Researching the History of Our House

I was able to head down to the library downtown and do some research on our sweet little house.  I didn't get a whole lot more information than what I was already able to find using regular online searches and Ancestry.com.  But I was able to have the permit cards for our property right in my hand and see when and what was done on the property since 1901!

Part of our property's permit card - dating from 1901

Researching!

The city directories were also a lot of fun.  Lots of those are archived on Ancestry.com, but you have to be looking for the correct name.  When you're looking directly in the book, you can look up the address.  And that's helpful because the names are sometimes misspelled, or just spelled differently from year to year.

1950 City Directory

Charles Olek worked at the Pillsbury Mill downtown - 1939

As you might imagine, there aren't usually pictures and a lot of historic information on private residences, unless they were significant in some way.  Since our house is just a 1950s same-old-same-old, there weren't any pictures of our house, just the permit cards and directory listings.

What I was able to find a lot about was our neighborhood.  Ever since we bought the house, I wondered about the big building across the street.  It's apartments now, but it doesn't look like that's what it was from the beginning.  And we've met one of our neighbors who lives there and he says he thinks his apartment used to be a gymnasium.  So I looked for the building and the librarians brought me 3 huge envelopes that were bursting with newspaper clippings.  Turns out the building used to be the Margaret Barry Settlement House, up until the 1970s or so.  What's a settlement house?  Since the Northeast neighborhoods were largely settled by immigrants, settlement houses were a place to gather and find resources.  From what I read on the Margaret Barry House, there were English, typing, and parenting classes; job and living resources; preschool and childrens' education; and frequent dances and gatherings for the teenagers of the neighborhood.

Margaret Barry House - 1925

Article on the Margaret Barry House - 1932

I also found a really cool photo of the building where a couple of our good friends live, just a mile or two down the road from us.  It was built by the Cream of Wheat company for the offices and factory, I believe, and it has been converted into very cool lofts. 

Names of people who have previously owned our property:
        Lucy Doyle and Edward J Doyle  (1901-1910)
        Vincent and Sophia Fanzig, Charles and Sophia Olek  (1931-1943)
        Angelo and Conjate Cremisino  (1943-1945)
        Charles A Pettis  (1945-1946)
        Didrick J Orfield, John F Sandstrom  (1946)
        Kenneth A Chase  (1946-1949)
        Hope A Quinn (1949-1951)
        Frank J & Rose M Flanigan  (1951-1971) - they built our house
        Harold L Fletcher (1971-1979)
        Paul Wesley Irwin & Diane E McKay-Irwin  (1979-1999)

1865 City Directory

Rock & Bobcat

Yesterday we got some work done in the prep for the concrete slab, but not nearly as much as we'd hoped -- because it rained!  Wet ground is much easier for bobcat tires to sink down into.

K got everything organized right in the morning -- rented a bobcat and a plate tamper, and arranged for the delivery of a bunch of Class 5 rock.  She had gotten the 3rd side of the form built within the last couple weeks, so now we needed to level and compact the ground that will be beneath the concrete slab.  The Class 5 rock was to be put on top of the soil -- it compacts together very tightly and makes a strong, dense layer.

Delivery of the Class 5 rock

K was zooming all over in the bobcat, using the shovel to scrape down the dirt.  It was a fairly small bobcat, kinda light, so it didn't quite have enough weight to really move the dirt without a few passes.  But once the rain started, the thing really sunk into the ground and the tires made deep ruts.  So I suppose it's better that it wasn't a heavier model.

Another glitch was that the plate compactor/tamper quit on us fairly early in the day.  It was working for a bit, but then the engine was quitting and wouldn't restart.  I got quite a bit of the rock compacted, but as the rain continued and the bobcat drove over it again, a bunch of the rock got churned into the ground.

Right before the compactor quit and the rain got heavier

It was a very long, grueling day.  I have no pictures from later in the day, because we were trying so hard to just get done.  We finished in the dark, after we used all the rock, and were very frustrated with our progress.   Poor K was beYOND annoyed.

Luckily, we're getting a credit from the rental place on the tamper, so we can continue and hopefully finish up in the next couple weeks.

Late Garden Harvest

It was a beautiful Sunday today.  It rained on Friday evening, and was kind of chilly yesterday, so today seemed even more lovely.  It's supposed to rain most of this week, so I guessed today would be one of the few days when I could grab the remaining herbs from my garden and work on preserving them.

Got that huge pile of catnip cut down and bundled, and grabbed some of the long stems of mint, to dry.  Then our neighbor had me come over to get some things out of their garden -- parsley, lovage, tarragon, oregano, and sage.  And lots and lots of Swiss chard, which I'm having for dinner. 

I've decided to dry the herbs in a seldom-used closet.  It's dry and it will be dark.  And I found the perfect hanging device in there -- a hanger made to hold 4 skirts or pairs of pants.  It is long, with 8 clips spaced on each level.

Bundled all those herbs with string and clipped them all on!

Now the herbs are spaced out, and not just in a thick bundle.  It's all hanging nicely in the closet.

AND, there was a nice surprise waiting for me in the garden --  The green beans grew!  We had so many plants, and they all grew thick and huge and tall!  But because they were planted so late, and were just blossoming in September, I figured we probably wouldn't have any beans.  It would get too cold before the beans could grow.  But it's been a mild autumn so far, so we have beans!

I've also picked all the little green tomatoes, and I've got those in a paper bag in the kitchen.  Maybe, hopefully, some of those will ripen up for us.

Concrete Form Day 2

Late start on the concrete form today, because it rained again.  Quite a bit, actually, in the early afternoon.  Eventually, we ran over to Home Depot to get some more wood for the remaining sides of the form.  As soon as we got back home we started working on the back side of the form.  One of the boards that looked pretty straight in the store was actually giving us quite a bit of trouble -- too much bowing and twisting.  We worked until it was dark, and then K brought a work light outside so we could keep going.

The lights behind the trees are a train going by  

It was actually kind of fun once I got a sweatshirt on to keep warm.  We had the radio on, lots of good tunes, and I was dancing around whenever I needed to warm up.  K was determined to get that side done tonight, and we did it!  Eventually got things all straight and square.  Should make the other two sides easier to complete.

So... one side of the form per week, so far.  Plus leveling some of the dirt and adding the gravel and rock after that...   Means we'll be ready to pour the concrete in, like, November?  

First Baby Step of the Garage

First chance we get to start on the garage, and it rains on us.

K took this week off work, mainly to figure out the garage situation/start on the project, and partly to just get a break from her extremely busy job.  I took today off work, because my bosses were out of town, my work was a little slow, and I figured I could help K for the day.

It was kind of a gloomy day, and then when we got started in the afternoon, it rained.  Off and on for a while, and then eventually it was just sprinkling.  We each put on one of K's work rain jackets and kept going.  We got started on making the form for the concrete slab, and got one side completed.  It's a lot more work than you might think -- each corner needs to be square, each board that you use probably has some bend to it so you have to make it level and straighten any bowing.  LOTS of tweaking.

Finished the one side in the dark.  Then looked at and thought, Wow, that's it?  There's so much left to do!

Garage - Change of Plans

Well, our initial plan for a large 3-stall garage has been changed.  Last week, K brought her amazing plan and documents to the Minneapolis permit office to get them approved and to purchase the permit.

Since our lot is quite large, we figured that we could also go big with the garage.  And actually, we can.... But since it's larger than standard size, it require some special considerations.

1)  The permit would cost $200-300 more than a standard permit.
2)  A variance would be requested, meaning that an inspector would come out to our property within 2 weeks to make sure our plans were done properly.  Construction could only start after we got approval.
3)  The roof pitch would need to be the same as our house.  So our garage would be as tall as our house, and have a very high ceiling.  Yes, it would be cool to make a 2nd floor and have a studio or maybe even a guest room above the garage, but in reality, we'd just be heating a bunch of unused space for a very long time, until we could someday get to that project.
4)  The roof needs to face the same way as the roof of the house.  So, the shingles would be facing the street, same as the house.  We couldn't put the gabled side on the front, which would be better if we wanted to put up a basketball hoop someday.
5)  The siding has to match the house.  Right away.  We'd either need to side our garage in pale-yellow aluminum siding (not going to happen), or re-side our house at the same time as our garage.  Yes, that would be amazing!  But I can't imagine that we'll be able to afford all of that at once.

Plan B for building the garages, according to the permit office, is to build a standard 2-stall garage and then build another 1-stall garage next to it.  ....Really??  I mean, we get that a large 3-stall garage is a more complicated structure, as far as building goes.  It was certainly going to cost a lot of money and require more specialized supplies.  But, we can build our 2-stall, and then build a 1-stall a couple feet away from it, if we want to. 

And for a standard 2-stall, there were no special restrictions.  Once the plans are approved, a permit is handed to you and you can begin building immediately.  Your roof can be whatever pitch and face whatever way you prefer.  Your siding can be whatever you like.  If we wanted our garage to be bright pink, we could do it. 

So, 2-stall it is.  K had to come home, completely re-draw all of her plans to show the 2-stall garage, and go back to the permit office the next day.  Permit in hand, we could start building.

Fall Garden Harvest & Potato Salad

It's been a mild fall so far, so my garden has been able to continue to grow.  Which is great, because it was planted so late!

Happy garden!

The tomato plant is huge, but the blossoms got started so late that I still just have green tomatoes and some remaining blossoms.  But they're all so pretty!

Green tomatoes and blossoms

And the green beans are probably not going to grow this year.  The vines are huge and healthy, but they've just started to blossom.  I'm not sure they will have enough time to grow actual beans before the frost and cold nights arrive.

Tiny green bean blossoms

And we have a huge pile of catnip!  Which is great, because I only planted those seeds once we had finished the garden bed.  They took a little while to germinate, but now they're doing great.  I've brought a few branches in for the kitties and they go nuts over this stuff!

Catnip

I cut most of the dill today to use for potato salad.  And I took out the radishes that looked grown enough.  I definitely planted some of the radish seeds much too close together, because those are just growing straight up and tangled together, and not forming any round little radishes.

Dill

Radishes

Bowl of goodies from the garden

All those radishes and dill were used up in the potato salad, which turned out really good!  It was a little spicy -- those radishes are pink and adorable, but they really have a bite.

Pink, spicy radishes

Red and yellow potatoes with pink radishes

Vegan potato salad with cider vinegar, dijon mustard, carrots, red onions, and CUPS of fresh dill!!

Dinner.