Renovating Denver - One House at a Time

Building the Deck

The front porch/deck has been going up this week! The first step was to get the ledger attached to the brick face. Then the deck supports were constructed and installed. Below are some photos of the framing process, Tony used his truck at one point to raise the main support. One of the photos below is an upclose of the *awesome* awnings. Just kidding, I can’t wait for them to go, but this photo does have great detail of the dentil molding and the corbels, which are staying.

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We have been hammering out the plans for the second floor. Now that we decided not too finish the attic, we want to create a master bath and a second bath on the upper level. Here are some photos in the master bath area. The photos show a wall in the middle of the room which will be torn down. We are really combining a closet and a bathroom for this space. The bathroom will have a curve in the wall, which is great architecturally, but a bitch when laying out a bathroom. We decided to lose the master bathtub, in lieu of a large master shower. I know this might seem silly to do, but we’ll put a jetted tub in the second bathroom. There just isn’t the space in these old houses for everything.

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More wallpaper found! This came from the main staircase area on the lower level. I think the entire hall may have had this paper, we found some upstairs as well. I love the gold sheen in this paper and would love to emulate it somewhere in the new interior design. The last is a victorian wallpaper reproduction I found online, it has a similar feeling, although not totally the same at all.

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A Case of the Mondays

When I got to the house this morning, Tony (our friend/contractor) said, “We’ve got some problems”

Uh-oh. The plumber who started the project is in jail. For 18 months.

What can we do other than find someone new? Hopefully we can find someone who can pick up where he left off.

So, at least the deck/porch materials got delivered today! We chose GeoDeck for the deck, it’s a composite material that does not need maintenance. We ordered this really nice steel blue color, and I love it. The deck is pretty much ready to be built. We just need the mason to come and tuckpoint and prepare the area where the ledger will attach to the house. Some of the bricks were a little loose, and luckily, the mason arrived late this morning to set up his gear.

We will need an expert mason for several more projects, but at least for now he can start where the ledger needs to go. We are also having the mason “cut away” brick to enlarge the window opening on the second floor to accomodate French doors.

He will also brick up the columns for the porch and build a half wall around the porch. Precision is critical - so it was great to have the mason and the deck builder collaborate on exactly how it will be built.

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Planning the Inside

So, yeah… we’ve been working with an architect since October on planning the inside. We’ve had so many different plans, I feel my head is spinning over the whole thing. I might be jinxing us, but I think we finally have a direction.

At first, we wanted to finish the currently unfinished attic space. We saw another home nearby with a finished master suite in the attic - bedroom, office, closet, bathroom. That sounded fantastic and we thought we could do the same, but we soon realized the space was not there. Our architect suggested we raise the 2 dormers on the home to get some more headroom in the attic. Although this sounded like an expensive option, we were wow-ed by the idea of a master suite. We went through with all the drawings for this and had it approved by the Landmark Commission (remember the home is in a historic district, so all exterior changes must first be approved by them). We thought they were the tough ones. Turns out it was the zoning committee that had the problem. They wanted us to wait until the middle of April to run the plans through the zoning board (it was the middle of January when we found this out). So, not being able to wait 3 months just to have the plans approved, we decided to rework our inside layout.

Turns out, we probably won’t be finishing the attic. We may pull some attic space above the master bedroom to vault the ceiling. We may keep the attic space for storage and add a pull down stair system to access it. But no bedrooms will be up there.

The second floor will have 3 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms. We will pull space from one of the bedrooms to add the second bathroom (currently there is only 1 up there). This will allow us to create a master suite on this level.

Images to come …

Cool Old Things We Have Found During Demolition

During the demolition phase, we found lots of old stuff in the walls and ceilings. Tons of newspapers, the oldest dating back to the late 1800s… something in the headlines about the Spanish-American War!

1890s
We know the home was built in 1891 by the Fleming Brothers. One of them, Jessie E. Fleming, was also the first owner/occupant of the home in the late 1800s - early 1900s. We found some cool stuff from the 1890s, including these items that possibly belonged to Jessie Fleming. The first is a postcard advertisement for Chocolat Menier. The name “Jessie” is written in pencil on the back of the card.

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The singer booklet is small and has some additional inside pages with some great illustrations. These booklets were distributed at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Perhaps Jessie attended?

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This is a piece of paper hand written in pencil. It’s dirty, and doesn’t look like much at first, but when you read it closely, it looks like a budget for a house. Listed are items such as: bricks, nails, windows, flooring, fence, mantel, stairs, lumber, paint, etc. We are assuming this is the original budget for this home! Wish I could build this today for $1400!

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1920s
In the 1920, Sarah A. Grant lived here. We think we found her eyeglasses case.

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1940s and 50s
Some work must have been done in the 40s or 50s. We found a can of Drano dating to 1941. Also the bottle of wine has a stamp on the back from 1952.

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Our plumber found this tag on one of the old pipes. It’s an inspection tag from the Plumbing Department of the City/County of Denver from 1946. Max Kreutz was the inspector.

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