THE OLD HOUSE AT IPSWICH VILLAGE PART 6

THE 

OLD HOUSE 

AT 

IPSWICH VILLAGE

 

SAVING MOSES JEWETT’S HOUSE

POST ROAD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

1981-1982


PART SIX



Prudence Paine Fish

THE DINING ROOM

 Oh, what a scene! Was there any hope for this room?  Optimism was hard to muster.

There was no sign of the fireplace. A blank wall covered with crumbling tan plaid wallpaper greeted us where the fireplace should have been. We had to excavate again, just as in the kitchen. It was a mess.

This is the mess that confronted us in the future dining room that would
become the scene for many elegant dinner parties down the road but not yet!.

There actually is a fireplace in there!  It has an oven.
Surprise, Surprise

Down came the Victorian plaster and lath, down came studs, out came bricks. What a nice surprise to find a rather large firebox with another brick oven in the rear. That meant three large bake ovens in one chimney. It was unexpected that we would find one here.  Perhaps this fireplace had been altered to accommodate two families. The hearth must be rebuilt and a damper added.

Above the fireplace was a cupboard minus its door. On the left of the fireplace was the door to the cellar. This was a major change and the door was Victorian. The cellar door should be in the front hallway underneath the staircase. We removed the offending door in the dining room. But wait!  What about that panel in the attic?  We were lucky.  It was the missing panel removed when the cellar door was created. It was necessary to find a door for the cupboard but after finding that the rest of the fireplace and surround fell into place.

That was the fun part. The rest was not fun.

The raised field panels on the fireplace wall ended at the ceiling, cut off mid-way. Something was wrong here. The ceiling must have been lowered. The panels were incomplete. We reasoned that the ceiling must have been lowered to cover the summer beam, a frequent solution for hiding the old summer beam when it was no longer aesthetically acceptable. This 1759 house must have summer beams. How could it not?

Notice the space for a cupboard above the fireplace.  Particularly notice the
small panel upper left that is not finished on the top.  You can see the ceiling
line.

The ceiling was horrible beyond description so we tackled the messy job of pulling it down. Two problems emerged immediately. There was no summer beam. There was just a system of large floor joists; beams really, but parallel. That was the first disappointment.

Next, we found that the panels at ceiling height were not complete above the plaster line but just ended as three sided panels with no tops. It was original!  That seemed strange, to say the least. Even stranger were the two round holes in the newly uncovered raised field panel over the door to the front hallway. What purpose did these holes serve? Obviously they were very old because the room had been re-plastered and all of this paneling covered probably in the mid 19^th century. It wasn’t until long after we sold the house that I understood the reason for this “transom panel”.

Our contractor, Paul, was lucky to find a paneled door that fit the
cupboard over the fireplace.  Former cellar door is on the left.

The future dining room wall on the driveway side had buckled due to a rotted sill, but more particularly, a rotted and rolled sill. The wall had to be torn out to window sill height and rebuilt starting with a new pressure treated sill. When all was said and done there was not enough of that wall left to save so it had to be replaced. 

The wall of the dining room was torn out up to the windows because
of the rotted and rolled sill that had caused the interior wall to buckle.
There were sill problems on all four sides of the house that were replaced.

The kitchen wall likewise had to be replastered because of the door to the little bedroom that was no more. That had to be covered and made to disappear. 

On the left is the door that previously accessed the first
floor bedroom.  Notice the old wavy split lath.

And because we had destroyed the ceiling in our quest for the summer beam and panel tops, a new ceiling was in order.

This is what the dining room looked like as the buckled outside
was repaired and the door to the old bedroom was covered not
to mention the mess we made pulling down the ceiling looking
for a summer beam that we were sure we would find but didn't.

That was not all. The pine floor was in very bad condition. Some of the boards were paper-thin, the rest we used for repairs elsewhere. A new floor was laid. Like the new floors in the old kitchen and the new kitchens, it was stained. We hoped it would appeal to the buyers who didn't like painted floors.They could always be painted at a later date but that would be the new owner's choice.

So all the repairs were made and new materials introduced. It looked like a new room. The ceiling was too smooth and the corners where they met the walls, too plumb. Perhaps crown molding around the ceiling would take the sting off those sharp edges. Nice old molding was found at Whitey Davis’s salvage yard in Salisbury and installed. That helped. We tried to mimic the earliest color, a soft green. The room began to look better. Perhaps that wallpaper that Nellie had would look nice. I had planned to use it at my house but decided to donate it to the Moses Jewett house at the last minute. It was a Chinese Chippendale paper. Nellie called it “bird of paradise, tree of life”. The formal name of the pattern was Chartwell. Chartwell was manufactured by Thomas Strahan in Chelsea, Massachusetts. The pattern dated to the 18th century. The paper matched the paint perfectly and the outcome was pretty. It is still there and still looks good. The present owners have no plans to change it…ever.

    This photo shows the door from the dining room to the front entry.
     The panel with the holes goes above that left hand door.  The right 
hand opening was the entrance added to go to the cellar but we 
found the missing paneling and restored it to original.  Above it
      is one of the panels with no finished top.  It just disappears into the
ceiling. 

To enhance the integrity of the house we chose not to install a chandelier in the dining room. Cassidy Forge made us a chandelier for candles that would hang from a hook over the table. The center was the wooden hub of an old wagon wheel. Branches and cups for the candles were added. It looked great. Unfortunately, the pleasure it gave us was short lived. The chandelier was stolen! Much more about that to follow.

The chandelier was made for us at Cassidy Forge from the hub of an old
wagon wheel that they had been saving for just the right job.  This was it!

In order to provide modern illumination, two small eyeball lights were recessed in front of the fireplace and operated by a dimmer. These lights spotlighted the paneled room end and fireplace and the degree of light could be controlled so that it did not compete with the candles. Many people were shocked that I would consider this modern lighting. It was the right solution. 

 At last the room had come together and holds its own with the rest of the house. I’m not sure anyone remembers that so much work was done in this part of the house. It all looks compatible, has mellowed with age and now has a patina to match the rest.

This is really the same room after the restoration
was complete.  It is hard to believe what a mess it was.

 Later I understood the two holes above the hall door. The answer became apparent when the new owners tried to have dinner parties with a smoking fireplace that didn’t draw well.  Over a number of years they tried different ways of building fires: smaller ones, bigger ones, fires in the rear, fires toward the front. They optimistically always claimed to have found the solution only to be driven out in the middle of dinner by smoke, usually on a cold winter’s night with the front door and a window open to let the smoke out.

 Now I understood the purpose of the holes in the panel over the hall door. That fireplace had smoked for two hundred years! The holes were to let the smoke out into the hall or out the front door without opening the door from the dining room to the cold hall. This was not a new problem!

Old-time masons knew how to build a fireplace that would draw well. What happened to this fireplace?  My theory is that the fireplace was altered long ago. Probably the oven was added. Maybe it had something to do with the various divisions of the divided house. The mason may have done the best he could to accommodate the occupant with a large firebox, a crane and an oven but the balance and the draft were changed forever. The fireplace smoked then and it smokes now.  My theory is that the fireplace was altered and an oven added when Moses left his two maiden daughter the use of one third of the house while his son, Aaron, and his family had the rest including the big cooking fireplace in the old kitchen.  Maybe a new kitchen fireplace was created in the front room for their use.  And using that fireplace meant cutting two round holes in the panel over the door, each hole the size of a baseball, to let the smoke out from a fireplace that will never draw well.

The new owners finally gave up trying to make it work and have resorted to a gas log. It looks pretty good, throws heat and allows for a cheerful fire at a dinner party. I guess it’s the only solution there was. It's better than having to evacuate the room during a holiday dinner!  The bottom line is that it is another change that can be reversed. This makes it a good thing. 

It is hard for me to believe that with all my photos I do not have one of the finished fireplace wall but I don't.  So my last picture of the dining room is of the table with the chandelier hanging above it just days before it was stolen never to be seen again.

The completed dining room.  There is the new crown molding around the ceiling.  The

colors in the wall paper are more natural beneath the window.  The custom made chandelier

made by Cassidy Forge hangs over the table.  A few days after this picture was taken, the chandelier 
was stolen never to be seen again.  The woodwork is actually a soft sage green that works perfectly with the Chinese 

Chippendale wallpaper.  The age of the photos and the camera do distort the period colors.  The wall paper is quite soft
and not as strong looking as in the old photo.

THE HALL

The tiny hall has a three run “captain’s” staircase with a closed string ascending to the second floor. It winds up tightly against the chimney from left to right.

Feather edged sheathing and an unplastered
ceiling were original to the entry hall.

Halfway up the stairs a fairly large door opens into a closet in the chimney. Closets such as this are not all that common but are seen occasionally.  Aaron Jewett’s house just up the street, until recently belonging to the Stevens family, had a similar closet in the chimney.

The closet in the chimney

The panel under the stairs was reopened to its original use as a cellar door. Again, as in the antique kitchen, we discovered a white-washed ceiling under newer plaster. We allowed the unfinished ceiling to be exposed.

The woodwork was painted with Nellie’s “tusk”, a versatile green/tan color. For the walls we chose Katzenbach and Warren’s “Charles the Third” wallpaper from the Williamsburg Collection. It was extravagant but wonderful paper for an early setting. 

Charles III wallpaper.  One of the oldest patterns known.  This
 was from the Katzenbach and Warren Williamsburg Collection.

Tin sconces near the front door and a hanging tin hall light hanging from the second floor ceiling completed the hall restoration. These tin lights, authentic copies, came from the Federal Street Lighthouse in Newburyport, a store much loved by restorers and now greatly missed by restorers.

Bulls eye glass has been installed in the front
six panel door and a tin sconce mounted beside it.

From the entry hall looking into the dining room.
Sometimes these halls are called stair halls, some
times they are called entries or even passageway.
In this photo you can see the wallpaper as it
really looks

THE PARLOR

                           

At this point the worst of the first floor was finished and looking good.  We were beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

A peek at the next room, the parlor, from the front entry.


     

            

After all of the other serious projects on 
     the first floor the work needed in this room 
seemed quite routine.

Actually, much less work was needed here than in the other first floor rooms.

After we destroyed the dining room ceiling we were told by Paul that they could save all of the plaster and they did. No more ceilings or plaster were removed except where Victorian lath and plaster were removed to reveal original paneling or sheathing.  The plaster that was saved looks just right.  We were amazed at what the crew was able to do to salvage the old plaster.  It has held up and still looks great.

All of the plaster was saved in the parlor. The fireplace was opened and a new hearth built. A damper was put in and the fireplace was ready to go after Richard Irons had created a new boiler flue in the back space in the center of the huge chimney.  The only other options would have been to build a new disfiguring chimney on the back of the house and that was too expensive and too unsightly anyway. So that was really  not an option for the budget or for resale.  Or the fireplace could have remained blocked but we wouldn't think of leaving a fireplace blocked especially in the parlor.  Today we would have used a direct vent to the outside but that was not an available option at that time although they were available just a few years later  .  We worked out the problem very neatly and satisfactorily.

The parlor fireplace had a small cupboard above it like the one in the dining room.  In this
room the cupboard and the paneling were intact.  Some of the wall covering was feather
edged sheathing and not sophisticated but typical of a country farmhouse.

The paneling here was naïve.  It was a mixture of raised field paneling and feather edged sheathing. There was a cupboard above the fireplace just as there was in the dining room.

A pretty corner near the fireplace. More about the candle
stand later. Some feather edged sheathing can be seen on the
 left side.

The floor was comfortable; worn but salvageable. The woodwork was painted a slate blue and the floor a harmonizing but darker blue. The walls were left white.

No special or unusual problems were encountered here. That was a break! The restoration of the first floor was complete!

Here as in the rest of the house where there were plaster ceilings that were saved.  The disaster in the dining room is the only exception. There is remarkably little to comment on in this room.  Most of the changes were simply cosmetic.  It is completely original.

Notice the furniture used for staging here as well as in the old kitchen.  There will be more to say about that in a future post.

Onward and upward to the second floor in the next installment.

The gable wall of the house staged with items from our homes and Yolanda's toile drapes at the windows.

To be continued in Part 7

THE OLD HOUSE IN IPSWICH VILLAGE PART 5

THE 

OLD HOUSE 

AT 

IPSWICH VILLAGE

 

SAVING MOSES JEWETT’S HOUSE

POST ROAD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

1981-1982


PART Five



Prudence Paine Fish

THE NEW KITCHEN

Now that we had agreed that the working kitchen would be in the lean-to along with the first floor bath and laundry we were facing the challenge of creating a kitchen that worked for us both in terms of efficiency and aesthetics. Nellie had drilled it into our heads that there should be a continuity between rooms, an easy flow, and a psychologically pleasing transition of color, style and pattern and materials as one passed from one room to another.

After the removal of the old half bath and other
walls this is what the lean-to looked like. There
was not much to save except the outside walls.

We abandoned our original idea of trendy, contemporary, light colored laminate cabinets. (In retrospect, how could we have considered this?)  We now settled on pine cabinets with raised panels that made more sense. 

The kitchen cabinets were raised panel pine.  Today they might seem dated
but I still believe they were appropriate for the house.  We finished them
ourselves.

Mexican tiles with a charming handmade look covered the wall space between the counters and the overhead cabinets.

The slightly irregular Mexican tiles for the backsplash with an occasional painted
strawberry avoided the slick look of modern tiles. They have a handmade look.

A large multi-paned window was installed at the driveway end of the kitchen where we envisioned a spot for a small table and chairs.    

This view from the loft shows the initial progress in the new kitchen as seen
from above.

Here the cabinets have been hung on the back wall.

Here is the same view in the finished kitchen.

The woodwork was pine, the floor also pine. The floor was new by necessity. New floors would be stained and finished. All original floors would be painted. In this way we tried to please the future buyer who adores pine floors and also please someone with a more purist mindset by painting the original floors.  The new floors can always be painted and the new kitchen does now have a painted floor.

At the far end of the kitchen was the bath/ laundry combination.  Above this area we created a small loft accessed from the second floor.

Under the loft is the door to the newly created bath/laundry. The new Velux
skylights can be seen in the ceiling.

This modern kitchen would have a cathedral ceiling with two large Velux skylights. The two back doors also had small panes of glass on the top two thirds. This kitchen would be bright and sunny

For appliances we chose a Jennair stove with convection oven that vented downward. The dishwasher was Maytag, the sink double stainless steel with a single control faucet. This was before the days when granite and stainless steel appliances dominate kitchens and would become the standard by which a kitchen is judged.

Track lighting filled the illumination needs. The counter tops were a neutral Formica.

  

The downstairs bath received an imitation quarry tile floor. The pine vanity had a terra cotta Formica counter top. The shower stall was fiberglass.  

There were hook-ups for a washer and dryer in front of the sealed up door in the Beverly jog. Nellie came “over the road” with a small print wallpaper from Old Stone Mill (no longer in business)  for the bathroom walls.

This completes a description of our new kitchen. We maintained the pine of the adjacent area, provided good equipment for 1981 and an easy transition to the next space, the colonial period kitchen/family room.

Here is the finished back wall of the kitchen with double sink and Maytag
dishwasher.The finish on the cabinets was truly a pine finish.  The old photo
suggests that the cabinets were dark.  They really were not any where near that dark.

Best of all we had confined the equipment, appliances and modern functions of a working house to the added lean-to without invading the period rooms. Our mission to keep the original rooms as pure as possible was accomplished.  

The finished kitchen with antique toys in the loft.

Looking at these old photos makes me realize how much harder this would have been today.  Some decisions would be based on codes and requirements of the town.  That goes without saying.  More troublesome is the realization that the expectations of today's home buyers puts modern amenities and trends ahead of preservation.  What seemed like a nice kitchen at the time might well be rejected now as would the small but serviceable bathroom upstairs in the space of the old bath.  There has been no space relegated to a master suite with en suite master bath or Jacuzzi!  There have been no walls removed that were original, the windows are true divided lights and not insulated glass.  It would be difficult to be a preservationist and make the decisions necessary for today's market.

I'm glad this was completed in a simpler day and age!

Now that the "modern amenities" have been dealt with we will continue with the restoration of the 18th century rooms in the next installment.

THE OLD HOUSE AT IPSWICH VILLAGE PART 4

THE 

OLD HOUSE 

AT 

IPSWICH VILLAGE

 

SAVING MOSES JEWETT’S HOUSE

POST ROAD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

1981-1982


PART FOUR



Prudence Paine Fish

THE COLONIAL PERIOD KITCHEN

With the big fireplace opened and all intruding partitions removed we could begin putting the colonial kitchen back together.

Without doubt, this would be the most dramatic room in the house with its cavernous fireplace dominating the room. This would become the focal point of this restoration and the important all-purpose room in the house just as in had been in colonial days.

In its original configuration when built this area would have been divided into three sections. The evidence was there but the changes took place long ago beginning when the house was divided. In its original form approximately 1/3 of the space at the east end toward the driveway would have been the first floor bedroom. Since many of the old houses faced south, it is common for the right side of the house to be the east side and the left side facing west, at least approximately so.  Today people would call this east room the “borning room,” a misnomer and term arising from the colonial revival period about one hundred years ago. This room was romanticized as a room reserved for childbirth but in reality it was a bedroom for whatever purpose needed. It was handy to the kitchen fireplace, warmer than the upstairs and practical for an elderly, sick, lame or other needy family member.

Here is the floor plan of a similar but typical 18th century center chimney house.  Notice that the front entry
here is called the "porch".  That name is not commonly used.  The cooking fireplace is this house has only one
oven.  The right hand wall in the kitchen is not located as ours would have been allowing a door into the parlor
directly from the kitchen.  The back stairs are approximately the same.  It is not a coincidence that this plan so
nearly approximates the Moses Jewett house.  There was a consistency and this plan is typical with minor changes.  

A smaller area at the opposite end of this large space would have been reserved for a buttery and a back stair. The largest space centered in front of the big fireplace, the heart of the colonial period home, and was the most significant living/working part of the house.

The back staircase in the Jewett house was missing. It was necessary to restore a functional staircase in the back. In a central chimney house the large chimney occupies the middle of the building. The front stairs turn by necessity allowing access to the two front bedrooms but no direct access to the back half of the house except through the front bedchambers. Therefore, a back staircase accessing these rooms and providing a more convenient direct route to the second floor is imperative.

The new back stairs.  Design taken from Capen
House in Topsfield which is really much earlier.

The carpenters built the staircase leading up to the room in the back right hand corner of the second floor. A few more steps across this room now accessed the attic door and stairs making it infinitely easier to carry things from the first floor straight to the attic rather than the circuitous route previously called for.

Fireplace wall has an added mantle and simple sheathing above

After pulling down plaster on the inside walls of the kitchen we uncovered much feather edged sheathing covering the entire interior wall. The only missing pieces were above the newly opened fireplace. A few scraps and remnants of that wall were left and reproduced. Although fireplaces at the period the house was built did not have mantles over the fireplaces, we took the liberty of adding a mantle in the old kitchen since there was nothing left from the original to alter. Mantles are nice. They provide a place for a clock, candlesticks, or holiday decorations and were often added to existing paneled walls but for most of the 18th century there were no mantles.

The ceiling was not original at all. There were several layers of squares, bad plaster and damage from old plumbing. It was then that it was discovered that in its early years the ceiling had been whitewashed and not plastered. This is unusual. This was not a first period house. But the evidence was clearly there. Old greasy whitewash clung to the beams and floorboards above. It was dirty, yellowed and disgusting but rather exciting to recognize that this second period farmhouse had not had a plastered ceiling for a long time. The absence of split lath indicated that the ceiling came much, much later. So we left the ceiling uncovered after cleaning off the now offensive whitewash. The open ceiling would be more authentic if it was whitewashed.  An open ceiling in a house of this period is not the norm, I would not have expected it but it seemed important to remain faithful to what we found. People love beamed ceilings anyway and we were able to justify its veracity.  We left it open knowing that it should have been whitewashed again but that was an option for a new owner to decide.  To this day it has not been whitewashed.

There had once been a door from what would become the dining room (designated as a parlor on the above plan)  into the small first floor, east end bedroom.  There was another door that had always led from this future dining room into the old kitchen.  In its present state it left two doors almost side by side connecting the same two spaces.  We handled this by covering the door on the dining room side and simply closing the door on the kitchen side. This change can be reversed at any time in the future.  No original fabric was disturbed.

A large soil line and other pipes led to the bathroom above. A tidy step-back pine cupboard was built to disguise some pipes and another was boxed in pine and resembled a vertical post. These offending pipes were neatly disguised.

The biggest issue was the fireplace hearth. There was none left. We had to begin again from scratch.

Richard Irons and his crew set the hearth in place. I objected. It seemed too shallow to balance such a huge fireplace. I imagined the fireplace tipping forward on such a small platform. More courses of bricks were added. I was still not satisfied. Nellie came “over the road”.  To the restoration masons she proclaimed that, “We have to understand life at that time period. We have to visualize how they lived, how they cooked, spun, did their weaving, candle making, soap making and socializing, all around the big fireplace.”  Then she startled the men by saying, “Why, in those days, who knows, they may have even slaughtered the cow on the hearth!”

The bricks are being laid out to replace the missing hearth.

Meanwhile, I had been impressed with the large hearth at the Paine-Dodge house known as Greenwood Farm in Ipswich, down on the edge of the marsh off Jeffreys Neck Road. Finding an image of that hearth in a book and with the help of a magnifying glass I had carefully counted the courses of brick in that hearth and hoped we could do the same.  Mr. Irons did not necessarily agree but I prevailed.

The following day as the last courses of brick were added to the big hearth one of the masons was heard saying to the other, “Well, do you think this is big enough for your average cow?"

Here is the very wide hearth that is probably
inappropriately wide but works well anyway.

Right or wrong, I loved it.  Many years later I learned that the one I had copied was not authentic after all.  Oh, well.  I still love it!

We had discovered early on that because the cooking fireplace predated the days of swinging cranes. 
there were brackets (I call them lugs.) in the chimney to support a lug pole. A lug pole was a green sapling that would be inserted up in the throat of the chimney resting on the two brackets. (lugs). Trammels hung from the lug pole to which pots and kettles were attached. Historically, the lug pole had to be monitored because they eventually burned out and needed to be replaced before a kettle of soup crashed to the hearth. Our masons dutifully replaced the lug pole. It was good for a laugh years later when a chimney sweep was called in and he reported with alarm to the new owners that there was a big stick up in the chimney and he would remove it for them. No!  Leave it alone! I’m happy to report it is still there.

Finally, it's a working fireplace!

We all brought belongings from our own homes to fill the house.  Today it
would be called staging the house but that term had not been applied in those days.

A damper was placed on the top of the chimney with a chain hanging down into the fireplace and fastened to a hook for opening and closing the damper. This works better than having an oversized iron damper that would be a struggle to open or close in such a large flue.

At one point the building inspector appeared and said the kitchen fireplace was not safe because it had an oak lintel.  He insisted that we wrap the lintel in sheet metal.  This oak lintel beveled on its face toward the fire, had been doing its job without damage for generations.  After adding the sheet metal we observed that the metal didn't even get hot.  The old time masons knew what they were doing and I have seldom seen one that had burned under normal use.

From all the changes, walls added and subtracted, stairs removed, hearth removed and more, the floor was a lost cause. We had to replace it. Here, as in the new kitchen, the floor was stained. Many potential buyers would love it and those that didn’t could always paint it.

Here is the finished room staged.  The extra door is on the left side of the fireplace and the second door is hidden by the projecting fireplace.
When completed this room worked well with the new kitchen and became the main living area of the restored house. The size of the big room, the size of the fireplace (and the hearth) still leaves visitors in awe.

This story will be continued in Part 5 with the progress in the creation of a new working kitchen.

THE OLD HOUSE AT IPSWICH VILLAGE PART 3

THE 

OLD HOUSE 

AT 

IPSWICH VILLAGE

 

SAVING MOSES JEWETT’S HOUSE

POST ROAD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

1981-1982


PART THREE



Prudence Paine Fish

DECISIONS, DECISIONS
ACCOMMODATING AN OLD HOUSE

Early in the process we decided that it would be best to accommodate the house.  And that has remained my motto to this day.  "Accommodate the old house instead of trying to make the old house accommodate you."  That meant working with the house and what it was, a mid 18th century antique. That also meant not removing original fabric, enlarging spaces or cutting up existing spaces.  We would be committed to working within the confines of the existing house.  It would be a challenge to find solutions and a way around obstacles in order to achieve the desired result...a carefully restored house that looked like the 18th century but functioning as a 20th century house should function.

To make the house accommodate us would have meant loss of integrity and a heavy -handed approach with loss of original fabric.  No, we would overcome these challenges.


THE CREW AND CONSULTANTS

Our general contractor, the thoughtful, efficient, Paul Leone, was always on top of every detail along with the subs for wiring, heating and plumbing. Materials were always there in advance, the project moved forward in an orderly progression under Paul’s supervision. Coordination and scheduling were flawless.

Richard Irons  To restore the chimney, fireplaces and missing hearths and dampers,  Paul brought in Richard Irons. How lucky we were! Today, some thirty years later, Richard is recognized as the master in his field and is still a good friend.

 Paul McGinley, an Ipswich resident with a great resume in the preservation field spent time with us discussing possible appropriate scenarios. Paul is still a good friend.

My dear friend,  the late Nellie Meras, from Exeter, NH responded to my call for help with colors, paint, wallpapers and general decorating and cosmetic issues. None of us ever forgot her advice repeated often when we were struggling to pick out a color. “Now remember,” she would warn us, “intensity increases with volume.” if she thought we were getting too carried away with a questionable color. Whenever we had a request for more paint, especially a color she mixed herself called “tusk”, she would immediately respond with, “I’ll be right over the road and bring it to you. And then we’ll go out for coffee…on me.”  And come she did in her little green wagon, many, many times. Nellie has long since passed on but her words of advice still echo in my ears and her friendship a fond memory.

Daughter, Nancy Fish, helped with paint stripping and scraping. She was a genius at staining and matching colors where repairs had been made, blending the finishes until the repairs became invisible.  She also worked feverishly to rejuvenate the furniture I had purchased from the estate to make it salable in Bob’s shop.

Son, Bob Fish, and Donn Pollard were ever present, day after day; helping hands doing a little of everything.  During breaks David taught Bob to play the guitar and he has never stopped.

A handy man, Dick Mackey, along with his helpers, carted off junk including old plumbing , boiler and radiators. He knew a little bit about everything and hung around a lot offering valued advice. More about him later.

Rodney Barrett, an old friend and skilled carpenter, ambitiously tackled the barn.

Rodney Barrett working on the barn

Jackie Cordima, a new broker in the office, worked hard to find us a buyer.  She showed it the house many times to prospective buyers.  These showing she will never forget but more about that later.

“Teddy the Painter” from Haverhill and his crew of smiling, hard working, non-English speaking, Greek immigrants, prepared, primed and painted the outside. 

Yolanda Martin, David's mother and Vern's wife stepped up to the plate making appropriate curtains for most of the windows.  (Actually, we couldn't resist decorating, bringing over some furnishings and appointments and planning an open house party when finished.)  Yolanda also thought of little details such as soap, wastebaskets and other practical items.

Someone whose name I have forgotten, laid the brick walkway .

Cassidy Forge from Rowley provided the Boston post light and thumb latches. Cassidy designed and made the dining room chandelier equipped for candles.  The dining room would have candles over the dining room table and no electric chandelier.  Electric lighting would be provided in the dining room by recessed lighting over the fireplace on a dimmer.

The cast is long and some overlooked but all did their jobs well.

THE FRONT DOOR AND EXTERIOR

The Moses Jewett house represents the quintessential New England colonial farmhouse. It is right out of the textbook or a Currier and Ives print.  Stunning in the snow, it becomes a perfect scene for a Christmas card.

Such houses as these built in the 18^th century usually had a five bay façade; four windows on the first floor with a door in the middle. The second floor windows were tucked up high under the eaves. The front door entered into a tiny hall or entry with a three run staircase positioned in front of the big center chimney. These tiny halls were dark especially with the doors to the front rooms closed for heat conservation as they probably always were. 

So it was not surprising that the Greek revival door, in vogue before 1840, took New England by storm. Hundreds of old houses replaced their Georgian doors and surrounds with a new four-panel door and sidelights with panes of glass all the way down to the sill. Such was the scenario with the Jewett house.

Greek Revival Doorway, circa 1840

Lots of time was devoted to studying Georgian door surrounds in the general area for ideas and inspiration. We had no way of knowing what the original looked like. We could only guess what was originally there so it was pure conjecture and choice that prompted us. Always liking something with a slightly different twist, I focused on a door with fluted pilasters and a curved pediment instead of the more common Georgian triangular pediment.

As the Greek revival doorway was dismantled, pieces of the original emerged. They had been recycled into the Greek Revival doorway. We found one fluted pilaster that would serve as a prototype for identical replacements.

When all of the old door and its surround had been removed including the clapboards in the immediate vicinity what we found, there, etched in the old sheathing above the door, was a curve. This was some indication of the pediment that was there originally and a confirmation that our choice was not too far off. That was exciting and after that there was no question, we would reproduce a curved pediment and we did.

The six panel door was salvaged from a Gloucester veteran's housing project that had traded in their good solid pine six panel doors for steel doors.  Nancy stripped years of paint from the door and applied a new natural finish.  The two small panels at the top were removed and replaced with bull's eye panes of glass.  

Reproduced fluted pilasters are in place as
well as the curved pediment.  The new six
panel door is hung but not stripped.  The
new bullseye glass is not yet installed.

These not only looked great  but allowed a little light into the hall.  An iron thumb latch and iron doorknocker complete the restoration of the all-important front door, the frontispiece of a Georgian house. The opening in the center of the curved pediment has provided a perfect niche for the beautiful prize-winning Christmas displays created for that spot in the years to come by the next owner, Jerry Bowman.

The house is taking shape but the peek at the old barn still shows its shaky
condition.  Notice the new true divided lite 9 over 6 windows now installed.

A Boston post light from Cassidy Forge was mounted on a substantial post near the new brick walkway leading to the beautifully restored door and its surround.

New post light on a cedar post.

A back entry was ripped off with another aluminum awning.

 Rear entry removed. 

New wood windows with true divided lights were installed. (The old windows from the 19th century were deemed to be too far gone.)  The chimney was repaired and parged.  In the rear of the house onion lights from Bow House in Bolton were installed next to each of the two back doors. The cellar bulkhead was rebuilt and stone laid on the driveway.  


There was another exterior door in the Beverly jog on the left side of the house.  The jog was in the 19th century lean-to.  The door was restored but permanently locked and the inside sheet rocked over in order to create wall space for the washer and dryer in the downstairs bath/laundry.  We theorized that it would be better to handle the problem this way without the loss of any original fabric.  One hundred years from now if someone has another plan for the house the change can be reversed easily and the door reactivated.

Seldom used door in a beverly jog was sealed off
from the inside and restored on the outside.  This is
an example of solving a problem but what we did
    is easily reversible.  No original fabric was removed.

Another of my mottos became etched in my brain with that decision.  That motto is "do not do anything that can't be reversed."  

It had been decided that the house would be red.  It had been white for as long as anyone could remember.  Red would take a little getting used to.  At some point along the way in the 19th century most early houses received the fashionable coat of white paint along with green shutters at the windows.  That was the scenario with the Moses Jewett house.  Older photos reveal the presence of shutters in the past but they were long gone. Since the shutters and the white paint are more or less representative of the 19th century we opted for an earlier look.

We decided on an oil based paint in Morristown red, a color available at that time from Benjamin Moore.  (This color is no longer available.)  Teddy the Painter came from Haverhill with his hard working , smiling Greek workers.  Their first day the house was still white as it was scraped.  The second day it was covered with gray primer.  The third day the house was red.  If you blinked you might miss a color.  Presto! Chango! They were fast!  Everything was painted red except for the window sash and only they were painted ochre yellow.  The door was natural.

The result pleased us very much and an early snowstorm presented us with a vision of a house taken right from a Christmas card or a Currier and Ives print.  We all rushed over to see it in the snow and to put a wreath on the front door.  The house was a show-stopper.  We were heady with success.  So far, so good!

Refinished door with bull's eye glass

The trim color was changed by the new owners but the red paint has remained.

This completes what was done to the exterior of the house.  

THE COLONIAL KITCHEN  

Initially, we thought that the colonial kitchen with its almost ten foot fireplace would make a super family kitchen.  It would be a functional kitchen with room for dining and sitting or kitchen/ family room combination.  At our first meeting with  our general contractor, Paul Leone, we discussed the kitchen layout.  At some point in the discussion Paul suggested that the sink should go over near the windows.  I stared at the cavernous fireplace, authentic and original, and then tried to picture the stainless steel sink on the opposite wall.  Something in my brain snapped at that moment and screamed, "No!".  This marvelous, wonderful, ancient room could not be a 20th century kitchen.  No way!  We must go back to the drawing board.

And so that major plan was abandoned.  The kitchen would go in the restored 19th century lean-to. In order to integrate the proposed kitchen with what would become the colonial kitchen/family room, we decided to enlarge the door openings between the two spaces so that the two rooms would communicate better with each other.  Much of the plaster in this area was Victorian as this part of the house had undergone extensive changes over the years so there was no guilt in making the changes that would make our restoration more livable for a modern family.

On the plus side it dawned on us that by changing the plan we were relegating the bath, kitchen and laundry to the less important added on 19th  century lean-to insuring that the original rooms would be pure 18th century and free from 20th century intrusive equipment that goes with a working house. This was a really good move and the right way to go.

Only one bath on the second floor invaded the authentic space and that bath would be relegated to the space occupied by the existing old bath.  No new space would be borrowed or created.

Heave ho! The remains of the old bathroom

The two exterior doors on the rear of the lean-to had previously been the back door entrances for different rooms when the house was divided.  Both would remain.  The first would be the working back door closest to the driveway.  The second would give access to the downstairs bathroom or a direct route to the new back stairs without crisscrossing the working area of the kitchen.  Thus, the fenestration and doors on the rear of the house would remain untouched and the two doors would be an asset, especially for a family with children running in and out of the house.

This process of working through a myriad of problems without disturbing anything sensitive became our mission.  We even planned light switches to be as inconspicuous as possible in the period rooms. But in a nod toward modern times installed plenty of electrical outlets near the windows to accommodate window candles at Christmas!

Looking back I like to think we were as respectful and sensitive as practicality and budget would allow.

To be continued in Part Four.