of Chillicothe, Ross County & South-Central Ohio
of Chillicothe, Ross County & South-Central Ohio 4/25/06We've been busy at Harley's House in the Earl H. Barnhart Buzzard's Roost Preserve. This is a project of the South Central Ohio Preservation Society that I inspired last summer. So far Gary Hatfield, Joe Betsch, Everett Freeman, Kezia Sproat and I have made great headway on removing post-1912 parts of the house in preparation for restoring it to its 1907-1912 appearance and use as a retreat and shelter in the preserve. The Ross County Park District accepted our plan back on December 16th.
Join us at the SCOPS meeting April 30th at the house for a view of the house and our work on it, and its grand opening on the summer solstice June 21st!
This corner of the house had the worst damage, because of a leaky chimney-roof junction. Removing the chimney, and the added ceiling and flooring prepares the room for repair and restoration. (Scroll right to see all the images.)
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What we started with: a leaky brick chimney, with decaying cabinets beside, drywall above, and particle board below. |
First, the cabinets go... |
After Joe took the cieling down, creating a pile on the floor, the chimney goes... |
A little cleanup before the floor comes up... |
And stepping back to admire the exposed original flooring! (Next will be patching the hole in the roof, ceiling, and floor...) |
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The porch at the beginning: floor, posts, roof. |
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Everett detaches the railing after we removed the roofing and sheathing. |
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Although it looked like the porch was pulling loose from the house, after we knocked the posts out, the roof stayed up! |
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A few pries got it loose, though it swung down and hit a stack of bricks. |
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That was cleared away. Some of the siding came off with the porch roof, so we attacked that... |
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...And the siding is gone, to make reopening the porch room easier. |
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Next went the flooring. We stacked it away for possible reapair inside. |
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Finally, the floor joists are gone. |
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Some tidying up and jerryrigged steps make entering the house possible again. |
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The next day we worked on the house, Gary Hatfield joined us . We tackled the plaster inside and then the dark sheathing on the outside. |
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Then went the 2x4s - though not all of them. We needed to leave a few as porch posts. |
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Presto! The old back porch is reopened! |
This little porch was added about 1960. Since we are restoring the house to its 1910 appearance, it had to go, as well as the enclosure of the recessed porch behind it. (Scroll down to see all the images.)
