I know many of you are well aware of the humble beginnings of carriage houses as storage for horse-drawn carriages and often living quarters above on a second floor for groomsmen. Many of the homes in Savannah had carriage houses and many still stand today as garages, apartments, small businesses or a combination of all these. The carriage house on this property is really such a pretty little place. It was remodeled many years ago so all the plaster walls were already replaced with drywall. It has two small bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor and a nice living room and small kitchen on the first with a half bath. A modern bay window was added during one of the remodels that gives a view out into a private courtyard. The structure is completely separated from the main house with a brick wall.
This idyllic outside view above is a bit deceiving though as the inside needed a total gutting. The second floor had leaks in the ceiling from a dilapidated roof and quite a bit of black mold was found throughout.
We are making some minor changes to the floor plan so it was decided it would be easier to take out all the drywall. When we did this, some interesting things were revealed!
The first-floor ceiling looks to be originally open to the elements as the wood in the ceiling is weathered and painted what looks to be a Haint blue. For those unaware of the significance of Haint blue paint, it was a Gullah tradition to paint porch ceilings, window casings and doors this color. The word haint being an alternative spelling to haunt refers to ghosts. And the paint was said to mimic the sky which would trick ghosts into passing through and leaving the building. We hope to use this color paint on some porch ceilings to carry on the tradition. And of course, we don't want our ghosts to feel trapped inside but feel free to move about freely! I can imagine a carriage being brought into this space before the addition of the bay window.
Another thing this carriage house had was a small fireplace insert. It was very charming and we planned on keeping it. But when the drywall was removed, we noticed just some ill-fitting ducts behind the insert that went into the brick wall. As the team continued to remove the drywall on the second level, it revealed totally scorched and charred brick running up the wall. There really wasn’t a chimney at all! We decided maybe a fireplace wasn’t a good option for this space, especially considering we are thinking of renting it. One less thing to worry about! The wall the fireplace was on is totally brick and we’ve decided to leave that exposed on the first floor instead of covering it up with drywall again.
We don’t know if there ever was, but in recent history, there was no internal staircase in this structure. At one time though there was an elevator! All that remains of that now is the shaft. But we’re building a set of stairs inside for access to the second floor that will encompass some of this area.
A big change we’re making is the removal of a set of external stairs to the second floor. There was a small landing porch at the top with a roof and a door into the top floor. The door will be changed to a window and the stairs are now gone (see below). The door on the left of the old stairs is an entry into the small kitchen.
We plan on restoring this beautiful set of front doors also. The half-windows swing open in toward the inside of the house to reveal screened window frames which are in excellent condition for the age. In the pictures above, this door is boarded up to protect it during the demolition.
Comentários