My fireplaces and front Gable

After nearly finishing the library I really wanted to hit the project HARD.  I decided that this was the year I was going to do 2 HUGE changes on the house.  The first was that I was going to work on the front gable.  It had been far too long in a poor state and it needed to be done.  The other project that I needed to do was the chimney. 

When I bought the house the fireplaces were such a huge selling feature.  Sadly they did not work and hadn't for some time.  They were coal when they were built and not made to burn wood.  They were also blocked up.  I had the parlor flue cleaned a number of years ago and discovered that I would need to have the chimney rebuilt to have any hope of using the fireplaces.  Rebuilding the chimney was no small or inexpensive task.  In fact it was more work that any of us had planned on.

The chimney was NOT something I wanted to do or could to.  The brick was covered in wire mesh and the cement put over that.  It was in such poor shape that it required rebuilding from the attic floor up.  After getting it down to the attic floor it was time to try to clean out the flues for the fireplaces.  Both the flues were clogged with at least 16 feet of fallen bricks and just dust, dirt and bird nests from at least the last 65 years.  This was a huge task cleaning the flues out and getting all the bricks out.  In fact we couldn't clean them all out from the attic.  This meant going through them in the downstairs rooms.

Oh joy! Dust and crap all over my nice finished rooms.  I tried to tarp everything but you know fine dust makes it way everywhere.  Had to be done though if I wanted these things up and running. 

 

While the crew was working on the chimney I was working on the front gable.  The front gable has 2 huge issues.  One is that it has these beautiful 3 arched windows that were completely rotted out in the sashes and sill and needed complete replacement.  The second problem was that all the clapboards were cut in these awesome wave patterns.  When the asbestos siding was put on they broke off ALL the waves on the siding meaning I would have to replace all these hand cut boards.  Why can nothing be easy?

 

A few of these were in OK shape and I was able to use them for templates to cut new ones.

One of the boards I could use as a template.

We can also see that the middle arched window had been changed at some point and made square glass for an arched opening. 

 

So while I had a window guy building wood duplicated of the arched top double hung wood windows I began taking the old board down,  marking where the old ones sat, cutting new ones and doing wood repairs.

 

Starting to prime some of the repaired boards.

Old chimney going away.

Mock up of the first few rows of hand cut wave clapboards.

These I thought were cool.  The top is original and bottom is a new one I made.  These tin pieces sat on top of the molding of the arched window to keep the trim from getting to beat up from weather. I loved them and the old ones were a bit rusted so I made new ones matching the old ones.

 

Old chimney gone and the first few clapboards up on top.

You can see I also had to replace some of the sheathing around the arched windows which was all rotted out.  This was not easy to make the radius cut.

Taste of the first few boards up with the paint scheme and a new chimney peaking out!!

My new chimney is in and functional!!!

TA DA!!! New chimney and new wood arched windows.  OMG I can't believe this all happened.  My wallet believes it but my mind doesn't .

I am so so close to getting the front gable done and getting the scaffolding off the roof.  I have never seen the front of the house without scaffolding let alone finished.  I also have a functional chimney with two clear flues.  While I can't burn wood in the fireplaces due to the draw of the flue I can use them for something.  That surprise will be coming soon.  Just to get to this point amazes me.  A finished library, a new chimney, new arched windows and a gable so close to getting done. 2019 thus far has been productive and it looking oh so grand.