This Old, Old, Old House
The house that my wife and I bought back in 2002 is about 200 years old. We haven't researched it yet, but we believe it was built between 1800 and 1820. It still has many of its historic (and dangerously out of date) features, like original fireplace mantles and chimneys, a Dutch oven attached to one fireplace (which has a really cool brick dome), and wide pine floors.
How old is this house? When I went to the planning board for permission to replace the front door, one of the board members asked me if we were going to put the old-timey mail slot on the new door.
"Actually," someone else chimed in, "that may not be period. Did they have home mail delivery when that house was built?"
We've done a number of renovations to the house. We had 17 windows replaced one year. I've pulled up and re-lain the flooring and subflooring in two rooms so far. One of the first things I did was run new telephone wire. I built an entrance to the attic and laid some flooring down. (No, there was no way to get to the attic when we moved in.) We had a new hot water heater installed and a new chimney built so the house would safely exhale the furnace exhaust.
When you get into the guts of an old house like this--tearing apart a floor and looking at old and older electrical wiring running along the beams, for instance--you realize just how much the world has changed and how this structure has adapted to dozens of new technologies.
In 1800, there was no electricity or gas, so cooking was a very different experience with totally different demands on the house. There was no running water, so: no need for bathrooms. The chimneys were central to cooking and to heating the house. Windows were critical for daylight illumination. Even the shutters on the house, now purely decorative, had a purpose, as shown by the hooks and eyes that are still on them--covered by about 73 coats of paint and due for one more soon. And of course social conventions were different. Downstairs parlors might host a wake. The woman of the house and her female relations would certainly have given birth upstairs.
Now the house has telephone wires, electric wires, coaxial cable for the TV, metal ductwork, large flaming devices to heat both water and air, hot and cold water pipes, PVC pipes that connect to the town sewer, and metal gutters. The house is a cyborg: the wooden parts are worn, rounded, and organic with modern metal devices grafted on to keep it breathing.
But the technology under it all--beams, joists, rafters, floorboards, studs, lathe, clapboards and doors--and responsible for the house's amazing longevity, is wood: a miraculous substance that humans wouldn't be smart enough to invent if it didn't already exist. Treat it right, and it lasts forever. You can paint it, cut it, carve it, bend it, shave it, glue it, screw it, and make it almost any shape you can imagine. I have shelves full of every sort of blade and tool just for cutting and shaping wood. It flies and it floats. And, if you play your cards right, it is one of the relatively few things that actually grows on trees.
How old is this house? When I went to the planning board for permission to replace the front door, one of the board members asked me if we were going to put the old-timey mail slot on the new door.
"Actually," someone else chimed in, "that may not be period. Did they have home mail delivery when that house was built?"
We've done a number of renovations to the house. We had 17 windows replaced one year. I've pulled up and re-lain the flooring and subflooring in two rooms so far. One of the first things I did was run new telephone wire. I built an entrance to the attic and laid some flooring down. (No, there was no way to get to the attic when we moved in.) We had a new hot water heater installed and a new chimney built so the house would safely exhale the furnace exhaust.
When you get into the guts of an old house like this--tearing apart a floor and looking at old and older electrical wiring running along the beams, for instance--you realize just how much the world has changed and how this structure has adapted to dozens of new technologies.
In 1800, there was no electricity or gas, so cooking was a very different experience with totally different demands on the house. There was no running water, so: no need for bathrooms. The chimneys were central to cooking and to heating the house. Windows were critical for daylight illumination. Even the shutters on the house, now purely decorative, had a purpose, as shown by the hooks and eyes that are still on them--covered by about 73 coats of paint and due for one more soon. And of course social conventions were different. Downstairs parlors might host a wake. The woman of the house and her female relations would certainly have given birth upstairs.
Now the house has telephone wires, electric wires, coaxial cable for the TV, metal ductwork, large flaming devices to heat both water and air, hot and cold water pipes, PVC pipes that connect to the town sewer, and metal gutters. The house is a cyborg: the wooden parts are worn, rounded, and organic with modern metal devices grafted on to keep it breathing.
But the technology under it all--beams, joists, rafters, floorboards, studs, lathe, clapboards and doors--and responsible for the house's amazing longevity, is wood: a miraculous substance that humans wouldn't be smart enough to invent if it didn't already exist. Treat it right, and it lasts forever. You can paint it, cut it, carve it, bend it, shave it, glue it, screw it, and make it almost any shape you can imagine. I have shelves full of every sort of blade and tool just for cutting and shaping wood. It flies and it floats. And, if you play your cards right, it is one of the relatively few things that actually grows on trees.
posted by Hallovian at 1:28 PM
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