OLD CHIMNEYS WITH BIG PROBLEMS - DID SOMEONE SAY FIRE?
“Fire” is the last thing you want to hear when you are renovating a 115-year-old property! Lucky for us the fire had been put out a long time ago – but it was still really interesting to uncover the damage so long after it occurred. And to realize we were lucky that our old house was still standing!
The day after my husband, John, and I had tackled the the demo in the coat closet under the front stairs (where we exposed a wall of brick) we decided to start demo on the next smallest room in the house. This was the existing first floor powder room that some previous owner had poorly constructed in the original back porch area of the kitchen. I was more than happy to take down the plastic, faux-tin ceiling tiles. And the faux anaglypta plastic wall panels that were a poor imitation of the original wallpaper that might have been found in the original décor of the early 1900s. (I will write more on the pros and cons of “faux” or not to “faux” in a later blog).
Needless to say I was a little out of practice when it came to using demo equipment, normally I leave that to my experienced contractors. But like many other homeowners we were excited to see what exactly we were dealing with inside that walls. So John and I picked up our crow bars and sledgehammers (John only trusted me with the “mini” versions.) What we uncovered surprised even us!
Once the ceiling tiles were removed we got a glimpse of the original floral wallpaper and the oddly-placed chimney which must have been for the home’s original cook stove. This was located in an alcove off the kitchen and the original chimney had simply been boxed-in and hidden with woodwork all the way through the second floor. During the demo of the chimney in both the first and second floors we found that there had been a fire – fortunatley it had been mostly contained to the chimney area and the roof of the porch. We found it odd that the charred timbers were still there as evidence of the mishap and it gave me chills to think that our historic home had come precariously close to being a pile of ashes way before we purchased.
As with any older home renovovation the goal is to slowly peel back the layers and years of previous projects. We took our time, not only because we were unsure of what we would uncover but also because we wanted to save and re-purpose whatever we could. Unfortunately there wasn’t much worth saving from the existing powder room, except for the toilet. Of course the charred wood framing and brick had to go. But I did save remnants of the wallpaper for my growing collection. Fire or no fire we had plenty of other rooms to tackle and hidden treasures to find!