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Uncovering Beadboard Beauties

A new piece of equipment was recently purchased and brought into the Finch house – metal scaffolding. Assembled from a kit, this tool has enabled me, at five foot six inches tall, to work on 11 foot high ceilings upstairs and 12 foot ceilings in the entry hall. Armed with a short crowbar, a hammer […]

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In the Trenches

Two months ago, we said goodbye to most of the grass on our front lawn, and hired a professional with a trencher to dig multiple trench. Each channel had to be deep enough to pass plumbing and sewer regulations and running at a ¼ inch slope per foot toward the street hookup. Over the course […]

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Paint on a metal roof

One of the distinguishing features of our 1911 home is a metal roof with X stamped shingles. After getting quotes from roofers and historic home experts, we hired painters to coat the original part of our home with elastomeric paint from Acrymax. This product is designed to expand and contract, and will bridge hairline cracks […]

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Infrastructure and Insulation

March 13 – It’s been a few months since I’ve written about our progress on this blog site, and several friends have asked to share an update. This winter we’ve been continuing demolition work and it feels good to have old rotted wood torn out. The thing is, nothing is replaced yet. In December, we […]

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Where’s the Spiral Staircase?

October 31 – Recently we had a special visitor to the John D. Finch house – Mary Finch Fisher Tippett, a granddaughter of the original owner and frequent visitor to the home during the 30s and 40s while she was growing up. Mary Tippett lived three houses down the street on Horton and visited her […]

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Crowbar Sleuthing

October 29, 2015 Sleuthing with a crowbar – Discovering three windows and a door “Why the hell would anyone cover that up?” – Nicole Curtis, star of TV show Rehab Addict and Preservation expert, upon finding a spoked banister covered with drywall. These last three weeks we’ve been working in the back part of the […]

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Snake in rafters, mushrooms growing on floor. Another day at the JD Finch House.

This week’s torrential rains brought specifics of where the roof is leaking. We knew when we bought the house that there was water damage in two of the back rooms. But we found drips in three separate rooms and our measly two buckets we brought with us weren’t up to the task. We ran out […]

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Ownership!

Our Zebulon house – first day of ownership Sept 2015 October 3 – We’ve owned the house a whole two weeks and worked on it the past three Saturdays. The house is new to us and we’ve approached this with a sense of all the possibilities that may await us under dropped ceilings and mid-century […]

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Hello, John D. Finch House

Our blog of restoration and attempting to bring the John D. Finch House, a grand home in Zebulon, NC, back to its former glory. One house. 15 rooms. 4 porches. Where to start?