Adventures in a BIG old country mansion

I did it enough times to hold the boxes together. I need to leave a little wiggle room so they’ll slide into their spaces in the cook stove. Then I’ll finish zipping them up with some stainless flue screws.

 

Just an update on happenings at our community:

Work on the manor retreat house has temporarily come to a complete standstill. The general contractor had failed to obtain a “demolition permit” before the carpentry subcontractors started tearing out all the plaster and lathe walls so they could insulate with spray closed cell insulation. So the building inspector shut down the entire job site and a new general contractor has been hired. (Technically I’m a volunteer so the cease and desist order doesn’t apply to me.) Hopefully remodeling will resume shortly. In the meantime I’m working on the antique cook stove, in a big old very quiet manor.

After building the stainless steel oven boxes, I had to figure out a frame system for them to set in inside the cook stove.

Fortunately I had the remains of a big old heavy steel box I had previously used for part of the firebox reconstruction. I was able to cut enough additional pieces from it to build a support system for the oven liner boxes inside the cook stove. I was able to do all that fabricating in the basement of our farmhouse where I live, which was probably in the 50-55• F range, so it was comfortable for working with a jacket.

Now I’m back on the mountain at the manor retreat house. It was 17• this morning, but it has warmed up to the upper 20s. However, while the second floor and attack are fully insulated now, the first floor has no blown insulation yet, and there are numerous holes in the walls where you can see sunlight. (Plus yesterday I picked up my motorcycle from the mechanic and road it 10 miles home in 30• weather, which was a wee bit colder than sitting in this cold house.)

This is the second floor bath and bedroom where I had originally moved in in August. Not exactly livable space now:

 

Brrr! I hope the pipes are drained. Some chilly weather coming through.

 

They’re not only drained, all the old plumbing (and the old peg and tube wiring!) was completely removed during the demolition and they’re going to start from scratch.

 

WOW, very nice place.

 

I’m almost done with the antique cook stove. I just have to finish the oven box supports and repair the assembly that holds the internal draft dampers for the flue. We used high temp ceramic based off white motor/header paint for the letters.


One of the younger guys from our community who is experienced in fine art painting did the lettering for me, fortunately. It’s too fine of work for me to have attempted it.

As good as he is, there were still areas where the white paint went over the lines. So I figured out how to decant the black spray stove paint into a water bottle, and he was then able to touch up all the white letters with that black paint with a fine tipped brush.

 

That's beautiful! I love how it looks like a piece of furniture- a secretary desk- but made out of cast iron. Instead of writing a letter, you cook a meal.

 

The two ovens each have their own flue damper, so you can control the amount of hot flue gases (i.e., smoke) passing around each oven liner box, and therefore keep each separate oven at a different temperature to cook different things.

I spent today fiddling with the control assembly for those two flue dampers, which were partly rusted away, trying to figure out how I could repair them. After a couple hours of failed attempts (and a broken drill bit) I finally figured how to do it, but first I have to cut a couple pieces of metal angles from my heavy steel box scraps and assemble them to hold everything together and functional.

 

Nice comparison - Since we’re remodeling and the room with this cook stove is going to be a new breakfast room and the room behind it the new kitchen, we’re building a fitted removable countertop from two butcher block style tables that we can sit on top this stove to use it as a buffet during the warmer months and to protect it from spills.

 

Ooh, that sounds nice! It will look even more like furniture. Will there be a modern stove for day to day cooking?

 

Definitely.

 

I’m back at my sister’s in Harrisburg for the holidays. My brother in law WoodTurnerinPA made two knobs on his lathe tonight for me from a piece of honey locust firewood, to replace the missing knobs on the flue damper rods on the antique stove:

I’ll paint them black and they’ll go on these two rods sticking out of the stove between the oven knobs and the warming oven knobs.

 

Interestingly, TurboDiesel one of the members of our community loves to snowmobile, and her dad has two SkiDoos, one for him and one for her at their home in New Hampshire. Unfortunately he has back trouble and can’t ride anymore. So she talked him into letting me bring them back to this 180 acre manor property in Massachusetts. We’ll also have access to numerous local snowmobile trail systems here so I’ll finally be back on a sled after many years.

 

Did the mess with the building permit/general contractor get sorted out?

 

Last I was there over a week ago, I met the new general contractor and he was there to meet with the building inspector. I left for Christmas break but I’m assuming they’re back to work.

 

One of our community members loves to ride snowmobiles. Her dad has two of them, one for him and one for her, but he broke his back and can no longer ride and the sleds haven’t been used in two years. He’s going to give the two sleds (2005 Polaris Indy 550 Classic and 2001 Polaris XC700) and trailer to our community so we can use them on this property.

We have a guy doing landscaping and forestry work on the 180 acre property who previously designed and cleared many of the snowmobile trails for the local county, so he’s going to start clearing snowmobile trails for us on that 180 acres. It might not be miles upon miles of groomed trails, but it should be enough to keep us occupied on the weekends.

 

Nice! The generous donation of the snowmobiles, and the trailmaking skills of the landscaper, will make for some fun rides! Great when things come together like that. Now you just need the snow.

 

BrianK .. the great thing about sleds when you do get a storm. Is if you have kids, they will pack the snow down so it doesn't drift into your driveway.

 

He would never let his daughter ride alone, so now she will get to ride again, and he can write off the total value of the sleds and trailer as a donation to our tax exempt religious community. Win win!

I’m really curious how many trails he can cut into 180 acres. By my math it should be roughly 1 mile outside circumference, or about 1/4 mile per side.