Fits and Starts...and then more fits.

Myself, my family, and what is now feeling like a small army of contractors have begun the process of prodding our recently acquired and long vacant almost-mansion into a state of habitability. And while we've only just begun, I'm already sensing that the house has the upper hand.

That's not to say I view the house as an adversary (or my relationship with it as adversarial), but rather that the house and I are currently working across purposes. The house, left to it's own devices, would prefer to follow the path of least resistance and continue it's slow march towards entropy, disorder, and decay. I obviously have other plans for it.

I'm no physicist, but I know enough about physics to know that the way one combats entropy is with the application of energy. In the case of this house, that energy comes in the form of manual labor. So labor we do, often in fits and and occasionally in starts. Sometimes we take a step forward and sometimes we take a step back. Sometimes we win. Sometimes the house wins.

In practical terms that looks like this: after three visits by a very earnest, knowledgeable and understanding boiler technician we still don't have heat. We got very close on this last visit before a cast iron radiator on the second floor presented a fatal crack that shut the work down. If anyone knows where I can find a 58" vintage cast iron radiator, let me know. I'm definitely in the market. We should should be fine for now, but I'll probably need one by at least November.

According to the technician (and the gallons of water on the floor) this is a serious crack. 

Plumbing has been similarly contentious. Water goes through the house with great reluctance if at all. To hear the plumbers tell it, pipes will need to be run, walls will need to be opened, and drains will need to be replaced. It should take two people two and a half days. Oh, and that 40 gallon water heater? That's not going to be nearly big enough. "How many people will be living here? Five? Oh, you'll need 60 at least, probably 75." Fine. It's fine. I'll add it to the list.

I mean that too. It's fine. We had a sense going into this that we'd have to take the long view, and we are. We're moving through the process one step at a time, one problem at a time, and one fix at a time. For my part, I've long maintained that many of life's problems could be alleviated if we weren't all in such a relentless hurry. I suppose now is my chance to put my money where my mouth is. Chop wood. Clean up water. Repeat.

Of course it hasn't been all setbacks. A trip to Lowes in Cuyahoga Falls has us ready to begin the process of removing the copious amounts of wallpaper the previous owners favored.

Everything you need scrape wallpaper and then clean up after yourself.

The wallpaper here is no joke either. My wife did some research on the house and discovered it was built by Akron entrepreneur and wallpaper magnate W.D. Turner. Their family saga is pretty interesting (Spoiler Alert: Both the husband and wife passed away in the house.), but that's a story for another post. For now it's enough to know their support of the family business did indeed start in the home.

Advertisement from the 1938-1939 Akron City Directory (Hat tip to the Akron Summit County Public Library for making these old city directories available and online).

So, wallpaper is coming down, and it really is addition by subtraction. The walls are in mostly great shape underneath, and the finish coat of plaster is just so smooth and cool, it's almost decadent.

My dad and my grandfather were both plasterers by trade, and while I never followed in their footsteps, I have a deep appreciation for the skill and craft involved in the process. To this day I have kept some of the tools my dad used. It was that personal connection that made finding a signature from one of the home's original builders (maybe a finish plasterer?) inscribed on the wall beneath a section of wallpaper such a treat.

Pencil signature and date inscribed on a plaster wall in the dining room.

It's really hard to make out but we believe it reads R L Heusen-Der July 28, 1925 with W. D. Turner. We do know the house was built in 1925, so the date indicates the signature was added at the time of construction and likely with the owner and wallpaper baron standing by!  

Tutti making great progress on the wallpaper in the Tea Room

That's where things are right now. The house has almost plumbing and almost heat. We have signed documents that offer the promise of a new roof, and the solemn assurance of a fearless mason that he can turn the dozen or so pieces of ornately carved marble currently scattered about our living room back into a fireplace. And we've got a hundred year old rhododendron that is just going to be off the hook when it start blooming this spring.

This rhododendron is probably a hundred years old and huge. It's going to be spectacular when it blooms.

And me? I've got time; time and the patience of saint. At least for now.