Amazing House Tour

I got to see most of a stunning early house yesterday (Friday morning). My boss has a client who lives in Morrisburg (a city east of Cornwall) who he's done several pieces for, and we had to go and pick up an old sofa to be recovered.

We arrived early, so we walked around the property, and I took some photos.

My best guess is that the house dated from around 1830-1840, but it could possibly be earlier.

House from the road:



Front door. Note flat board siding, beautiful side lites, and beautiful casings.



Window on front porch:





The facade of the home has different mouldings than all the other doors and windows on the house. All the others are a typical early Fedeal/Georgian 1840's style, while the front ones have a more Greek Revival look to them.







Beautifully executed dentil moulding all around the top.





Main (back?) door in the centre, and the door on the right leads to the kitchen. I thought I had a better photo of the rear door, but I forgot to take one. The fluted columns and trim on it were stunning.



Garage detail. I would assume that the two fan windows currently removed on the main house (for ventilation?) have the same shape.







This house sits right on water front property with a beautiful view.





Believe it or not, but apparently the previous owner's children had no interest in the house after they moved out (or died - I can't remember, but they were very old), and the house was possibly going to be torn down before the current owner bought it. He also owns another beautiful Victorian house directly across the road. I forgot to photograph that one (it wasn't as interesting) but I snatched this photo off Google Maps:



I did get to go inside, first for the sofa, which was in the basement, but also afterwards, too. I wanted to take photos, but I would have needed to ask permission, and I had just met the guy. The entire house is like a time capsule. The main hall (and most of the house) was still covered in VERY old wallpaper, some of which was peeling, and showed signs of water damage. There were old radiators with exposed pipes going up to the second floor. I did notice that some incorrect strip oak floor was laid down on the main floor. I didn't really get to tour the house, but I had peeked in some windows, and one back room was a library/study with wood & marble fireplace and original built-ins, the main staircase had a very old urn shaped newel post (mahogany but later painted white), with the hand rail still in the original mahogany.

The owner also had a ton of beautiful antiques, including early American Empire pieces, art, and all sorts of other furniture & accessories. I was told that he also has old cars.

I did go up the stairs, and this is where I was really confused, intrigued, and surprised by the layout. Up the main staircase (which is on the left side as you walk in the front door), you end up in a hallway with a bathroom in the centre (to the front of the house), and then 4 bedrooms. Two smaller rooms to the front of the house, and two rooms at the back. Here's the interesting/bizarre part. Both interior walls to the two rear rooms were done in large louvred panels around a large decorative casing. Basically the entire walls (floor to ceiling) could be folded away to create one large room out of essentially 3 rooms (both rooms to either side of the staircase and the centre hall). The main doors into the rooms were part of these panels. I drew up this line drawing to show the layout of these. The entire thing was done in thick hand-planed wood, with pegged joints. They were painted white, but you could see the plane marks (facets in the surface), and the peg locations.

My boss said it might have been an Inn originally.



Lastly, this was another beautiful house just 2 doors down.

Another Rescue/Project

I was very lucky to come across a very large antique (Victorian?) cabinet yesterday. It's kind of a long story about how I found out about it, but I'll try to keep it really short:

I know a guy down the street who knows I fix clocks and love antiques. He helped a family 2 blocks away clear out a house full (and garage full) of stuff. He had a table he wants to repair and asked me to help him (it's a cherry veneered dining room table, and he wanted advice on stripping it, etc). He showed me this old cabinet that was still in the dilapidated garage which was half way to being torn down. He said that this old work table was going to be going to the dump and he thought I might want to save it.

So. I posted a quick request for help on Facebook, and I was able to get the help of my former employer's husband and girlfriend, and we took it here tonight around 5pm.

This thing is *H*E*A*V*Y*. Like... 200Lbs or more. We were 2 strong guys lifting it and we had a hard time and it's EMPTY.

Sorry about the blurry photos, I was taking these in poor lighting, and I didn't have my tripod with me (too lazy to go get it). I'll take better photos once I clean it up a bit.





To give you a sense of scale, it's over 8 feet long (roughly 98") and 3 feet wide, roughly 32 tall. The top is solid wood 1 1/8" thick, and all of the back and sides are solid 3/4" t-g.

The cove moulding under the top might look small in the photos, but it's nearly 2" square.

The back (front?) is grain painted to look like oak, and the front used to have 15 long narrow drawers, each with 2 cup handles. Sadly, these were all emptied, and thrown into a dumpster about a week ago. My friend said if he had known about this nice old cabinet, he would have got them to save the drawers. I have half of one (jammed in place and missing the bottom), and one complete drawer, so I'll be able to make new ones out of scrap wood.



The best part about the whole thing: the patina on the top is to die for. GORGEOUS old wood, and a well-worn surface. It also helps that it was completely FREE.

Tragic Fire at Rosemirlea Apartments

As I was coming home from work yesterday, I noticed some smoke in the neighbourhood as the bus neared my house. We were told by the bus driver that she couldn't turn down my street, so I was dropped off a few blocks away. It seemed clear that there was a fire nearby.

I followed the smoke down to Fourth Street, and caught a glimpse of the apartment building on Cumberland. I went down into a neighbour's back yard and took a few photos.



I knew immediately which building this was, and my heart sank. As I turned the corner, it was clear that the fire had already spread through most of the upper right-hand apartment.



I arrived on the scene at around 4:55pm, but the fire was well underway at this point. I found these two early videos of the fire on YouTube, uploaded by Sylvie Bissonnette, shot before the porch collapsed. The eerie sound of the fire alarm could still be heard this morning:





This building is in fact an 8 tenant apartment (6 above ground with 2 basement apartments). It's the historic Rosemirlea Apartments, located at 331 Cumberland, which were probably built around the 1920s. These apartments happen to be one of the few remaining old apartment buildings in the city. A few years ago, the other old apartment building just next door to it also burned down.





Here you can see the original hand-painted sign, reading "Rosemirlea Apartments".



This building boasts a gorgeous front entrance, with unique details, mouldings, and columns. I was told by a neighbour who's been in the building that the centre staircase was all nice wood, and that the building was quite nice on the interior. At this point, I wasn't sure if the building would survive, and I took several photos of the architectural details. As it stood, the building still had all of its original wood windows, porches, and details.



Hoses on the building were pumping as much as 10,000L of water per minute. This corner of the building was hosed so vigorously that the bricks around the doorway were eroded by the force of the water.



Details of the front porches.



Side view of the front entrance, showing some beautiful detailed panels and mouldings.





Here we see firefighters smashing windows to flood the interior to stop the fire from spreading to the lower floors.





Around 5:20 or so, Cornwall Electric arrives to cut the power to the building.









Apparently, one of the main issues was that the building had a flat tarred roof, and once it goes, they have to do the entire thing, front to back.

The small red house next door suffered some damage as well. It had some of its service wires torn off by fire hoses, and most of the siding on one side buckled from the intense heat.



This was taken from the rear of the building, where you can just make out the roof line of the red house on the lower left. My friend Gen lives just to the right of this photo on a small side street. I met up with her later.



At one point, a lot of the smoke was making its way down the staircase and out the front door.



Tenant Amanda Matte (striped shirt) and her boyfriend Chris Amell (black shirt) watch the scene in horror. Amanda had been on her way to Ottawa when she received a call from her friend, telling her that the apartment across the hall from her (she is on the 3rd floor left) was on fire. She had a cat and dog still in the building. Firefighters were able to rescue the animals, but the cat ran away afterwards. The cat is still missing, and Amanda and Chris are asking anyone who finds the cat to get in touch with her. The cat is orange and white. Amanda had just purchased renter's insurance 2 days ago after having lived in the apartment with her boyfriend for roughly 18 months.



You can hear some sound bites from Amanda in this article:
http://www.thecornwalldaily.com/news/cornwall/story.aspx?ID=1990104

Other tenants were not so lucky. One tenant of 9 years lost everything (no insurance), while another couple, James Buckshot and Angeline Ceasor who rented a basement apartment for just a few weeks also had no insurance. Mr Buckshot also had medication in his apartment which he needs for health issues that require nearly constant attention. (Source: http://www.standard-freeholder.com/2013/06/21/apartment-building-ablaze).

As the front facade of the building burned, the heat was so intense that the bricks were discoloured (note bluish colouring around the edges).







At this point, it was nearly 7pm, and I had not gone home yet, so I walked home to grab a bite to eat, drop off my bag, and call Gen.

To give you an idea of how close by this fire was, here is a photo taken from my front yard. It is just a block and a half south from me.



Walking back to the scene around 7:50pm...



When I returned, the scene had not improved much. The entire upper brick centre had collapsed, and Amanda's apartment was in flames.







In this photo, you can just barely make out a beautiful archway though the door. It also revealed that the building's interior walls are all old lath and plaster (which burn like kindling).





Large sections of brickwork tumbled to the ground as water was pumped onto the exterior wall.



After some more time, and a quick walk over to Gen's place to check things over (make sure all the windows and doors were sealed-up), we walked back. This was probably close to 8:30 at this point.



I went home close to 9pm, and walked back over around 10pm. The fire was mostly out, but firefighters were still dousing the rear of the building.





I was actually out again this morning just before 8am to go to a yard sale, and took these "aftermath" shots. Sadly, I expect that though the building may still be partially stable on the first 2 floors, it will likely be demolished due to all the damages caused to the brickwork and the extensive water damage.









Other notes:

- Everyone and all the pets were safely evacuated from the building by the time I got there (as far as I know), and no one was injured (as far as I know).

- Some people were saying that this fire was deliberately set, but no official word has confirmed this. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

- Another rumour that I overheard was that the fire was set by a girl named Angel who had also lived in the building next door that burned down. This is also unconfirmed, and is likely just a rumour.

- Another rumour is that the fire was caused by a carelessly tossed cigarette.