Grandpa did not actually build the original house. His job was much more daunting than that. In a time when earning $20.00 a week for six (Monday through Saturday), ten or twelve hour, days was not uncommon, my Dad needed to put a roof over his growing family's head, work and still find time for a few fun things. He re built the house, a much harder task than just building from scratch.

I was one year old when he found the house (wreck) at 1019 North Townsend Street in Syracuse, New York. The house was 100 years old, falling apart and very dirty, but it did have indoor plumbing, a roof with not too many holes, and a furnace in the dirt basement that burned wood and later coal and provided heat through a grate in the floor in the dining room. The rest of the house got as warm as convection would let it get, leaving the kitchen and the upstairs very cooooooold!

To my dad, whose father was a fully certified carpenter in the carpenter's union, this house became his life's work outside of work. Thankful for what his father, had taught him, he began to rebuild the house with safety, comfort, and, then only, the aesthetics in mind.

Mom had her part in the cleanup, as the home had not been cared for in years, even though it was lived in. For instance, there was a tin can near the claw footed, porcelain tub in the bathroom that was missed by the chewing tobacco more than it was hit. I guess that way, it never filled up so they didn't need to get another can, but over the years, that spittle filled tobacco mess had dried hard and very sticky. To Mom fell the uglier tasks of cleaning up the tobacco and the other places in the house where filth had accumulated, all while she cared for my sister, Ruth a three year old, and me at only one. All of this cleaning and window washing after many years of neglect had to be done with elbow grease. Windex, and household cleaners still hadn't made it onto the scene.

I suspect that Mom was the designer for many of the changes that came throughout the years, as well.

I'm not sure of the order that he did the work, but I do know his hours. Dad chose the night shift at work so he could get the bonus pay and have his days free to work on our house or the homes of many others who asked for his work. Dad was an exceptionally good carpenter-painter-wall paper hanger etc. He was also very neat and super fast! Sleep came between midnight when he got off work and 4 or 5 AM when he could no longer wait to get at the project of the moment, of which there were many. Many mornings, we would wake to his hammering, the slip slop of the paint brush, or his paste brush on fresh wall paper.

Dad never had help in the work that he did except for those of us in the family who chose to do it. He probably began by cleaning up the trash in the yard so we would have a safe place to play, and then attended to the leaks in the roof. Eventually, he replaced the entire roof's shingles after repairing what was needed in the structure. Over the years, he probably replaced the roof at least twice if not three times. Once when he was working on the roof in the summer, he suffered heat stroke. The only respite from the heat was to put a fan behind a dish of ice and blow the air on your face, not possible on the roof. Air conditioning came years after I left home at 21.

Dad repaired as much of the house as he could, but that required taking down much of what was there before and then re building. The back porch was rebuilt, and similarly the front. Years later, as he had time and money, he enclosed both porches to give the growing family a little more space, at least in the warm weather. Central heat wasn't in the house just yet.

The 100 year old walls were constructed in the early to mid 1840's from lath slats and plaster. They were strong, but the plaster had crumbled in places. Dad removed all of the old wall paper and grime of the years, patched the plaster and put on fresh paper. Eventually, he resurfaced those bumpy old walls with a new fangled thing called drywall, which was smooth, and easier to finish than the plaster and lath boards. Each room in the house went through these changes over the years as he had time and money.

There was a very small front hall around the curving staircase to the upstairs rooms. Dad removed the hall wall and expanded the living room. He widened the doorway into the dining room which let more heat from the grate get into the parlor.

The single bedroom on the first floor opened into the kitchen area. Dad moved the door to the dining room side of the room and closed off the wall in the kitchen. He added an in-wall electric heater to the back part of the kitchen, and then made Mom the happiest she could ever be by building her a kitchen that was the envy of the neighborhood.

Mom was barely 5' 1", and so most counter tops were too high for her. Dad built cabinets at her height all around three side of the kitchen, and even built a special cabinet to hold the antique flour bin that I think was in the house when they moved in and one of the few things worth saving. Aunt Betty has this bin today as far as I know. [It's on the plant shelf overlooking her new kitchen (with honey Mom saved from her father's bees, and Mom's sewing basket).]

Dad also just repainted the decorative tin ceilings that were in the original kitchen, thereby leaving a very special connection to the long history of the house. Many times I would follow the pattern of that ceiling to locate the one area where the pattern didn't match.

Dad did take out the tin walls in the bathroom and replaced the tub with built in tub and shower and built in cabinets. He eventually replaced Mom's wringer washer with new electric ones and added the plumbing to the back part of the kitchen to make wash day much easier.

Dad had to replace all of the windows, plumbing, heating, and lighting himself over the years. The days of city inspectors hadn't arrived yet, and if you didn't or couldn't do these things yourself, they didn't get done or folks called on my Dad.

Dad added new shingles to the outside of the house and he painted the shingles a charcoal grey, contrasted by white paint on the trim and on the new window sills. Over the years he had to re paint these shingles many times because when he replaced the old siding, aluminum or vinyl siding wasn't yet available. Dad was an expert on a scaffold and could climb a ladder without looking. The ladder seemed just an extension of his body.

There was one time when Dad tried to go into business for himself full time, since he much preferred the handyman work to the greasy and dangerous shop work (dad lost most of the ring finger on his left hand in a shop accident). I believe this business was the only time Dad hired a helper.

When you are an expert, it isn't easy to work along side those who don't do as well as you do, and so the helper went by the bye. I think that Dad never charged what he was worth, as he always knew how hard it was to come by money himself, and so didn't want to impose his needs on others. Back to the shop he went to keep food on the table.

Dad always wanted quality in his home and the old rolling floors were covered with several layers of vinyl which were ugly, and very uneven. New projects! Asphalt tiles in the kitchen to compliment the new cabinets, and hardwood floors in the dining and living room. He removed the old flooring materials, laid new sub flooring for strength and to even up the floors themselves. Then he cemented the tiles in the kitchen.

I was fortunate to have helped him lay the hard wood floors as he, at least said, he needed someone to hold the oak boards while he nailed them down and counter sunk each nail so the next tongue and grooved board could be put in place. We knelt on the new part of the floor while working on each additional board. Oak is very hard, so nailing into it took strength and very hard hammering. I could feel the rebound snap in each board as he made contact with the nails, and I had to hold the boards real tight to keep them in place.

Then there was the inevitable miss. Dad slipped with the nail punch and put that punch right through his finger! He just stopped, pulled the punch out of his finger, shook off the blood, and finished nailing the board down so it wouldn't get misaligned before he went for a band aide.

By this point, the house and yard were safe, clean, and the lay out was pretty convenient, but comfort was still lacking. Dad had the coal burning furnace converted to natural gas, thus ending the deliveries of coal through the basement window, the old coal bin, and the need to shovel coal into the furnace several times each day. This was much cleaner for the house and especially for the dirt basement.

Dad now found further opportunities to work on this old house. The dirt hole in the ground, that was the basement, didn't extend fully under the house. Dad used his old coal shoveling skills to dig out the full basement, put concrete on the floor, and sealed up the dirt walls as best he could. Then he put a heavy coat of paint on the floors and walls, and made a platform for the washer and dryer in the basement. This freed up needed space in the kitchen.

There were two entrances to this basement, one from the dining room down steep stairs, and one from a cellar door in the back yard. Many days we played on the slope of that door. Dad removed the old doors, rebuilt the entrances and stairs, and strengthened them, so the expanded basement was much more useful.

Eventually Dad and Mom hired someone to install hot water baseboard heat with two or three zones so the whole house could be heated as needed. When I went to visit, I kind of missed not having to rub my legs on the sheets real fast to get them warm at night!

So to answer the question re phrased just a bit, how did Grandpa re-build the house, he did it bit by bit as he had time. He didn't sleep much and even when he was not well physically towards the end, he maintained that house to his personal specifications.

My Mom couldn't bear to leave the house that Dad re built for her. In the end, we who grew up there couldn't bear it either, so we each took from the house, enough to keep the memories alive. Now the house is old again, not up to Dad's specifications by any means and so the cycle can begin again for the next family who finds their dreams in that old house.