A series of entries designed to capture the ongoing adventures of NINA! See how we came to be where we are today, and follow along as we enter the new century of social media!
Page: 26
Now that we have the siding off, we’re able to have a closer look at some of the original architectural features from the house.
There were scalloped shingles in both gables, on the front and on the east side.
The existing front porch is modern – the original front porch would have been part of the wraparound porch that we are restoring. The gray band marks the beam that held up the roof of the porch, although this wasn’t the historic porch – it was historic, it just wasn’t the one built in the 1890s. The spots without gray paint mark the location of the rafters. The shot from the southeast corner indicates the extent of the second historic porch, which did not extend as far as the original historic porch.
Along the west side of the house, there was a door that was boarded up. There’s also an original stained-glass window on the west side, that I hadn’t previously noticed.
The side rear porch was higher than the modern porch, and there was a door to a second-floor porch at the back of the house that was boarded up. And there were decorative features above the second-floor windows in the bay on the east side of the house. It’s hard to see in the first shot, but that shot helps to orient the second extreme close-up shot.
And, sadly, we couldn’t ultimately find a new home for the player piano.
We hopped Mr. Bunny is soon re-united with his best friend.
It was just a day to dig holes for footings! Note, too, that the staircase to the basement door has been filled in.
While excavating for the new porch, our contractors came across a cache of old slate shingles. Given the number of them, plus how neatly stacked they were, these were likely extra shingles leftover after a new roof had been installed. These shingles were made from Pennsylvania slate, which means that it flakes very easily. It also means that the roof would have had a shorter lifespan than if it had been installed Virginia slate shingles. Who knew? Our enterprising contractors used the found slate to hold down plastic protection for the newly dug footings.
