I will start on a positive note. Room 2 has one of the best views from in front of the house. You look right down Park St. On the left you have the Downtown Snell Hall from Clarkson University. A massive building in its own right. To the left you have the Potsdam Public Museum, Potsdam Public Library and the Village of Potsdam building. All with wonderful massive columns. It looks like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
The Repairs
Now for the bad news. Room 2 has to be one of the hardest ones that we have done so far. When we first moved in! this room was always freezing. I don’t mean like a little cold I mean it would have been a good place to store frozen meat. One of the first things we did is take some of the lowered tiles down to see what was going on.
Yep, most of the ceiling was blown out and a six-inch gap on top of the wall to the ceiling all the way around the room. You could feel the wind coming right into this room. No time to cry or get the ceiling replaced. Winter was here unless I got it fixed fast, I would never be able to heat the house. So, with a few cans of foam, pink fiber glass insulation, foam board, staple gun, plywood and screws I did the best I could. After that I put the lowered ceiling tiles back up. This will hold the room till we have the time and the funds to address it.
Repair of the Fireplace
This is when we ran into the next problem child, the fireplace.
When we removed the plywood that was painted white from in front of it, we found a new mess waiting for us. First there was a bunch of dirt and leaves, and some lose fiberglass insulation that we had to remove. It looked like a bomb went off inside of it. All the bricks in the back of the fireplace were busted with 1/2 of the brick missing. Most of the mortar was missing from between the brick including the fireplace hearth. Took me a few trips to Lowe’s and a few days to get her back into shape. I did take the time to cover up the new work in the back of the fireplace with some black heat rated spray paint to help hide the fixes. After painting the molding and the fireplace I don’t think it looks too bad.
I didn’t take any photos of the damage. Thought I would save everyone seeing the nightmare. If there is any doubt, we still have the grate that is all bent out of shape from whatever happened. Maybe someday we will find out.
The Results
After blood, sweat, tears and many long nights working on room 2 this is the result.
This room turned out so good! that our kids wanted to take it over. But we have this room reserved for being a guest room for people that want to stay at our wonder Full house. We have a few of these rooms set aside for this. We did end up moving into it! so we could work on room 1.
I would like to say something about the curtains. I would love to have them in every room of the house. The curtain rods, drapes, and sheers all around $100 per window. They are thick too. The bad part is that there are a LOT of windows in this house. The living room just alone! has 11 windows. So, it will have to wait and maybe we can do a window a month or so when we get more of the house done.
We still also need a bed and end tables in this room for guests. So many things to get this house ready. If you want to help, we do have a donation page.