Aventine Hall Rebirth

01/16/2026

Where have we been, you ask? We've been in flooring hell, thanks for asking! 😁

For most of 2025, we've been scraping off glue and concrete-like tile grout from the original hardwood in the foyer. It's all hand work (no power tools), and it's very, very delicate work. You have to go inch by inch, gently removing the grout while preserving the original hardwood. Some spots come off rather easy, other sections we really have to take it slow and steady. In total, it's only 67,896 square inches. 😮

Here's a video of what it looks like. Yes, it's really this boring, hence why we don't post much.

We've got about 300 hours into this so far and probably have 300 more hours until it's ready for refinishing (targeting this summer). For you office job types, that's equivalent to M-F, 9-5 for four months straight!

Most (not all) of the surface grout is off at this point, so now we're starting the super difficult part - getting it out of the cracks between the boards, where the "tongue" meets the "groove" of the next board. This is especially important because the sander that we'll use during refinishing won't get in the cracks. It's one tool to get the big stuff, a smaller tool to get the smaller stuff, a brush to get the leftovers then a shop vac to get the scraps. Half the time, there's still more and we have to take a second pass.

Everyone told us it's destroyed and to replace it. Would that have been easier? Yup! Cheaper? Yup! Faster? Yup! Prettier? Maybe. But then we couldn't tell people that visit that civil war soldiers walked on the same hardwood floors that they're standing on. It's miserable work, but worth it. Stay with us, we're still making progress!

08/26/2025

Here's a weird one... Has anyone ever published a video/show about you and your restoration project that's mostly true and a good amount of it false? Bonus points if they never reached out to you for input! Our answer to that question would've been "no" until a couple weeks ago... 🤔😮

We're not mad. If anything, it's a compliment that they used our story to create a crazier story.

For those with 21 minutes to spare, pls enjoy this silly rendition of our history with Aventine. About 60% of the verbal story is real and maybe 5% of the visual content is real/ours. If there's enough interest, we could make a response video where we watch through it and pause to tell the real parts of the story and/or call out the made up stuff.

We have no affiliation with this YouTube page or its creators...but it gave us a chuckle so we're sharing here for your entertainment purposes!

While restoring a crumbling 160-year-old mansion, a couple stumbles upon something they were never meant to find. What began as a simple renovation quickly s...

05/09/2025

Drum roll, please!

Ladies and gentlemen, after 5 years, 2 months and 26 days, we finally know where the 💩 goes when you flush at Aventine. Said differently, we finally have a fully functioning sewer pipe! After 1,915 days, our historic home has achieved cleanliness level "Roman Empire" (less the tersorium of course). 🤣

Pics attached of the project. As my in-laws often say and as I've started to tell our kids, "this will see me out" (for you whippersnappers, that means that this thing will last longer than I will). The previous sewer system lasted nearly 90 years and given what I know about plastic, this should last at least that and then some.

For the plumbing geeks, we had a total run of 160' and we achieved 1/4" (2°) of fall for 150' of the run and only had one 10' section (right at the house) where it was a little better than 1/8" - maybe 3/16" (1.75°) but not quite 1/4" - let's call it 1.5° fall. I’m super happy with the result.

For the non-plumbing-geeks, in gravity fed applications (which ours is), your sewer waste flows away from your house by way of gravity (as opposed to an exotic pump-based system). As such, your sewer pipe must slope downwards at an optimal angle - too flat and it clogs up; too steep and it still clogs up! If it's not angled enough, everything just sits there and the pipe gets clogged. Duh, right? Well if it's too steep, the liquids flow faster than the solids (💩) and the pipe still gets clogged. Weird huh? This makes sense now but wasn't immediately intuitive to me before I got deeper into this project.

If anyone’s curious where stuff went the very few times we did flush…it went to our sewer lines underground in the basement…and sat there, patiently waiting to be expelled when we made the final connection to the new sewer line years later. That’s right folks, I got to shovel out my kids’ poo (and maybe a few contractors!) for about 20 minutes before it finally stopped and we could connect the lines. [Insert “sh*tty job” joke here.]

This project began in July of 2023 (when we first assessed the sewer line) and has been the bottleneck to most of the inside work. Now that we have functioning sewer, we can start worrying about running water and other fancy things. My wife might actually come over knowing that there’s a working toilet. Haha.

Up next are a few things that we can do in tandem: planting grass seed, burying the overhead electrical service and cable lines, removing the non-historic tile in the foyer, refinishing the hardwood (only 3 rooms remaining!), plumbing and HVAC. None of that includes the final monster, which is the basement, which has been "down to the studs" since April of 2020.

Being honest with myself, she might be usable by 2028.

04/28/2025

Update #2 of probably 3. Still long and boring.

So let's pick back up at the sewer line replacement project. It's August 2024 and we now have a brand new utility pole in the back yard. When they installed it, they left the old pole there too, which confuses me, but it's not on fire, so I'll question it another day. The electric line still isn't underground yet but that's another post for another day.

So when we dug up the old root-clogged sewer line on our property, we hoped that the section that went through our neighbor's property was in good working order. Given how all projects go with Aventine, how do ya think that turned out? It's already time for our first sarcastic "Yay"! If you guessed that the line in the neighbor's yard was also filled with roots and needed to be replaced, then shake your fist at the screen and say "I told ya so, Anderson's", because you're right. 😩

After a brief phone call with our neighbors, they graciously agreed to allow us to remove a portion of the stone/boulder wall and tear up their yard.

Now bear in mind that we knew our line connected with their line *somewhere* in their yard but didn't know where and didn't know what exactly to expect when they connected. We also assumed it would transition to a larger pipe but there was no cleanout in their yard where they connected and even the town's records weren't complete as to what was there, so we went in blind. That's not a knock on the town either - people didn't take great notes 100 years ago and technically, pipes in your yard are typically your responsibility, not the town's. Here's a second "Yay!" for going in blind and hoping for the best!

School kicked off again, life happened (and the holidays) and it took a bit longer to make this happen but we eventually broke ground by Jan of 2025, right before a big snow storm.

The pipe in the ground is around 100 years old and it's ceramic, so it's delicate and brittle. As we dug, we carefully checked each piece that was coming up, ensuring we didn't rupture the main line. We eventually found the connection point and even being as careful as we could to separate our line from the main line, the ceramic still didn't behave and we cracked a small portion of the larger 8" pipe (and thankfully didn't interrupt service or cause an outage). Aaaand it's time for a 3rd "Yay!" It was also January so freezing temperatures didn't help any with this part of the project.

Because the connection point was a bigger, commercial sized pipe, a quick phone call to the town followed by a site survey got the ball rolling to swap out the old ceramic connection with a modern schedule 40 PVC (current code specs). The town was gracious enough to pick this up for us and also provided the 4" Y connection point that we needed to eventually connect our new pipe. It took them a few weeks to get a crew out there and knock it out, but by February of 2025, we had all of the old sewer pipe removed, about 150' of trench dug and we were FINALLY ready to install the new stuff. Yay! (This time not sarcastic).

If anyone's doing the math, it was August of 2023 when we realized the sewer pipe needed to be replaced. It only took 18 months to tear it out. 🤦🏼‍♂️

Now all we had to do was find a plumber that wanted the work and preferably a warm day to knock it out. That'll be the next post.

TL; DR: we dug up the neighbor's yard, found where the pipes connected, broke some stuff along the way and excavated everything. Now we're ready to lay new pipe.

04/27/2025

Everyone has a weakling in their brain that tells you to quit, that you can't do it, that it's too hard, that you're a loser, that you suck at this, etc. Anytime my weakling speaks up, I curse him with every bad word I know and I generally treat him like Satan until he shuts up. First pic is how my body currently feels, second pic is how my brain feels.

Don't let the weakling win!

KEEP PUSHING!!

Be well my friends. 🥰🥰

04/01/2025

Update #1 of a few. It's long and boring but I promised updates.

If anyone remembers, we had two major issues with plumbing: input and output. We finished the input problem in March of 2024 by replacing the water main (we still need to do some yard work to fully wrap this project up but the actual water part is done).

The second problem was "output" (sewer line). Originally, we couldn't even locate it, nor could the town. We eventually found it, had to do some above average repairs on it to test it for viability, and determined it was completely clogged and needed to be replaced (this was Sept 2023). Yay. Those repairs were quite annoying, required extra tools and took a lot more time than expected...and were eventually deemed useless. Double Yay.

Also, for those that don't remember, our sewer line went into our neighbor's property on the north side and connected with a bigger line, managed by the town. More on this later.

In Feb of 2024 (yes, over a year ago) we dug up and ripped out the sewer line on our property in hopes that the clog only existed in that stretch of it and that we wouldn't have to tear up the neighbor's yard. Our property's portion is 115' long, 2' wide and 3' deep. Fun fact - the homeowner is responsible for all water and sewer lines once they cross onto the homeowner's property.

Now we have to pause here. At the same time that we were digging up old sewer lines, we were also replacing the overhead electrical line and burying it so that the house was more historically correct with no visible wires attached, as it would have been in 1852. 🥰 During this process, the electric Co-Op thought it wise to replace the old telephone pole in our back yard with a newer, larger and stronger one. Another fun fact, the pole in our back yard is a critical structural component of the lines running down our street - it's a pivot point that holds up the rest of the street's poles from falling inward (because of the turn in the road). Its primary use is structural; its secondary use is to hold our electric line. Given how all projects go with Aventine, how do ya think replacing this pole turned out? Triple Yay. When the electric Co-Op attempted to dig a new hole, they immediately hit bedrock, requiring them to abandon ship and outsource the job to a contractor with a much larger truck and bigger/stronger auger. Bringing in a larger truck required them to fill in about 30 linear feet of the sewer ditch that we had just dug up. Quadruple Yay.

The contractor took a while to get a crew to us (no jab meant to them, just a reality) and they had to remove a few more limbs from my wife's "Luray Christmas Tree" in our yard (that poor thing has taken a beating) but after a few more months (July of 2024), we had an impressive hole bored through the bedrock. The electric Co-Op returned shortly thereafter and we now have a new pole installed...and now have to re-dig 30 linear feet of the sewer line, which is about 7 cubic yards, or 7 standard truck beds' worth of dirt. Quintuple Yay.

That's enough Yay's for today. We now have a new electric pole and more digging as of July of 2024.

And if anyone is still reading, none of these obstacles scare us or weaken our persistence on this project. This baby will shine one day!! 🥰🥰

08/14/2024

And just like that, all of the original hardwood flooring upstairs is refinished and ready for it's 5th life! 😍😍😍 Thanks again to the TRUE PRO that is our floor guy Joe. Swipe to see progress pics.
Here's some fun history:
• Floors would've been originally laid around 1850. The house was commissioned to be built in 1848, it took two years to source all of the lumber and another 2 years to build it.
• Restored first (this would be its 2nd life) by the Burner family sometime after June of 1893. They bought it for $2,401. Assuming a 3% inflation rate since then, the house should cost $115k today! Hahahaha. Now that's funny.
• Restored a 2nd time (3rd life) by Julian & Olive Price sometime after November 25, 1936. The Price's purchased the home from the Mims family and moved it from the Eminence (current location of The Mimslyn Inn) - the first dated picture we have in its current location is from the Page Courier on June 1, 1937 (Thanks Stacy for your research!!)
• Restored a 3rd time (4th life) by Clara (Grappo) Gleason sometime after August 14th, 1967. Clara emigrated from Italy to the USA sometime between her birth in 1910 and 1915 and according to records, was absolutely in love with Aventine's Greek revival architecture and attention to detail. We have Clara to thank for registering Aventine on the Federal and Virginia historic registers. 😍
• Restored a 4th time (5th life) by the crazy husband and wife duo (the Anderson's) that you've been following along and cringing with for the last (almost) 5 years.

Thank you all for your encouragement and support. It's been a journey to say the least!

07/14/2024

Here's 31 sq. ft. and 2 hours of my life in 23 seconds. Enjoy

07/13/2024

Let's try this again...

If you fall asleep at the 1 minute mark or sooner, I won't judge you. 🤣 More boring updates to restoring our beautiful girl! 😍😍

07/04/2024

I've been meaning to do this for a while and today seemed appropriate. 🇺🇸🦅 We've already gotten messages from some locals that drove by and saw it. Hopefully the wife likes it because I didn't get approval before I did it!

Pls have a wonderful independence day! Stay safe out there!

05/22/2024

Edit: Contact has been made! Aren't small towns great?? 🥰 THANK YOU!

Hey Luray locals, we need your help! Does anyone have contact info for our neighbors George & Laurie? We keep missing them and need to coordinate on a project. If you do, please DM us and don't put their info in the comments.

In the meantime, here's a picture of our home when it sat atop the eminence (where it was originally built) and where the current day The Mimslyn Inn sits. 😮