In the Heat of the Night

One of the features that sold me on The Big Yellow House is its two fireplaces.  While the attic shows evidence there are three fireplaces—one in the foyer, one in the living room and one in what is now the family room—the one in the foyer is no longer visible. While I would love to take a sledge hammer to the drywall (a clue that this is not an original wall) that engulfs the old fireplace and make it visible again, this is a project for some later time. 


Family Room Fireplace

Since winter is just around the corner, the time had come to start work on making sure we could use the two fireplaces we have. With little insulation and no storm windows, it can get a little drafty in The Big Yellow House.  Knowing we were willing to trade-off the ambiance and hassle of maintaining a wood burning fireplace for the speed and simplicity of a gas version, we did some online research about our options.  We then visited Roy at Tarheel Fireplace & Grill Shop in nearby Hertford and learned more. 



Living Room Fireplace

We settled the vented version and Roy helped us select two models that coordinated with our décor.  In the family room we selected a simple black box with a stationary glass front that was designed to look like it was wood burning.  In the living room we selected a much more formal option, a silver colored arch shaped surround that incorporated a coal bucket and was enclosed in glass. We must have seemed like we knew what we were doing because when Roy came to take measurements, he mentioned that based on the size of the living room’s firebox it most certainly had been designed for a coal bucket!





Installation was easy.  With the exception of having John the electrician install a box in the floor of each firebox, Roy did it all.  He cleaned each chimney, inserted one metal tube to bring in fresh air and a second one so the dangerous gases produced during the burn could travel outside, connected the units to the gas lines underneath the house, and he customized the existing mantle surrounds so the new inserts would fit snugly into place. 

 

Before

 

After

 













 

The only work Larry and I had to do was decorative.  In the family room, he freshened up the hearth by adding a fresh coat of black paint to the existing concrete slab.  In the living room it was more complex.  Not liking the brown ceramic tile that extended beyond the black slate hearth, Larry removed and replaced it with a more formal looking metallic tile and pencil molding we found in Lowes.   Then I went to work stripping the layers of brown, white, and black paint that had been applied to the black slate hearth.  While the hearth is cracked and discolored with age, it is much more beautiful in its natural state than it had been when it was painted to mimic marble.

Before

Replacing Tile



Almost Done

After

                                                                                  While it's only September, it was a bit chilly this morning so Larry lit the family room fireplace.  While we only had it on for a short time, we were delighted not only by how good it looked but by how well it warmed up the room.  As soon as it gets colder, we’ll be ready to enjoy our new fireplaces in the heat of the night.





Occupy Edenton

If you passed through Edenton the weekend of April 5-7, you might have wondered if the town had become the latest addition to the coalition of encampments popping up all of the United States earlier this year (think Occupy Wall Street, Washington, etc.).  Everywhere you looked there were tents.  Big tents, little tents, red tents, blue tents.  Tents with fences, tents with patios, tents attached to other tents.  And outside all of those tents, there were bicycles.

While the downtown area was transformed into a tented city, complete with mobile shower facilities, the “Occupy Edenton” movement was different than all the others.  This weekend, Edenton was home to Cycle North Carolina’s annual Spring Ride and all of those tents were full of bikers.  The kind of biker that is lung-powered, not gas-powered.  We had young bikers (the youngest being age 4), mature bikers (age 81), female bikers and male bikers (42/58%). The average age for this year’s 1200+ participants was 55. 

 

 

Cycle North Carolina is a non-profit organization founded by North Carolina's Department of Transportation and Department of Commerce's Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development.  Their first event was organized in 1999 and the location of their inaugural Spring Ride in 2004 was to Edenton.  The bikers have returned 2 other times since then and this year’s event attracted riders from 28 states and the District of Columbia.

Since this is a weekend event and not all riders want to stay in tents, the community offers riders an opportunity to stay with a “host family” for a modest fee which is then donated to the local charity of the home owner’s choice.  Larry and I learned about the event from our neighbors, Patrick and Jeanne, and offered to house some friends of friends that were staying with them. Unfortunately, those friends turned us down preferring to enjoy the “full experience” by pitching a tent on the shores of the Albemarle Sound in Colonial Park.

 

 The weather that weekend was chilly—about 50 during the day making cycling a dream, but down into the 30s at night making sleeping a potential nightmare. No doubt, those friends of friends might have been regretting their decision.  It was also the NCAA basketball finals, and those friends of friends had no way of watching the game from their primitive tent.  So Larry and I invited those friends of friends to share our satellite TV at The Big Yellow House.  To our delight they came by and together we enjoyed the game, a few beers, and stories of their ride.

 

This small town event is what attracted Larry and I to Edenton and we were happy to play a small part in making our visitors feel welcome.  We look forward to the next time Cycle North Carolina returns to Edenton and hope to play an even larger role.  Heck, maybe we’ll even get our own bikes out and go for a ride!

The Power of Molding

I love millwork. That’s one of the reasons I fell in love with The Big Yellow House. As the owner of Edenton’s largest lumber and saw mill, Miles Gilbert Brown was generous in the installation of millwork incorporated into the house he built in 1916 for his bride, Patsy Anne Chappell.

Every door and window is handsomely molded with medallion corner blocks. The foyer, living room, and former dining room are adorned with six inches of dental crown molding and there is ten inch baseboard molding throughout the house. So why then is the upstairs hallway so plain? This is way the hallway looked when we took possession of the house in April 2012.

The upstairs hallway runs almost the entire length of the house, about 26 feet.  The door at the end of the corridor leads to the attic, sometimes making passage along this long and somewhat dark hallway a little bit eerie.  Last week we completed our hall renovation cheering things up a bit by adding some fresh paint, new lights, a few travel photos and some colorful rugs.  And of course, some millwork.
 

Ironically, we found some unused chair rail in the attic.  It’s identical to the millwork found in the former dining room and we feel certain it was intended to be installed elsewhere in the house.  Gary guided Larry through the installation process, including how to make the wall look plumb and level when it’s not.  Whether or not the unused chair rail was purchased with the upstairs hallway in mind, we do not know.  But we do know, we love the look!    

 

 



I Had More Clothes Than Closets

Sammy Davis, Jr. has been quoted as saying, “I had more clothes than I had closets, more cars than garage space, but no money.”  That’s kind of how I felt when we moved into The Big Yellow House. 

Most historic homes are known for their lack of closet space, and our new home was no different.  We also had no garage, but that’s a different story.  And the money we did have was disappearing fast with all the renovations we were making.  All of the bedroom closets in the house were filled with my clothes.  So were 3 cardboard wardrobes—compliments of the moving company. Larry had taken over the linen closet and what should have been stored there was stuffed into other nooks and crannies around the house.

Yes, this inconvenience was my fault.  I had to have a bathtub in the master bathroom and the only way to do that was to re- purpose the closet in the master bedroom.  I had made my choice and now I was paying for it.  Within a few weeks, I knew we had to find a better solution.  I was tired of sprinting from room to room looking for my clothes. More frustrating was wandering around the house searching for where I stashed the clean towels, extra toilet paper or the first aid kit.  We needed a master bedroom closet, and we needed it fast.    

Since the nearest Ikea is 222 miles away in Woodbridge, VA we placed our order on-line and waited for them to be delivered. My siblings and their spouses (aka The Big Yellow House’s Renovation Team) were planning to spend the week between Christmas and New Years with us, and I had a project to keep them busy.

The boxes arrived several days before our renovation crew (I mean guests), and the project began in earnest by carrying the 9 massive boxes from the carport up the two flights of stairs to our bedroom.  Larry and Gary quickly removed the molding and capped the electrical outlet located on the wall where the closets were to be installed.  Jim began assembling the first cabinet. Needless to say, the project was taking longer than I expected.  Nancy and I got into the mix by assembling the chests of drawers that would go inside the cabinets. 







After two days of holding, screwing, and inserting part A into part B, the closets were fully assembled.  I gathered up my clothes and celebrated each time an armful of shirts was reunited with its sisters. The temporary cardboard wardrobes were carried to the curb and the linen closet was returned to its original purpose. No more did I have to think about where I might find a new bottle of shampoo.

Within a couple of weeks I found just the right crystal-looking knobs and the job was complete.  At least for now.  Ultimately, I’d like to close in the area above the cabinets making them look more like they’ve been part of The Big Yellow House for many years.  But that’s a project for another time.