Chapter 4

Kara sat in the passenger seat of Adam’s Mustang. She was sucking the last of a chocolate milkshake through a straw. “Just toss the empties in the back,” he said. “I’ll clean up when we get home.” He glanced at her -- she wore mid- thigh denim shorts and a sleeveless button-up blouse. Adam regarded her long, slim legs.

He pulled into the gravel driveway of the stone house. “Peter’s not here yet. Let’s look around.”

Kara walked with him holding his hand. “That barn has seen better days,” she remarked. “Is it part of the property?”

“Yes, it is.”

“It looks more like a liability than an asset.”

“It probably should come down for safety’s sake.”

“I’ll bet you could find someone willing to take it down for the barn wood they could recover.”

“That’s an idea.”

They walked to the rear of the stone house. “Look,” he remarked, “gas regulators. That’s where they must’ve had propane cylinders for the gas range. I remember as a kid my grandmother had a propane gas range with cylinders chained to the house.”

“Would you keep the gas range?”

“I don’t like propane because it’s heavier than air. If you have a leak, it pools in the low spots and can be a hazard. Natural gas is lighter than air and dissipates easier. On top of that you have the hassle of swapping out or refilling the tanks.”

“Well, it’s a sure bet they haven’t run natural gas out this far.”

“Yeah, no foolin’.” Adam and Kara stepped onto the front porch.

“I love that it has a big front porch,” she remarked. “It appears solid enough.”

“Yeah. Maybe the floor will need replacing in a few years. All the trim appears sound, although it could use a coat or two of paint. They saw a white SUV pull into the drive. “Ah -- here’s Peter.”

The agent stepped out of his car, approached Adam and they shook hands. “Peter -- you remember Kara.”

“Indeed -- good seeing you again.”

“Kara is an electrician and she’s going to give me an idea how much it’ll cost to make the place livable.”

“Let’s go inside.” Peter turned the combination on a lock box, removed the key and opened the front door.

“The place is a variation on a center-hall,” Kara remarked. “This room to the left probably was a formal parlor.”

“I thought it would make a good office,” Adam replied.

“Center chimney,” she mused. “This probably was an advanced design for the eighteen fifties. The place was heated with wood stoves instead of fireplaces. There’s where a stovepipe went through the ceiling, no doubt to connect with the chimney. The big ceiling registers were to let some warm air circulate upstairs.”

“Ray Chambers bought the place in the nineteen twenty-eight,” Peter remarked. “That’s when the radiator heat and electricity was put in.”

“The room to the right is set up as a living room,” Adam said.

Kara sketched the floor plan on a yellow legal pad she had brought. “The whole house needs to be re-wired. None of the outlets are grounded and you’ll need a lot more of them. Modern codes require a six foot interval.”

“Every six feet?”

“The code requires that every point along a wall be no more than six feet from an outlet.”

“To discourage running extension cords,” Adam remarked.

“Shouldn’t be too bad.” They stepped into the living room and through an arch.

“This must be the dining room, with the passageway to the kitchen,” Adam suggested.

“Same business with receptacles,” Kara observed and jotted on her pad.

Adam stepped into the kitchen. “Look at that big farmhouse sink,” he said. “Three faucets ... wonder why three...”

“There’s the propane range,” Kara said. “Looks to date from the fifties ... maybe they used a wood-burning range before then.”

“I don’t like propane and I don’t like electric ranges,” Adam said.

“How about induction?” Peter asked. “We have an electric induction range. It heats as fast as gas.”

“That’s a good suggestion,” Kara added. “You do need the appropriate cookware but it’s a good compromise.”

“Actually, the kitchen layout is okay. I don’t even mind the linoleum floors and countertops.”

“Most modern consumers would consider the kitchen a gut job,” Kara replied. “They’d knock down the wall to the dining room and make it open concept.”

“For my purposes, the kitchen is fine as is,” answered Adam. “I’d update the range, put in a refrigerator and that’s about it.”

“What about a dishwasher?” Kara asked. “We might as well plan for it. You will need more outlets and they’ll need to be GFCI. Not a big deal -- we could install one and daisy-chain the other outlets to it.”

They stepped through an archway and found themselves back in the center hall. “This is the main bath,” Peter said.

“This is the only bath,” Adam interjected. “Tub, sink, commode ... This is serviceable as-is. I wouldn’t even replace the sink or cabinets.”

“It looks like it’s plumbed for a shower,” Kara observed, but no showerhead. You’d need a shower door or curtain. So far, electrical looks fairly straight-forward.”

“Let’s look upstairs.”

They climbed the stairs and stood on a landing. “Four bedrooms,” Peter said.

Kara looked around one of the rooms. “Receptacles, same old story ... and, ceiling fixtures. Nothing too rugged yet. We can probably wire them from the attic. Is there a way to look up there?”

Peter pulled down a ceiling door and extended folding stairs. Kara headed up them. She returned shortly. “The wiring is knob-and-tube and definitely needs replacing,” she reported. “Access to the rooms looks adequate.”

Adam stepped into another bedroom. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to a framed intrusion in the corner.

“That’s probably where the main stack was put when they added running water,” Kara replied. “This would be a good candidate for a second bathroom.”

“This front room was probably the master bedroom,” Adam agreed. “We could steal some space and turn it into a guest room. The back room could become the master and we’d have two extra rooms for future use.”

“If you’re thinking along those lines,” Kara replied, “you should do it now along with all the other renovations. It’ll be cheaper in the long run.”

“Let’s check out the basement,” Peter suggested.

They headed into the basement and Peter switched on the lights. “That’s right,” Adam remarked, “you said they have the power on. Look -- stone foundation. Appears to be in good shape.”

“Over here,” Kara said. “It’s an old fuse box ... thirty amp service and one-ten only -- no two-twenty. You’ll need to upgrade the service to at least a hundred amp and two-twenty volts ... preferably two hundred amp.”

“They can do that?”

“It’s a new enough looking pole pig that’s feeding the place.”

“Pole pig?” Adam asked.

“That’s what we call the pole-mounted transformers.” She looked in another direction. “I forgot about the cistern. That’s going to make access to the first floor rooms difficult, especially the living and dining rooms.”

“I have an idea for that,” Adam suggested. “Suppose we cut and remove the plaster from the floor to about here.” He held his hand hip-high. “That would expose the joists and you could do your wiring. Then, we replace the plaster with wainscoting.”

“That could look really nice,” Kara replied. “I like it.”

“Why two pumps and pressure tanks?” Adam asked. “Looks like one’s hooked up to the cistern. I see a hot water heater -- also propane fired.”

“The other must go to a well,” Kara said.

“The output pipe goes over and up,” Adam mused. “I get it. The kitchen and bathroom are fed with cistern water, which is non-potable.”

“But, soft,” Kara added. “Great for bathing and laundry. Speaking of which, I didn’t see a laundry room.”

“Maybe we could make a laundry room down here where the old coal bin is,” Adam suggested. He regarded the plumbing. “The three taps on the kitchen sink for cold and hot cistern water and one for potable well water. I wonder what kind of shape the well is in.”

“You’ll need a well expert to evaluate that,” Kara said. “You might even need a new well drilled. That pump is for a shallow well, no more that thirty feet or so. You probably want a deep well with a submersible pump and get rid of the cistern feed to the kitchen and bath. If you want to do anything with the basement, you’ll need to demolish the cistern. That would be a big job.”

“I’d keep the cistern for now -- use it on the lawn and garden.”

“Along with a well comes a septic system,” Kara remarked.

“The septic tank was pumped and inspected before Ginny went into the home,” Peter replied. “It should be in good shape.”

“I’d want a second opinion on that,” Adam replied.

“As for the furnace,” Kara said regarding the ancient device. “It was coal converted to fuel oil. If you want to install air conditioning, then you have ductwork to deal with.”

“Actually,” Adam replied, “I was thinking about a ductless electric HVAC system.”

“Ductless,” Kara mused. “I’ve read about them and seen them on TV but I’ve never seen one installed. If you’re heating the place with electricity you definitely need two hundred amp service ... have we seen everything we need to see?”

“I think so,” Adam replied. “Peter -- can you arrange to have someone look at the well and septic system and give us an opinion? I’m assuming we’ll need to do the wiring, the new HVAC and address the well issue. The plumbing is copper and since it’s been fed with cistern water, I’m sure there’s no scale buildup.”

“You will want the upstairs roughed in for a bath,” Kara added.

“Yeah, we’ll want to do that. Plus, the roof. Peter -- what’s been the activity on the place?”

“Some tire-kicking but nothing beyond that. Most folks see the barn and the roof and get scared off.”

“The roof is the least of it,” Adam replied, “and they know it. Thanks for showing it to us. We’ll be back to you.”

Kara sat in the passenger seat and turned over a new leaf on her pad. Adam backed the car onto the highway and headed back toward town.

“Well,” she said, “if I were bidding the wiring job, I’d bid seventy-five hundred.”

“That much?”

“Yup. It’s a lot of labor ... two weeks easy.”

“Would you be willing to give me a break as a friend?”

“Adam -- this is how I make my living. I don’t do wiring as a hobby or for fun -- it’s my career.”

“You’re absolutely right. Of course, you deserve compensation for your time. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“What I can do is to give you my prices on supplies and materials. That would save you a grand or so.”

“Okay ... thanks.”

“I’m figuring new, two hundred amp service with a new panel and all would be five grand.”

“On top of the seventy-five hundred?”

“Correct.” Adam let out a whistle. “Everything else is in guesstimate territory. I think you’re right that most of the plumbing can be salvaged. If all you need is a new pump and piping, I’m guessing that’ll be in the three grand price range. I’m also guessing the ductless HVAC would be ten grand.”

“Ten grand?”

“You’ll need two units, one for each floor. Each unit can supply five rooms. They’ll need to run refrigerant lines for each room. Remember -- you’ll be getting air conditioning as well as heat.”

“Right.”

“The new roof is probably in the eight grand range. A new bathroom is going to be your big ticket item. Along with electrical you’ll need new framing. The floor will need to be opened to run a new lateral to the stack and have new water lines run. Then, add a new floor, cabinets, outlets and fixtures. I’m guessing that’ll be twenty-five minimum, based on the materials. Looks like the grand total is around sixty thousand. That keeps the existing kitchen layout and we don’t touch the downstairs bath.”

“The floors are in serviceable shape,” he said.

“Remember, if this house got the full HGTV treatment, it’ll be a lot more. What you’ll end up having is a vintage farmhouse with some upgraded infrastructure.”

“Which is exactly what I want. I’ll wait for the septic inspection and if it passes, I’ll give Peter an offer of eighty grand, and I’ll expect them to counter at a hundred. Once the dust settles, we’ll have a nice, vintage house for one sixty.”

“Can you afford that?”

“My ex just closed on selling our house and my share of the equity comes out to be seventy-five grand. I should be able to secure a mortgage with that kind of down payment.”

“Good luck. I had an awful time securing a mortgage on my place. It seems the banks don’t care for self-employed borrowers.”

“I’ll make securing financing a contingency in the offer. Kara -- I have an idea. You said you like historic fiction.”

“Yeah...”

“I saw that Love and Friendship is playing at the Majestic. Maybe we grab something to eat and go see it?”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s an unpublished Jane Austen story she wrote as a pre-teen. They’ve made a movie of it.”

“Okay ... It’s been years since I’ve gone to the movies.”

“There’s a Sub Station near the theatre. We could get a couple sandwiches.”

“That’s exactly what I’m in the mood for.”

Adam drove toward Kara’s residence. “So, did you enjoy the film?”

“Yeah ... I enjoyed it.”

“You seem pensive. Is anything wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Adam. I have things on my mind.”

He parked the Mustang in her drive and accompanied her to her door. She unlocked it and they stepped inside. He embraced and kissed her. “I’m not keeping you up past your bedtime, am I?”

“It’s a little after nine,” she replied. “Let’s sit and talk.”

“I wanted to sit and snuggle.”

“Adam -- we need to talk.”

Uh-oh, he thought. “Sure. What’s on your mind?”

She led him to her sofa. He sat and she sat on his lap. “During the movie -- you had your hand on my knee.”

“I had my hand on your knee last night, too.”

“That was different. I was wearing jeans. Tonight it was skin on skin.”

He could see her eyes filling. “Oh, God, Kara -- if I did something unwelcome, I’m really sorry.”