Keeping the Heat in, Even With a Sunroom.

Nice old basement! So how much of it is stone? I love old house with old basements. My wife being from England wanted a stone farm house with a stone cellar, but finding that down south is rare and expensive. Up north I could find it maybe.

Yeah you'll find many of them up here .... but in my opinion, the lifestyle up here isn't worth it. I'd rather be down south any day, over this cesspool of hurried, arrogant, stuck up jerks .... but that's just me. My neighborhood is the true definition of "diamond-in-the-rough" though. If I house hunted 1,000,000 times I'd never find a place like this again.

A small part of the house is stone - that's the original 1850-built section. It's been added onto over the years. That pic where it looks like someone dynamited thru the fieldstone is the passage to the basement of the additions. One of them is completely sealed off. Haven't had the motivation in the 8.5 years we've been here to dig into it ... so that's a mystery chamber there. Hopefully there's some gold bars in there ....

The original house was probably 800 sq. ft. INCLUDING the second floor & basement - it's real small. The additions tripled the size.

SMITTY wrote:Yeah you'll find many of them up here .... but in my opinion, the lifestyle up here isn't worth it. I'd rather be down south any day, over this cesspool of hurried, arrogant, stuck up jerks .... but that's just me. My neighborhood is the true definition of "diamond-in-the-rough" though. If I house hunted 1,000,000 times I'd never find a place like this again.

A small part of the house is stone - that's the original 1850-built section. It's been added onto over the years. That pic where it looks like someone dynamited thru the fieldstone is the passage to the basement of the additions. One of them is completely sealed off. Haven't had the motivation in the 8.5 years we've been here to dig into it ... so that's a mystery chamber there. Hopefully there's some gold bars in there ....

The original house was probably 800 sq. ft. INCLUDING the second floor & basement - it's real small. The additions tripled the size.

If your like me you probably don't converse with the arrogant stuck up jerks but if you ever find yourself in a conversation with any, ask them if they have any relatives in Maryland.

Good luck on the treasure hunt.

Smokeyja wrote:Nice old basement! So how much of it is stone? I love old house with old basements. My wife being from England wanted a stone farm house with a stone cellar, but finding that down south is rare and expensive. Up north I could find it maybe.

Stone Foundations

My stone re-pointing in still ongoing

I got the stone foundation goin on too here of course with a 225 year old house. I also have a large sun porch facing south (which is the coast line too). The difference is it's build onto the outside wall of the house and so there are two doors. On a sunny day that thing is warm though and I actually use it for a green house in spring to start my plants. I could use a better door from the porch to into the kitchen as its all panes of glass with a cat door but still its not a huge leaker. Mine is not considered a part of the living space, at least not in winter! This is an old pic of the front but you can see the porch with the deck on it. Big ole tomato plant in the window!

SteveZee wrote:I got the stone foundation goin on too here of course with a 225 year old house. I also have a large sun porch facing south (which is the coast line too). The difference is it's build onto the outside wall of the house and so there are two doors. On a sunny day that thing is warm though and I actually use it for a green house in spring to start my plants. I could use a better door from the porch to into the kitchen as its all panes of glass with a cat door but still its not a huge leaker. Mine is not considered a part of the living space, at least not in winter! This is an old pic of the front but you can see the porch with the deck on it. Big ole tomato plant in the window!

Look at all those Chimneys, you need more stoves!!!!!
Nice looking house Steve.

Yes, nice house and yes you need a Bride in that house!

smokeyja, I think I get the best solution for you on a good way to be warm in that sunroom.
Just transfer what is on your avatar and then no needs for insulation on the house

echos67 wrote:

SteveZee wrote:I got the stone foundation goin on too here of course with a 225 year old house. I also have a large sun porch facing south (which is the coast line too). The difference is it's build onto the outside wall of the house and so there are two doors. On a sunny day that thing is warm though and I actually use it for a green house in spring to start my plants. I could use a better door from the porch to into the kitchen as its all panes of glass with a cat door but still its not a huge leaker. Mine is not considered a part of the living space, at least not in winter! This is an old pic of the front but you can see the porch with the deck on it. Big ole tomato plant in the window!

Look at all those Chimneys, you need more stoves!!!!!
Nice looking house Steve.

Yep thanks Keith and Pierre, It's a big ole gal, sort of L shaped. Check out the long side.

Steve, here in Québec, we call that ""un chateau""

SteveZee wrote:

echos67 wrote: Look at all those Chimneys, you need more stoves!!!!!
Nice looking house Steve.

Yep thanks Keith and Pierre, It's a big ole gal, sort of L shaped. Check out the long side.

Another stove pipe sticking out of the roof
I think your understoved by 2 or 3 easy, Im ready when do you want to go stove searching ?
Hell I couldnt afford to put furniture in that castle let alone heat it

SMITTY wrote:Yeah you'll find many of them up here .... but in my opinion, the lifestyle up here isn't worth it. I'd rather be down south any day, over this cesspool of hurried, arrogant, stuck up jerks .... but that's just me. My neighborhood is the true definition of "diamond-in-the-rough" though. If I house hunted 1,000,000 times I'd never find a place like this again.

A small part of the house is stone - that's the original 1850-built section. It's been added onto over the years. That pic where it looks like someone dynamited thru the fieldstone is the passage to the basement of the additions. One of them is completely sealed off. Haven't had the motivation in the 8.5 years we've been here to dig into it ... so that's a mystery chamber there. Hopefully there's some gold bars in there ....

The original house was probably 800 sq. ft. INCLUDING the second floor & basement - it's real small. The additions tripled the size.

Well for some reason those jerks keep on moving down here, buying up all the land, building sardine can subdivisions, then go around calling the county on old country houses for having things like old tractors in their yards. Look up a place called "short pump Virginia" it's like the northern VA of Richmond, heck I'd rather drive in NYC than go there half the time. The people their are asses as well. And let's talk about Northern VA... What are those people thinking! Between NOVA and DC that's one spot you don't even want to drive through!

But I know what you mean.

You have to keep me in the loop when you go to open up the sealed part of the basement!
Part of my property used to e the farms junk yard so I find some real cool stuff here and there.

SteveZee wrote:I got the stone foundation goin on too here of course with a 225 year old house. I also have a large sun porch facing south (which is the coast line too). The difference is it's build onto the outside wall of the house and so there are two doors. On a sunny day that thing is warm though and I actually use it for a green house in spring to start my plants. I could use a better door from the porch to into the kitchen as its all panes of glass with a cat door but still its not a huge leaker. Mine is not considered a part of the living space, at least not in winter! This is an old pic of the front but you can see the porch with the deck on it. Big ole tomato plant in the window!

great house Steve! Wow 225 year! It looks great! Here is the rest of the shots of my house. But the real reason I bought the house was the Garage its around 1500sq ft with a lean to on the back that used to house two horses. That's where I keep my tractors I was throwing around some ideas with my Dad about the sunroom. It's going to be expensive but whatever l guess. Once I get the base heater I can just crank up the heat more. At least thats my logic behind it

Nice property Smoke,

Looks like a peaceful place to chill with no neighbors hovering right close. I like that about my 3.5 acres too. It's sort of enclosed up on a hill and in the dead of summer with all the trees full, if you didn't know it was there , you wouldn't see it. Mine was built in the Maine typical fashion of the day with allot of added on sections as time went by. The main house is that front part with the two big gables. The L part is a summer kitchen and attached barn and finally garage. The barn has an apartment above it where that 4th chimney pipe that Keith spotted is sticking through. The actual living /heating space isn't so big as it looks and I close off parts for the winters too. Yours looks like you've got some space and certainly land for gardening and the like.

SteveZee wrote:Nice property Smoke,

Looks like a peaceful place to chill with no neighbors hovering right close. I like that about my 3.5 acres too. It's sort of enclosed up on a hill and in the dead of summer with all the trees full, if you didn't know it was there , you wouldn't see it. Mine was built in the Maine typical fashion of the day with allot of added on sections as time went by. The main house is that front part with the two big gables. The L part is a summer kitchen and attached barn and finally garage. The barn has an apartment above it where that 4th chimney pipe that Keith spotted is sticking through. The actual living /heating space isn't so big as it looks and I close off parts for the winters too. Yours looks like you've got some space and certainly land for gardening and the like.

The bad part is that my 3.625 acres is surrounded by houses in a neighborhood ... But it's still peaceful . The cool thing, like you said, is people not knowing I'm here. Half the neighborhood didn't know there was a house here through the woods lol. And from the road you don't know my house is there either. It keeps the county off my back when I don't it the field for a couple of weeks. And speaking of gardening I have an acre field I started plowing this fall to grow a fairly large crop of hot peppers .

The sad thing about the Richmond area is that it was burned at the end of the civil war so a lot of older homes don't exist anymore, not to mention the north cut off te south and drive them into poverty after the war, causing the inevitable decomposition of the already older homes. This is why you find more northern homes to be older. The one thing I don't get is the north's architecture stayed similar to that of English and europene but the south went different. A stone house in VA is rare, a stone house in Maine or new England, not so rare. I don't know about you but I could never own a new home.