A Year Ago Today....

A year ago today we were checking out this little house with our realtor for the very first time!!  If I remember correctly, I didn't even want to go look at the house in the first place!!  We had been looking at another house in the neighborhood, which so happened to have just been sold.

This is the first picture I saw of the house from our real estate agent, of which I promptly said "no way"!

Despite the fact I have been super busy with school lately, I had a bit of time this holiday weekend to share what has been going on with our little house project.

Starting where we left off last month, the utility closet window was going in on the west wall.  On October 17th, our contractors worked on removing the porch decking and posts:

No more porch!

See, there are green leaves on the trees....what a long time ago :)

After demo, they worked on digging 3 foot deep holes to secure the posts that will go down for the new porch.  The new porch roof will extend the whole length of the front side, but the decking will go most of the way across, minus about 5 feet on the road side to accommodate a stairs to remain underneath...  and to expose some of the 1890's stone foundation.  

We arrived for our normal Friday/Saturday workdays to find the plumbing mostly complete.  Very exciting!!  Ok, ok, maybe roughed-in plumbing isn't that exciting to most of you, but when you watch it all unfold before your eyes, it can be pretty momentous!!

Exhibit A

The contractors working on the siding were further along than what we had seen them complete last time.  I went a little crazy taking pictures of the backside of the house, with its siding complete, since it looked so good!!  Here is a picture I took from a ladder near the northern property line (any other way and you can't see the original roofline):

Lookin' good, ay??

Here are the post holes ready with concrete poured and curing for the posts to be set tomorrow.

Look at all the ladybugs swarming on the house!!  The siding contractor actually left early today because of them....

Gabe and Dad were working to prepare the ledger board (ledger board: a narrow horizontal board attached to a row of studs to support the ends of floor or ceiling joists) for the porch:

It was rotten in some areas, like right under the existing doorframe.  We will be moving the door location about 5 feet to the right, so we took out the threshold:

We had to remove the rotten areas, and inject fillers and hardeners to the existing wood where it met with the rubble foundation.  It was a big job to cut and shape a new piece of 2 X 4 to fit the space!  But Gabe was the man for the job, as usual:

The next day I had a lot of homework to work on, so I came later on in the day after most of the work had been done.

Posts had been set: 

They also had added flashing in-between the porch and the house to prevent water from getting in at that location.

Shown next are some of the joists hung:

On the picture previous, the board they are holding to place is the front piece of the stairs.  There will be two stairs coming down to a large platform filling the 5' X 5' area and then 3 stairs coming out from the front to the future driveway.

The next weekend after that, we got to see the east side of the building almost entirely sided!

They left the last section (in the upper left hand portion of the picture above) of the siding on the front face un-done until a later date, after the porch deck roof was finalized, since the footprint will be different, extended all the way to the corner in view here.

Dad and Gabe built and assembled the utility room wall, dividing it from the dining room space.  This way we get to see the full extents of the open plan living space we have to work with.

While they were accomplishing this, I was busy grading the dirt that had been uprooted under the porch decking.  Once it was all leveled out, sloping away from the house and down the hill, I laid weed shield cloth and gravel, leveling it out as we went.  

Dad and Gabe worked towards setting the stair post.  It can be seen here to the right of the photo, in a moment of jest:

Nearing the end of our day of work, the guys finish up by hanging one last hard to get to joist that will brace the top stair tread.

And we have a utility room!!  Complete with electrical box and HVAC system.

The next day was a big day.  Gabe started us off by cutting down the 6" X 6" posts flush with the deck.  

While they were doing that, I was busy nailing all the joist hangers into place.  That was quite a job!!  My arm was sore after that.

Next the mitered edge pieces:

Gabe makes sure all the brackets to hold the posts are in the right place:

Time to secure deck boards down!!  We worked together to do them as fast as we could, Gabe cutting pieces and me screwing them down.

We got a little less than half of the deck secured down that day.

Dark is sure coming faster and faster!

Dad was at a meeting for most of the day, but came back before we left so he and I could quickly confirm and discuss the placement of electrical.

We also were mindful to batten down the hatches for the impending storm called "Sandy" coming down the pike.

Bora-Bora Care

This past weekend was about tying up some loose ends before we start on FRAMING!!!  Yay!!  As per the plans, we will be taking out 3 of the downstairs walls and the kitchen/dining room ceiling (it leaks really bad).  We will be expanding up from the kitchen and dining area and framing a master bedroom and bath bigger than the two existing bedroom spaces---they were something like 8' X 12' each.  The footprint of the existing building will not change.

We have had a few weddings to attend since we worked last, (9th & 16th), so this weekend, we were raring to go.  Ok, Gabe was raring to go.  I was dragging my feet.  Gabe had opted to save the $150 delivery charge and pick up our 14' metal I-beam.  And instead of inviting any of his husky male friends to help him unload the beam, he chose.....me.  He ended up having a good system and it wasn't straining at all, it was probably just the intimidation of the thing.  We slid it off the truck and onto the porch, easy peasy.  And there it sits.

After spending some time cleaning the debris out of the kitchen/dining room side of the house, and making sure the ground was covered sufficiently with gravel, I vacuumed the perimeter, where debris always falls, especially from the ceiling.  I wish I could say my job was a bit more glamorous, but alas, it was not.  The next job is to spray Bora-Care, a solution of boric acid (and other not super toxic ingredients) intended to kill mold, mildew, termites and the like.  This was the alternative Dad came up with to buying treated wood, which would have been a whole lot more expensive.  The surfaces that require this treatment are the floor and walls that will remain that are not already pressure treated, as well as the plywood that is going down.  So, in other words, a lot.  The surfaces needed to be relatively clean in order for the solution to stick--hence my insistence the space be vacuumed.

While Gabe was brewing up the concoction, 5 gallons of water for every 1/2 gallon of solution, something else was brewing.  I had yet to experience a thunder/lighting show at the house, so it sure was nice!  The beginning part of the day was steamy hot, so when the winds blew, it felt glorious.

Here is a shot of the drama outdoors:

Such a lovely soaking rain.  It toned our next day of work into one quite beautiful.

We dyed the solution blue so we could tell which areas still needed to be covered:

Even with the air outside getting cooler and the fan blowing right on Gabe, look how sweaty he is!

And what a great choice of facial expressions! :)

Closing in on the end of days work:

Dad was in Minnesota for a conference that weekend.  So we went out to dinner and a movie with Mom to celebrate Gabe's birthday the next day!  

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The next day, Saturday, we brought in the 2' X 8' polystyrene sheets from the RV because we were going to install them on the side of the house where Gabe had sprayed the solution.  Little did I know that installation involved lying on our backs in the crawl space!  Also, the solution had dried on the joists as a powdery substance that came off on our hands.  Not too excited about that.  But, we got right down to it, and made sure the first row was straight, staggering the joints so there would be no weak spots.  We were nailing special nails to the underside of the floor joists.  Oh joy.


Here he is, installing the first sheet:

Once we get the polystyrene all hung, we will then put regular insulation on top of it, and then finally plywood. 

We only did about half of the room since there was a brace holding up the ceiling that Gabe didn't want to take out yet.  Next task was to cover up the areas we already did with plywood and transfer all the tools resting in the main space over so that we could start spraying it too.

This involved me cleaning the perimeter with the wet dry vac again as well as sorting the chaos that was in the crawl space.

I also finished securing down a couple of joist hangers that were remaining:

(Gabe thinks this should be my profile picture)

Mom stopped by too, to bring us lunch and to help out.  She moved the heart pine hardwood flooring that we brought down from the 2nd floor a couple weeks ago so Gabe could cover and spray the joists above with out them getting damaged.  We are waiting to re-plane them until we have a safe place to store them out of the elements (or until right before we install it).  She is wearing Gabe's construction hat---how cute is she?!??!

While I was vacuuming out the main crawl space, Gabe was spraying Bora-Bora Care in the other areas, where the bathroom and porch used to be, respectively:

Gotta love the red gloves and the blue spray:

Then Gabe spent a little bit of time mixing mortar and closing up a few holes in the foundation:

And I just took pictures and caused mischief, like usual.

Notice the pile of plywood and insulation in the above picture.  We must have moved the pile at least 2 times---it felt like plywood musical chairs, ei yei yei yei yei!

And that's a wrap!  We have a lot more work to do, but have made a lot of progress in the past few months.

We plan on leaving tomorrow for yet another wedding in Ohio, and then to Michigan to visit Gabe's family.

Have a Happy 4th of July!

Memorial Day Weekend

Back so soon?  Why yes!  We bypassed a Memorial weekend trip away to the beach to stay home and work on the house.  What a sacrifice, I know!!  :D  Jk, there were other things holding us back as well, which made the decision to stay easier--a visit from my brother Ian, and a friends wedding.

We (when I say we, I mean "I") are learning we have to be committed to this project.  Dad and our timeline help motivate us to stay on task.

We came to the house, as per usual, on Friday afternoon, working about 5 hours.  We were gearing up for a scorcher of a weekend.  Humidity was high, so we packed lots of water.  It was good we didn't have to do too much unshaded work.  I worked predominantly that day on cleaning up the perimeter of the main space.  The crawl space needed to be vacuumed since we created so much debris and mess taking out the stairwell.  It's a good thing we had a wet/dry vac...we had to empty it out a couple of times.  I also vacuumed out the crevices along the walls where most of the plaster and debris would fall.  Eventually we will be closing up the walls again, and we don't want to leave cobwebs in there if we can help it!  Gabe and Dad worked on removing all the pieces of the stairs remaining.

There were some small pieces of heart pine under all of it, so we kept them, and I took the nails out of those boards.  Once that was done, they removed some of the ledger board that was rotting on either side.

Here Gabe is working on removing few remaining rotten floor joists:

Then Gabe filled in the top of the stone rubble foundation with a flat mortar base for the new ledger board to sit on top of.

Here I am doing the cleaning duty I do best...

With all the debris clean up and how hot it was, we really needed a shower, bad!

The next day, Saturday, we didn't make it out to the house, since Gabe helped a couple friends move and then we went to a wedding later that day.  My bro Ian was home for the weekend and wanted to help out, so he and Dad went out to the house for a couple of hours.  They were able to nail in some joist hangers for the joists that were hung last weekend and remove the rest of the bricks off of the porch.

We came out to Mom & Dad's on Sunday afternoon and enjoyed a good meal for Ian's birthday at a nearby vineyard with stunning views.  We were in vacation mode when we came out earlier that day, so Gabe forgot his tool bag that he brings from home every weekend (for security sake), so we were a little bit handicapped the next day when we went out to the house to work.

Day 32, Monday was really hot, and there was only a slight breeze.  They had ripped some 2 X 8 pressure treated boards down with the table saw at Mom & Dad's before we left, to use as the ledger board.  On site, Gabe first sawed down the studs so the ledger board would fit under them.

Then, Gabe and Dad placed it on top of the smooth surfaces Gabe created previously with the concrete.

They spent a little bit longer than expected getting it level and getting it to fit under the studs.  The board had to be trimmed out in certain spots, so it was about an hour going back and forth trying to get it to fit.

While they were doing this, I was securing joist hangers:

Action shot!

Once they got the ledger board in place, Gabe let me use the nail gun.  It was heavy!  Here is a short video detailing the experience:

It was the supported by two more boards, side by side, nailed into place.

The last joist in the main area, that had previously been hidden under the stairs was finally supported like the others with a 2 X 10 and leveled and blocked to the ledger board, as seen below:

Gabe works to secure the two areas together, even though it is under the one wall and really awkward to get to:

Since we didn't have all the tools we needed, we called it a day earlier than usual.

Gabe's last tasks of the day were to attach the remaining joists to the porch section (future kitchen area), two on the south end and one on the north.  Here he is finishing up the one on the north end:

Here is an interior shot looking east, down to the bare bones!!  Doesn't it look good??!? (it kinda looks like a robot face...hehe)

The board below on the diagonal is the one that will hold up the addition when we remove the rotten sections from it next time:

There was a little bit more cleaning up to do.  Mom stopped by with a large box fan since it was so hot, but we were winding down at that point.  She helped us organize the place and I cleaned up the debris down below and we called it a day.

                                                                                         Cleaning up shop!                                     All clean!!!