I know this is going to be hard for some to believe, but, at one time, things were made here in America.

Originally posted 2015-05-21 21:52:13.

This house stood in the middle of cornfield… with not a single tree in sight. Her yard was not much more than dusty Virginia red clay. And that same clay served as the cement between the foundation and chimney stones.

The house was so tall… I guess because of the ten foot ceilings on both floors, which sat upon an elevated English basement. Or maybe it just appeared tall as it was the only thing taller than the corn.

All that remained of this old home, other than the masonry, was the framing, siding, and metal roof. Everything else had long ago been removed. “Stolen” the land owner told me.

I’ve never seen a more parched structure.
She had baked in that field for a couple hundred years.
Her wood was almost brittle to the touch. It would practically crumble in my hand.

Old houses each have their own character don’t they?

Originally posted 2015-05-20 23:33:29.

Near the highway and unloved this late 1700’s home was purchased by someone out of the area and they hired me to document this house, carefully take her down, and then ship the house to where someone else would put her back up.

I never heard any follow up reports, nor did I ever see any finished photos, but from the efforts the owner put into it this house in the beginning stages of her salvage, I choose to believe that she once again stands as proud as she did the day she was new.

Originally posted 2015-05-20 13:07:49.

We once restored a late 1700’s home in Orange, Va.

I had never seen a house design like this before, nor have I since.

Stately and proud, she is.

We replaced the siding on this house with meticulously replicated materials and painted it in it’s exact original color.

We scraped old paint off of things. We carefully patched holes. We re-glued and re-nailed things that were loose.

The owner of this home was a pleasant, private, fellow… one who requested that a minimum of photos be taken, so I’ll stop today with this one.

This historic restoration in comparison to most of my other projects was routine. Everything went smoothly, no great tales of conquering adversity to share. We simply showed up to a mess of a home, and left with one ready to take on the next couple of centuries.

Originally posted 2015-05-19 13:59:57.

I would have loved to have salvaged this old mill and built a home for myself out of it. She had plenty of roof leaks and spots of decay here and there.

All of her machinery and a lot of her features, from windows to flooring, had long ago been salvaged but her heart was true and her frame was incredible. The farmer (who owned her and who stored his hay within her) and I could never agree on a price.

Originally posted 2015-05-17 13:33:47.

Here we have a precious old red barn, whose condition frightened me so much that I passed on salvaging her.

I have restored buildings is worse condition than this before, but over the years I’ve learned to trust my feelings… and here they were telling me to stay away.

Originally posted 2015-05-16 16:42:17.

A day in my life… part 1

I’ve owned my own building firm for 26 years now (I’ve been swinging a hammer for over 40 years). The name of the company is Blue Mountain Builders… you can look us up if you are ever interested.

Our niche has been building new homes, in a traditional style and often using materials, from old homes, or other vintage structures, that are in jeopardy of being lost. Often we have moved entire homes and rebuilt them.

In the process we have done our share of restoring historic homes. It comes with the territory. To me it’s not as much fun as starting from scratch, but we sleep well at night knowing we’ve helped preserve another old gal.

The greatest teacher that I have ever had has been the old homes that I have touched and explored.

As you may know I have been going through boxes of photographs that I have here in my office, my life’s work, and I’ve been sharing a lot of my completed projects with you here on FB, but in the process, I’ve been building up quite a pile of old homes that I have explored over the years… structures that have taught me lessons, that have impacted me, but yet buildings that I had no further involvement with.

For me they were “here today, gone tomorrow”.

Please bear with me over the next few days as I lower the pile of these photos of “a day in my life” buildings. They are just too precious to pass over and not share. I promise I’ll get back to some of my finished work when done.

Maybe, these coming photos will have something to share with you if you look closely.

Keep in mind that I have explored hundreds of these places. They have all impacted me deeply. Maybe, that is why I need the therapy of sharing my career with all of you.

God bless you for listening. 🙂

Originally posted 2015-05-16 15:54:18.

The only thing more attractive than an old barn frame is the Virginia countryside.

So, to finish up the story on this old frame…

We did safely jack the building up and we put proper supports under her. We then went ahead and applied all the stress skin panels and “dried the house in”. We declined the offer to finish the house. Another builder came in and finished the project up and proudly to this day brags of his skills at timber framing.

And the builder who originally put this frame up? He’s still in business, and I still get calls to come fix what he started… but now I decline them all over the phone.

Some may ask how do you find a good builder, and avoid the bad ones?

Well, don’t read any of those articles that start out with… “Ten steps to getting a good contractor”

Do spend time at building supply places and talk to the old guys behind the counter. Most of them know what is going on.

Originally posted 2015-05-16 13:31:47.

The county building inspector had taken a look at this structure (that another builder had put up) and promptly condemned the building site. He recommended that the building be taken down and then rebuilt correctly.

He placed a work stoppage on the house… the builder quit… and the owner fired the builder… I’m not certain of the exact order of these events, but that’s the story.

The building inspector said that he knew of one person who might be able to fix the situation and that would be… me.

Originally posted 2015-05-16 13:11:31.

I could have easily doubled the size of my company over the years just by taking on all the offers of repairing and completing the shoddy workmanship of others.

But, there is little satisfaction to be had from cleaning up messes.

I have also found that folks that have been done wrong can no longer trust a builder. It’s hard enough just restoring a home, without the burden of restoring anothers faith in humanity.

Here’s an antique timber frame barn that was being erected by another builder. That builder put this entire frame up with no structural support underneath it. The entire weight of this structure was bearing on nothing but plywood which was either between floor joists, or suspended beyond any joists.

It was amazing that this beautiful old barn frame was still standing and hadn’t made a quick trip to the basement.

Con’t on next post…

Originally posted 2015-05-16 12:32:18.