After a long day’s drive, we arrived at our tiny little condo in Savannah, and unlocked the door of the cozy place we share with another couple of good friends, nestled within the brick walls of a former school built in the 1940s. We had been perplexed by the note taped to the door from the water company regarding a water leak, but were enlightened when the smell of mildew hit us full in the face before we could even step inside. So much for spending a relaxing Thanksgiving together in our secluded Southern getaway. After getting as many of the bed linens in the washer as we could fit, and with fresh gusts of chilly November air flowing in from wide-open windows, we cracked open a growler of bourbon-barrel-aged stout and happily toasted to “life and all of its crazy and unpredictable complications.”
We are not normally quite so pragmatic about seeing our kitchen cabinets sporting a greyish beard of mildew and looking forward to hours of cleaning. Especially when we had planned on relaxing and enjoying each others’ company and engaging in our favorite pastime; taking in the architecture, art, and food of the eclectic City of Savannah. We are used to problems, and even disasters, and have learned how to handle the mishaps of old house-ownership. To have our practically brand-new little home-away-from-home turn on us in such an unexpected fashion should have ruffled our feathers quite a bit, but it’s hard to get upset about such things when you should have been dead three days ago.
The last two years had brought an insanely escalated pace of restoration construction, by demand of the insurance company, with a firm deadline and the threat of cancellation hanging over our heads. That, combined with surreal legal problems from our first-ever tenants across the street at our project at the Flinn House, and throw in some difficult health issues; all this had left us uncharacteristically antisocial and withdrawn from our usual connections and social support in the neighborhood. It was a hellstorm of construction deadline pressures and restoration woes, physical issues, court appearances, sleepless nights, emotional stress, fear, and helplessness, that left us emotionally exhausted. It was unlike anything we had ever weathered in our 27 years together, and it was more than we could handle.
Now that the house was starting to come together and rooms were actually getting finished, it was hard for me to appreciate the beauty of this home that we had worked so hard for so many years to achieve. Especially since the insurance company ended up cancelling us anyway, despite the year-long expense of running an intense restoration project 7-days-a-week to meet their demands. As we parted ways after our long relationship with CHUBB, our best option looked like Lloyds of London for over $30k per year. The problem with being cancelled by your insurance company is that they tell all their friends about it. Apparently, being cancelled, despite never having filed a claim in your entire history of home ownership, makes you quite a high risk!
I was still numbed by it all, and fragile in a way that I never had been before, even refusing to make the trip down to Danville to see some of the finishing touches applied as one City inspector after another checked us off and left us alone for good. The day came when our tenants-from-hell finally moved out, taking with them, among other things, my faith in humanity, my naive trust in the goodness in people, and my confidence of ever finding a tenant who would appreciate that home and care about it as much as we did. For all I cared, it would remain empty until the right family came along, and I would settle for nothing less than tenants who absolutely loved the place, respected the beauty of the finishing details, appreciated the quality of the craftsmanship, and could actually afford it as well.
In the meantime, my Lease document doubled from 12 pages to 24 as I wrote into it the myriad of lessons learned over the past year, and I tried to move on. I finally got up the courage to re-visit the Danville house, and entered with much trepidation. Dealing only with a long series of issues over the past year-and-a-half, the quiet inside the houses was unexpected. Gone were the carpenters, plasterers, painters, plumber, masons, roofers, and all of their helpers. I no longer had random unknown workers wandering about, and our nice craft beer collection was no longer shrinking inexplicably. Though we finally resorted to wrapping the beer fridge in duct tape, signing the duct tape, like we used to do on our crash cart at the hospital before more “official” methods were devised. It seemed to do the trick, however primitive the methods, and the beer stopped disappearing. The place was getting cleaned up, and projects were on the verge of completion.
As I marveled at what appeared to be a waking dream; I stepped into the house onto plush velvety carpet. The 1910 Wilton carpet, removed from it’s original installation in the sacred meeting chamber of a Knights of Pythias Temple so many years ago, stretched in all directions. It filled the double parlors with its rich colors, the softness underfoot a shock after the years of stepping onto filthy debris-strewn particle board. Pharaoh’s daughter, her face filled with delight and awe held little Moses, pensive and serious in his hand-woven basket in the bay at the head of the front parlor. It was a delight to see her finally out of her crate and on her intended pedestal.
Suddenly, voices reached my ears, and my annoyance resurfaced. I wanted my house back, all to myself, and I walked in the direction of the unwanted intrusion. Locating the source of the voices, I found the music room doors to be closed, and people were talking quietly inside. Pushing carefully into the music room from the main hallway, the door quickly encountered a solid object. Scaffolding was blocking the way. Trying the other door, from the side hallway, I entered to find the fabric crew packing up the last of their gear, and ready to leave. The music room had undergone a vast transformation since my last visit.
Before, the carousel palate of trim colors which more resembled a row of houses on Miami Beach, were a stark contrast with the newly-plastered white walls. Now, these carnival colors blended beautifully with the newly-hung fabric covering those same walls. The echo of this large square room was now muffled into a gentle whisper, words no longer bouncing against each other in a cacophony of resonance. The tones of the gilded mirror were echoed in a gilded dimensional oak leaf border, and the pattern of the fabric was simply luxurious.
With barely a backward glance, the fabric crew gathered the last of their tools, and were out the door before I could even comment. I think my expression of joy and awe was all that they had needed. The peace and silence that was left in their wake facilitated the beginning of my healing process more than anything else. It was with fervor, then, that we attacked the crate surrounding Esmerelda and Djali to protect them during this phase of the restoration. When the last board was removed, and the lovely marble allowed to breathe fresh air once again, my spirit began to be lifted from the abyss.
A couple of more trips down to Danville saw chandeliers hung and furniture placed into inviting groupings. Antique bookcases unwrapped and re-assembled. One ten-foot long bookcase purchased six years ago no longer fit into its’ intended place, as we had changed out the floor plan of the mother-in-law suite, moving the doorway. We had quite forgotten about the bookcase when we made that decision. Undaunted, I found a secondary placement, not ideal, but a workable solution. My family came for a visit, along with cousins, aunts, and uncles. They helped re-assemble the puzzle pieces of the bookcase, and we were joking that it took two chemical engineers, an electrical engineer, a mechanical engineer, and a nurse practitioner to put that thing back together. Given my pedigree, I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out how I managed to escape an engineering degree…though I will admit that I can’t help but think like one sometimes, which seems to amuse my husband, and annoy him at the same time, which I never quite understood.
I was finally able to get bathrooms cleaned and put into service. No matter that my 1930s one-piece toilet and sink were not in their intended places. The plumber, an apparently enterprising fellow, had ripped off all the hardware so I could put “new” parts on them. When I asked where I could find some “new” 1930s hardware, I never did get a recommendation. In their intended spot sits a basic toilet and sink, to one day be switched out, once I am able to hunt down the proper hardware. My cousin Kris thinks she has a source for me…
At last, I was over the feeling of being shell-shocked, and ready to attempt re-entry into the social scene of the neighborhood. We finally had two sets of new tenants at the Flinn House, who each were in love with the house, and excited to be there. This seemed cause for celebration, as well, so I put out a notice that we were having a DANgaritaVILLE party after long last.
We usually arrive in Danville on Friday night. During cold weather, this gives us the opportunity to start up the boilers and head out for dinner with friends, allowing the house time to warm up in our absence. We usually then come in late, and tired from the work week, and head directly to bed without tackling any projects until we wake refreshed on Saturday morning. This weekend, however, we had a concert scheduled in Northern VA at Wolf Trap’s Barns. This is an acoustically-superb venue, and we catch any acts that look even remotely interesting just to experience the sound in that concert hall.
Thus, it was just before 11am on Saturday morning when we rolled into Danville, turned on the heat, and immediately set out to tackle some projects before the big party we would be hosting that evening. Tom was set on hanging some more chandeliers and sconces. I was focused on cleaning, in preparation for the celebration that evening. A couple of hours into our tasks, I was crossing the upstairs hallway, and caught a strange sight in the light of the sun streaming in through the windows of the North West bedroom. For a moment, it looked as though something were smoking, on fire, and I hurried toward the bedroom. There was no smell of smoke, no smell of anything, however, but there was clearly something blowing horizontally out of the light switch beside the door. I tore off my work gloves, and felt it, surprised to feel hot steam coming from the light switch. The light switch was blowing steam.
Bewildered, I called for Tom. Not catching the note of alarm in my voice, I heard his exasperated sigh from downstairs. Could it possibly wait? he asked; he was up on the scaffolding working on a chandelier. I shouted down the stairs that he really had to see this. He asked me to describe what “this” was, but I had no way of explanation. Coming slowly up the stairs, his annoyance suddenly turned to alarm as he saw the flow of steam through the bedroom door, highlighted by the bright sunlight behind it. Taking off the switchplate cover only intensified the flow of steam, as did unscrewing and pulling forward the electrical box. There was a forceful flow of hot steam coming from inside the wall.
We must have cracked a radiator pipe, he insisted. I had already thought that exact same thing, except that there was no radiator on that wall on any floor above or below. Imagining the layout of the steam system was as easy to me as imagining the bones, blood vessels, and nerves in the human body. I was more familiar with the systems in this house than with anything. There was no possible reason for there to have been a steam pipe behind that light switch. At this point, the entire wall was almost hot to the touch, and looking carefully, you could see wisps of steam blowing out from every possible crack in the woodwork of the doorway and out of the wood trim below the light switch and to the adjacent fireplace.
Thinking something was wrong with the boilers, we rushed to the basement, but there was nothing amiss. The boilers appeared to be operating as they always did. As we were standing there in the boiler room, puzzling over this, I stared at the ceiling, imagining the structure of the house from the basement to the light switch two floors directly over my head. Then it hit me. They must have capped the chimneys. Months ago I had requested that they cap all of the fireplace flues, as I was tired of having winter drafts, birds, bats, and other unwanted critters come down the open flues. Years ago we had run gas lines to all of the fireplaces, but had not yet installed any gas logs, so there was no expectation that we would be burning anything in these fireplaces. There was only one way to find out if, in fact, the flue to the boilers had been capped. We made our way to the attic, and climbed the ladder up and out onto the roof. As predicted, the chimneys had all been professionally capped some time since our last visit down.
We have twelve fireplaces…they capped thirteen flues. Somehow, no-one had taken into account the fact that we operate boilers to heat the house, and that the carbon monoxide produced by these boilers needed to be vented. We unscrewed the concrete screws, scraped away the caulk, and peeled back the metal covering the exhaust flue. The metal was hot to the touch, and the furnace exhaust trying to force its way out made it difficult, but once the exhaust was flowing freely out of the chimney, we went back downstairs to see if the problem was fixed. It was. There was no further steam flowing from the light switch.
We sat there together in the bedroom, in shock, as we realized how close we had come. The only reason we were aware of the problem was because we turned on the heat during the daytime. The hot exhaust condensed inside the cold chimney, causing moisture to become trapped, and trying to find any possible way out, it located a crack inside the flue at about the level of the light switch. This condensed air, in the form of steam, came streaming out of the receptacle. Normally, carbon monoxide is odorless and colorless. The “visible” steam that tipped us off likely saved our lives. The fact that we arrived Saturday morning to be able to see it in the light of day also likely saved our lives. If we had followed our usual routine, we would have climbed into our cozy bed after dinner on Friday night and would never have woken up on Saturday morning.
As we still had a party to prepare for, we didn’t dwell on it much the rest of that day. We opened some windows, aired out the place, and went on hanging chandeliers, cleaning, organizing, setting up, and making gallons and gallons of my secret margarita concoction for that evening. We mentioned the incident to a few friends that evening, but the knowledge of a brush with death seemed anticlimactic in the early night, surrounded by good friends, re-building the bonds that we had not had time to strengthen in our long absence. It felt good to have the warm embraces, the engaging conversations, the reminiscences, and new stories. We ate, laughed, and enjoyed the company of the people we love, going to bed long after the turning of the new day, tired but satisfied.
In the silence of the late night it finally hit me. I laid awake the remainder of that night, convinced that if I didn’t fall asleep, I couldn’t possibly die in my sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning. I wondered what the relative density of carbon monoxide was, and whether we had aired out the upstairs sufficiently. The morning brought us nausea and headaches. Though we had turned off the heat for the night, not fully trusting that things were truly fixed; apparently the open windows hadn’t fully cleared out the carbon monoxide that had accumulated upstairs, but we were okay. While the first thing we did the next morning was to purchase carbon monoxide detectors for every bedroom, we also noted the need to make some changes to our estate planning. There is nothing like an “incident” to crystallize your resolve to focus on such things.
Ironically, this incident also helped me to feel more capable of re-engaging our Danville project. I had reached a point where I could not deal with one more complication, one more disaster, one more compromise in our exacting standards because of a rush to finish. I had completely burned out. We had been working our hardest, putting every spare ounce of mental, physical, and psychological energy into the project, travelling four hours each way to Danville and back, practically every weekend, and working from morning until late evening. The financial toll exacted was heavy as well; every penny we were making was being spent to meet a deadline; to satisfy an insurance company who no longer wanted our business. The worst had already happened. We missed the deadline by four weeks, the insurance company had cancelled us, and we had just escaped death.
And we had survived. All of it.
As luck would have it, a friend, and local Insurance agent, somehow pulled a rabbit out of his hat and our new relationship with ACE Insurance was working out just fine (Thank you Jim Jones!!!), and ironically, ACE had just bought out CHUBB, the company who had just cancelled us. The major portion of our construction was over, we now had a regular homeowners insurance policy, we were no longer under any time constraints or deadlines, and we were ALIVE! Suddenly everything ahead of us looked quite manageable. What’s a little mildew in the face of that!
Cheers!
You literally had me holding my breath. I'm so glad that you, and all you worked for, are alright. Cindi M
My heart was in my throat! Golly!
What a horrific irony it would have been if, after all your years of hard work, the house killed you both.
SO GLAD YOU ARE STILL WITH US!
It will take me a few moments to recover…and I am also wondering: Will there be a post on the tenants from hell? It seems too awful that your well-deserved reward for the miraculous salvation of the Flinn House would be evil tenants.
Well, I remain awestruck at the beauty you and Tom have created. I stare at the many rooms in abject wonder and appreciation. Wow. Wow! WOW!
Wow, I've been sick in bed reading your story today. (I live historical restoration and actually make historically accurate and appropriate garments) I said "oh no!" So audibly, that my fiancé and rushing up the stairs, worried I was in trouble! I'm so very glad you figured out the boiler issue in this manner. And I, and my fiancé wish you both such joy and success!
Please ignore the typos… Auto correct is my arch nemesis.
As, always, you are so kind. I am glad you appreciate our work, and we WILL persevere! I'm trying to figure out if we just got incredibly lucky, or if we are in some purgatory, forced to endure this craziness until we can achieve some state of grace as a result…
Thank you so much, I am glad you enjoyed it. I hope for a fast recovery so that you can get back to your own project quickly.
Oh my goodness, how lucky that you spotted the steam — and managed to figure out what it meant! Carbon monoxide is awful stuff, and it is a great plan to have detectors all over the house. The renovation is looking amazing at this point. Good that you have pieces which can be a focal point in the rooms.
Levi Eslinger @ Capital Plumbing
Forgive my offering advice to a couple who obviously have qualified for advanced degrees in restoration and interior design. It appears that your furnace wallahs have vented the furnaces into an unlined historic masonry chimney. This is very bad practice–the water and vaporous corrosive acids coat the insides of these monumental chimneys, and eat away the interior and the mortar. See http://www.csia.org/homeowner-resources/Gas_Appliances_Your_Masonry_Chimney.aspx In my little mountain town, several houses with gas conversions have chimneys that now lean into the wind, as the wetter side has its mortar eaten away faster. A stainless liner appears called for, sealed at top and bottom to protect the chimney as well as the master and mistress.