Steve’s Kitchen Nightmares
It’s day 5 of Kitchen Week(!) And here to kick things off is a true story from the files of expert builder, Stephen Hulse. It might make you wonder what’s lurking under your sub-floor. Take it away Steve!
Horror stories abound about homeowners who fall prey to incompetent or dishonest. But contractors also have tales to tell. I‚Äôm an Operations Manager for Struever Brother, Eccles & Rouse, a development & contracting firm, which specializes, in the adaptive re-use of historic commercial buildings up and down the East Coast. In my earlier years I had my own contracting firm. We specialized in high-end renovations for Baltimore’s carriage trade. During the decade or so I ran my own business, one project stands out as especially‚Ķ. challenging.
The clients in question were professionals with whom I’d had a fleeting acquaintance years earlier. They had a design for an expensive 800 square foot kitchen and mudroom renovation.
Their house was in a wealthy suburb of Baltimore.
But, when I pulled up to their old farmhouse I thought I was in Appalachia. Industrial parts covered the backyard. The paint on the siding was coughing up blood ‚Äì about half of it bare. Bad enough. But as I walked through the house I had a creeping sense that everything was badly “off”.
My first inkling of what lay in store came during the first stage of demolition. After tearing out the cabinets we found a 1-inch hole that ran through the exterior wall. It had been stuffed with what was now a soggy, foul-smelling pillow.
Things went downhill from there.
My contractor discovered that much of the framing lumber had been salvaged from other projects. A variety of shims had been used to fur out the old lumber to a (relatively) flat plane.
Soon it was time to strip the old flooring off. As I approached the house to check on the day‚Äôs progress, the foreman came out shaking his head. “You’ve got a mess in there that you‚Äôve got to see for yourself.”
The “floor joists” turned out to be logs supported by piles of bricks, which lay on the raw soil. Of course, no mortar held the bricks together. A portion of the floor had been built by cobbling together new framing on top of the logs ‚Äì they were now thoroughly digested by termites. The architect and I agreed that (quaint as the logs were) it was best to remove them and install an entirely new floor structure on a sound foundation. The owners reluctantly agreed.
Meanwhile, we started demolition of the existing mudroom. This portion of the house had 8″ thick exterior walls. I hoped that at least this portion of the house was built of out something substantial. Once again my expectations were confounded. Instead of proper studs, the contractor had taken wooden pallets and toe nailed them together to create the load bearing exterior walls. I now think of the original contractor as a visionary – “green” before his time!
As always, I’m saving the best for last.
We removed the mudroom‚Äôs sub floor and hit the jackpot. The mudroom had been built over an old cistern – 6 feet wide and 18 feet deep – with standing water 2 feet from the top, where an outflow pipe drained the water off to parts unknown. Better yet, someone had tied the rain leaders from some of the house’s downspouts into a terra-cotta pipe, which ran into the cistern ensuring a constant supply of water. The outflow pipe was the only thing keeping the cistern from flooding the house.
At about this time, like the outflow pipe, I felt like heading for parts unknown. But I stayed. The cistern remained in place (the owner thought it was cool) He constructed his own “cap” to contain the water should his outflow pipe ever backup.
Soon enough the custom casework and molding was installed. The new kitchen and mudroom was beautiful. The ever-gracious (not to mention tolerant) wife had my family over to celebrate the transformation. All that was left was to paint the casework and moldings – something the owners wanted to do themselves.
Many years later I paid them a visit.
There were new developments. The exterior had been painted(!) And the machinery parts were mostly gone. But the owners never did get around the painting the kitchen woodwork, which after 15 years had developed its own patina; a combination of years of fingerprints and the darkening affects of sunlight. But then, you don’t want to rush a good paint job.
During the interim years, they had called me about doing more work. Curiously, I felt it would be a bit selfish for me to hoard a house with so many future stories to tell; best to share the wealth.
