Initial condition - Disaster Mansion

09/05/201810/05/2018

Going once, going twice …

We are in the process of pulling down the rear exterior stairs. They aren’t original (no rectangular nails, just the common round nails) and were built to give access to a former upper apartment.

From the first picture in the gallery you can tell that the stairs are slanting away from the house (it’s not the angle of the camera, they really were slanting that much) and the first few times we went up them we expected them to collapse. This weekend I removed some of the lower weather boards and was surprised (I shouldn’t have been) that all the vertical supporting beams had been put down on good old soil. Surprise, surprise the bottoms had rotted out from all leaving them hanging in the air. Gaps varied between 3″ and 24″. I’m amazed that they could take our weight, but that’s probably in part to how well the original was house was built to which the stairs were bolted to.

We are now in the process of pulling 80% of this down and time lapse will follow. Until then marvel at this engineering masterpiece.

I have to say it’s very satisfy to deconstruct all this crap that has been added to the house over the years.

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28/03/201828/03/2018

The Bad Parts. Back Deck and Stairs

It will be nice when we have removed up all this stuff, the junk, the rotting deck and the staircase. The staircase isn’t original and was probably added when they split the place into apartments. Yes, they are cement asbestos tiles but we will remove them carefully (with correct dust masks etc) and dispose of it in a proper fashion. We will keep the upper deck until the time comes to replace it.

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28/03/201828/03/2018

The Bad Parts. The Roof

No denying it is pretty bad. Looks like work was just abandoned…. very Mary Celeste of the roof. Nice views from the top though.

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16/02/201828/03/2018

The Good Parts. Door and Bannister

Pretty much everyone, without prompting, notices the good parts, the door, the banister and the decent sized garden. The door looks pretty art deco to me and we may try and recreate this style elsewhere. It’s also nice that the door is so wide.

The banister, while not looking much is black walnut and should come up a treat. There is a chunk missing but that can be fixed in time. Shame I never learnt to use a wood lathe when I was at the Crucible as quite a few of the balusters are missing.

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12/02/201813/06/2018

Left in a hurry

The previous owner(s) seemed to have left in a hurry. They had started ripping out all the lath and plaster and drywall. Shame they hadn’t removed it as it took us a few weekends and two huge dumpsters to remove it all, plus it was hard work, icy and wet. They left furniture, books, credit cards, sex toys etc. Shame nothing was worth keeping.

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11/01/201828/03/2018

First Impressions

On entering the house for the first time and so far for all subsequent visits, you find yourself muttering “Oh my golly gosh!!!!”. The place is a mess, needs a lot of work and can feel overwhelming, but then I say to myself, well it’s only a wooden box, how difficult can that be? The pictures don’t really illustrate the true horror!!!!

A good few of these pictures were taken by my brother Matt before we bought it. He was brave enough to climb up the rear stairs which were covered in animal shit, both old and new. The house also had a quite a few similar gifts waiting for us and we were told one of the previous owners didn’t like to walk their dogs so they just let them use the top floor as their toilet. Classy!!!

I think pretty much everyone who has visited the place is left a little shocked at the amount of work needed, but at the same time, they do see the potential of the place. As my friend Eric put it, “I didn’t expect it to be in such a state, but I didn’t expect it to have such potential.” Even 3.8 year old Daphne, Eric’s daughter and my goddaughter, wanted to leave!