An 1873 Gothic Revival Home in Albany, Oregon

Charles Royal House, circa 1873
140 SE 5th Avenue, Albany, Oregon

Althouse Garage Repair

Because the garage appears on the 1884 Sanford Plat Map, we know it was built about the same time as the house.

Table of Contents

September 20, 2004: Roofing and building a door
September 18, 2004: Siding
September 7, 2004: Building walls
August 28, 2004: Roof tear-off
August 13, 2004: Pouring concrete
July 27, 2004: Welding clips onto the metal beam
March 13, 2004: Building footings
March 6, 2004: Building footings
February 28, 2004: Removing walls
February 10, 2004: Installing new support beams
February 8, 2004: Plans to repair the garage
October 17 , 2003: Initial tour as owners

Trim and windows, December 2004

Top: Bill Cutler did a super job of priming and painting the garage.

Middle: I have temporarily removed the wood louvers from the garage front window. I am in the process of making replacement louvers to restore this portion of the garage in as authentic a manner as possible.

Bottom: An interior view showing the newly installed and painted double-hung wood windows.

Roofing and building a door, November 2004

	Bill Cutler and I begin by putting siding on inside of the garage walls. We used left-over siding from earlier garage repairs.
	Top: With permission in hand from the Landmark Advisory Commission, we begin building a new garage door. I used old-growth Douglas Fir which originally came from a huge log on my timberland to make the door frame. We used biscuit joints, glue, and clamps to fasten the rails and stiles together. Bottom: I bought metal track from Coastal Farm Supply to hand the door. We used wood flooring to finish out the body of the door. We found this flooring under the eaves in the attic.
	Bill gets fully involved in cleaning up ...
	Bill and I reinstalled as much original trim as possible. In some cases the original trim was too rotten, and I had to buy new. Although it takes longer to sand, prime and prep, I like the original best because it has such nice grain and is authentic.
	Our work days occasionally lasted until it was too dark to work any longer.

Roofing and building a door, September 20, 2004

Top: The new siding gets its first coat of primer.

Bottom: The front of the garage has a new 20-foot fascia board to hold the metal track for the garage door I plan on building.

Siding, September 18, 2004

Top: I spent the day sanding and putting up siding that I bought at Heritage House Parts in Philomath.

Bottom: This is what front of the garage looked like by the end of the day.

Building Walls, September 7, 2004

	Top: The front wall about August 28th, before Dave Helton and Bill Cutler began working on it. Middle: I dropped a sheet of plywood on my big toe and broke it into four new pieces, so you won't see me in these photographs ... I was barely able to hold the camera. Here you see Dave and Bill as they replace the front framing to square up the garage. Bottom: This is what front of the garage looked like by the end of the day.
	Top: Essentially the entire north wall had to be replaced. This shows its appearance before Dave and Bill began to work. Middle: Dave measured the new studs, while Bill cut them (shown on the right). Bottom: Dave also made sure the new wall was plumb.
	Top: Bill Cutler and I came back several days later to finish the north wall. Bottom: Once the wall was finished, we moved on top and began trimming the roof with plywood.
	Top: Next we installed fiberglass base sheeting and nailed it down with orange cap nails. It rained off and on all day. Bottom: Fortunately we got a break in the rain just when we needed to begin torching down the new roof. Look at the dark clouds threatening to put a halt to our work.
	Working by myself, I finished putting up the plywood on the north and west walls.
	Top: Dave takes a rest break. Notice the window in the background. It is a 1950's vintage metal frame window. Middle: I removed the 1950's window and replaced with with a double-hung wood window. Last fall we purchased all the wooden double-hung windows from a home that had been torn down outside Blodgett. That home was demolished because of Oregon's building codes. The property owner wanted a new home, and although the property included many acres, it was only zoned for one home. Thus, the nice 1930's house was demolished to make way for a modern structure. To the right, you can see all the windows returning from our trip to Blodgett. Bottom: This shows the newly installed double-hung window. It still needs to be cleaned, painted, and glazed.
	A before and after shot showing the newly installed double-hung windows on the south wall.

Roof Tear-Off, August 28, 2004

	The old roofing was rotten, so Bill Cutler and I tore it off.
	Some of the boards were pretty shot as well, so we replaced them.
	Here is the cleaned-up roof deck.
	We begin applying fiberglass base sheet with orange cap nails.
	Here I am holding the camera as far in front of the garage as my arm will reach, and I am shooting back toward the garage. It wasn't until we tore off the old roofing that I noticed about two-thirds of the garage has two roof decks, one built on top of the other. My guess is that the lower deck rotted somewhat, and so around 1970, someone decided to place a new deck immediately on top of the lower one. This gave the garage roof a steeper pitch and accounts for the rather sloppy trim work around the top to disguise the change.

Pouring Concrete, August 13, 2004

Top: We poured the footings on August 9th. It was hot and hurried, and although we made a quick attempt to tamp the concrete with a shovel, we didn't get the concrete to flow into the corners of the forms. If I do another concrete pour into footings, I will ask the truck operator to make the concrete quite soupy. This may reduce the strength a bit, but it will leave fewer voids in the corners.

Bottom: Getting the forms off took some real effort. They were staked and buried.

	I laid out the walls on the grass. Many years ago I had flunked out of college, and the only job I could find was working on a wall crew in a mobile home factory. Laying out walls was easier there, because we had large tables with square edges. I also missed the overhead hoists to move finished walls.
	Top: Somehow I managed to drag the finished wall roughly into position, but it wouldn't fit because the garage was cock-eyed. So I knocked on the neighbor's front door to see if he was home (he wasn't), and I drove my truck into his yard. Then I hooked up a tow-rope to the bumper and around the steel beam in the top of the garage. After shifting the pickup into 4-wheel drive and using the low gear range, the garage straightened up. So I got out and nailed the wall into position. Bottom: To keep the garage from shifting back out-of-kilter, I nailed a 4x8-foot sheet of 1/2-inch CDX plywood to the wall with lots of nails.
	A close-up detail of how the steel beam is attached to the back wall. I took this photo because this area will shortly be covered by plywood, and the building inspectors may want to know how it is constructed.
	This is nearing the second day of wall construction. I've finished framing the back wall, and I've installed sill plates for the side wall. I remain uncertain about what to do for the side wall. I want to retain as much as possible of the original garage fabric, but this wall may be too far gone to save.
	This rather dull-looking photo is notable only because it shows how I decided to support the wooden ceiling beam. For some reason, this beam stopped an 1-1/2 from the back wall. So I cut two pieces of 2"x5-1/2" old-growth Doug Fir and spliced them next to the back wall.

Welding clips onto the metal beam, July 27, 2004

I've run into a paperwork snafu. When I installed a metal support beam, I didn't know how much trouble I'd caused for myself -- a wooden beam would have been much less paperwork.

First, the building department wanted me to hire a structural engineer to certify that the metal beam would be strong enough. So I had Paul Hightower run the computations and provide them with a letter showing its strength.
Then the building department wanted to know how I would attach the beam to the rest of the building -- evidently they thought it would somehow fall out of position. So I asked Paul Hightower about this, and he suggested welding clips to the beam and lag bolting the clips to the ceiling joists.
Next, I welded eight clips to the beam as shown in these photos.
Next, the building department wanted a Certified Welding Inspector to inspect the welding. So I had David Kelter inspect the welding. He looked at the welding and thought it looked OK, but he needed written specifications for how the welding should be done before he could certify that it met appropriate standards.

So now it appears I need to get Paul Hightower to provide welding specifications which I can provide to David Kelter so I can get the welding certified. All this paperwork seems like a lot of foolishness for a beam to hold up the back of a garage.

Trenching for power, March 13, 2004

Today I installed the conduit and wire for a 100-amp service panel in the garage. Work started in the kitchen, and in the top view, you can see the new conduit running straight down from the kitchen's 200-amp panel box. The bottom photo shows the conduit running underneath the house.

These images show how deep I dug the trench for the power. My understanding is the wire needs to be at least 24 inches below the surface. I didn't want to leave an open trench ... that seems hazardous ... so I took lots of pictures showing the trench was between 26 and 30 inches deep.

Building footings, March 6, 2004

	Dave Helton and I spend the day digging trenches and building footings.
	I bought 1,100 pounds of rebar for the garage and foundation strengthening. All the orange U-shaped steel struts in the background will be used to tie the home's sill plates to new concrete footings.
	The rebuilt garage should have power, so we dug a trench to hold a new 100-amp panel box for the garage. We dug it 18 inches deep, but it will have to be another 6 inches deeper to hold the direct-burial wire.

Removing walls, February 28, 2004

I decide to remove the back and side walls so we can begin digging the foundation.

Installing new support beams, February 10, 2004

	In order to slip a new tube steel support beam in place, we use a 20-ton bottle jack to raise the existing roof slightly. Next we persuaded the beam to move slightly with one of our main tools of the day: a splitting maul.
	Bruce Taylor helped me (Dave Sullivan) complete this repair work. You see him here removing old knob and tube wiring that will be in the way of our repairs.
	We slid new 2 x 6 ceiling joists over the steel beams. This should allow us to retain the original decking and joists while stiffening the roof sufficiently to meet current building codes.
	We used a 20-ton bottle jack to raise the roof to its original level. As I pumped the jack, Bruce would adjust the back-up support by moving it toward the rear of the garage or by inserting more wood shims. This meant the roof could never fall more than an inch or two if the bottle jack popped out because of the stress -- something that happened several times.
	As we jacked up the ceiling, the rear wall stayed put on the ground, so a larger and larger gap appeared at the top of the wall.
	At the end of our work day, we had installed two steel beams. The 5" x 5" beam down the center of the garage is permanent. The 3" by 4" beam you see sticking out in this photo will be removed once the side wall has been rebuilt. I like this photo because it shows a level roof, but all the siding runs downhill.

Plans to repair the garage, February 8, 2004

	February 8, 2004: The garage is falling down and depressingly dark inside, so I measured it carefully, drew a Visio drawing showing how I'd like to repair it, and discussed the plans with local experts, including David Skilton and Paul Hightower. I'd like to: Remove and replace the back and west wood walls: they are too damaged to repair. Put a 12" x 12" concrete footing under the new walls. Remove the metal roll-up door and replace it with wood doors that swing open on hinges. Install wood double-hung windows to give the garage better light. Install a 5" x 5" x 19-foot tube steel beam down the center of the back of the garage to strengthen support for the roof. The current beam is undersized and shows signs of rot. Replace ceiling joists as necessary. Add a 50-amp electrical service and install lights and plugs. As much as possible, I want to leave the garage's character and history intact. I like its dirt floor and rustic wall and ceiling surfaces.
	February 8, 2004: Front views of the garage. The wood siding needs mild repair and a major paint job. The metal door should be replaced with a wood door similar to what would have originally been on the garage (see a tentative door design below). The south side of the garage cannot be seen from the street, so I'm hoping this will make it easier to argue for placing more double-hung wood windows in this wall to make the interior brighter.
	February 8, 2004: This rear corner has deteriorated so far that I think the best way to repair it will be to remove the siding carefully, rebuild the walls from scratch, and replace the siding. As long as this area must be rebuilt anyway, I'd like to add new double-hung wood windows to these walls.
	February 8, 2004: The south wall looks like it originally had two windows. One was replaced by this metal window, and the other was replaced by plywood. I'd like to replace each window with a pair of double-hung wood windows.
	February 8, 2004: An interior view showing why the roof hasn't collapsed completely: it is held up by temporary metal supports. The roofing has failed, so the ceiling joists are soaking wet, and I've had to cover the wood being stored in the garage with a tarp to keep it dry.
	February 8, 2004: One fun feature: a make-shift shelf below the missing window in the south wall.
	February 8, 2004: The ceiling shows knob-and-tube wiring along with Romex wires. When I purchased the garage, it received electrical power from a 12-2 wire strung between the garage and home at the 8-foot level. One of my first acts as the new owner was to cut down this hazard.
	February 8, 2004: This corner of the garage is where the worst rot occurred, primarily because the walls sit directly on the ground, so they have slowly been eaten from the bottom.
	February 8, 2004: The walls and ceiling joists in the front part of the garage can be left alone.
	February 8, 2004: A mock-up of the sort of wood doors I would like to use in the front of the garage. These doors would swing out, and I expect they are similar to the sort of doors the garage would originally have had.
	February 8, 2004: I've been looking for appropriate hinges to use for the garage doors, so I was thrilled to find these hinges at Architectural Salvage in Philomath. I bought eight hinges: four single-acting spring hinges and four double-acting hinges. The hinges were made by Bommer Industries and could date back to the era when the garage was built. This quote comes from the Bommer Industries website. In the year 1863, Lorenz Bommer perfected and patented a major modification to the existing single acting spring hinge. In 1880 he patented the world's first double acting spring hinge. These inventions were to become the cornerstone of Bommer Industries, Inc., a company founded in 1876 in lower Manhattan at a location currently occupied by a footing of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Initial Tour as New Owners, October, 17 2003

The next five photos show what the garage looked like in October 2003 on the day we purchased the home.

	October 17, 2003: Yes, that is a dead car in the front yard.
	October 17, 2003: My first view of the interior: conditions inside the garage were a bit cluttered.
	October 17, 2003: It quickly became apparent that we had purchased more than just a house ... we bought a garage full of junk! The piles of garbage helped explain why the place smelled like an animal had died inside.
	October 17, 2003: Part of the garage is built with brick and was used as a cooler to store food before refrigeration. The junk-level in here was more tolerable.
	October 17, 2003: Another view of the cooler area.

The Allen-House.Com and RoyalHouse1873.Com websites are maintained by Dave and Barbara Sullivan who live in the N. H. Allen House at 208 6th Avenue SE, Albany, Oregon. Our home phone is 541-924-5983.