Tidal Surge from the Nor'-easter

Lois write me that she went to the Wood Islands Ferry last night and the docks are now an island and large rocks have washed up on the road. Below is a picture of Murray River that I took in July. You can just barely see the bridge at the lower left hand side and get a sense of how far above the river that the bridge is supposed to be.

 

George, Vanessa's husband, sent me the picture below of the current water level at the same bridge. This storm is causing a lot of damage across the Island.

The Confederation Bridge was closed for 28 hours straight over Tuesday and part of Wednesday but the weather advisory has finally been lifted, with gusts still up to 80 kmh, according to The Guardian. Seems to be a very wet fall and early winter there, but no snow to speak of yet.

All I want for Christmas is a Concrete Slab, A Concrete Slab, A Concrete Slab...

The Island is getting slammed with a Nor'easter, with a storm surge as high as 10 feet. The water is up to the bottom of the Murray River Bridge, and this system is to last for a few days so I don't think the slab will happen before Christmas. Still, it's good to see that the insulation and radiant tubing is installed and ready for the concrete.Where the tubing turns up the wall is where the manifolds for the system will be. Everything beyond that post is the mechanical room.

This wall below is the west wall of the bathroom and back hall. Each of these spaces will have a window in this wall.

The walls of the bathroom are framed and the roof, west wall and north wall are sheathed with plywood. The back porch doesn't get framed until the slab is in, so there is room to do the pouring.

Below is the north wall of the bathroom.

Below is the east wall of the bathroom with the window opening framed. The bathtub goes below this window, with a nice view to the outhouse.

the Kitchen

Even though it's not a huge bathroom (12x7), it looks big compared to the Kitchen. It's wonderful to see the shape and overall form go up. The back porch that will be to the left of the bathroom and cover that corner of the kitchen will complete the composition.

Looks great to me. Thanks again Lois for the fantastic pictures. It makes me feel better to see that the house didn't float away.

Family Homesteads

The fella above is Hector Munn, who is my father's father's father's mother's father. His father and grandfather are the ones along with many other family members who came from Scotland on the Spencer, but that's a story for later. Below is Hector's wife Sarah (Munn) Munn. She was also his cousin, another story for later.

 

Below is a family portrait taken in 1866 (a guess judging by the age of the children). That is Hector standing, Sarah sitting in the center and the children from left to right are Duncan Hector (1853-1876), James Hector (1864-1926), Dorothea Jane (1861-1949), Jessie Euphemia (1865-1890), Flora Grace (1858-1945), Mary Sarah (1857-1935), and Elizabeth Ann (1854-1927), who is my grandfather's grandmother. 

 

And this was their house, at the west end of Gray's road in Belle River. I receives a number of photos from a cousin of ours, Hector Munn, who is descended from James in the picture above. He lives in Newberg Oregon, and we have been sharing family information since he found me through the Colonsay website, Corncrake, after Munn 200 in 2006.

Edgar Munn took Grammy, Grampy and I to the house in the early '80's and then I took Winnie and Joyce there and took this photo below of the same house in 1985. At the time it was sitting on piles ready to be moved and restored, but whoever was doing the project abandoned the house. I assume it's in the ground now. I'd like to find it again and see what it looks like.

Below is the headstone for Hector and Sarah. They are buried in the Wood Islands Pioneer Cemetery. Both died aged 49, and his death was caused by a kick to the head by a mule. Stuff you pick up when you dig far enough.

Below is the home of John Danny Munn, a post-portrait child of Hector and Sarah, and was the father of Edgar, who I used to go visit and compare family notes with. This house was also in Belle River. I don't know if it is still standing or not. Maybe somebody reading this can tell me.

This next farm was the home of Dan and Elizabeth Ann Munn. She is the girl at the far right in the family portrait above, and she and Dan were Ira's parents, Grampy's father. This is how the place would have looked at the turn of the 20th century.

It was located in Hopefield across the east fence from Jimmy Smith's place. Dad owns the front parcel of this place now. The buildings are long gone. Dan died in 1911, and Elizabeth Ann lived here until her death in 1927. Ray and Joyce lived on the land in a different house moved here from Hopefield Station, and Carol was born while they were there. They left for England when Carol was a baby and their house was moved back to Hopefield Station. Joyce still owns the back portion of the place.

Below is another family portrait, taken in 1907, this time at Dan and Elizabeth Ann's place. The tall guy in the middle is Ira, Grampy's father. Next to Ira is his mother and the man at far left is Dan.

The following picture was taken in the barnyard. From left is Sophia, Ira's sister who was home from Boston. The woman in the carriage is Sarah Kathryn, Grampy's mother. The baby is Grampy. Ira is with the horse in the center. Sophia's son Edgar Barker is holding the wagon and Dan is at the far right. Ira, Sarah Kathryn and Grampy were living there for a couple of years when Viola was born in 1912.

Our friend Julia here in Lincoln is a talented artist and she hand colored a copy of the above photo. This now hangs in our dining room. 

This is how Dan's house looked in 1945. That is Viola, Sadie and their children in the photo.

After Viola was born, Ira bought this place down the road. The only way you know where it was is that it was at the corner of Gray's Road and Munn's Road. Winnie loaned the original to me and told me the reason it was so beat up is that Danny had it in his pocket when he was at war in Europe. Danny, Jim, Sadie and Ray were born in this house.

 

These were the barns

The house burned down in 1940 and the only thing they were able to save was the sideboard that we have been using at the River which was made by Ira's father Dan.

Below is the house where Grammy grew up in Abney. She was not born in this house. They moved here before her brother Lewis was born in 1916. It burned down in the 1950's.

This is the house that Grammy and Grampy bought from Alec Taylor in Hopefield. As a part of the deal, Alec lived with them until he died some time in the early 40's. Ola was born in the house in Abney, but Carl, Sylvia, Dad, Betty and Loreen were born here. They moved to Charlottetown in December 1951.

Grampy took me up to look at the place in the summer of 1981 and I took the following photographs. It had been empty for decades and the floors were soft so he didn't let me go in but he crawled around in it a bit. I remember very well that it became my dream at that moment to one day get the place back and restore it but it was not to be. That October the owner burned it down.

 

 

I painted the watercolor below for Dad for Christmas in 1998. I pulled together some old photos of the house and composed them together. That's Dad with Peter the dog, and Grampy sitting on the running board of the Whippet, their rumble-seat car.

We practiced for weeks for this!

See a festive musical number by Sarah, James, Dolly, David and me
and turn up the sound.

It takes a while to load so please be patient

Christmas Elves

Recognize the dirty faces?

Merry Christmas everybody!!

Site Visit by Carter

Carter went out to the house yesterday, and on the way he stopped at the storage unit in Montague and picked up the doors that will be used in the basement, front porch and back porch, as Mike is getting ready to frame the walls of the basement and porches and will need to size the door openings.

Old meets new. Carter told me how impressed he is at the craftsmanship of the work. The house is solid straight and true. This is the south-west corner. The little hole in the foundation isn't a window but the opening for the steel beam that held up the house. It will be in-filled. These are original wall studs and the new floor that you see between the old shingles and new foundation. The open gap between the new floors and the wall sheathing will be covered soon, probably when the old shingles are stripped at the time of reshingling. The ground level will eventually be higher than this and we will start to landscape next spring when I'm back again.

The doors that Carter delivered. That little green vertical tongue and groove board door will go back where it came from, this porch. The large faux grained door is from Kerras and will be the laundry room door in the basement.

The Kitchen. This is the corner where the sink used to be. That is the window at left that George Lowe signed the pane when he built the Kitchen. The sashes are in storage so they don't get damaged. the new sink will be below this window and cabinets will line the wall. The new stove will go where the old one used to sit, at the right side of this photo. The ceiling will remain open to the peak.

This is the west wall of the Kitchen, looking into the dining room. The closet to the left of the door will remain, and will be a Pantry with sliding shelving for food storage. Take a look at those great old wide boards, which used to be the exterior wall of the house before the Kitchen was built, sometime around 1916. I'm debating whether to leave them exposed or drywall and wallpaper over them. All of the rest of the paneling in the Kitchen had to be removed for the additional framing but will go back on again. 

This is taken from the Dining Room looking into the Parlour. When the house is done, the Parlour will become the Dining Room. You can see the hardwood flooring stacked in the corner that will go back down in these spaces. That is the front Kitchen door laying on its side. Mike discovered that this door had been shaved at the top to fit the opening as the kitchen sagged over time. Grampy must have done that. The door closes well but there is now a 2 inch gap at the top of the door at the knob side, so we decided that he will shave the door level and drop the header so it will fit properly. Hopefully Dad won't have to duck to get into the kitchen when its done.

East wall of the kitchen

The framed rectangle in the ceiling is for the skylight over the stove. 

The kitchen door with the new straight header

The shingles on the west wall of the kitchen were above the ceiling and are from the time before the kitchen was built. Along with keeping the wide boards exposed, I'm considering retaining them to help tell the story of the progression of construction of the house over the last century. I'll no doubt change my mind about this several times before the final decision is made.

This is the front wall. The front door is at far left. This was the front Bedroom and will now be the Living Room. The wall between the door and window was removed and Carter said this is now a very nice room.

New floor deck in the old Dining Room

The front door. I find the cross bracing very interesting. Seems almost overdone compared to conventional framing of the time and is more of a Colonial detail. Carter and I have been studying details like this throughout the house and wonder if the house may be older than 1904. However, it is possible that is was built by men who followed old framing conventions at the time. This is hard to prove but I want to do more research into this. The house did belong to the Prince Edward Island Railroad and there are records to dig into that might shed light on this.

The underside of the stairs to the second floor. You can see the saw marks in the planks. The wood was likely milled either at MacLure's Mill at the dam, or at Moore's Lumber Mill across the River, incidentally where the lumber for the addition is coming from.

The little closet under the stairs will remain. This is the one spot that I guess we forgot to strip out.

Looking into the Pantry Closet in the Kitchen

Carter stacked the doors in the old Dining Room

The soil has been leveled off out toward the outhouse

Looks like the ground level worked out between the new back porch at left and the old Red Pine. Still lots of soil left over to build up around the house.

Even with all the rain, Carter is amazed at how dry it is around the house. The soil is like wet beach sand and drains very well.

Some of you might remember the concrete stoop across the front of the kitchen and steps that went down the hill. I will have that recreated in stained and stamped concrete to replicate the PEI red soil color of the original. It was removed when Grammy had the foundation "fixed" in 1988. Hopefully this fix will last longer!

Looking into the back porch and under the Kitchen. Steps will wind down from ground level into the basement at this point. At left is a window

This long narrow gap is where the stairs will go from the back porch up to the main level. At the top and to the right will be the bathroom, and another bathroom with laundry will be below it in the basement.

A bearing wall will replace the temporary columns. The Mechanical Room will be at the front under the Living Room and the new Bedroom will be at the back under the Dining Room.

Stubbed in drain pipe for the washer in the Laundry Room

North-west corner of the new back porch. The door will be right at this corner, facing the field. The concrete stoop from the front door was salvaged and I'll reuse it here.

Bathroom wall and new plywood sheathing on the kitchen roof. The entire roof will be stripped of the old shingles and sheathed with plywood before the new shingles go on. The main floor Bathroom will have 2 windows, one at each end, and the opening centered on the  north basement wall is the window for that Bathroom.

Sure looks high in the air

You can see that the back Kitchen window, the one with the George Lowe signature, will open into the new stair hall. There will be 3 skylights above it in the hall to allow second hand light into the Kitchen through this window.

A clawfoot tub will go under a window at this end of the Bathroom

The nook where the leftover forms are stacked is the space under the front porch, and will be the wine cellar. This space will not get radiant floor heating so we can keep it cool.

The shingles of this wall will remain as the interior wall of the back hall. I will paint them yellow to match the color of the house when I was a kid.

 Precise framing

You can see through the gap at the bottom of the wall the stacked hardwood flooring in the Parlour

Looking from the Mechanical Room to the space under the Kitchen, which will be plumbed and wired to be a second kitchen if ever there is a need to make the basement an independent suite. Insulation for the floor is being installed today, and possibly the radiant tubing as well, then the slab can be poured.

A far cry from the old floor framing

Thanks Carter for the fantastic photos!