Of Piers and Footings

This is Gabe this time. The past week has been eventful, and not necessarily in a good way. Last weekend after working with our friends, Evan and I ended up with a little surprise on Sunday/Monday:

For the weekend, Bethany was hanging out at wedding showers, so I was accompanied by my father-in-law. The plan was to dig out the footings underneath the current bathroom and what was left of the porch. We discovered that the piers that were currently supporting the structure were not at all solid (they were shaky, cracked, and about 8" below the ground!), so we set about to dig out proper footings for that end of the house. I attacked a tree stump that was directly next to one pier while my FIL worked on another section. I eventually ended up hooking up my truck (the one Bethany used to give me such a hard time about driving... HEATED SEATS!!!) and pulling the stump out after some digging and hacking away at it. I may or may not have slightly moved one of the piers in the process (oops!), but the stump was no more. I then set about digging between the piers to allow for the footing to be poured.


One of the many downsides of Bethany not being around to help was the lack of photographic documentation... oh well. We got the first two footings dug out, and then I set about to digging the last one. My FIL was exhausted, so I was mostly alone for the last one. By the time I was done, my arms ached and I was pretty tired out too, but we felt really good about getting so much done!

On Sunday, my father-in-law called and suggested that we remove two of the piers that were not really doing much. We wanted to pour the footings in one run as much as possible, so we decided that Monday
evening I would go out and help him make temporary supports and remove the two piers. After supporting the two corners with wood beams braced on cement block, we smashed and removed the piers:

We are taking a break to visit family for Spring Break, but check back after that to see the new footings and our progress!

Floor-less house & Friends

Howdy!  Bethany here.  It has been a while since I have last posted about our adventures--this is because I have been so busy with school, not for lack of progress.  I have promised pictures of our little floor-less house in the mountains....so here goes!

As I stated in the last blog post Gabe and Dad had pulled up the remainder of the first-floor flooring in the house the weekend previous as snow flurries were deciding whether or not to stick, the wind was howling, and I was finishing a school project.  (Mom was away on a birding boating trip that weekend.)  This particular weekend we had the most gorgeous weather imaginable for the dead of winter--not to mention we were having friends come to help us out!  God is blessing our socks off!!

Friday we worked to pare down the pile of wood flooring sitting on the porch.  I have a mind to re-purpose it as wood panel wainscoting in the dining & powder rooms.  It is good flooring, minus the 100 years of wear in some spots.  It looks like it has been sanded down and re-finished a couple of times.  Our friend Mark, who has his own construction business remodeling old houses in D.C. and came over to help the next day, thought our wood flooring is heart pine, a desirable wood that isn't sold in stores anymore, and can only be found reclaimed from old houses.  That was exciting news!  So, Gabe sawed off the un-salvagable parts while I worked to carry the goods upstairs where we actually still had flooring.

Our pile of pine

Here is from whence it came:

Notice the rubble stone foundation

                                                                                            Remember this?                                       Now this

                                                                               Plywood for ease of walking     Crawl space opening on left

Gabe and I (mostly Gabe) then worked on removing the mess of electrical wire from down below.

Isn't he a cutie??!?

My dad stopped by to check out the scene:

Here's how the conversation went regarding this photo:

Dad: That was my sexy pose!

Me: That was the first thing that I thought of.

Gabe: chuckling from the background :)

Dad made a fascinating discovery---the 1955 kitchen/dining room addition was completely level from front to back!!!

Impressive!

                                                                                         silly series of a photographer in a new jumpsuit

Done for the evening!

Saturday was an awful lot of fun.

We were all prepared with water bottles, snacks and gloves for friends and fun to begin.  Three couples from our small group were to come out to help.  The first couple, Evan & Sarah arrived promptly at 10:00 am, then Andrew and Becca with their toddler Carter, and general contractor Mark (his wife/toddler couldn't make it).  While the guys were trooping around, getting a general tour, Sarah and I realized we had a mutual acquaintance in the area!  My friend from church growing up, Kim, is Sarah's sister-in-law!  What fun is that?  Kim was in the area with her three little girls, so they were able to stop by and bask in the sun with us!!

The guys got right to work after examining the plans Mom & Dad brought out after while.  Us ladies took a walk around the small little town and then sat out on a blanket in the side yard and watched the kiddos play.

Barn nearly across the street from our house

                                                               Walking down the center of town    beauty in Eye of the Beholder

Another beautiful house nearby

View of our house from the furthest point on our lot

See how the house is nestled in the side of a mountain?

In the above photo, Dad is removing unnecessary plywood from the side of the house.  Mom wanted to get to work too, so she worked upstairs carefully removing nails from the floor boards of heart pine.

The order of the day was to get a vapor barrier and gravel to cover the floor in the crawl spaces.  Another job cropped up too, the need for a few underpinnings (additional supports under the existing foundation) on the shallow side of the north wall.  Mark and Andrew worked on that while Evan leveled out the ground and assisted Gabe on the other side.

Here is a fun video of the guys at work:

Gabe filling up some buckets to carry gravel inside:

Good picture of Evan:

The results of their hard work:

Here is Mark and Andrew working on some serious underpinnings:

I thought it was funny that they were chucking dirt out this window onto some plastic outside.

                                Chucking dirt out the window                          Those are some pretty sweet underpinnings

Meanwhile outside, us ladies were chillin' on a blanket watching the kids and talking :)

Becca pointed out this sweet cloud:

Around 1:00 pm, Becca, Carter and I went a couple miles away to a country store to get us all sandwiches.  They were delicious!!  Kim left after lunch.  It was so good to see her and meet her three lovely daughters!!

Carter was exploring all around.  He saw the commotion with his daddy chucking dirt out the window and wanted to check it out:

He even found a cute perch on the dumpster:

Becca and Carter left mid-afternoon so he could get a good nap.  All that excitement must have worn him out!!  Dad Andrew and Mark, in for the long haul, intended on carpooling back to Reston together.

Evan and Gabe eventually moved outside to clean up debris under the bathroom now that the plywood around the foundation was removed.  I warned them of poison ivy....

The branch/stump like thing in the middle of this photo looks pretty un-obrusive, but not so.  They were working for a while to uproot that pesky thing!  Eventually, the next weekend, Gabe had to attach it to his truck to pull it free.....  Also notice the bowl Gabe was chucking in the bucket trash can.  I pulled it back out as an artifact to keep.  Silly Gabey!

See, its a part of a still-life we composed, artfully inspired by Andrew.

All in all, it was more than a success, thanks to all of our amazing and wonderful friends.

I even got a sunburn!!!  YES!!!!!!!  Hey, anything that reminds me it's not the dead of winter gets me going.  The forecast had said around 55 degrees, but really, I think it was upwards of 70.

Many hands make for light work!!!  Or something like that.

Thanks again folks!!

A few more outdoor shots

Valley overlook just seconds from the house



Property adjacent to ours

House from across the street

Springhouse from across the street

Final weekends of Demo

These past two weekends have been dedicated to finishing the demo.  This included many things, like removing more rotten flooring, a ceiling fan, and porch to name a few.  I was able to spend all of last weekend with Gabe working on the house, but last Saturday I had a school project jeopardize my time, so I don't have pictures of the house with all the floors removed yet!

The weekend previous on Friday, we finished removing the flooring in the kitchen that we had started earlier.  The new dumpster had arrived (thanks to Mark!) the previous day and was ready for filling.  There was only one spot in front of the doorway to the main living space that wasn't rotted out!  We actually counted 6 layers of linoleum and 2 layers of wood and subfloor that have been there since 1956.   Gabe also opened up the wall in-between the kitchen/DR and living room:

                                                                                        Gabe removing boards                         OPEN!!!          

While we were removing flooring, I made it my business to make sure that I sifted through the layer of newspaper to capture readable and interesting tidbits.  The coin I had found from 1904 last weekend was, on closer/cleaner inspection, from 1962.  Too bad, I was way off!  The oldest coin we have found so far is from 1945.  Gabe also found a classic glass "Royal Crown" (R.C.) soda bottle from 1936 under the kitchen floor!  That was an interesting find.

Gabe also removed the fan from the DR space; here is a silly video of him taking it down:

Gabe taking out subfloor

Here is a floor cross section.  Pretty rotten, eh?

Gabe ended up taking out the floor joists, as they were rotten too.  Narsty.

The next day, Saturday, we commenced by breaking down the porch area outside since we were looking at a forecast of rain/snow for later.  It was probably a cute little spot at one time, but now it is in terrible shape with windows broken and rotten floor boards.  Too bad!

Before pic with me and my mom

And "after" with a view from the north side:

A few pics of the process:

I'm not just the camera person!

This was a cold day--below freezing, so it was nice to have Mom & Dad's RV to reheat and eat lunch in, in from the cold.  :D

In the afternoon, Gabe worked on preparing the kitchen floor (or lack thereof) for cleaning by removing floor joists, removing electrical wire and covering the crawl space hole with plastic.  

He also removed the wall partition from the upstairs that was separating the two small rooms.  It looks so different!

                                                                     Before                       After partition was removed-see
                                                                                                                                                          the line of demarkation

Notice the dividing wall boards stacked in the right corner

While Gabe was doing all of that, I was a busy bee removing like a thousand drywall nails from the ceiling joists.....my arms were sore after that!

As a part of this chore, I also removed some more debris from the same part of the wall under the stairs where we found a love letter from 1918.  I was very careful to sift through it in case I found anymore artifacts.  And I did!!  There were more letters, post marked 1911 and unknown because they were a little bit more chewed through than the first.  I haven't taken the time to really analyze them yet.  I also found a small 8 X 8 clipping from a newspaper from 1909!!!!  Wowzers!  It was very dirty and crumbled up, but I was able to take it home and get it semi flat in-between pages in a large book.

This past weekend I only spent a couple of hours on site as I was busy with my school project with equals limited pictures.  Gabe has yet to seem the least bit interested in documenting, so it has been my employ! 

We brought the truck this weekend since we had to get plywood to lay down on the joists since we were taking up flooring.  Most of our time on Friday afternoon was spent clearing out the kitchen crawl space to make room for some gravel to be laid next weekend.  We got all of the joists removed, holes filled in and the grade raked smooth.

                                                                 Remember??                                 Flooring's out!!

Note the stone foundation on the right!

Then I tackled the stack of 2 X 4's upstairs that needed nails taken out.  After a while this is backbreaking work, I tell ya!  Gabe was worked on fitting some 2 X 8's around the perimeter of the kitchen to support the studs where rotten floorboards/joists were taken out.  He got one of the two sides done.  

Our last project for the evening included taking the flooring out of the bathroom.  The floor was already rotten in some spots so it wasn't that hard.  The photo isn't very good since we didn't have much light.

Our goal for this weekend is to have all flooring removed before next weekend.  We have some eager and gracious friends coming to help us put a vapor barrier and gravel down in the crawl space.   

Gabe was out by himself for most of the day on Saturday until Dad came out and braved the cold to help remove the main room flooring.  This was the oldest part of the existing structure and I was very curious to see what was beneath the flooring.  Oh well.  As Gabe reassured me, "It will be there next weekend".  So, sorry folks, you will have to be patient with me as we wait for pictures of the floor-less room! Our plan is to keep any floor boards that are in decent shape and use them to create a wainscoting in the dining area (and possibly the powder room) with them.

Thus completes Day 10 of Demo!