allany2525

JRC, How are things going with the house? Any updates? I'm going to put a gallery up on the website with the photos you took. When I was buying properties in Youngstown in 2005 and 2006, I tried to get this house but the owner was unsure as to whether or not he wanted to sell the place. I'm glad you talked him into it. This house is in WAYYY better shape than the house on Woodbine. The garage is not a big deal - just get some sturdy plywood and replace the damaged deck, and put some tar paper over it for now. This is something that wouldn't be too hard (or too expensive) to do, and it will stop the deterioration while there is still time to save the garage. With one or two helpers, you could knock the whole thing out in a few days and then focus your efforts on the rest of the place. Does the house have a double staircase? This was very common with the houses in this neighborhood... my place on Woodbine has one. The woodwork in your house is absolutely breathtaking - you are so fortunate to have found a property that has not been stripped of these architectural treasures and everything is in such good shape. For now, you might just want to clean up the woodwork with some Murphy's Oil Soap - it's very gentle and would bring out the shine in the old finish. If you can get the kitchen, one bathroom and a bedroom into livable condition, you're good to go. You can "camp out" in these rooms while you work on the rest of the place one room at a time. Drop me an email or send me a private message when you have some time.... Allan :)

JRC, I recently returned from a trip to Youngstown. I spent the entire month of April doing some major rehab and restoration work on one of my properties there. You can check out the photos at: http://allthingsyoungstown.net/124illinois/index.html

I feel you, JRC.... Good luck - and keep us posted. If the deal does go through I'd love to see lots and lots of photos, of course! :)

JRC - any word on the house you are currently looking at? I know you didn't want to "jinx" yourself by saying anything unless the deal went through - just wondering if you had any good news to share. :)

CBC, Thanks for the kind compliments on the website... the website turned three years old this year, from it's first version on a free, crappy hosting service with no disk space and tons of restrictions to where it is now. I bought the domain allthingsyoungstown.net two years ago, and moved the site "in-house" (literally - it's sitting on the floor next to me) and onto my own server. I've got just shy of 2 Terabytes of disk space available now, and can stream video and audio of my choosing. Last month, it surpassed the 10,000 visits mark. I am always looking for new content, so if you ever have anything Youngstown related (especially historical info, photos, etc) that you would like to share then please do not hesitate to upload to the site via the FTP address. The website goes hand in hand with my Yahoo group, which is used as the message board system for the website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YTownHistoricHomesBldgs/

JRC, I wanted to post the photos you took of this house on the website also, but I don't know what the address is... could you email it to me privately? Thanks! Allan :)

JRC - I put your photos from this thread into galleries and put them up on the website. I've been adding some new content this week, and came across the following photo in an old edition of Ohio Architect Engineer and Builder magazine, ca. 1915. The article was a write up on C.F. Owsley - the famous architect that designed so many homes and buildings in Youngstown. Before and after photos are always so compelling to look at..this is the German Dutch Colonial house at N. 1210 Bryson street - just a few years after it was built, followed by one of your photos. I fell in love with the place after seeing your photos of the interior (I had taken some photos of my own a while back, but only of the exterior). If I had the money, I would buy this house TOMORROW and fix it up. It's big enough to be apartments inside and, from looking at your photos it looks like someone had already divided the place up inside. Out of all your photos that I've looked at so far, this house seems to be in much better shape than most of the others... I wish SOMEONE would buy this house. Does this house have two staircases? I think it does, based on your photos, but it's hard to picture the interior floor plan in my head....

It's a big investment in both time and money, but some day when I retire it will be a great house to live in.

The kitchen and breakfast kitchen: The current kitchen is located in what used to be a pantry or indoor mud room, and incorporates what used to be an outside corner porch. When the house was remodeled in the 60's, the corner porch was brought inside, and the kitchen was moved from what is now the breakfast kitchen to it's current location. There was a wall between the old kitchen and the present one, which was taken out and a steel girder was installed to hold up the outer wall of the house above it. I eliminated the old laundry chute next to the chimney, because the new heating system uses a cold air return pipe in its place. The wall where the glass block window is now had a window which was bricked up and walled over when the kitchen had been remodeled. I decided to put the glass block in because the kitchen is so long and narrow, and needed more light. The antique 6-panel door you see in the photo is between the breakfast kitchen and the formal dining room - it was a swinging door, which will be converted into a single pocket door that will slide to the left and into the wall.

This is the main bathroom. When the house was remodeled in the mid 1960's, the owner had this GOD-AWFUL "George Jetson" style bathroom put in. Talk about perennial Christmas....ACK!! The floor was originally made of planked maple or poplar, and was in very bad condition underneath the linoleum tile so it had to be replace with a new sub-floor and concrete board since I wanted to have a tile floor that would look like something from the early 1900's. I looked at examples of bathtubs, floor tile and sinks that would have been common during this period, and came to a compromise. The floor tile is a reproduction of the original bisque hex tiles. In the end, the new bathroom will be a compromise between antiquity and a modern bathroom, with reproduction wall tile like that shown in the example photos and some type of reproduction bull-nose molding tile around the top where the tile meets the finished walls. I got lucky with the medicine chest - this was the original, which I found stashed away in the attic. I plan on stripping it and restoring it, along with an antique silvered glass mirror...

Restoration of the pocket wall and sliding doors - this is one of my favorite architectural features of the older, century homes. The pocket doors were taken out in the mid 1960's, when the house was changed over from steam heat to forced air gas heat. I wasn't able to find a set of antique doors to fit the original framing of the door opening, so I had to re-frame the opening, to fit the replacement doors... When we took down the plaster and lathe on the living room side of the door framing, we found an electrical inspection tag - dated November 11, 1911. That's how I know the house was wired for electricity 11 years after it was built.

Total replacement of sewer and drains in the basement... the original sewer and drainage system was made of terra-cotta pipe, and settling of the house and basement slab had completely crushed the sewer pipes....

Restoration of the bay window in the dining room... there would have been stained and/or leaded glass in the traverse panel across the top, and the center framed window below back in the day...

Structural repairs to center wall framing (load bearing wall damaged by prior heating installation), overhead framing under upstairs bedroom - showing repairs and corrections.....

More proch roof...

CBC, I have literally hundreds and hundreds of photos, but I will try to give you all some of the highlights... First, the roof...

Fixing up a "century" home like so many of the beautiful ones on Youngstown's North Side is an expensive proposition, no matter how you look at it. I bought a beautiful old yellow brick home in the Wick Park neighborhood in 2006 and have been working on the place [off and on] ever since. When the house is finished, I will easily have put $100K into it (including the original purchase price) but it's worth every penny. My labor of love was built in 1900 - and had electricity added eleven years LATER. The house was a total gut, as the city inspector refused to allow me to turn on the electricity again without rewiring the entire house. Since this was the case, I figured I might as well insulate the place and fix some structural issues while the walls were all taken apart. The house was converted from steam heat to forced air sometime in the mid 1960's by an unscrupulous heating contractor - who cut through LOAD BEARING FRAMING to install the duct work. I had to jack up the house with 75,000 lb jacks repeatedly - and in multiple places - to make it right again. I also had to replace several main beams under the center of the house, and install some 12 inch steel girder beam sections and pilings 6 feet into the basement floor. The insides are finally back in the house (tape, plaster and paint not included) and everything works now - new plumbing, new electrical wiring, new sewer and drains under the basement floor, new roof, entirely new high-efficiency forced air heating system, restored (antique) pocket doors, new (antique) front and side entrance doors, etc. The house has hardwood floors downstairs, and (poplar? maple?) floors upstairs. All of the wood work is red oak, and was NEVER painted over - a stroke of pure luck. I don't know if I will ever do another total "gut" project again, but it was definitely worthwhile. I hope to live in this house in my declining years, after I retire someday. The new roof cost about $6,000, the heating system cost another $6,000 (I know someone who knows someone....gave me a DEAL), the basement structural work cost another $5,000, sewer and drains about $2,000, a new water main from the street into the basement - $550, complete tear-off and replacement of the front porch roof (ie: from the brick pillars on up) $1,500, new wiring - about $6,000 (I had a 100 amp sub-panel put into the attic, as there used to be a one bedroom apartment up there that was original construction - probably maid's quarters, etc). The house has the original, double-hung wooden sashes, but there are storm windows so I'll be able to hold off on new windows for a couple years. I've kept a photographic record of the progress on my rehab of the house, and post everything on my website. If anyone here is interested in seeing a total gut job from beginning to [almost] end, just let me know. my email address is: [email protected]

KJP, I have a website dedicated to Youngstown - specifically her historic homes and buildings, etc. I would LOVE to [with your permission, of course] put your post and photographs on the website. My website is strictly non-for-profit. I am a Youngstown native who now resides in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC and I'm just old enough to remember when the steel mills were still operating there. Please let me know if its okay to put your article on the website. I am always looking for content for everyone to share and enjoy. You can email me at [email protected]. The URL for the site is: http://www.allthingsyoungstown.net Best regards, Allan