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.

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!!