Yard stick discovery

Martin discovered this yardstick. It had been broken in half and an attempt to repair it had gone badly awry.  Martin took out the 6 screws that someone had put in it trying to hold it together. He then pieced it together and glued it up. Here is the result.  The front says "Northwood, NH bicentennial 1773 - 1993.  The back says "Encyclopedia Yardstick" and has speeds, distances, weights and measures, lengths, cubic yard concrete, linear feet in 100 board foot lumber, size for size lumber (actual size of lumber), nail lengths, decimal equivalents, circle, miscellaneous (water, land, and wood). What any well educated carpenter would need to have at the tip of his fingers on the back of his/her yardstick.

Anybody have any idea???? MORE PHOTOS ADDED

Anybody have any idea what this might be? Might have been used for? The handle seems to be able to hook onto the metal rungs on the second piece of wood. There are several notches to adjust the length. The view that is shown appears to be the top and bottom. The opposite sides that I didn't photograph appear to be the inside and are plain wood.

Please let us know if you have a thought about this mysterious object.

I took more pictures to help you get a sense of what it really looks like and its size.

This is the inside.

As you can see, this is how the handle hooks into the metal rungs.

Walk on the Wild Side

Found this really cool walking stick in the barn.  We'll clean it up a bit and then decide what to do with it. Maybe it'll end up in the house as a conversation piece.  Martin is thinking that perhaps my 85 year old mother might find a use for it.

nails and wood conservation

Board stretching, 1922 style.

This joist was only a couple of feet short of the length needed. Instead of getting a board the right length, they cobbled on a piece to make it long enough.  Martin has found a variety of ways that the carpenter pieced stuff together to conserve on wood usage.

One week's worth of nails.  Martin removed all of these nails as he was taking out interior walls and the upstairs floor.

Buried treasure

While tearing down walls, Martin found a lucky penny and a lucky dime.  The penny is a 1903 Indian head penny. The dime is a 1920 silver penny.

 I wanted to document the electrical box before it gets removed.  As you can see, it is a bit dated.  It'll need an extreme upgrade to handle a modern day electrical load!

More surprises

The drawers in the dining room hutch were made from recycled crates. 

Surprises in the wall

Martin started tearing out walls and ceilings and found this gem hanging behind the sheetrock on an outside wall.  The calendar is signed by several people. We assume they were the builders of the original house.  We intend to frame it and keep it as part of the character of the house.  Any suggestions  on how to keep the calendar from deteriorating further or ideas of what to do with it other than frame it are welcome.

We've brought the calendar home to protect it from being exposed to the construction site.  Once seen in decent light, we could read what was written on it. 

"This wallboard was put up on this day, March 2, 1023" and signed by John Woodman and Jack ....

Unfortunately, Jack's last name isn't clear enough to decipher.  Maybe Boynton.

Framed 

This is currently the only "basement" we have. It is about 3 feet deep. The "crawl space" under the main part of the house is about 6 inches deep. Our plans are to get as close to a full basement as possible.  We're going to make the house as light as we can, gutting interior, stripping roofing shingles, etc. Then we will brace the house, see how extensive the foundation is, and start digging.

The house is clad in a combination of shingles and clapboard. This is a small glimpse of the pattern that was used.  There is another layer of shingles below the clapboard. This appears to be the original (or at least the most recent) color.  We will be pulling shingles off of the house. 

We've cleared out all of the scrub trees from around the barn and the house.  We need to remove them all to have access to the sides of the buildings for foundation and renovation work. The trees behind the house need to be removed so we can put a septic system in.

Water Water everywhere and not a drop to drink

We discovered water!  Well a water pipe anyway.  We had contacted the Cornish Water District and asked about the process and cost of hooking into the water main.  Of course, the water main is on the opposite side of the road. We would have to hire an excavator to drill under the road and up to the house, then have to lay pipe and hook everything up.  

Our euphoria hasn't lasted though. We honestly don't know if this water line is connected to a well or to the town water main.  With neither the water nor the electricity turned on, there is no way at this point to tell.  I'll be calling the Cornish Water District again or hopefully our friendly neighbor will be able to tell us.

Found out the water pipe is connected to town water. At some point we need to we need to find the buried shut-off valve.  We need to take a measurement off of the utility pole on the west side of our property and the north west corner of the porch to locate the valve.  

In our demolition, we realized that the last inhabitants may have had running water, but at only one temperature -- COLD. They never had hot running water.

It begins

Now that we officially own an tigin, we get to begin to remove the collection of items.  Once we sort through it all, we will be able to begin the demolition in order to start the remodeling. We are planning on raising the roof, digging a basement, adding a foundation.  Our goal is to keep as much of the character of the original house as possible while modernizing the structure. We are looking forward to bringing in more light and opening up the floor plan.

 Closed on Monday, March 4th, 2013.  A quick trip to an tigin (the wee house) revealed that we were already in trouble.  The barn roof was sagging under the weight of the heavy wet snow that we received recently.  Martin made a quick trip home to get a shovel and the roof rake and headed right back, only to learn that another major winter storm was expected in three days.  Hence the tarps on the barn roof.

I don't know what Martin was expecting on our first visit to an tigin, but I can assure you, I was hoping for a bit less stuff and a bit more house.  Here are some of the first photos I took.

Still the lines of the house had character.  Martin liked the looks of the sills. We both liked the location. So Martin put in a bid and the owner accepted. Now Martin is the proud owner of a house for the first time in his life. A big milestone.

The big decision

The other houses we looked at were such a disappointment.  So, we called Cornish Town Hall to get more information about an tigin and set up an appointment to view the property through the realtor.

Just a possibility

Martin Luther King weekend, Martin decided that it was time to look at some houses again.  We hadn't looked in over a year, so on a whim we picked 5 houses located a bit closer to work for me and headed out for a day trip. The first house's address that we planned on looking at didn't exist according to our GPS.  Needless to say we looked at the others.  We swung by this house in Cornish on our way to Parsonsfield and Wells.

I fell in love with it!  Neither Martin nor I had ever been to Cornish, ME before, but what a quaint little town and an adorably cute house to go along with it.