New to the forum with an old house!

[catperson]

My experience with contractors is that they always have two or three jobs going at once, and that is the reason they do not show up for 3-4 days at a time--they are working on another project (not that they will tell you that). And when they are working on your house, someone else is going 3-4 days without the crew at their house. So I don't think the contractor misjudged you; I think he and his crew were off working on another project. We have worked with several contractors, and they have always done that to us. We have decided this is just normal operating procedure around here, at least.

[Hoosier Foursquare]

As far as the pictures go, we were blessed to have been able to get our hands on those. The original listing agent from three years ago had a file folder of old photocopies of those pic's. We have also had other people in the community that have an interest in the house give us newspaper clippings that pertained to it as well. Very nice people around here!

That was sort of what I figured prior to the owner explaining his misjudging me. I found out that they were in the middle of another "old house" remodel, a newer remodel w/ an addition and a commercial job replacing metal roofing and siding on an aluminium/metal smelting operation.

So......I still come back to the point of: It's ok for you to be 3 MONTHS behind, is it ok if I pay you in 3 MONTHS after the work is complete?

I come from a military background. After 20 years in the Navy some might consider me "rigid" when it comes to certain things. I retired last July as Chief Petty Officer so I have a little bit of experience with planning, details and timelines. I also have experience with things going wrong and timelines getting modified "always flexible" was a mantra commonly heard. But, I have a real problem when you stand with another man and shake his hand with a promise made (multiple times) and have those promises fall through with not so much as an explanation or a phone call, especially when you have had talks about the worth of a handshake and how much it means to both parties.....

I talked with him last night prior to his crew retiring for the day and he made mention of how far out of pocket he was on this job and that he was still losing money as we spoke. Seriously, I don't like to hear that anybody is losing money. I'm not uncaring or spitefull. But, he has been in this business for probably around 30 or so years and comes from a multi-generational construction family. In my mind if the job had of been planned & quoted properly in the beginning he wouldn't be so far out of pocket. Just my 2 cents.

[Kansas. 1911.]

We're an Army community here. I am so fortunate to have one of the few contractors who does one job at a time. The only thing he might do is leave for a bit to bid another job, but he will keep two crew members on site so the work never stops.

Are you still thinking you will move in this weekend? We want to know all.

[tudorrevival]

Lovely house, Hoosier! I am a big fan of foursquares -- they have great floor plans and their exteriors look solid and appealing. Welcome and please share more pictures with us.

[Hoosier Foursquare]

Welp, we didn't move in this weekend and probably won't be for another week or so. My GC is "pretty much" out of the house with only a few things left for my cabinet guy to do. Install pulls & knobs, a few drawer heads and a few small trim jobs.
My big focus now is painting. I have a good friend that has been professionally painting for 30 years and is semi-retired who is helping me out. He estimated that I had about 10 working days of trim painting alone! After the drywall was all up and all other walls were ready, he helped me prime and paint the ceilings and first coat on the walls which was a great help. All I have left trim-wise is another coat on the Parlor/Living Room crown molding, Laundry Room Windows (x3) and the crown molding in my daughters room. All in all it should only take me about a half of a day to accomplish that then it's on to the final coat of paint on all walls. Hopefully I should have that wrapped up sometime next week or so. I really want to get it painted out prior to turning my 3 and 2 year old boys loose inside of their new-old home!

The house had a mixture of wallpaper, wallpaper borders, metal tile and paint. We now are 100% paint due to the fact that neither of us like wallpaper too much! All of our paint is from the Sherwin-Williams Historical Collection. We were in the process of looking at different color schemes and paint colors when we found out that they were having one of their semi-annual 40% off sale promo's. We were ready to paint and having a bargain hunter (and smart shopper) for a wife we ended up picking all of our colors 18 hours prior to the sale ending! We only ended changing one room color and might change one other but for such little notice and time I think we are pretty happy with what we picked.

Prior to this, I hadn't really been to concerned about what type of paint I used. All I knew that "one coat coverage" was a marketing scheme and Lowe's brand stuff was just fine. My painter buddy scoffed at my choice and turned me onto Sherwin-Williams and I'm glad he did. It's far superior to anything I have used to date. I've used Dutch Boy, Valspar, etc. and the only other paint that I like using better than those was Porter. But, Sherwin paint goes on soooo smooth and easy and can be bought in low VOC. It is pretty spendy though. At $52 a gallon for Duration semi-gloss trim paint, I won't be throwing any away! I think I ended up spending about $1200 on all of my paint & primer and $0 on labor.

[Hoosier Foursquare]

I am going to make an attempt to share some pictures of the house in a somewhat logical order starting with some before pictures. Unfortunately I don't have a ton of before but here goes. When you first walk up the limestone steps of the house you greeted by a large porch that wraps around the right side of the house. The front door is about 7 1/2 feet tall, made out of oak and has 6 panes of beveled glass. To the left is the original electric doorbell. It took me about 3 weeks to realize that the plate with the doorbell on it is engraved with the original owners initial and last name!

The foyer is all oak and mostly original with the exception of the basboard radiator which was added sometime in the early 50's. The main staircase was in pretty good shape except for the tread on the 2nd rounded step was coming loose and sagging and the veneer front for both steps was delaminating. The stairs also came complete with a vintage stair lift that we think was from the 40's. It occupied about half of the width of the stairs and right from the start was destined to be removed so that we could reclaim the original look of the stairs.

The first thing, other than the all-oak woodwork, that we noticed was the newel post lamp. It's a bronze figure of a young girl playing tennis. Unfortunately the tennis racket is long gone but I have plans of finding one/making one. For now she is holding a small American Flag in her hand!

[Hoosier Foursquare]

I've attached a picture of the "tooling" on the limestone facade. It's called "6 Cut" meaning 6 horizontal cuts/grooves per inch. Like I mentioned previously, it's a pretty unique tooling method. We still have a bunch of large and small Limestone companies, quarries and mills in our county and I have talked to just about all of them to see if they know anything about the house or the stone and all of them had something to contribute either concerning the actual tooling method and also the care and feeding of limestone facades.

Also, some pic's of the foyer and stairs.

[Hoosier Foursquare]

More of the foyer.

[Hoosier Foursquare]

More of the staircase.

[cberhomengarden]

Thanks for the photos!!
Beautiful wood.
That is one cool newel post lamp! I love it!

I also think the chair lift is kinda neat, although I can see wanting to make more room on the stairs if nobody in the house currently needs it. I'd be tempted to store it somewhere for the future. Although that could just be my pack rat tendencies.

Can't wait for more!