05/16/2015
Who did you work with and why do you talk about them so much? You are starting to sound like an ad. Do you get a kickback or something?
No kickback, just gratitude. You see a lot of the finished work, but most of the restoration is behind the walls, under the floors or on the roof. We really had to make sure the basics like heat, electric and shelter, which we used to take for granted were reliable here. When we were starting to face these challenges (think the movie “The Moneypit”), it was difficult to find out who could do careful work in a historic home. Angie’s list doesn’t cut it- most people won’t touch historic homes because they can be difficult to work with. These guys helped us through really tough times and they feel like family. It made a huge difference to know they were there to help us.
So here is a partial list (because I’m probably forgetting someone) roughly in the sequence that we went through over the past seven years:
• Plumbing and heating: Kentwood Heating and Plumbing- they are a family business and we worked mostly with Paul VanderWeide. There were late nights in the dead of winter where he and his crew worked on repairing and ultimately replacing a boiler that went down. Paul and his family lent us space heaters to keep the pipes from freezing. They also set up one of the most beautiful boiler manifolds I’ve seen and converted our heating system from a scary steam system that was missing a Hartford loop (that boiler should have been a bomb) to a beautiful hot water system with a high efficiency boiler.
• Electrical: Tom Vandenberg (TNV electrical) worked on our electrical- discovering a squirrels nest behind some of the walls that we had to open up to put in new wiring.
• Lighting: Bridge Street Electric- talk to Jim. He is a guru on restoration of old fixtures- he has a backlog of fixtures that haven’t yet been restored, so we were able to find some that were perfect and could be restored custom
• Interior Restoration: Heritage Craftsmen worked on the bathroom renovations and casement windows, hauling out incredibly heavy tubs from the third floor and carefully laying down new flooring and grouting the tiles that replaced the smoke stained rooms.
• Interior plasterwork: Arron Robinson, a third generation plasterer who learned the craft from his grandfather. I love the juxtaposition of the depth of his training and that he is an avid motorcross racer.
• Interior painting: Mat Moldoon, the English Painter, who was incredibly meticulous painting in the rooms throughout the house
• Floor restoration: Barb Sommers Phoenix Floor Care and her team did the floor restoration work (sanding and polishing) and replaced the floors in the bedroom. Her husband and daughter also run an amazing coffeeshop (Go Java) at 15 Ionia.
• Roofing: Moore and Sons- Ed Moore and his family were great. A lot of conversations about the type of shingles, help keeping things patched until we could get the project done. Incredibly generous and thoughtful.
• Exterior restoration: Grand River Builders- I can’t say enough about these guys- I think each one of them has a Ph.D. in historical renovation (if not, honorary degrees should be conferred). Many of the photos you see on this page are from their work on the masonry in the garage and roof repair. We started our conversations with them four years before we actually started the project (before the roof, we had to do the electrical and insulation, etc., etc., ). They were patient, professional and highly skilled.
• Masonry: DC Byers worked on our chimneys and some brickwork on the exterior. Keep an eye out for them when they start the porch restoration later this Summer.
• Exterior painting: Wisdom Agboyi, Wisdom budget painting, who was incredibly patient and diligent as he spent last summer painting our house.
