Adventure Time!

And I don't mean the mathmatical kind! (100 points of you catch the reference!)

Over the past week or so, I've stumbled across some great "urban exploration" videos on YouTube. Basically, videos of people visiting abandoned buildings, old farm houses, and industrial sites. Some of the houses are simply jaw-dropping, while others are eerie, mouldy, and packed sky-high with years of trash and filth.

So far, I have two favourite channels DaaDeeOh, and TikiTrex (and both happen to be in the southern Ontario area). Below is a sample video from each channel so you can go find them if you want.

DaaDeeOh is one of the first I found, and all his videos are filmed with no voice or commentary. He has some really wonderful finds (also check out the video for "Abandoned 19th Century Farm House at Taunton Rd." which was my second pick to feature).

Abandoned 1870 Victorian House North Durham:



Then there's Pam (TikiTrex), who also has quite a lot of great videos. She tends to be a bit slower, or skips over stuff I'd like to see, but she also has some great house finds!

Untouched Abandoned Farm House:



Having watched dozens of these fascinating videos, one of the things I learned very quickly is that the vast majority of these places are easily accessible. Either the doors are wide open, unlocked, or there's some sort of gaping hole (or window) where you can easily enter to explore the building.

For months now, there's been a boarded-up Victorian just down the road from me (near a busy intersection) that I've really wanted to explore, but in this case, it's completely boarded-up, locked, and inaccessible.

That didn't discourage me, though, and I went out today actively looking for an accessible house I could explore. I decided to walk around the streets in the really poor end of town to see if I could get lucky, and stumble upon an open building.

And I did!

Now, when I say the "poor" end of town, I MEAN it. Some of the houses were in such rough shape that it's hard to believe they are actually inhabited. It's not uncommon to see windows covered in plywood or plastic, so I really had to look for the right clues. One clear indication that a building is abandoned is that the doors and windows are boarded-up, but I often had to double check. I saw about 3 or 4 of these, but none had access. Another good sign is if the power has been cut off.

The house I came across was a lucky break. It is a duplex located on a street corner, where one half has suffered damage from a fire. The half of the house nearest the corner appeared to be completely undamaged.



Going down the sidewalk towards the back of the house, I noticed that the power was disconnected, and I spotted an open door on the back porch (the barely visible screen door), so I decided to go around the house and check it out. In the photo, the porch with the yellow caution tape leads to the boarded-up (burned) half.



Here's the burned half.





It's too bad this half of the house wasn't accessible (and it wouldn't have been safe), because this part is actually much older, and it still had the lovely old wooden windows.

Moving on, I quickly darted around into the back yard, and up to the back porch of the undamaged half. The screen door was ajar, and the door leading into the kitchen was closed, but unlocked. In this photo, I'm standing in the kitchen, and you can see into the small back porch a bit (note old computer chair).



Walking into the house, I was made immediately aware of the sound of running water coming from the basement. The house had been cleared-out, and it was clear that no one had been around for quite a while.



I did peek into the fridge and freezer, and yes there were a few items of mouldy food left behind. Eww.

Aside from this, the kitchen was quite cute, and I like the simple layout.

A calendar next to the basement door was left open on January 2013. I'm guessing it's been empty for about this much time (almost 2 years).



The kitchen is open to the living room with a large open archway (right next to the calendar wall).





As I headed towards the stairs, I noticed that the front door was also unlocked.

The house was definitely fairly old (1920s? 30s?) and you could feel a slant going up the stairs. I had expected the house to smell like fire/smoke, but it didn't really have any smell. The fire was completely contained to the other half (and there was no access from this half, it's literally two separate houses stuck together).

The house is pretty tiny. The entire first floor is just the living room, the stairs, and the kitchen, and the upstairs was even smaller because of the sloped ceilings, with 2 bedrooms, and a small bathroom.

The bathroom was directly ahead of the stairs. It had a toilet (with a chunk broken out of the base), a shower stall (no bath), and a small sink and vanity. The area to the left of the toilet was just a small area of floor with a trash can. Over the top right of the toilet was a small (built-in) storage cabinet, with the rest being an alcove (presumably for a dresser) in the small room on the other side.



Not much was left behind, but there was shaving cream, and a few toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet.



Here's the top of the stairs. The landing is quite small, and it led to 2 bedrooms, and the bathroom. There's a larger room at the front of the house (2 windows over the front porch), and one at the back of the house (1 window over the back porch).



Just about the only thing in the entire house that would have been "worth taking" was this old cast iron floor grate (which matches mine) but it was broken. I'm 99% sure this place will be demolished at some point, which is sad, since it's a cute little house.



Here's the front bedroom, overlooking the front porch, and the street corner. The windows looked pretty new. Note all the junk in the front yard across the road.



Then here's the second bedroom. It was quite small, and it had a large exercise machine in the middle. The bathroom is just on the other half of the left wall.



There wasn't really much to see in this house. No interesting old fixtures, no interesting old junk, so I headed back down to the first floor. Here's the calendar which gives us an idea of when it was vacated.

Throughout the entire explore, I was really surprised to see no signs of vandalism (other than the broken toilet upstairs, which could also have been accidental). This is a house you can just walk right into, and it's in a very sketchy neighbourhood, and it's in near perfect shape.



The only place left unexplored was the basement.



It looked quite dark, and I really didn't know if I should go down there or not. I came prepared with a small flash light, so looking down, the stairs looked very solid, and I decided to go have a look.

Again, I'll mention that there was the sound of constantly running water coming from the basement.

The basement actually wasn't too dark, since there was a small window, but it was very low (5 feet high?), and definitely a bit creepy (though I wasn't really creeped out).



I thought it was neat that it had a tree-trunk beam, similar to my house.



It also had bits of old knob and tube ceramic insulators (making it definitely old, 1930s or earlier).

The entire floor was covered in crushed stone (I'm guessing it's a dirt floor?), and the rushing water was coming from this disconnected water pipe next to the hot water tank.



The main water line (and the shut-off) was just next to the bottom of the stairs, but the valve didn't seem to work, so I couldn't shut the water off.

Otherwise, nothing really interesting to see in the basement. As I came back into the kitchen, I noticed that the pipe from the washing machine hookup (just to the left of the closet in the first photo) was also leaking onto the floor.

Overall, a very neat little adventure. It's really too bad about this little house. I think the burned half could be knocked-down and this half rented out, but who knows what will happen to it. It might be fun to find out who owns it, but I don't think I'll bother.

After the initial thrill of this house, I also tried to get into this wonderful old foursquare nearby, but without any luck.



As you can see, both electric meters have been removed, but there's also a power line going to another spot in the porch (an old fuse panel?) which I think isn't hooked up (but who knows). The general state of the house seems to indicate that it could be abandoned (look at the roof!) but the front door (leading to 2 separate doors) was locked, and I wasn't 100% sure if it was empty or not. The entire front porch was piled with old junk, and so was the alley way on the left. The mailbox was also crammed full of old faded mail.

I did keep looking for other houses, but my adventuring was ended by the weather. It started to rain, so I got on the bus and headed home. I'll definitely be keeping my eyes open for other house exploring opportunities. I know I missed a FANTASTIC opportunity to explore an old house 2-3 years ago. It had an open side door, and it looked empty (and gorgeous, with unpainted woodwork, old grates, hardwood floors, etc), but I chickened-out and it was demolished not long after that.

Apartment Renos

For the past few weeks, (at work) we've been renovating and painting my boss' rental units (two of three which are in a building right in front of our shop). Basically, the main floor tenant moved out, so we fixed-up the main floor apartment (gutted the bathroom, changed the light fixtures, fixed a few doors, and painted everything). Then the basement apartment tenant moved into the main floor apartment.

Now that I've been working in the basement unit, I can't help but really appreciate my tall ceilings, and large, ornate casings. The basement apartment's ceiling ends just about an inch (or slightly less) above the thin colonial casings (the standard ones you tend to see everywhere). It's not too bad for most people, but when you're 6' tall like me, it just seems really low. I much prefer having a ceiling high enough that I can't touch it.

I should take just a moment to point out that the building is quite nice, and sturdily built. It dates from around 1936 or so (according to my boss, and also according to the dates on some of the oldest drywall fragments found). The main floor still had some of the original (thick) mouldings, including a beautiful archway in the hallway.

While I'm at it, here are some of the renovation photos (first floor apartment). To make it more simple (fewer photos and explanations) I've set these up as grouped "before and after" shots.

Here's the bathroom. This was gutted to the studs. New drywall, new floor, etc.



Completely new tub and surround. The old tiles were quite nice, and came off easily, so I salvaged 95% of them, as well as the old ceramic towel bars.



This entire wall was knocked-out (including the closet on the other side) and completely rebuilt to fit the vanity here.



Another shot of the new vanity. It's kind of neat because it has a bottom drawer, which works well if you have plumbing coming off the wall.



We installed a larger door so that the washer/dryer could fit inside.



Here's the much improved kitchen (doors taken down, painted, and everything reassembled)



Lastly, two photos showing some of the nice old details. Not many of the old mouldings remain, but what's there was quite nice.





Anyhow, that random side note aside, the only other house news I have to report, is that I've done more work in the back staircase (attached to the garage). I've pulled- down some of the insulation, and relocated the light fixture at the top landing. After this was done, I replaced the insulation, and finished attaching my vapour barrier.

I also installed wooden filler strips along all the necessary doors and window openings. Normally the window openings come up flush with the drywall, but in this case, the original window openings had been modified, or not meant to work well with a drywall installation, so the strips were needed. These strips just give a clean edge where I will be able to attach the finished mouldings, and decorative "stop mouldings" around the inside "jamb" to hide the insulation round the window insert edges. I'll show this in more detail later.

Salvaged Front Door (Photos)

Here are some photos of that gorgeous antique door (that weighs a freakin' TON - actually probably close to 80-100 lbs) that I salvaged from the trash several weeks ago.

There's a section at the top that needs to be reglued and clamped, and the entire thing needs refinishing, but otherwise it's as close to mint condition as I could ever hope to find. No newer lock was ever installed on this door, which is pretty amazing (I almost hate to drill into it, but I'm going to have to do it), and there are very few small nail holes for curtains, etc. No deep gouges, or other damage (with the exception of one spot on the moulding), and it still has the original lock, handle, and plates (as well as half the hinges). I'm hoping that I can find another set of identical hinges.

Part of the reason that the door is so heavy is that it's 1 3/4" thick, and it's made of solid BC fir (which is a very heavy and dense hardwood). BC fir was used to make factory floors, as well as large supporting beams, and the masts of sailing ships (tall ships). It was also frequently used (around the 1880s to 1950s) for millwork in homes. Today it's almost only ever found as fir plywood, and to buy solid lumber is ridiculously expensive. The wood to build this door (new) would cost over 1000$.

You will note that the mouldings on both sides of the door are different. The extra deep ones are on the exterior (around 1" thick) and the plain ones are on the inside. There is also a decorative frame around the upper glass on the exterior side.

You will note the one small damaged corner on the horizontal moulding just under the glass (to the left). This will be easy to patch.



Nice deep mouldings.



I kind of like the deep crackled varnish, but I'll be completely refinishing the door to give it an even colour, and better weather protection.



Interior side:





The door had been set down onto the lock side, and I assume that the lock must have been jammed in place to cause this much damage to the catch. You can see the extreme bend, and the blue line represents the correct line that the steel should follow. I took it to the vice and anvil, and straightened it out.



Once the catch was repaired, the rest of the lock was cleaned, the rust was removed, and most of the pieces repainted in flat black.



I will be cutting a custom key to fit this lock (which is a pretty simple thing to do if you can find a suitable blank).



Side notes: This door came off a foursquare just a block away (at the end of the block across from mine), and I will be installing it as my new front door. This means that I won't be using that "prairie" door (the blue one).

The Last Shots of Rosemirlea

To those who've been following the blog for a while, you may remember my post from the Rosemirlea Apartments fire, back in June.

These were the last photos I took as demolition began on the building (a few months ago, just before winter was setting in).

Luckily for me, demo began on a Friday, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten any photos, since the work was done during my work hours.

At this point, they had torn off all the brick and the rear porch addition.







Original painted placard.



Details of the beautiful entrance and interior staircase. Note the beautiful corbels and transom windows.





Old radiator.



Newel post with simple Craftsman details.



The lot now sits empty, and I miss the building every time I pass by.

It's Christmas at the Foursquare!

It's that wonderful, yet sometimes stressful, time of year again at the Foursquare!

Lucky for me, I was relatively well prepared this year, and I didn't leave too many things up to the last minute. My annual dinner party with close friends was this past Saturday evening, and now most of the holiday stress for me is over.

To prepare for the party, I needed a few projects to get done: mainly the dining room chairs.

I had been pondering several fabric options over the past several months. I wanted something fun, but not too crazy. I wanted something that wasn't too light (because white or beige get dirty too quickly), and not too dark (since all the dining room furniture is dark mahogany), and I wasn't sure if I wanted a solid, a stripe, or a print.

At first, I was thinking of finding another fabric to closely match the current pink and lime green stripe, but this proved very difficult.

After that, I considered this fabric, which is a very nice quality, historic looking, and gives a rich look, but in the end, I thought it was just too busy.



As I was taking apart the chair seats, I also fell in love with the beautiful original damask fabric, which was a sort of indigo or periwinkle blue. Pierre and I flipped through several books, and we found 2 similar blue fabrics, but after taking them home, I found that both of them looked too dark, and with the dim and yellowish lighting of the dining room, the blue just looked like a drab grey.

In the end, I went with this lovely lime-ish green textured fabric. It was a remnant we had at the shop, and it was *JUST* large enough to do all my seat covers. Pierre was also nice enough to donate the fabric!

I got all the seats stripped, added a bit of new cotton (in addition to the original straw and old cotton historic padding) during my lunch breaks, and after work. I love how they turned out.



Before the seats were reattached, all the chairs were given a coat of the Howards Restore-A-Finish, which cleaned up a lot of the scratches and dings.



The next big project was setting up my Christmas tree. This is the fist time in many years that I actually have a full sized tree. Since 2003, I only once had a real tree, and all the other years I just went without one, or used my little mini tree that had been given to me by a coworker. This new tree is a nice pre-lit one that I had been eyeing for weeks last year, and after Christmas was over, it was drastically reduced and I think I bought it for only 60$.

The tree was still new in the box so it took about 1 1/2 hours just to set it up, and fluff all the 1200+ tips. I had thought I could have the tree in front of the larger window in the living room, but with the base of the tree at over 4 feet across, this just wasn't possible. I put it in the corner between the two windows, and moved the furniture around just a bit.

When it came to topping-off my tree, I had been wondering for a while what I should do. I'm not religious anymore (having grown up as a Roman Catholic), and I didn't want a star, or an angel, which leaves very few options. I had seen bows and ribbons before, but it wasn't until I saw this one on display at Sears, that I was confident it would look great.



I loved the ribbon on this display tree, and I asked the clerk if they sold these bows. After we looked around for quite a while, we turned up empty handed, but I spotted just the ribbon for sale, and I realized that someone had just thrown the bows together themselves! At only 6$ per spool (and 18 feet long each), I bought 2.

The bows were easy to make. All I did was I unravelled the entire 18ft roll, found the centre, and did a few looped rectangles. After that, it was just a matter of tying them in the centre with a stiff metal wire, and voila! The extra long tails were burned on the ends to keep them from fraying, and the tails were used to trail down the sides of the tree.

Here's my quick (crappy) sketch in Paint of the bow-making steps:



Super easy, and I couldn't be happier with the results! This design uses two bows, and leaves 4 long tails. I preferred the tails to gently trail vertically, but you can also place them in a spiral, though you may need longer ribbons, or additional lengths where you can tuck/hide the seams in the branches. I also liked that the display tree used two or three contrasting ribbons, but I chose to keep my tree a bit more simplistic.





I've also slowly fallen in love with the green living room paint colour. It suits Christmas decorating especially well.

I had thought that I might not have enough decorations to fill an entire tree, but as it turns out, my years of hoarding vintage and handmade ornaments has left me with enough ornaments to decorate at least 4 trees! For this tree, I just stuck with my favourite handmade ornaments, childhood favourites, and beautiful hand-painted glass ornaments (antiques). I also have a love of birds, and they remind me of my grandmother, who is no longer with us.

In this photo, you can see a lovely bird (one of three) with curled feathers, which I actually found at the dollar store several yeas ago. The cute little felt mouse in a Santa hat was handmade by my Mom.



In this one, you can see some of the apples and oranges, which are some of my favourite decorations (because they remind me of times gone by, where these simple fruits were difficult to obtain, and considered a real treat). You can also see two of the antique Christmas balls (next to the 3, and above the snow man).



The bear with the red bow was handmade by my Mom from "Plastic Canvas" which was incredibly popular back in the 1990s. The eyes are made with peppercorns. Above him is a hand blown glass bird ornament, hiding in the branches.



The bows, which each have 5 loops. They turned out even nicer than I had thought. I also love that the ribbon has a nice ribbed texture to it. It's not as easy to see in this photo, but you can see it clearly in the photo with the bears above.



And here is the tree in the evenings. I haven't bought a tree skirt yet, so the bottom looks a bit odd.



Also in the living room are two snow men carollers which were recently donated by my Mom, and my childhood Christmas stocking, which you can see farther below (in the photo of the pink roses).



While preparing the dining room, I also made an amazing, and exciting discovery (for me, at least!) I needed to swap-out the dining room table. As much as I love the Duncan Phyfe style mahogany table that goes with the set, it's 42" wide, and the dining room is quite narrow. It wouldn't be too bad if the sideboard wasn't as deep (it's around 21" deep), but with the existing table, it was difficult to push-out your chair without banging into the sideboard. My old table is only 36". It's not a huge difference, but every inch helps. What also didn't help the old table is that I still don't have the original leaves that go with it (that's a whole other long story, but basically they're still looking for them).

While I was wrapping-up and moving the old table top, I found this!



This is the ONLY label on the entire set, and I only spotted it by accident. If the table had been flipped the other way, I wouldn't have seen it. CFM is an amalgamation of several old furniture companies in the Toronto area. CFM started around 1901. Oddly enough, my 1880s grain-painted dresser is also made by one of the companies that eventually got grouped into CFM.

The dining room looked pretty festive this year. It will look even better once I paint the walls and refinish the floor, but that will get done eventually. Here you can see the current setup. I wanted to use the 8 matching mahogany chairs, but they were too wide to all fit under the table, so I used the two blonde ones.



I was also able to find a similar green table cloth to match the new chair seats. This table cloth is similar to my previous one, but the other one was much lighter.



I added yet another nutcracker to my collection: A snowboarder! I thought he looked neat (and different) plus he reminds me of a coworker from my previous job, who loved snowboarding.



In addition to oiling all the chairs, I also did all the furniture from the dining room set, which needed it. I also cleaned all the clocks with lemon oil, which smells wonderful.



This wreath was also donated by my Mom.



This is the first time I buy myself flowers for the house. I feel like the house is finally getting close to the point where I can bother to do this. These were inexpensive roses from the grocery store (5$ per bouquet of 5). I'm not crazy enough to spend 20$ for flowers.



A daytime shot (the day after). I'm not sure why the camera didn't focus quite clearly on the roses.



I bought a bouquet of red for the dining room, and a bouquet of pink for the living room.





The party itself went really well. I had 8 guests, with only one person who couldn't be here for the supper (he came after 9:30). The rest of us enjoyed a meal with the following:
- Caesar Salad
- French Onion Soup
- Boeuf Bourgignon with sides of mashed potatoes and green beans
- All served with French baguette, cheese, and red wine.

The beef turned out exquisite, and melt-in-your-mouth. The only issue was that the sauce/broth was much too liquidy since I didn't add enough flour. I was also very happy with how my French Onion Soup turned out. I had made it once before with ho-hum results, but this time it was just perfect.

Another pleasant surprise for me was the wine selection. I'm generally not a fan of wines. I've tried dozens so far, and for me, it's either love or hate. All the wines we had with the meal were awesome! The wine I used for the beef was Peller Estates Cabernet Sauvignon, which was good (90% of it got used in the cooking with just a bit left for drinking), then I had a friend who brought a large bottle of Tocornal Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz from Chile, which was great! Then I also had a bottle of wine that my boss Pierre gave me, which is one of his home-bottled wines: La Réserve du Coq de Bruyère 2007, and that one was also very good. Potent, though. It needed to breathe, and my friend said it would have benefited from using an aerator (which I didn't have). The bottle still disappeared pretty quickly. On top of those, we also shared another blackberry wine cooler that I had on hand, and then we were out of wine, haha.

Overall, though, it was a great evening with friends.