The Downtime

So let’s talk about one of the things we never really talk about in the restoration industry…

the downtime!

Now what exactly do I mean by downtime? Let me cut to the chase and say it is as boring as it sounds, basically being time in which not much happens at all.

Everybody does things differently, and hey maybe this is a mythical period of time I just happened to make up but I do truly believe restoration work requires the magical period of time where nothing magical really happens at all. In my scenario, it’s due primarily to two things: the elements and finances. While I would love to spend every waking minute with my glorious Pine Mansion it kind of hurts us both in the long run.

No money = no work = no restoration = a very sad, yet beautiful mansion.

So to air on the side of caution, maximum caution if you may, I spend my winters budgeting, planning, working, and well saving up for what many might call impossible: the restoration of Pine Mansion.I also spend this time setting up and conducting interviews for specialists in the field, doing walk throughs on site, video walk throughs and a little…

good old fashioned scientific inquiry aka. research.

On what exactly you might ask? Well… the house! After all such structures are grand old mysteries and operate very differently from your regular modern build. They have character, with a pinch of attitude and sass, just enough to want you wanting more. Just when you thing you’ve had enough, there is always something which beckons you into wanting more. Old homes are addictive and it is no joke. I’ll leave my scientific madness for another time and get back to this reprieve of nothingness in which I take a break from the “work” part of restoration. While these breaks strategically have been happening in the dead of winter where not much can get done since the home currently has no heating system and get winterized prior to the cold season so pipes don’t freeze, as hinted at earlier, I actively plan and budget for when spring rolls in, that included being on site to check on the property and monitor what it is like to be in the home during these cold months. This is super important since one of the big steps is to get heating put in and in order to do so we have to collect some information first.

1. How cold does the house get during different times of day / night?

2. How much moisture is registered in the air / walls / basement without climate control?

3. How well does the space regain heat when pumping it with a temporary heating source?

These are just a few of the main questions but you can only imagine how much thought goes into anything that you want to get just right. Restorations are like your babies, you want them to thrive and do well, not just get fixed up quickly and left to their own devices. Pine Manson in particular has an exterior entirely constructed out of brick, not brick veneer but solid, multilayered brick which is over a foot thick (in some places it is actually more than three feet thick-yes really…) and has its own complexities.

It is an illusion that old homes are meant for a certain group or a certain person with experience. Absolute BALONEY! Anybody can buy an old home and restore it, however it does take a very special person with a certain mindset to do so (also it very Mitch boils down to budgeting and timeline). While you can flip a home and fix it up, put in on the market and collect the profits, this saddens me to know that much of that old character is being washed away in the process. Beautiful communities becoming modular and structured, with no uniqueness whatsoever. So let’s talk more about what it takes to save these beauties…

and I promise I will do just that, stay tuned for more of my boring rants while I tackle my second restoration project: Pine Mansion. Want to know what the first one was? You’ll have to stick around for that one as well😉