Making a^ew Home 
from an Old House 
PART II—THE ALTERATION OF THE HOUSE IN¬ 
DOORS—VALUABLE PRINCIPLES OF REMODELING 
—HOW PROPER PROVISIONS WERE MADE FOR 
HEATING AND LIGHTING 
W HEN we bought our house six years ago there were several 
alterations to make and a few additions, and three weeks 
only to do it all in ; by that time our furniture had to be away from 
the New York apartments. Such weeks of confusion as they 
were. We thought the dirty work should all be done before the 
furniture arrived, and, intending it to he our home all the year 
'round, a heating system had to be installed; electric light seemed 
a necessity; much of the window glass was broken and the sashes 
stuck with paint; several recently cut doorways were to be blocked 
up, and D. wanted two bed-rooms thrown into one so the summer 
wind might blow through our room from end to end. 
Four posts that supported the central part of the house were 
of soft wood and, perhaps, unsound; the girders resting on them 
seemed to have set¬ 
tled somewhat, for 
diagonal cracks 
showed in the walls 
of the central hall¬ 
way. Consequently, 
jack-screws were set 
in the cellar, one un¬ 
der each of the cen¬ 
tral girders, and the 
weight bodily lifted 
from the old wood 
posts. While the men 
were at this below, I 
walked from room to 
room, and bad the 
satisfaction of seeing 
the cracks gradually 
close. An inch or two 
we must have raised 
it; we went as far as 
we dared, but if I 
were to do it now, I 
should be less timid, 
and “jack" until a 
mason’s level showed 
the floors absolutely 
true. 
It seems that in old 
houses like this the floors are generally somewhat sunken in the 
center, for the outer stone walls remain rigid and the interior 
wooden posts have been renewed once or twice perhaps, and the 
new posts not wedged up quite tight, so when the old are knocked 
away the girders settle a little. Such a process had occurred 
here, and, determining to end it, we installed six cast-iron columns 
taken from a hotel that was being torn down. The house will not 
settle again. 
Electric wiring was extremely difficult. The floors were of 
wide, two-inch planks, each tongued into a groove in the 
edge of the next, so they could not be opened without damage. 
The oak framing of the outside walls was Milled solid in brick 
with no opening places for the wires; at the level of the second 
floor there was a heavy sill or girt in both outside walls and parti¬ 
tions, so wires could not be “fished” or pulled up from below, as 
they can be in a modern house. I doubt the wisdom of wiring 
such a building; there is too much cutting. Candles and lamps 
have their attraction; but perhaps this is only a man's point of 
view. 
The steam fitting was comparatively simple. With the excep¬ 
tion of the kitchen, there were four chimneys of two flues each,, 
and but seven fireplaces; ergo, there was one empty flue, and the 
chimney problem was 
solved. For safety,, 
we opened the front 
of the flue from the 
cellar to the second 
floor and lined it with 
the standard rec¬ 
tangular terra-cotta 
pipe known as “flue- 
lining.’’ The vertical 
steam risers we ran 
through the closets 
whenever we could,, 
or in angles of the 
chimney-breasts. We 
tried to place all the 
radiators where they 
would not be conspic¬ 
uous. 
Two great Balti- 
m o r e heaters had 
been set in front of 
the dining and draw- 
i n g - room fireplaces 
and the openings 
boarded up behind 
them, so these, of 
course, we could re¬ 
move. The mantels r 
fortunately, had never been damaged, and, after we had been in 
the house six months or so, a discovery was made concerning 
them, which, like every unexpected find in an old house, was dis¬ 
proportionately exciting. 
One morning I was tinkering with the boiler in the cellar when 
I chanced to .see what seemed to be several pieces of thick slate 
apparently coated with stove-blacking. I was at a loss to account 
for them ; curiosity led me to rub off a little of the blacking, and I 
was surprised to find I had uncovered a piece of beautifully veined! 
The remodeled country place has the advantage of grown foliage among which a garden may be slowly 
developed without the distressing business that the owner of a new house has to contend with 
