tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54295842410536804462024-10-03T12:54:17.302-07:00jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-84730465791467519052010-10-24T13:40:00.000-07:002015-10-01T14:31:30.456-07:00

And lo, on the third day of September, 2010, it was finished. A new roof, all walls reshingled, all windows repaired. A couple of weeks of painting and puttering followed, and finally, the scaffolds came down on September 20 to dramatically reveal Comstock House about as it appeared when the Oates' family moved in during Easter week, 1905. The old gal done cleaned up good. There's still

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-50096338404652081102010-09-12T21:42:00.000-07:002010-09-13T22:38:14.775-07:00

Visitors often are disappointed that we don't have a ghost story about Comstock House, so here you go:The old dark house was wrapped in a blanket of fog that August evening, the sky moonless. Although it was near the peak of summer there was a seeping chill. In the distance, a beast howled.TOP: Start of the roof tearoff. Notice the tarp-covered frames to protect the plantsMIDDLE: A rain of

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-57443854888337689422010-08-08T18:11:00.000-07:002010-08-08T23:48:56.248-07:00

Five weeks into it, the project already feels like ballet dancing while rounds of live ammo fly overhead.Our schedule called for almost everything to be finished in 100 days, a time table that was tight but allowed for ten days of leeway. But the wet spring pushed the starting date back to the last week of June, nearly a month later than anticipated. Worse, that cold, rainy weather also

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-39304950208879550802010-07-15T15:01:00.000-07:002010-07-19T12:52:20.536-07:00

After a year's planning, the summer of 2010 is bringing a new roof to Comstock House. This posting is first in a biweekly series to show the state of progress.The photograph below shows the status as of July 15. The old shingles on the west side have been completely removed, and new copper gutters are in place, protected with plywood against dropping accidents. Felipe Garcia of Ridgeline Roofing

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-75600330528153570912010-05-16T22:23:00.000-07:002010-05-17T09:39:47.823-07:00

Architect Brainerd Jones' directions were clear: don't paint any of the wood on Comstock House, inside or out. The interior was mostly spared the paintbrush (although one "expert" tried hard to convince the Comstocks that everything would look much nicer with a coat of white paint), but every inch of exterior wood has two, three coats, much of it now peeling away.Something has to be done to

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-1438777335407491142010-01-04T23:18:00.000-08:002010-01-05T09:03:19.306-08:00

The front porch certainly had seen happier days by the time we moved into Comstock House. Part of the floor was rotted and needed urgent replacement, the stone lions had crushed the stair side platforms (original 1905 redwood, too), almost all treads were split, and the entire step assembly was pitching forward away from the house. And, as we found out, that wasn't the bad news.Our original

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-70846660221245987462010-01-01T18:53:00.000-08:002010-01-02T10:08:43.553-08:00

In theory, the north side of Comstock House should have been easier to shingle than the south. Yes, more shingles would be required because there's more square footage to cover; there's no chimney or porch cut-out to break up the wall on this side. But that also would mean, in theory, that the project should go faster because there would be less time-consuming work on chimney flashing and

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-8892007868125061812009-07-22T22:58:00.000-07:002015-10-01T13:01:05.305-07:00

We postponed the eviction as long as possible, but it was finally time to ask the bees to leave - politely, of course. The first time we visited Comstock House in 2006 we observed that there was a thriving colony of bees buzzing around a cranny in the north wall. This was not of great concern; we planned to have the building tented and fumigated before we moved in, and the exterminators

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-56914051075718335072009-05-17T19:55:00.000-07:002009-05-18T08:05:05.030-07:00

Finishing the porch project meant that the largest job in the entire Comstock House restoration had to begin: reshingling the entire house.(RIGHT: Jim Scotchler nails the first shingle, October 27, 2008)I was anxious about starting the shingling phase, I confess. Despite months of research into shingle preservation treatments, the winning product was a dark horse that came up for

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-24298397230481153262008-12-31T20:26:00.000-08:002009-01-01T10:18:06.652-08:00

As work began on reassembling the porch balustrade, we realized there were pieces from two different jigsaw puzzles that we were trying to fit together.In puzzle box #1 was the design of the porch we had demolished a few months before. There were six balusters on the front (east side, on the left in the photo), and four on the south. At the corner, the top railings joined at a 45° angle.

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-25114162162106128782008-12-28T23:41:00.000-08:002008-12-29T23:46:33.095-08:00

Porch floor painting is not a usual restoration topic (nor very interesting), so here's the executive summary: We did it, we were happy with it, then Really Bad Things happened to it.First, the pre-prep: Scrape, scrape, scrape. All old paint that wasn't firmly attached had to be removed, and damaged wood should be cleaned up for repair. The tools needed are a metal (or firm plastic) scraper, a

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-79727342437729886042008-12-24T18:43:00.000-08:002008-12-25T08:52:24.258-08:00

With the porch floor completed, the next big job was restoring the balusters (the little columns in the porch railing). I expected the job to take six weeks, two months at most; but as the calendar drifted into the tenth week, I began to realize that I had greatly underestimated the project. It ultimately took over five months to prepare the posts for installation.My first mistake was jumping

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-34083670612223559092008-05-31T00:09:00.000-07:002008-12-24T12:54:56.209-08:00

Before the demolition: note there's no gap at the bottom allowing water to flow off the end of the porch. Only a few floorboards were actually missing, but all were rotting on the ends of the porch because the edges were unsealed.A view of the corner, showing the herringbone pattern of the old floor, as well as the uneven rail. When we pulled off the pine top, we found that it had been shimmed

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-51244759387703800072008-05-31T00:01:00.000-07:002008-12-31T20:53:16.774-08:00

Repairing the front porch was a project twenty years overdue. Helen Comstock was planning to have it rebuilt before she passed away in 1988, and in the years since, conditions passed from unsightly to unsafe. Some floorboards were missing, and others were spongy weak; anyone who sat or leaned on the railing did so at their own risk (actually, at our risk).The entire porch wasn't in disrepair

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-16010052335157567472008-04-08T23:26:00.000-07:002008-12-10T21:21:50.824-08:00

The very first restoration project was removing the three massive Arbor Vitae which had grown so large as to hide the front of the house. From the porch, only the scraggly under-branches were visible. And worst of all, the trees damaged the house by pressing against against the old wood trim and inviting rot. These may have been cute little trees in the 1960s, but now they were smothering,

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-57483053265108228262008-04-08T22:45:00.000-07:002008-12-10T21:21:52.495-08:00

Before we moved in, the house was fumigated for the first time in 101 years; although termites shun redwood, they were in the cedar shingles on the south wall, and may have spread further. Three pest control companies submitted bids; one of the contractors grew up nearby in the 1970s, and told us he felt honored to fumigate the place he and his friends used to call "the Munster house."Honeybees,

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-28813019703098306482007-12-31T15:48:00.000-08:002008-12-10T21:21:53.490-08:00

It certainly wasn't the most important repair of the year, but saving a single small attic window came to be a milestone in the Comstock House restoration project.It was clear once we looked closely at the quarter-round southeast window that something had to be done without delay. Almost no putty held in the century old glass, and wood on all sides of the spoke was no stronger than wet cardboard.

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-29784624585888789022007-12-31T15:21:00.000-08:002008-01-01T23:18:07.597-08:00

Long before we met, both of us were already musing about our dream house. In 2002, Candice wrote a general specification describing her ideas. It's interesting how many aspects of her design can be found in Comstock House; in essence, she envisioned a modernized Queen Anne country house. (PDF)

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-44861449049417495202007-11-17T17:11:00.001-08:002007-11-22T16:34:38.098-08:00

The architect's original contract specifications for Comstock House are now available for download as a PDF file (5.5 megabytes).

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-67215290895037262982007-11-17T16:52:00.000-08:002007-11-22T12:31:03.266-08:00

A full set of the blueprints for Comstock House are now available for download as a PDF file (29.2 megabytes).

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5429584241053680446.post-76211199164613880222007-11-17T13:31:00.000-08:002007-11-22T12:27:58.422-08:00

Photographs of the rooms as they appeared in 2006 can be found here, along with Florence Grover's obituary. Warning! Don't link to that page - it'll eventually disappear and be reworked into a discussion of the house in the post-Comstock era.

jehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07082396901549568248noreply@blogger.com0