From log house to farmhouse. Farmhouse to townhouse. Townhouse to apartment house. Apartment house to crack house. Crack house to our house. Our house to our home.
So if you need a place to stay while visiting Dayton, Ohio or live here, have family visiting and don’t want to tidy your place. This may be a good choice.
Back in December 2005 we bought an old farm bell. It had been sitting in my basement for 15 years. I finally put it to use last spring. I built this in the back yard.
When I rebuilt the bulk head I was smart enough to equip it for a future electric socket and line out to the yard. So there is an outdoor socket box attached to one of the legs. When we ring the bell, our friends can hear it 4 blocks (1/2 mile) away.
One of the joys of this place has been anticipating future needs years in advance.
Other than this I got another room in the basement re plastered over winter and spent most of last year renovating my old residence that got trashed several years ago so that I can sell it this year. I will post pictures later this year of that renovation.
There is what really appears to be an enclosed porch at the back of the house. Helen used to have a clothes dryer back there and a large cupboard on castors. There is also a built in set of cabinets. I have these "before" photos.
I don't think anything major has been done with this room since the 1930s. What's more, the room has no insulation other than some blown in rock wool in the flat part of the ceiling.
Last year I got the wood walls painted flat white but the wife wanted the walls insulated. That meant removing most of the drywall that was installed in a piecemeal manner back in the day. When the drywall was removed it revealed a roof leak that was going to have to be dealt with. Now I don't know which I hate more, roofing or plumbing but I had to deal with the issue.
This roof still has the original cedar shakes under ..... wait for it ..... four layers of shingles! I don't want to have to haul sheets of 8' X 4' plywood up a ladder so I have decided to strip the roof down to the original shakes and put a metal roof over those.
For anyone who cares, on election day I won in a local contested primary to run for county commission. The next day, to celebrate, I started to tear off the roof at the back of the house!
It took two days to get the shingle off and another day to get this far. Then it rained for several days.
Those bags left over from filling the wood pellet stoves sure came in useful this year. On the rainy days I went inside and installed insulation and drywall. Then smoothed out the joints.
As of today the roof now looks like this.
Only now I have to do the next section above the attic room where we have an existing roof leak. So I just need three consecutive days without rain to remove shingles on one half of the roof and install tar paper. These are the special attachments for my boots that I had to buy just so I could stand on the metal roof.
And here is the mudroom before painting the remaining walls and door white.
I think Helen would like the improvements to her house.
Here is my second rant about the City of Dayton's Building Services Division and their total lack of professionalism and their inability to communicate effectively with their customers. On June 10th I received the following document from the city with the attached photographs. This is for a rental property that I own that is occupied by a widow and her three children. She was widowed a little over a year ago.
The picture shows the front of the house and the area between the house and the adjacent vacant house. Within two days I was over there ripping the ivy off the walls and pulling up weeds. I took the brush to the City landfill site and went home. Then a month later I get the following bill from the City. Ignore the wife's handwriting and see if you can determine what it is for ...
It clearly states the due date for me to pay the City $75 for an unknown previous balance is August 15th but then around the 1st of August I get the following.
A court order. The reverse states that I can pay a fine and avoid the court. You can see that they sent 12 pictures to the judge but I only get to view one of them and it is from the back alley. I can't read the handwriting very well but nothing about the back of the property was indicated in the June notice. I went over to the house and cleaned up the mess. My tenant had not cut the grass since her husband died. For one month this winter the City trash collection did not empty her trash which may have been retaliation against me for this post.
So she had placed her garbage along the garden path and animals got to it. Anyway, I cleaned it up and placed a pile of brush on what used to be raised beds in the back yard. I stacked some cut wood at the back of the property and attempted to exercise my abatement option. I called to find the status of that option on the morning of August 5th and again on August 10th. They left a message for me to call them back at 4:50 PM on August 11th. The court case being the next day. When I called in the AM nobody answered the phone. Here is what you will find at the Clerk of Courts site. I was being charged with a criminal misdemeanor and you can see the fine amount posted so before the arraignment I am presumed guilty. I haven't seen evidence of what I am accused of either.
So I go to court and there are many people there accused of similar things. Eventually I get called to go to a back room with a City employee from the housing inspection department. He presents me with four pictures. None of these are the original 12 taken in July that they sent to the judge. The evidence has changed and the crime that I am accused of has changed and they want me to go in front of a judge! Let me please ....
The above picture shows the same area of the back alley as the one in the court order after the grass was cut.
So I made it very clear that I was willing to go to trial since it was now part of the public record that I have been charged with a criminal misdemeanor and that public record will NEVER go away. The crime that I was charged with is not what these photos present and there was never any mention of any issue with the back yard with the original warning in June. Had there been any indication of such then it would have been taken care of. I presented all the above papers and stated that the communication was lousy and the whole process very unprofessional. I also presented a lease and all of a sudden the demeanor changed. The case was withdrawn, I was free to go.
So it appears that Dayton Housing Inspectors have the power to accuse you of a crime and change the evidence for their case to either force you to compliance or get you fined as circumstances change to meet their objectives. The way I see it, if the inspector didn't like my clean up job she should have sent me another warning with photos instead of wasting my time to appear at an arraignment. I planned to meet with the new city manager about this process and had a few ideas on how to improve communication by creating a checklist type of form (that the city already uses with it's "Dayton is Yours" citizen inspection program) so the inspector can check boxes like Front, Side, Back. Weeds, paint, gutters and I don't have to second guess where the problems are. However he left this week after just 9 months on the job without a new position to go to and the commission approved a severance package so his resignation is a little suspect. I know the interim city manager won't bother with improving customer service because she was disrespectful to me a few times when I was mayor and now I am simply Joe Citizen she could care even less. However, Joe Citizen has a voice and I choose to tell the story here so everyone can see it who searches.
I get asked this question often. "Did you finish your roof?" The answer is "No, but it is two fifths done." The gutters are the time consuming part. They have to be riveted and soldered in place and each corner has to be custom made. There are eight corners due to us having a bay section with four 135 degree corners. The good news is that six of the eight corners are in place so in the spring I just have three straight sides and a dormer to remove and replace with a window similar to the others. I am not looking forward to that window construction. So here is why it has taken so long. Besides the roof, I had to brick up this hole in the wall.
I still have one row to complete but it involves standing on a ladder. I don't stand on ladders unless it is at least 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Here is a news clip from New Years Eve where I get asked about the roof. This was aired live at 6:10 AM so I was up early for it.
I had three downspouts to replace. This had to be done to stop the waterfall we encountered on Thanksgiving Day in our bedroom and parlor which was also the result of not completing a section of gutter before a torrential rain.
Then there was the eight tons of wood pellets that were delivered and moved to my basement. Before they could be stored, I had to remove a huge pile of wood and store it outside.
We had a furnace installed this year.
I actually paid for this to be done. If you live in the Dayton area, call Mr. Hartley who owns Dayton Air Conditioning and Heating, at 937-277-8864 and tell him the Mayor referred you. I did have a role to play in the installation.
My role was to seal up a window opening that we used to vent the furnace. I put in a second piece of 4" pipe for future use if needed. It is easier than knocking a hole in the wall!
While I was at it, I replaced the bulkhead doors which were destroyed by some kids trying to break into the house in 2009.
Then I installed this door in the basement in case you get through the bulkhead doors!
I have also made a bead board wall to replace the handrail to the third floor so that I can install a door and keep some heat in the house. I have also replaced the toilet in the Steampunk bathroom with one that actually works and doesn't require three flushes to clear! I also put a toilet in the 2nd half bathroom area (also the laundry room)so that I don't have to look at the hole in the floor any more!
Did I mention lining a chimney so that we could use the wood stove in the parlor? Well I did that too. I poured vermiculite around the liner and wondered why it was taking so much to fill the space. After entering my bedroom I saw the problem. My fireplace had filled up with vermiculite! This meant that there was a hole between my chimneys. After figuring where it was I proceeded to knock a hole in the chimney to repair the hole. After repairing the hole and pouring vermiculite again, I discovered another hole higher up. So I had to make an even bigger hole in my chimney to repair it. Here is a picture. I still have three bricks to install in order to finish the work.
After all this, homeschooling my daughter and doing Mayoral things there are still people out there that call me lazy!
