Day 395

Well, the inner workings of the toilet decided not to function. :P In other words, the part attaching the handle to the plug broke. So after a day of taking the lid off and manually pulling the plug, I went to get the replacement parts. Not being able to just buy the chain, I had to buy a handle and the plug. Even things that should be easy, never turn out to be quite as easy as you think they should be. First I could not loosen the nut by hand...so off to the basement in hopes of finding a wrench. I found the whole set quite easily. But after bringing them upstairs, I find out that even the largest one is just too small. Now I know we have a larger one. But with us working on so many areas of the house at once you can never tell where a tool might end up. After not finding it in the basement or on 3rd floor I decided to see if I could get it to work with vise grips. Success.. :) It still took just a little bit, but I did get the handle off and was able to easily put the new one in. With the assistance of the girls (they held the float so the toilet would not continually fill with water as I was working) I started working on the plug and chain. It looked as if the new one should slide right on in. But getting the old one out was giving me some problems. It was attached with some pins to the pipe. After some amount of fiddling I got it off and the new one on. Attaching the chain to the handle was easy. Then after a few worrying flushes (the plug would not go down and cover the drain on it's own) I convinced the plug to shut again after the water had drained. YAY! I working toilet again.

Day 391

Well, our weekend plans to work on the plumbing have been changed as Jonathan had to go into work again this weekend. But we did make time to get the swing up for the kids.

Here you can see how high up the branch is that Jonathan is going to be attaching the ropes to. He trimmed a few small branches, put the bolts in, and tied the ropes all from this spot on the ladder. This is the first time we have used our new ladder.

You can see the kids are waiting and watching from one of their favorite play-places ?? They are sitting in the trailer, talking to each other on the walkie talkies.

Now it is time to attach the board to the rope. Ella can't wait to swing. :)

Melinda gets to try out the swing. Jonathan was actually the first one to test it out.

The seat is big enough for both of the girls to get a push from Daddy. :)

Day 386

I went downstairs to work on the floor a bit more today. I didn't get as far as I would have liked, I guess I have a few sore muscles from working this weekend. But we should be able to get the rest of it off yet this week.

Day 385

Jonathan decided to take the day off and work on the kitchen. We are supposed to send the dumpster back by the end of the week, so we wanted to see if we could fill it up. And of course there is always the leaking pipe problem. So we worked on getting the rest of the plaster and lathe off of the walls and then there was the rest of the insulation. Wow that stuff is nasty, mixed in with a 100 years worth of dust. But we did get most of that off and out to the dumpster. As we worked our way down the wall with the drain pipe it was quite easy to see why and where it was leaking. The crack was smaller the higher it was.

Here is our leaking pipe. We are wondering how long it has been leaking. We didn't notice it last spring. But then we weren't working on this area of the house that much.

After we got everything off of the walls, we were looking for what else we could fill the dumpster with. And not wanting to go up to third floor and dig out some more of that insulation, we decided to just work on the yucky tile on the floor. It was a bit hard to get a start on this floor. I guess we were just out of practice. But once we got going it was actually pretty easy. We got about half of the tile off before we stopped for the night. The floor near the south wall (and the pipe) was quite wet. But it isn't all rotten which is again making us wonder how long the pipe has been leaking. But we have found areas of the floor that are not in that good of shape. Once we get all of the yucky tile off and we get a chance to take a good look at all of the floor we will be able to start thinking about what we want to do with the floor and the rest of the room.

Day 384

Today while Jonathan was mowing the lawn, the kids and I worked a bit more on the kitchen. I was lowering buckets of plaster to them and they were taking it over to the dumpster. Then I knocked the plaster off of the last wall and took most of the lathe off of that wall.

This is the north wall of the kitchen. You can see that we have all of the plaster and lathe off of the wall and the ceiling. :D

This is the north-west corner of the room.

This is the south-east corner of the room. There is still plaster on part of the chimney and a little on the wall. This is the wall where there is a water leak so it is kind of icky to work with. But Dad and Jonathan found out where the leak is and and ALL we have to do is replace the drain pile. We are thinking of moving it from the exterior wall to an interior wall, if we think it will work. That way there will be no worry about it freezing in the winter.

And as you can see there is still quite a mess in here. But we are all kind of tired so I think the rest will have to wait until tomorrow or the next day. Once we get all of this out I can start taking the yucky tile off of the floor. Not sure I am really looking forward to that, but I keep telling myself, only three more rooms of yucky tile. Once I finish the kitchen there will only be two. :D

Here is the big pile of lathe. There is still just a bit more to remove in the kitchen. Now we need to take out all of the nails and get this stuff cut and bundled and ready for the wood stove. This stuff burns so easily it is nice to have it ready to start a fire. Hopefully we will have all sorts of bundles ready for winter.

Melinda and I dug up a flower we found in the middle of the yard and replanted it in our Fairy Garden. And Jonathan put up another line on my clothes line. :) Now I can do even more laundry at a time. I tested it out this afternoon, with the two lines, I can have three loads of laundry out drying at the same time.

Here is Melinda going around to water all of our flowers and plants.

Day 383

Mom and Dad came down last night to help us work. So we are busy again this weekend. We had hoped to be digging the bees and the honey out of the wall. But they seem to still be alive and doing well. :( This is not turning out to be the "easy" thing that I had hoped it would be. So instead we continued the work on the first floor kitchen. Jonathan and Dad knocked down the plaster and lathe while Mom and I carried it to the dumpster. When you are just putting the plaster in the dumpster it could take a long time to fill it. We are keeping the lathe to burn in our wood stove next winter. Soon we will be taking all of the nails out of the lathe and cutting them to the right size.

Here is how much that we have put into the dumpster so far. We have one more week to fill the thing up.

The afternoon was spend in town. We went out to lunch and Zeb had a friend's birthday party to go to. But when we got home Dad took out the chainsaw. It was time to cut down a big tree branch so we could get ready to put up a swing for the kids.

Here you can see the tree after we have cut the big branch off that would have been in the way of the swing.

These are all of the leafy branches that we cut up.

The big trunk pieces that need to be split and then we can burn them next winter.

And here is the pile of smaller branches we cut up when we cut off the branch. These will also be good to burn next winter.

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

• Story
• Discussion
• Image (4)

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

Font Size:

Default font size

Larger font size

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.

• 
• 
• 
• 

• Share3

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.