Magnolia House

A Few Before and After's

I've been neglegent in posting to our blog here, as I've been sharing more on Facebook this last year. Here are some before and afters of what's been going on the last 10 months...

Bed Room

Last summer we had our friends Matt and Carly Cross coming to stay with us for a few months, so we did a quick flip to one of the downstairs bedrooms. We painted the floor, repaired woodwork, painted walls, and added a chandelier. Boom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back Porch

We had a vision of steps cascading down onto a new patio, and we made that happen this last fall. The old porch was sitting on a brick foundation and after 100 years had its share of rot. Sitting on new concrete footings, the new porch has stairs to the side as well as steps off the back. The rails were fun, but the angles... well, in the end I was able to use some engineering skills to get the right angles!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Studio

This ended up being a year in the making, between resurrecting the old shed, laying a brick patio and adding a cover. It's a fully operational pottery studio now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back Yard

This has been three years in the making, from the initial clean up of Mr. Allmen's rock collection, demo'ing old sidewalks, pulling out pipes set in 2 feet of concrete, acquiring a couple of mature pygmy palms and various other plantings, refinishing a used fountain, running sprinkler lines, and laying a paver patio. We recently added a Jacaranda tree as well. It's starting to feel like an oasis...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sun Room

This room is our absolute favorite in the house. The Allmen's were good to us in closing in this part of the porch. We  live in this room, and so does everyone who visits us. At a party we held, I counted eleven people jammed in here. We replaced the aluminum sliders with french doors, addded flooring and repainted the wood work. We refreshed the windows with lace curtains, and you'll find us here every morning having coffee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Furnace

When we were buying the house, our inspector told us the old furnace had plenty of life left in it since they get used so seldom here. I got excited to sand of the rust and repaint it this fall. We custom fit some shelves and now we have some cubby holes for our shoes and gloves, as well as a more presentable furnace in the back porch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back Door

I couldn't part with the back door, but we didn't need a cat door. I spent a Saturday rebuilding the bottom of the door to install a new panel, refiitted the window, some paint and new hinges and we kept one of our favorite old house features; the sound of an old screen door going "kerslam" when it closes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's Next?

Well, we've been adding trees. 8 of them. 5 new Magnolias, a Crepe Myrtle, a Tulip Tree and a Jacaranda for the back yard. We tore out the front yard in November, and started to make plans for some water conserving plantings, some grass, and a picket fence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Special thanks to Curtis here, for helping dig all these big holes! Oh, and check out the irrigation tubes for deep watering. Yes, Oregonians, we have to water trees in California! More in another month or so!

 

 

 

 

Let there be heat

When we bought the Magnolia House, we had both our inspector and the gas company comment how our old furnace still had lots of life in it. I'm guessing it's pushing 60 years old, not exactly sure. There's just not a whole lot of need for heating or cooling here in Oxnard.

Recently the furnace pilot has been blowing out, so we tapped into the home buyers insurance that we bought specifically for the furnace. The guy came out, and had probably never seen anything this old. He seemed confused, and didn't even attempt to repair it, instead told us it needed to be replaced and that it wasn't to code.

Our insurance claim was denied based on "insufficent combustion air" to the installation. Funny how something that's been working since before I was born suddenly can't work because it's not installed to our latest ideas.

Yesterday morning I took the burner apart, cleaned the pilot light orifice, and ta da! It works great again.

Here's what a happy pilot light looks like.

I have since requested a complete refund of the annual insurance premium for our home warranty, along with the $55 charge to have the furnace guy do nothing.

The furnace fires up wonderfully, taking the chill off our cool coastal mornings. I'll bet the Magnolia House can get another 50 or 60 years out of it.

 

Three days closer...

Here's a chunk of the drain plumbing from our house.  100 years of plugging going on. 

Pretty much all the electrical and plumbing are now replaced!  We worked away through the three day weekend and made some great progress.

We reconnected the kitchen sink, and rebuilt the laundry room wall with new tongue and groove boards to cover up the demo'd wall that gave way to new utility sink and washing machine plumbing.

Today, Cynthia set up our bedroom upstairs.  We have just one room all cleaned up.  The others are still works in progress.

Oh, we connected the bath tub downstairs too, so we both took hot baths in a bathroom under construction.  A hot bath is a hot bath, whether you're staring at tile or studs.

The upstairs drywall is also almost done, but dust is still flying everywhere.  Our bedroom will be our "clean room" and get sealed off during the day.

Little things

The other night just as we were going to bed, we started pulling at the wall paper in the kitchen (it's painted over).  It was kind of bubbled up and we found the wall was wet underneath.  On the other side of the wall, the water heater pipe was weeping a little, just enough to get everything good and soggy. 

So Saturday I took time to go through the attic and under the house to see what challenges lie ahead.  In the attic I found four nine-light glass cabinet doors that used to be in the dining room.  Underneath the house I found why the floor has sunk so badly in the dining/living room.  Near as I can figure the cabinets that were taken out also had a column built in that carried the load of the upstairs.  I've seen picures of this design in other craftsman homes.  The net result is the weight of the upstairs pressing on the floor between the joists.  It's dented the floor in like a trampoline.  I'll be working up a fix for that.

Anyway, back to plumbing.  The drains under the house are all rotted, some are held together with duct tape.  Seriously!  One of the clean out plugs was missing under the kitchen so when the dishwasher drained, it poured on under the house.  I tried to unscrew a different drain cleanout and the pipe just broke off.  So at the end of the day, both cleanouts have temporary plugs so we can keep going.

I replaced the water heater piping so we're good to go there.  We cleaned out under the washer and dryer, added correct ducting for the dryer, added a proper ground to the washer, and cleaned the hose screens so the water will flow (Cynthia was adding water to the washer by hand to speed up the process last week!).

So we're gradually fine tuning the obvious.  Still very excited to restore this house.  It's already our home even though we haven't found our toaster yet...