San Francisco Victorian

After 5 days of working straight for ten hours and a lot of follow up work including stain, multiple coats of varnish, and paint we are finally finished. I think it turned out wonderful and couldn’t be happier about the results. It was a great learning experience and not all that complicated as long as you have patience and some good do-it-yourself experience. The pride of building something like this yourself and saving thousands on highly skilled labor is enough to make me want to do it again someday.

Before and After

Before we had a huge dividing wall separating the downstairs living space from the staircase. This made the entry feel small and blocked the light from traveling further back into the first story of the house. Now we have this grand Victorian entrance with a matching banister throughout the house that hopefully pays homage to what this place looked like 119 years ago.

All of the pictures can be found on the Victorian Staircase Restoration Flickr Set.

There are many more posts where this came from. Here is a list of the all the posts in chronological order in case you missed any:

• Rebuilding a Long Forgotten Staircase
• Staircase Demolition Begins
• Staircase Build Day Two
• Staircase Build Day Three Begins
• Staircase Build Day Four
• Staircase Build Completed Day Five

As day five and the final day of the project comes to a close we have completed the build. All the moldings and trim are in. All the holes are filled. The entire staircase is sanded and its ready to be stained and painted. Its been a long five days, working about 10 to 12 hours each day. There’s still more ahead but it feels good to get the bulk completed.

I’d like to thank my dad for helping me to build my first staircase, Scott Bowles from SF Victoriana for recreating all of these components for us, and the Wood Works Company for creating our beautiful newel post. Without these folks the project would not have come together as well or as quickly as it did.

I’m off on vacation now but when I return I will stain and finalize the project, being sure to post pictures along the way. I have posted a few new pictures on my Flickr page as well for your enjoyment.

Follow up to Staircase Build Day Four

As day four comes to a close the staircase is complete. There is still a ton of finish work to do including setting nails, adding filler, finishing plaster, and course the final stain, but the staircase is done. All the new treads and risers are in, the railing and balusters are done, and all the final crosses are here. Besides my dad of course, I’d especially like to thank Scott Bowles at SF Victoriana for coming through in the last hour with the final pieces we needed.

I promise to update more as we progress on the finish work but now its time to get some rest. For now, you can find more pictures on my flickr page.

Follow up to Staircase Build Day Three Begins

Before the third day of our project begins I wanted to quickly update with some photos. As it stands now the banister is mostly complete. Unfortunately, we dont have enough material to finish a few of the balusters. How did that happen?! Well, there are a number of reasons. The first being we based our measurements off of the neighbors, thinking they would be identical which they aren’t. Our newel post sits further into the room. The second being, we wanted to make our railing a little bit taller. It turns out the neighbors is 33″ tall which is way too low.

Today, we will finish we can can, plaster and start putting the place back together. Hopefully SF Victoriana will come through with the parts we ordered so we can get this thing complete but its too early to tell. More updates to follow. And as always, there are photos up on flickr

Follow up to Staircase Build Day Two

On day two of the build my father and I have made a great deal of progress. On day one we we finished clearing the debris and preparing the stringer, which holds the treads in place, for a piece of molding that all the balusters will be attached to. We also got the newel post in place which proved a little bit tricky.

Unfortunately the newel was not hollow like most box newels are. This one was completely solid, probably why it weighs 86 pounds. Luckily for us we have access underneath the floor via the garage so we could drive four lag bolts up through it.

On the beginning of day two we got the railing in place after fitting it multiple times. The old adage, “measure twice cut once” really comes into play here. The are some complicated angles involved, especially when the house is not perfectly square as it is 119 years old. Making a mistake on a 16 foot long railing that costs $300 dollars and weeks to make could set us back a lot of time.

So now, I must go back to work and stop writing blog posts on the Internet. There will be another update shortly, hopefully tonight. Now its time to put in all the balusters.

For more pictures please visit my Flickr page.

Follow up to Staircase Demolition Begins

As I mentioned back in the post Rebuilding A Long Forgotten Staircase back in June, we’ve been gearing up to take down this old dividing wall and put a banister. Well this weekend my housemate and I got down to it.

It only took us a few hours to seal off all the rooms, lay down cardboard and tarp, and knock down all the lathe and plaster. Tomorrow we will cut down all the studs and clean up to prepare for the banister that is going up. My dad who is an expert woodworker is coming into town this Monday to help me build this thing, or should I say, teach me how to build it.

I will attempt to write a post every other day this week as the build progresses. Stay tuned here or on my Flickr page.

Pictured above is our upstairs banister. This is original to the house just as it was for my four other neighbors. Our guess is that the architect of our houses was also building a church at the time judging by the crosses but we really just dont know. Although the banister you see above is in a good shape the lower banister had been removed decades ago.

Since the house was split into two units at one point in its life a wall was put up between the upstairs and downstairs. We were hoping that inside the wall we would find ourselves a banister like our neighbors did but no such luck. Obviously whoever did the work on our house didnt have the foresight that the neighbors did. Anyway, we were only left with one choice; rebuild it ourselves. Below is a picture of the dividing wall that we are going to be knocking out.

We enlisted the help of SF Victoriana to recreate the components off of what we already have. They have special knife setups to recreate any profile imaginable for railings, moldings, you name it. Pictured below is one of the 15 crosses they are making for us.

We will have more info to come as the project progresses. Right now we are in the gather and plan phase. Also, for more pictures of the staircase check them out on flickr.

Like many of the old houses I come across here in San Francisco, the fireplaces are non functional. This is due to a number of reasons. Lack of upkeep which leads to safety issues, bad landlords or past owners, or disinterest in dealing with San Francisco’s Spare the Air days. For those of you not in the know, if you have a wood burning fireplace and you use it during a Spare the Air day, you can get fined. This means you must turn on the news or go online to find if you can use your fireplace.

Anyway, when we moved into our place all three of the fireplaces were not working. We are still unsure of how original they are but when I find out I’ll provide updates. What I do know is that there was only one original fireplace as there is only one real brick chimney. At the time it burned coal. The other two, the top parlor and bottom parlor, were just framed in “bump outs” with vents in them. The strange thing is, the bottom parlor only had a vent and no gas line at all, but the top parlor had both.

The two wood mantle and tile fireplaces we are keeping as they are very old and are very fitting of the time period regardless of their originality to the house. Those are in the front parlor and guest room, which was at one point the dining room? The white one you see is a craftsman style brick that resides in the top parlor. That’s the one we demolished and are having replaced with a Carrera marble mantle and gas insert. They should be completed in the next few weeks and I’ll update as that happens.

Newer posts regarding the fireplaces:

• Top Parlor Gets A New Fireplace

This is not a job for faint of heart which is why we opted for this job to be done by the professionals. One might think to themselves, “hey I can sand, why not do them myself?”. Wrong! If you’re refinishing one small room, maybe. Even then, it will take you at least a weekend with some trial and error not to mention tool rentals and back breaking work. This is not something you want to attempt with a Craftsman belt sander and a few friends.

Do what we did and hire an expert. In this case, we called Jesus Estrada, owner and operator of Architectural Floors. Him and his crew were in an out in less than a week and thats doing over 2,000 square feet! They paid close attention to all the little nuances of our 120 year old floors. Our floors are not tongue and grove but flat white oak nailed right to the subfloor. Also, each room has decorative inlay, some are very intricate and some are simple bands of cherry around the room.

In any case, Jesus and his crew reset every single nail in the entire house, sanded all the floors down, completely puttied them, and sanded again. Then, and only then could they put on a coat of chestnut stain and three coats of varnish. This was no small job and we are quite happy with the results.

See more photos of the floors here.

The project is an 1890 San Francisco Victorian house.  Over the years it has been through a lot.  Its seen two massive earthquakes, a series of negligent owners, and a whole lot of ugly wallpaper but its still standing. Luckily, my housemate and I are here to restore it to its original grandeur with some updated amenities as well.

When we got it, it had recently been converted back into a one family home as it was originally intended.  At some point along the way, it was converted into to separate units and a lot of that can still be seen all over the house.  For example, the kitchen is on the second floor!  The previous owner decided to remodel it there rather than bring it back downstairs but thats another story for another post.  There are also still two gas meters as well as two electrical boxes.  Its going to take a lot of work to bring it back to its original glory but we’re up to the task.

Hopefully over the years we will be able to discover more about the house’s history but its going to be a challenge.  After the 1906 earthquake a massive fire ensued and burned almost all the records of the home.  The only records that remained were the water records which were stored in another location.  Thats the only thing linking this house to the year it was built, 1890. So stay tuned as we document the houses history, renovation, and hopefully its rich history though all the years its been sitting on this hill.

See the photos from the open house here