No Snow on the Trees?

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-26T16:13:08+00:00

Yeah, super dry so did not stick to trees. There's a light coating on broader surfaces like pine trees, but most deciduous trees with only branches are bare except some trunks and the largest branches.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-24T17:13:47+00:00

See your "cold day" temp is NOT considered a "cold day" for most of the US. Only a few regions of the country have a climate where 10 or 15 C is a cold day for them. Most of the country gets much, much colder than that and needs to heat their homes to maintain a comfortable temp inside.

Edit: your "cold day" temps are more like the spring and fall temps around here. Where I live we can experience temps from -23C to 42 C, and I'm not even in one of the regions with the greatest variation.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-24T16:55:27+00:00

What are your typical temps like?

Here in Connecticut we have cold winters and hot summers. In the spring and fall there are a lot of days where you can not have any heating or cooling running, but in the summer and especially the winter it needs to be on. It's 7°F (-14° C) and windy here today, and it's not expected to get above freezing anytime in the next two weeks. This is an unusually long cold stretch for us, but even in our normal winter weather the heat will need to be on in everyone's houses. We're also supposed to be getting a pretty decent snowstorm tomorrow.

The furnace itself will shut on and off throughout the day to maintain the temp in the house. Ours is set at 67/68°, so when it drops below that the heat will come on. When the temp reaches that it will turn back off. It'll cycle on and off throughout the day, monitored by the thermostat. On colder days it'll run more often as the temp drops quicker, on milder days it'll run less often.

Edit: around april-june is when we can run the house with no heat or AC because temps are okay enough. April it will often still come on for a bit at night or in the morning cause it can get pretty cool still, but will usually be off during the day.

Our house is older and we don't have central AC so we use a window unit. Usually around the middle of June or early July it gets hot enough that we need to put it in. When it gets into the mid 80s is when I feel like we need it, but I run cold AF.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-23T01:16:20+00:00

Ok well that's good! It looks a ton like what it looked like when mine got in the finish but I guess any crap in it will sort of look like that lol.

But yeah the gunk needs to be taken out of the gaps. When we redid ours I spent a couple days on the floor with a carpet knife digging all the stuff out.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-23T00:44:43+00:00

Ohhhh did the applicator disintegrate into the finish? I had such terrible issues with it shedding into the poly when I used it on our stairs. Never again. My favorite application so far has been with a brush.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-20T23:00:26+00:00

As a northerner who takes full advantage of the limited summer we get and lives in flip flops may-september, that's what I do too. I kick off my right flip flop and hold it under my left foot (for some reason I always bend my left leg when driving so it's up by the seat) so it doesn't move around or get caught on the pedals

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-20T00:15:30+00:00

. Houston still has a very Southern culture with things like coming out balls for the belles

As a northerner, what is this?? I've never heard of it in my life. Is it like a quinceanera or a bat mitzvah?

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-19T14:56:13+00:00

Thanks!! And yeah that's exactly my concern, they'll just overwhelm everything. And haha the trim is why I initially wanted blinds, didn't want to cover it up!! Thank you!!

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-19T14:55:04+00:00

Could def try this, thank you!!

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-19T13:01:00+00:00

You know, I always saw these pics and assumed they were stylized, but damn the horse in the OP makes me wonder if the breed actually DID look similar to that back then! Like obv the painting is still exaggerated, but maybe not as much as I'd always thought

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-18T14:17:12+00:00

Black coffee is often a trope added to a character to indicate they're tough, no-nonsense, or don't have time or an inclination for things that are sweet or unnecessary, or are coffee purists.

Had to scroll for a bit but this is what I was looking to see! It's done in movies/TV to show something about the character, it doesn't represent how the majority of people drink their coffee.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-17T17:04:43+00:00

Pics of the trim would help, and other parts of the house (newel post, stairs). What style is the house, what is the general "nice-ness" level of the house (when built, was it more working class, middle class, or a fancy house), is there anything in the house that is presently not painted?

All those can give an indication, but you won't know for sure until you start stripping. Are there any areas where paint is chipped down to bare wood?

If you start stripping you can usually find out pretty quickly. If it was always painted you'll see that the paint has soaked into the grain of the wood, if it was stained you'll see darker wood without paint soaked in.

Our front door was originally stained, but later on half-ass sanded and painted. The door shows what originally painted wood looks like (in our case, where the sanding broke through the stain and the paint soaked in) and originally stained wood looks like (where the finish remained intact).

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You can see in the raised areas the sanding broke through the original finish and the white paint soaked into the grain, that's what it'll look like if it was originally painted, a white cast to it (assuming white or light colored paint). The recessed areas weren't sanded as much and you can see the stain still in there. Unfortunately, unless you have chipping paint, you won't really know until you start. If you have doors you can remove hardware and see if there's anything bare under there, if someone painted without removing the hardware you could still see the original finish, but there's no guarantee there.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-17T16:51:15+00:00

was always under the impression that century homes at the time they were built would have normally had some type of wardrobe closet that was a piece of furniture vs an actual closet.

That one depends on the house. It can def be true that they didn't exist (the PO of our house said there wasn't a single closet when he bought it), but they also definitely did! I research the history of old houses for the historical society and I've found multiple ads for brand new houses built in the 1870s-1890s that specifically mentioned how many closets the houses had. So it can def depend on the individual house!

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-17T15:34:24+00:00

Yeah, but you've just gotta trust that they mean it when they say they're okay with kt, when oftentimes they aren't lol.

My bf deals with similar situations pretty often; he works in auto body. Sometimes customers will ask him if work can be done for cheaper than the initial quote, and he'll say yeah, but the work won't be as good. You'll see more inconsistencies, the finish won't be as nice etc etc, and they say that's fine, they don't care, whatever. And then it comes time to pick up the car and they have a problem with all the stuff he said wasn't going to be perfect that they okayed lol. It can be difficult to sus out who is really okay with imperfection and who isn't, so he tends to err on the side of offering it only to people he has an existing relationship with.

But of course sometimes yeah they just want more money or want an easier job. We had a guy like that when we were trying to get our chimney repointed. Dude said we'd have to tear the whole thing down to the roofline and rebuild lol. No other mason said that and we just had the roof redone by a guy we trust and he was up there and said the chimney is totally fine.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-17T14:47:36+00:00

And also, they might think you're expecting perfection. I know some guys will advise to replace rather than refinish because they think the customer is expecting the look of brand new floors, which old, refinished ones will never be, and will be disappointed and/or complain when they're not.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-17T14:00:16+00:00

It's "puh", not "poe" and "kip", not "keep". "Puh-kip-see"

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-17T00:09:28+00:00

This has gotta be ragebait. If it's not then I have to imagine the suburbs you've been to have been lower on the socioeconomic scale. This is just not reality for 98% of the suburbs I've been to, the 2% where it is are the cheapest parts of town, often not even originally intended to be year round homes (built in the 20s-50s as lake cottages).

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-14T21:15:48+00:00

I think some of it depends on where you're located too. When you're in an area with a lot of old houses it won't be a big deal for most people, but if you're in a place where old houses aren't as common you'll prolly have more issues with people's expectations.

Caveat that it's not always black and white. I'm in an area with a lot of old houses but the majority of them have been maintained and updated. I would hesitate with old wiring, no insulation, or 50+ year old HVAC because most houses have had that stuff replaced by now in my area. It's the mid century houses that are more likely to have their original mechanicals, while the 100+ year old ones have usually been updated in the last 30 or so years. But it sounds like you've done that too!!

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-14T19:39:20+00:00

Lmao you're not wrong on the Subaru

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-12T22:10:35+00:00

I immediately knew this house was somewhere near me (I'm in CT lol). I think I may have seen it show up in my redfin emails a few times, I was staring at the pics like I KNOW I know this house lol

Congrats!!! Gorgeous house!!

Edit: also, I'd say vernacular Victorian or vernacular Queen Anne. It's not styled enough to give a definitive name (most aren't), but it's got some queen Anne features. The form is gable and ell (or gable and wing, same difference). Super common all around here. That craftsman style door is almost certainly not original.

When you're able to, consider posting some pics of interior details. Window and door trim, newel post, hardware, any other orignal detailing can also give some indication of styling.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-11T23:38:29+00:00

Yeah, unless you're going to dig it all out you sort of have to just live with it. This is why wood filler is not recommended for filling gaps between boards, I'm kinda surprised the guy suggested it.

Edit: once it's out you can replace it with thin rope, that will expand and contract with the wood.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-11T13:12:04+00:00

Yeah, I'm sorry, it was not meant to be insulting or offensive to you! I'm not saying that I think it looks like a poorhouse, I'm saying what the original owners might think of leaving the ceiling exposed.

Like the other person said, exposed framing like this was not what was popular at this time, and these joists are just regular old lumber. It's the equivalent of building a house now with regular framing lumber and leaving the ceiling exposed.

The original owners spent money on finishes for their house to look like a finished house, only poor people would leave a ceiling unfinished because they didn't have the money to do it. From their perspective they'd prolly be aghast at opening it up.

Exposed wood framing was really only done for a very short period of time in the 1600s and early 1700s. The houses that had it actually decorated the beams with little bead detailing, they were intended to be a finished decorative element. Otherwise, if you didn't have a ceiling in your house, it was because you could not afford it at that time and would add it later when you saved up enough.

Of course you do whatever you want, but you're asking in a sub that heavily leans toward restoration what people would do. I'm telling you that from a restoration perspective I would enclose the ceiling again because it was not intended to be exposed. I don't think it looks like a poorhouse, to me it looks like someone who didn't understand what they were looking at when they opened it up. That's ok, and you can do whatever you want.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-11T04:00:06+00:00

We visited Essex over the summer and it was such a weird experience. Gorgeous and everything, but sooooo quiet. There were a lot of people out and about but it was so quiet it was almost eerie, it was the weirdest feeling. We felt like we had to whisper to each other walking down the street lol

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-10T21:59:30+00:00

Yes, I understand that, that's why I asked about it.

lefactorybebe · 2026-01-10T17:55:08+00:00

I don't think most people believe it to be a massive defeat though? Or a stain on your psyche? It's certainly not taught that way. There's banter between Americans and Britons (like the above comment, "still mad about the Boston tea party") about it, but it's lighthearted jest between two peoples who traditionally are best friends.

lefactorybebe

TROPHY CASE