Storm Watch 2011! (Red Hook Style)

This morning we took a bike ride...that there is fairway on the right...But last night before the storm everyone was out preparing their store fronts and windows:
(this place directly faces the water):
Dark and Stormy drink recipe...just in case:
I overheard a reporter saying that he didn't expect Red Hookers to evacuate...as they are the least likely of New Yorkers to do as they're told.
PS photos all taken by Todd

Salvage Score

We found this yesterday at the Iron Salvage place...perfect size for the basement door. We'd been looking so long we had been contemplating having one made.

I wish we had been able to wait on the gates to the rear doors--the old ones are so much prettier!

Super Mantis

Fighting early morning crime in Red Hook.

The streets are safe again.
Thank you Super- Mantis.

New Stair Rails.

Copying the neighbors....
Now they have to be scraped and painted, oh boy.

Bathroom painting: Done.

Five different types of paint later--and 2 coats each...except for the tub base which of course got....six.

The wainscot is a very VERY pale blue (called of all things "white diamond"--isn't that a Liz Taylor perfume? Very ritzy.)--the color which I of course agonized over...but

as my friend Lucy said: why bother--you could have stayed with white...
And a couple of details--an old brass toothbrush holder (thank you mom!) waiting to be put up--beautiful, no?

and one of 2 wall sconces

Just like old!

I mean, ...just like new (old)?

It's confusing, I know.

Today the welders came and put in old fencing--some of which belonged to the house and some of which was matched at the iron salvage place--and an old gate with newel posts.

It's funny--but looking at them makes me almost giddy.

They also make me feel better about the too-clean bluestone. Somehow it's all starting to come together...and once the beds are planted? Whoo Boy!

Later this week (maybe Wednesday!) they'll put up the salvaged stair rails. They were going to put them in today but the welder took one look at the condition that they're in, grimaced, and threw them in the back of his truck.

Narrowing it down.

So here is the 1869 Atlas, and I'm not on it. Sort of.

I'm the 14th lot on the block. There are 12 small lots in from Richards St, and then one big lot with apparently something on it which would have been where my neighbor's house and my house are. I wonder what was there.... (Hmmm I just had a thought. Maybe my neighbor's house-lot #13 was there and the place where my house is was just land belonging to them--that would explain the side door that we found in the basement leading from his house toward ours...a door to the yard?)
But anyway, that leads me to believe that this house was built sometime between 1869 and 1880...now I just have to go through the deeds at the historical society. I'm waiting for a rainy winter day...

The blog that has the links to these maps is called http://woodenhouseproject.com/ and she has quite a lot of good tips for research if anyone is interested....

A bit of research

I was planning on taking the day off today...whatever that means...and then I got caught on the computer. There's a new blog that has a lot of good links for researching the history of wood frame houses and I got totally sucked in.

It includes the Robinson's maps from 1886 (which I had already seen at the historical society first hand), and then the 1880s maps--and yup--we're on that one too.

For those of you that may not know--pink means masonry, and yellow mean wood frame.

Here's 1886

(I put a blue dot where the house is located on the full map...it's very small, and an arrow on the close-ups):

and 1880


I'm dying to figure out how old this place is really....

Yard work continues...

I don't know--to be honest this is not really what I pictured. Too new, too neat, and too suburban pool-side.

Maybe after the plants are in and growing over the edges it'll be better...or maybe

we need to get some fuel-dripping motorcycles to park on it for awhile.The concrete planter unfortunately broke into many pieces when they tried to lift it. We'll have to get a bench or planter to go across that back area--partly to cover more stone, and partly to prevent people from falling over the edge to the basement level...