The Kitchen Project

Yes, Senator Ted Stephens (R-AK) made that phrase famous when describing the wondrous medium upon which you, dear reader, are currently partaking of this bloggery. What few may know, is that tubes have been used for communication for a long time. Our house has a collection of “Speaking Tubes” which ran from both the front and back doors to a place in the kitchen, already long gone when we moved in. We uncovered the tubes when we tore up the walls and ceiling.

They’re just simple metal pipes running around, and I guess your guest would yell through them like a simple intercom system. The upstairs unit even has a button to release the back door and let people in.

When we say we’re knocking down interior walls, people ask us if we’re opening up to the dining room, or at least installing a pass-through. Here’s why we can’t.

Our dining room is on the other side of this wall. There’s a chimney, which you wouldn’t know from outside the wall, because we don’t have a fireplace. The open space next to it backs up to a large built-in china cabinet that is common to Somerville homes of this time. It would be a sin to lose it, and an interior corner is a bad place to knock open.

We’re using this wall for the refrigerator, some cabinets, and a countertop staging area. Perhaps it’s the drinks area for a party.

When I got home and saw the great light the new door was letting in, I was so impressed. It’s really made the change I was hoping to get: a much more open space. I peered down through the hole into the basement you may have seen in all those pictures. I saw a giant beam sitting on the floor of the basement, and a giant brass contraption that looked ancient, heavy and serious business. It might be a jack. It might be a drill. I just don’t know.

What I did see were two square holes in the floor, about a foot on a side. We’re going to put some extra support under the kitchen to help with a sag that’s developed. After 100 years, a little sag is likely. This sag is right under the wall that was in the middle of our old kitchen. It’s probably that the sag happened early in the kitchen’s life. An old, heavy sink probably sat right there in the middle of the room and pulled the wall down with it. We found old pipes running through that section of wall (hence the big hole).

I noticed the holes in the floor were showing dirt, and not at any really big depth either. Does that mean we only have a 2″ slab under our house? Would that explain why water flows in so easily when it rains? Why we’ve had a spring bubbling up when the rain is heavy? I’m sure tomorrow we’ll find out what’s up. If new lally columns are going to be installed, they’ll need to have a four foot deep footing. So we’ll know for sure how deep that slab is.