Lucky duck

At least, I feel like a duck. We got all that rain on Thursday that cooled things off, but brought out the mosquitoes-- apparently my choice is 75º weather with mosquitoes, or 105º weather without. Can't have both. Then Saturday was looking clear and bright when the dog started freaking out. That usually means more rain. And not just rain. Storms. From Saturday evening through last night, we had nonstop rain, with a lot of thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure. It really battered all the plants.

So that's the duck part-- and the lucky part? Bit of a long story, so here goes...

I mentioned a while back that our neighborhood was finally named to the National Register of Historic Places. It's very exciting! I looked on the state's and the National Park Service's websites to make sure we weren't going to need special permission to make exterior changes. No permission needed, so I went on my merry way continuing to chose colors and whatnot.

And then it occurred to me that I hadn't checked city guidelines. We have one other historic district, and I discovered that it requires residents to make formal requests for any exterior changes, including color schemes. And get this: the commission approves these requests by granting a required "Certificate of Appropriateness." Jeez Louise. More dealing with the city. Shit. Shit shit shit. (Whoops! Language like that won't get me any Appropriateness certification, now will it?)

The thing is, I'm not worried about the historic color correctness of our choice. What I was concerned about was the consequences of the possibility that we may only paint the facade; and I was doubly concerned about the painting of brick, fearing that they'd tell me to strip it, or leave it.

I went back and forth. Do we just paint and claim ignorance? Do we ask and hope that we're approved? Do we do nothing?

I finally sent an anonymous email (I'm a pansy. I know this.) to the city planner. And guess what? National Registry is honorary only; our other district is concerned with preservation. No approval necessary.

Now we can paint and paint to our heart's content without the prying eyes of the city.

Whew.

Meanwhile, you can probably guess, the rain meant cool weather, but zero exterior work done at all. I unpacked some boxes of clothes with the puppy watching from the bed with a big stupid puppy grin on his face. He couldn't believe his luck, getting to spend all day on the bed.

See? Lucky ducks all around.

We're Bona Fide!

Our biggest news of the weekend, in my opinion, was that our neighborhood has finally been added to the National Register of Historic Places. I never understood why this part of town wasn't already on the list. Even as a little kid, I noticed that these houses weren't so much older than others, but they were old AND well-maintained. And as I've mentioned, the street used to be brick and that gave it an even more charming, old-timey, historic feel. Nice to know that we've been made an Official Historic Neighborhood. And we can still paint the house whatever color we want. Whew!

Our other history-related discovery is house specific. We started on the plywood ceiling of the screened in porch. We've wondered at various times whether that side of the porch was original. We sort of assumed that at least the screening portion was not.

So anyway, I was spraying the rafters with bug spray-- yes, I know it's bad stuff and that I am killing bees, which are important and dying and I feel like a bad human being, trust me. But they are carpenter bees. They bore perfectly round holes in the wood and continue those holes into extensive tunnels that can render boards too weak to support whatever they are supporting. Also, I seem to be particularly allergic to wasps/yellow jacket/big bee kind of stings. Not honey bees, just the big guys. So it's me or the bees.

SO. I was spraying the rafters and beams when I noticed this:


Ok. See above the beams? There's trim. So I know that at the very least, the ceiling's been dropped. And when I climbed up to see...
That is actually the rest of the NON-screened in porch. And the white splotchiness in the back, on the right, is the old decking of the foremost gable angling in. I could also see the eave of the rear gable sticking into this space. Basically, this seems to indicate that perhaps...

...were added on. It explains a number of curious things about the house, too. First of all, it explains the weird shape of the porch roof-- totally flat, then angling down. It also explains why, when all the bungalows in this town have a doppelganger, ours doesn't. And there are quite a few porches in our neighborhood that are only partially covered, so it would make a certain amount of sense that only the right-hand side of the porch, under the gable, originally had a roof. At any rate, the bottom-heavy, in-your-face columns and expansive porch that we love were in part a savvy addition, probably in the fifties, if other renovations inside the house are any indication. I'm just so..so...Oh, I'll just say it. I'm so happy the POs did this! How often do we get to say that?!?

This has also reignited another interest. When we first bought the house, I spent a while looking through kit house plans to see if it was from one of the catalogs. I really wanted it to be, but wasn't holding my breath. However! The write-up about our neighborhood for its registry listing says that the majority of the houses appear to be kit homes. Time to visualize the place sans half a porch and see what I can find!

We spent all day Saturday picking up the kiddo from camp and visiting with family, so Saturday was a wash (re: the house) and Sunday was devoted to the porch ceiling. We replaced some 2x4s and painted the less damaged boards with rot sealer. We ended the day a few screws short and with it looking like this.


You can see that some of the boards sag a bit. That's because there's no beam to attach it to. The beams run diagonally, which means we have to anchor them where we can. I've got a few ideas for evening out the seams, and then I think we're going to cover it with faux beadboard or some other kind of thin wall covering so I can stagger the seams and make them a little less disparate.

All in all, a good weekend. Sore, aching weekend, but an exciting one nonetheless.

History

After all the talk of my bathroom's birthday, I decided to revisit my research about the house's history. I'm not sure if this is common practice nation-wide, but in Arkansas, we don't get abstracts anymore-- we pay for title insurance. Yay for spending less money-- boo for not getting a detailed packet about the physical history of the house. At some point, I may shell out the money for this; and I will definitely spend some time in the library and county courthouse once I have the time. Maybe I'll take an afternoon to do so while the university is out of session...

Anyway, until then, I'm relying on the good old internet and a lovely little spiral bound book that a city resident put together about our neighborhood. He's published a few maps-- a late 1800s diagram of the lot numbers and a fire map from 1907. There's also a history of the 2 neighborhood schools and of the trolley that went down our street. He's also scoured the city directories and listed everyone who was officially listed as an "occupant" of the property address. Now this doesn't necessarily mean that a house was there, I suppose, or that it was the same house, but it does lend some interesting information.

For example, I do know that each house on the block occupies 3 (very skinny) lots and that there was a house on the lot next door by 1907, as well as a smattering of external buildings (barns, etc.) on our lot. At that point in the town's history, this was a little bit out in the country, so the development was mostly new. In 1922, the first occupant was listed as T.H. Brannan. I found out that he was the editor of the city newspaper. The property then changes occupants a few times and then in 1924 or 25 it's in the hands of R.C. Coffy, who was only a year or so earlier named the (operations?) Manager of the Light and Traction company-- these were the people who ran the trolleys and streetcars; the street car went down our street and was one of the big reasons that the area was even developed, since it was on the outskirts of town. I also know that the streetcars ceased operations in 1933. I wondered if Mr. Coffy got a raise and was able to buy a house in a new subdivision...And in a place where his work was able to provide transportation.

I understand that bungalows became popular during a housing boom in the town during the 1930s. Our neighborhood was a slightly upper scale subdivision, so I'm assuming it was a little bit ahead of the game. Also, our type of hardwood floors were becoming less and less available by the late 20s.

I also found out that one of the longest running occupants of the house-- from 1970-1990-- had moved to the town we now live in and passed away 2 weeks after we took possession of the house.

Anyway, none of this is probably interesting to anyone but us, but I am please with what I've gleaned with as little research as I've been able to do. HUD told us the house was built in 1940, but I think I can safely narrow the date to a 10 year period between 1922 and 1932. Hopefully a further inspection of the fixtures and a trip to the county courthouse books of deeds will get me a bit closer.

Update: I found a digital copy of the Sanborn Fire Map for our town. It was initially confusingly labeled; one version was the 1908 version and one was called 1908-1950. However, when I found our street, there was the outline of our house with it's distinctive porch, and a date stamp that read "New Sheet, Dec. 1924." So I thought I was in good shape. But then I looked at my mother's lot, and a house the same shape as hers was located on it, even though her abstract says 1949...Either it's a different house, or hers is older than we think...Or the date on the map is wrong. But since this is a photocopy of a physical piece of paper with a physical date stamp on it, I'm going with one of the first two possibilities...At any rate, I'm a bit closer. We seem to be pre-1924.