bees in the girls' room as well as the kitchen.

The exterminator is coming back again tonight to spray them again. Maybe even from inside the bathroom this time. Tomorrow is going to be even warmer than it was today. so I am really hoping that they are dead soon. They were less scary before we started to kill them. Then we would only have a few in the house, sometimes they were really thick outside. But now that they are dying, they are all over.

Bees, Bees, Go away, find some other place to stay...

Day 378

Garden research:

We went to the Botanical Gardens in Omaha today. If you want to read more about this check out Lisa's Place.

kitchen update

Here is the south all with all of the trim taken off.

This is the north wall, the doorway to the hallway. We have most of the plaster off of this wall.

This is the northwest side of wall. Here you can see all of the door that was hidden under the plaster.

This is the trim that we have taken off of the wall. We have it all labeled as to which door or window it goes to. And now all we have to do is remove the paint and redo the stain.

Day 377

We were getting a load of firewood delivered today. So today we started out by leveling the kids' bike shed with bricks against the house. It had been in pieces in the garage over the winter and now we decided it was time to get it usable again. All of the bikes have been under the porch since the warm weather. But we are going to stack the wood there again. Now the shed is full of bikes and scooters. We started to work on the little shed/container. But decided that we need to get a few other things done first. We did get it out of the trailer and went through a lot of things that we brought from Hickman...some of which just went into the dumpster.

Then up in the kitchen, Jonathan got the rest of the woodwork off of the walls. Time for destruction. We knocked down some more of the plaster, and carry quite a few buckets out to the dumpster.

We got our wood stacked. And I meant to take a few more pictures to show what we had done. But I am tired. I will try to get to that tomorrow.

Day 376

The Kitchen:

I took a bunch of pictures of the kitchen to give everyone an idea of what is going on here.


This is the south wall of the kitchen. The window is boarded up because the glass is broken. Both the window and the door look out onto our back porch. The strange looking black thing in the corner going from the floor to the ceiling is the pex water pipes that lead up to the second floor bathroom. The water pipes were exposed here. And without knocking walls down last year had to do it the same way. Now that we are working in the room we are planning on rerouting the pipe to a more normal way.


The door with the windows leads out to the back porch this other door leads to the stairs to the basement.


The door leads to the stairs that take you up the back stairs to 2nd floor...they go from the 1st floor kitchen to the 2nd floor kitchen. This window looks out to the west and to our back yard.


This is the north wall. The door leads to a tiny hall. In the hall, to the left is the bathroom and to the right the dining room and the rest of the house.


This is the ceiling. There was a bit of a hole here to begin with, but it became much larger when the 2nd floor bathroom caused a flood.

Today Jonathan and I started out by taking down some of the woodwork. This is a slow and difficult process. We have to be very careful not to damage the wood as we plan to redo it and reuse it. After we got the trim off of the north wall, I started to knock down the plaster. The kids helped to carry it all out to the dumpster.


This morning I was telling Ella that we needed to start knocking the plaster down to find Howl, and see what has been hiding. As I was knocking the plaster down on the north wall, I did discover something. There used to be a door here. Hmm... Yesterday I was telling Jonathan that instead of using that window as a door to the bridgelike passageway to the garage it would be nice to open up that wall there and put the door a bit to the north. So I find it very interesting that just where I wanted to put a door, I found one.


When they closed off this door, they covered it with chicken wire, and then put plaster over it. Wow is it hard work to rip this down. I am only half done and it is time for a break. Here is the pile of chicken wire that I got off so far.


The Bees:

Last night the exterminator came to kill the bees. When we got up in the morning we could tell that something was different with them. They sounded kind of strange. When we looked outside, we didn't see any of them, but that was quite normal for the morning. They usually didn't get very active until later in the day when it was warmer. By late morning it was looking promising, as we still didn't see any bees coming and going. The exterminator came by to check. He told us that he would wait at least a day before we tried to open up the wall. (We have to get all of the honey comb out or we will be having all sort of other bugs come to eat all of that delicious honey.) By the afternoon we did start to see some bees coming in and out of the house. So not all of them are dead yet. But the exterminator was going to come back tonight and see if he need to respray. But hopefully soon, we will no longer have honey bees in our wall, our yard and in our bathroom. Though neither Jonathan nor I are really looking forward to getting all of that honey out of our walls. And are quite concerned about how many live bees there might be when we start that fun job.

The Foundation:

This afternoon we had a foundation man come and take a look at the foundation on the north side of our house. The 130 foundation is starting to fall outward, and the mortar between the stones is starting to disappear. This getting repaired is the first step of getting the finish work done as there is a slight tip to the house in that area. He will be getting us an estimate very soon. Not excited that most of our money is going into this one job this year. But we will be glad that we can work freely without worry of how things will be affected by the shifting foundation.

Day 375

Today the first dumpster of 2010 was delivered to our backyard. :D A plan that is ever changing.... We had not planned on getting a dumpster this weekend. We were going to get the water hooked up to the outside. This would make gardening much easier. We were all getting tired of carrying buckets of water down from 2nd floor. That is how the day started out. Jonathan was in the basement checking things out and starting to remove the old pipe. When the washing machine started to drain the water and he was there for the full sound and sight of the water leaking. So we changed plans midmorning. There has been a bit of a water leak for months now, down in the first floor kitchen and into the basement. But with the cold and freezing we chose not to worry about it at the time. But decided that today was the day that would change.

Over the last month or so, I had started to empty out some of the boxes into the cabinets in the kitchen, but now I had to put all of that back into boxes. :P So much for moving out of Box World. Now the dining room is again filled with boxes.

The first thing in the dumpster was the cabinets from the first floor kitchen. Those were some heavy things. It is great that we can just drop things off of the kitchen porch. Tomorrow is going to be filled with knocking down plaster and lathe. Which will hopefully lead to finding where we need to work on the pipes.

This wall had cabinets on the brown area as well as over the door and along that wall. There was also counter and sink along this wall. We took all of it out and put it in the dumpster. Then just for fun I knocked down a little of the plaster to expose the lathe you see here.


The first small pile of plaster waiting to be taken out to the dumpster.

The dumpster a couple of hours after it was delivered. These are all of the kitchen cabinets.

After the work in the kitchen we put a cable on our clothesline and hung out a load of laundry.

It was a busy day. Jonathan finished by mowing the lawn. Then before quitting for the night, we put some wire screen up in the ceiling where the squirrel has been coming through. At least he won't got there, but I am sure there are other places that he can make it across.

The bee-man was here while Jonathan was mowing. He said that he wouldn't be able to move them (he was hoping to take our honey bees) so instead tonight he will exterminate them. We are going to be so happy not to have those bees buzzing around outside and even more happy not to have them in our bathroom. :D Of course this mean more work and a bit more change...we will have to get all of that honey out of our wall or something else will just come to take the place of the bees. So I guess that might be what we are working on tomorrow.

Day 374

Today I got a bit of organizing and moving of furniture in the Tower room. We got the computers set up in the tower. We also got the piano moved upstairs. I think we are going to like this new configuration.


The east side of the Tower room. This is where our dining table used to be. Now we have a piano and computer area. :D

Day 373

Squirrel time:

The kids and I were sitting down to lunch, and all of a sudden a squirrel ran across the ceiling from the north side (the exterior wall) of the room to the south (the ceiling above the girls' room). We have insulation running over just half of the ceiling.

So the squirrel was able to run on that until just over the table. Where he jumped from the insulation to some of the ancient black electrical wire that we have not yet cut out. Then he ran on that until he came to the girls' room. That was a bit of excitement. I was waiting for it to return during the rest of the meal, but he did not.

Day 372

Time to rearrange...

Now that it is warmer, we are starting to reclaim the landing room. This was a mostly unheated room during the winter months. But now we are going to start using it again. We have put up a temporary wall in that room. This is to give Zeb a small room of his own (I think he is happy to be moving out of the girls' room.) and the other half of the room will not be our dining room. It will be very nice to not have to carry the food so far from the kitchen to eat. Zeb helped me to take the table apart and move it in to the new dining area. After our first meal in the new dining room, I know that I am going to really like this.


The new dining area in the Landing room.


Here is a peek at Zeb's temporary room behind the bookshelf wall.

This move has also made a bunch of extra room in the tower (living) room. Soon I will be bringing up some more of the things that we have been missing over the winter.