One another one of our projects, we are preparing to renovate and restore a ca. 1870 Mansard roofed house in Brookline. During some early site visits, we discovered that the house was spreading. Some floor joists were literally hanging on by a thread- they were barely in contact with the beams that were supposed to be carrying them. The third floor is particularly severe: the outside walls have pulled away 3-4 inches in some places.
It was later determined that not only was the house spreading, but it has settled about 5 inches towards the rear of the property. Sole borings confirmed that it was built on uncompacted fill. The best solution, it turns out, is to life the house, remove the existing foundation, build a new foundation, and set the house back down. During this process we will pull it all bactogether and try to straighten it as much as possible.
We did a similar thing to an 18th century home in Newton a few years ago, as seen in this series of photos shown below.
Comments? Questions? Snide remarks? All are welcome! We'd love to hear from you so please comment on our posts.
Mark Landry is the President of Landmark Services, Inc, one of the premier old house renovation contracting firms in Massachusetts. He loves old houses and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your renovation, restoration, or addition.
While most of the historic houses that we've renovated and restored have been well built, once in a while we come across a house that makes you wonder how many houses had these guys built. Such is the case with a Federal era house that we're currently renovating in Milton. It's a very large, impressive looking three story Federal. Our clients had owned it for about a year before we started the project. The scope of the project dictated that they move out during construction.
It was obvious at first glance that the house had some major structural issues. Some of the sagged 5-6 inches, most of the doorways were crooked, and the stairs moved visibly when someone used them. After taking down the lath and plaster we discovered that the builders had not followed some basic rules of post and beam construction. Namely, they hadn't used enough posts to support the loads carried by the beams that ran through the middle of each room.
To make a long story sort, when our engineer Mike Fillion had evaluated the house, he determined that we needed an extensive system of laminated lumber beams (LVL's), steel beams, and custom steel connectors. Further, the roof structure was so undersized and damaged by previous modifications that it meant completely framing a completely new rafter system.
Our lead carpenter Don Lagasse led the four month campaign required to carry out the structural work. He spent a couple weeks just fabricating and welding the custom steel saddles connecting the new LVL lumber to the old frame.
Right now the plasterers are on site. Check back later for an update and some photos of the interior as it gets finished out.
Comments? Questions? Snide remarks? All are welcome! We'd love to hear from you so please comment on our posts.
Mark Landry is the President of Landmark Services, Inc, one of the premier old house renovation contracting firms in Massachusetts. He loves old houses and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your renovation, restoration, or addition.
(This is the first in what will be an ongoing series spotlighting some of our projects)
It's tough enough to do a successful basement remodel in a 20th century house. If you don't take care of the water, you'll have a disaster on your hands. Now imagine trying to get good clean, dry space in the basement of an 1830's house with a fieldstone foundation.
Our clients have a lovely Greek Revival home outside of Boston. With 4 young kids they really needed more space. A tight lot eliminated an addition from consideration, which meant that the basement was the only option. Here's what we started with:
The first step was to install a system to prevent water infiltration. We hired Pioneer Basement to do this work for us. They installed a perimeter drain system leading to a sump pump and also also a membrane over the fieldstone walls which would direct any water that came through the stone towards the drainpipe. This system is shown below.
With the water situation addressed, we proceeded to install framing and mechanical systems, as we would on any project:
Before closing up the walls, we had Icynene insulation sprayed against the membrane that covered the foundation walls. The Icynene really took the chill out of this space. We don't like to use fiberglass insulation on any of our projects, but it's particularly important, in our opinion, not to use fiberglass in a basement where it can pick up moisture and allow mold to grow.
After insulating we installed the finished walls and ceilings (plaster skimcoat over blueboard), flooring (cork flooring tiles), a built in entertainment center, and other finishes. In addition to a great playroom for the kids (and a football watching area for their dad complete with wine storage), their mom got a space for her art studio. This historic house basement renovation transformed what was a typical dark, damp basement into a really useful, pleasant space for this growing family.
Comments? Questions? Snide remarks? All are welcome! We'd love to hear from you so please comment on our posts.
Mark Landry is the President of Landmark Services, Inc, one of the premier old house renovation contracting firms in Massachusetts. He loves old houses and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your renovation, restoration, or addition.
I've been fooling around with Google Sketchup in recent months. It's a great tool for helping clients to better understand and visualize the project. I've been using it to draw cabinets, model entire floorplans, plan a bathroom renovation, and more. It can be used in the shop to model each component in a cabinet or piece of furniture. Timber framers use it to plan every timber complete with mortices and tenons. This can really speed up layout and production.
Google offers it in a Pro version ($495) and a free version. For most people, the free version is perfectly fine. It's an incredibly powerful piece of software.
Comments? Questions? Snide remarks? All are welcome! We'd love to hear from you so please comment on our posts.
Mark Landry is the President of Landmark Services, Inc, one of the premier old house renovation contracting firms in Massachusetts. He loves old houses and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your renovation, restoration, or addition.
I had a chance to take a tour recently of the Nexus Green Building Resource Center in Boston. What a fantastic resource for anyone- homeowners, architects, builders, and designers- interested in incorporating green materials and techniques into their lives.
So what is it? Well, it's a place to learn. They have a hands on sample area where you can look at and hold samples of green materials such as resilient flooring, glass countertop materials, etc. They have a large resource library where you can browse manufacturer's catalogs. They give classes on LEED certification. And a very helpful staff that can point you in the right direction.
It's also a wonderful real-life example of green renovation. There are green materials and techniques used throughout the space so you can see how highly efficient lighting, for example, looks and performs.
Next time you're near Downtown Crossing and have 30 minutes to spare, check it out!
Comments? Questions? Snide remarks? All are welcome! We'd love to hear from you so please comment on our posts.
Mark Landry is the President of Landmark Services, Inc, one of the premier old house renovation contracting firms in Massachusetts. He loves old houses and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your renovation, restoration, or addition.
We'll have booths at two upcoming shows, so please come and see us. First, we'll be at the Traditional Building Show, March 12-14, 2009 in Boston. This is a great show with lots of information about old house renovating.
Then we'll be at the Residential Design and Construction Show on April 1-2, 2009. I'll be speaking on two panels at the show.
If you'd like passes to either show, please drop us a line at info at landmarkservices dot com.
In between these shows, I'll be giving a talk on historic restoration at the Captain John Forbes House Museum in Milton, Ma. This will be held on Thursday, March 26 at 7 PM.
- Mark
Comments? Questions? Snide remarks? All are welcome! We'd love to hear from you so please comment on our posts.
Mark Landry is the President of Landmark Services, Inc, one of the premier old house renovation contracting firms in Massachusetts. He loves old houses and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your renovation, restoration, or addition.