Sandusky: The Fulton Street House
From James Donahue's Journal
After having bought our house near Vicksburg, Doris and I found ourselves having to find another place to live. I don’t remember why it never crossed our minds to rent a house. Instead of doing that we contacted a local real estate agent, and with about $2,000 cash in our pocket, set out to try to buy another house in or around Sandusky.
We looked at some very junky clap-trap buildings. You don’t get much of a house when you don’t have much money for a down payment. We finally settled on a little two-bedroom house on Fulton Street, located just two blocks from the office where I would work. It was not much of a house and we got it for $7,000 on a land contract. We had the place paid off in about the next two years.
It needed a lot of work. The wiring was shot. The plumbing was leaking. It had been a rental for so long, and hadn’t received much care, that we knew we had our work cut out for us. The front porch was falling in. The front door opened to a small dining area. Through an archway on the right was a living room. Behind the dining room was a large kitchen, and off that was a large bathroom. A staircase between the dining room and living room went up to a small room that opened to two very small bedrooms. There was a large unfinished attic over the dining area, and a door opening to a second unfinished attic over the kitchen. There was no basement.
The plumbing under the house froze during the first winter. In fact, we discovered that the drain from the bathroom was leaking and we had to make emergency repairs. I tried to call a plumber and found out that it was the first week of deer hunting season and there wasn’t a plumber to be had anywhere in or around Sandusky. I ended up crawling in that dank crawl space under that old house in freezing temperatures, and learning how to install new plastic drain pipe. All that I really knew was that drains always have to flow downward so all of the water leaves the pipe. The old drain had a dip in it and the water in it had frozen, causing the pipe to crack.
We had to put electric heat tape around all of the water lines under the house to keep them from freezing. Then, to our shock, we realized that more plumbing under the kitchen was not accessible. I had to open the floor under the sink to get that pipe wrapped.
Next I started rewiring the house. The place had no more than about a forty amp service and I installed a hundred amp box, then fished new Romax grounded wiring throughout the walls. When I was ready I asked Detroit Edison Company to replace the service to the house. They told me I had to hire an electrician to do this, that they were only responsible for the line running horizontally to the house. We even had to install the stack up the side of the house to reach the incoming wire. Doris’s brother, Wayne, finished the job for us.
After the wiring was done, I started painting and wallpapering the house. I discovered that we didn’t have one square room or level floor. I could roll a marble out on the linoleum floor in the kitchen and watch it loop around the floor and roll right back to me. I picked close print wallpaper and used a lot of tricks to hide the crooked doors and corners.
The work on that house didn’t stop as long as we lived there. Doris and I slept on a hide-a-bed in the living room at first, and the kids were packed in the two small bedrooms on the second floor. Later I finished the two attic rooms, turning the one over the kitchen into the master bedroom, complete with a walk-in closet. That project turned out quite well.
The other projects involved the complete rebuilding of the front porch and reroofing the house. While reroofing I installed roof vents and when I had the holes open for the vents, poured loose insulation between the roof trusses.
One day when I was working on the roof, the roof jack that was supporting me pulled loose and I found myself sliding off the roof. My foot hit the ladder and knocked it to the ground. I grabbed the other side of the jack and was hanging there, unable to get down off the roof. A neighbor woman happened to come out in her yard while I was in that predicament. She put the ladder back up so I could get down.
Most of the people living in that neighborhood were young like us, and there was a big renovation of all of the houses going on at the same time we were doing ours. We naturally made friends and everybody was going to each other’s house to see the progress going on.
There was an elderly woman who lived alone in the house just north of us. Doris befriended her and made it a point to look in on her from time to time. This lady was our guest for holiday meals when she had nowhere else to go. That has always been one of the many great things about Doris. She has a very big heart.
Eventually I painted the trim on her house. She had asbestos sheet siding that already had a color stained in, so the white trim was all the home needed.
From James Donahue's Journal
After having bought our house near Vicksburg, Doris and I found ourselves having to find another place to live. I don’t remember why it never crossed our minds to rent a house. Instead of doing that we contacted a local real estate agent, and with about $2,000 cash in our pocket, set out to try to buy another house in or around Sandusky.
We looked at some very junky clap-trap buildings. You don’t get much of a house when you don’t have much money for a down payment. We finally settled on a little two-bedroom house on Fulton Street, located just two blocks from the office where I would work. It was not much of a house and we got it for $7,000 on a land contract. We had the place paid off in about the next two years.
It needed a lot of work. The wiring was shot. The plumbing was leaking. It had been a rental for so long, and hadn’t received much care, that we knew we had our work cut out for us. The front porch was falling in. The front door opened to a small dining area. Through an archway on the right was a living room. Behind the dining room was a large kitchen, and off that was a large bathroom. A staircase between the dining room and living room went up to a small room that opened to two very small bedrooms. There was a large unfinished attic over the dining area, and a door opening to a second unfinished attic over the kitchen. There was no basement.
The plumbing under the house froze during the first winter. In fact, we discovered that the drain from the bathroom was leaking and we had to make emergency repairs. I tried to call a plumber and found out that it was the first week of deer hunting season and there wasn’t a plumber to be had anywhere in or around Sandusky. I ended up crawling in that dank crawl space under that old house in freezing temperatures, and learning how to install new plastic drain pipe. All that I really knew was that drains always have to flow downward so all of the water leaves the pipe. The old drain had a dip in it and the water in it had frozen, causing the pipe to crack.
We had to put electric heat tape around all of the water lines under the house to keep them from freezing. Then, to our shock, we realized that more plumbing under the kitchen was not accessible. I had to open the floor under the sink to get that pipe wrapped.
Next I started rewiring the house. The place had no more than about a forty amp service and I installed a hundred amp box, then fished new Romax grounded wiring throughout the walls. When I was ready I asked Detroit Edison Company to replace the service to the house. They told me I had to hire an electrician to do this, that they were only responsible for the line running horizontally to the house. We even had to install the stack up the side of the house to reach the incoming wire. Doris’s brother, Wayne, finished the job for us.
After the wiring was done, I started painting and wallpapering the house. I discovered that we didn’t have one square room or level floor. I could roll a marble out on the linoleum floor in the kitchen and watch it loop around the floor and roll right back to me. I picked close print wallpaper and used a lot of tricks to hide the crooked doors and corners.
The work on that house didn’t stop as long as we lived there. Doris and I slept on a hide-a-bed in the living room at first, and the kids were packed in the two small bedrooms on the second floor. Later I finished the two attic rooms, turning the one over the kitchen into the master bedroom, complete with a walk-in closet. That project turned out quite well.
The other projects involved the complete rebuilding of the front porch and reroofing the house. While reroofing I installed roof vents and when I had the holes open for the vents, poured loose insulation between the roof trusses.
One day when I was working on the roof, the roof jack that was supporting me pulled loose and I found myself sliding off the roof. My foot hit the ladder and knocked it to the ground. I grabbed the other side of the jack and was hanging there, unable to get down off the roof. A neighbor woman happened to come out in her yard while I was in that predicament. She put the ladder back up so I could get down.
Most of the people living in that neighborhood were young like us, and there was a big renovation of all of the houses going on at the same time we were doing ours. We naturally made friends and everybody was going to each other’s house to see the progress going on.
There was an elderly woman who lived alone in the house just north of us. Doris befriended her and made it a point to look in on her from time to time. This lady was our guest for holiday meals when she had nowhere else to go. That has always been one of the many great things about Doris. She has a very big heart.
Eventually I painted the trim on her house. She had asbestos sheet siding that already had a color stained in, so the white trim was all the home needed.