We've Come a Long Way Baby

Things are really happening now.  Like glamorous things.  Like windows going in, siding going up and roofing being applied!  We are so excited.  As chilly fall and winter days are approaching, we are working to get the house "buttoned up".

The last I wrote, we had just received a delivery of windows.  Well, they didn't stay in their boxes for long!!  A couple weekends ago, we started on filling the 6 window holes that were open to the elements.  These are the new build windows.  We are waiting to replace and install windows where the old ones are still in place because #1: that is something that can wait, #2: it will be a lot of work to resize the window openings.  We first had to focus on the many unglamorous things that had to happen before we could get the siding and roofing put on.

While I worked to keep the site clean and well documented :), Dad & Gabe started inserting windows on the east wall:

First the kitchen window:

And then they worked to fit in the bathroom window under the stairs and the two windows at the stair tower.  Here is Dad working to level it up:

The finished product:

These were small and easy compared to some of the ones to come!  Next is the master bathroom window, which is pretty sizable.  They first had to resize the hole:

And then one (Gabe) got on the outside, on a tall ladder, and the other on the inside (Dad) stayed.  Mom & I were there at the end to help guide it into place.

Lastly that Saturday, we got the master bedroom window into place.  Efforts were made to resize the hole again, and make sure that no ones fingers got smushed in the process!  This window is HUGE!!

We first had to make sure it could fit up the stairs....

  

Gabe preparing the window opening:

Us working together to get it in place:

Ta da!!

This took just about all day!

Here is an exterior shot of all the windows added to the east wall:

Gabe had a thing or two more to do on the roof preparing for the roofing material:

And then we called it a day.

By the time we came Friday of last weekend, the Hardi-plank siding had arrived.  HVAC duct work had also been completed:

 

How exciting!

Gabe worked to clean up the edges of the existing stucco in preparation for the trim and siding that was applied the next weekend.

No doubt that was dusty work!  Gabe ended up with snowy hair after that.  :)  And a busted blade, since it wasn't just stucco, there was a metal mesh layer as well.

While Gabe worked on this, Dad and I undertook the placement of the exterior lighting escutcheons on the back of the house, ones that flank the back porch doors.

We also determined the location of the range hood vent to place a hole/escutcheon there too.  A header had to be placed for this hole to be cut:

Then our dear friends came out to visit us and see our house project!  What fun.

The next day, Saturday, we continued to finish up & paint the escutcheon plates for venting and electrical outlets, so that the siding could be hung around them that next week.  Insulation of the soffit needed to happen too before the siding could be done, so Dad made sure that got in place.  Here's a pic of a few of the escutcheon plates before I sanded and painted them:

Here I am painting one of the plates:

I was working on removing mortar from our old chimney bricks when I got a call from my brother announcing his engagement!  What excitement to add to our day on site!

Dad had built a crawl space door, so Gabe and Dad worked to get the door to fit the opening and attached the hinges.

Gabe grinds down what was in the way of the opening before installing the door:

I went home a little early that day to work on some design work.  Pictures of the finished door installed can be seen a little later.

In the coming week we really started to see progress: siding and roofing were going up!!!

Here are some pictures Dad sent us during the week as progress was being made:

METAL ROOFING!!!!  yay!

SIDING!!!  yay!

Dad sent out a mayday on Friday morning before we got there about the trim for the east windows.  Yikes, somewhere communication got mixed up!  Yes, we will have trim around the windows.  It looks like they will have to take down a few rows and get it right.

We got to the house around 2 pm that afternoon (last Friday) and investigated the situation for ourselves.  

From the road the roof can be clearly seen.  Porch demo will be a project for next week.  Once that comes off, it will look a little shabby and incomplete for a while, until we get the new porch and roof put on.  This needs to happen rather soon and quickly, since we will be moving the door over to the right about 5 feet to give the living room a little bit more usable space.  Hence, the porch will also move over about 8 feet, becoming about a foot from the east corner of the house.  The way we will arrange the stairs and decking of the porch will reveal more of the existing rubble stone foundation on the facade.  We will be replacing the old cement blocks for new supports that will be dug deep into the ground. 

So, when we arrived, the roofers were there, as well as the men working on the siding, and the plumbers, getting a rough idea of what needs to be done.  We established that the bulk head in the kitchen is getting reduced from 10" to 4"!!  yay, more space in the kitchen!  But, honestly, when I see it, I will believe it.  :)

It can be seen in the above picture the difference between the existing stucco siding and the new lapp siding.  Realistically, the color difference is really very minimal, but when all is said and done, we will still be patching and re-painting the stucco to match the new siding.  The crawl space door Dad constructed can also be seen here.  

Gabe's first task that day was to trim down the stucco seen above so that a trim piece could be fit in to the front facade.

Good to see our sub-contractors at work today!!

Gabe also worked to patch a hole to the crawl space that apparently a snake had made it's way into.  He only got so far when we realized we needed water to mix the cement!  We stuffed the hole and will continue on it another day.

After that, we got to work replacing the window of the utility closet, our first attempt at replacing an old existing window opening.  This one needed to be done first in order for the HVAC closet to be finished in good time.  We had to resize this opening as well.

This is what it looked like at the very beginning (January 7th, 2012):

Get a load of that!!!!

Here is Dad, doing the honors:

Window demo: check.

Look how out of plumb it was!!

Then we worked to get the wall supported where we took out rotting portions of studs.  A header also got put in:

And exterior sheathing to fill in the gaps:

By nightfall (it is coming more quickly now), we have a new window in place!!!!

We've come a long way, baby.

Beyond Framing

Last weekend was quite a challenge somehow.  I'm not quite sure if it was just how fast the framing was finished that raised the bar of efficiency, the heat, or just overall being overwhelmed, but I was struggling.  We seemed to not make very much progress this weekend.

Two projects needed to happen, and both of them, in their complexity, could have been avoided.  First, on Friday, Gabe and Dad removed the stucco siding that the framers kept as per our instruction.

Remember this funny patch that was left on the east wall?

Well, in our efforts to keep as much as possible, we decided that the stucco sagged too much and the problems this caused were too great.  So, they went to tackling this arduous task of removing it.  Mind you, cement stucco is no easy task.  That stuff is bitterly heavy.  I made it my work to clean up around the house all the bits of debris left behind by the framers (since their mission was speed) including stucco chunks big and small, nails, glass and the like.

Here is the wall from the inside, starting to come down:

Here is a short video showing some of the wall coming down:

Almost done:

Gabe also had to score the stucco on the front of the house where the intersection will be with the stucco and the siding we attach (we haven't decided yet between Hardiplank and cedar siding).  That was a messy job, not to mention that the ladder Gabe bought cheap off Craig's list was old and fiberglass pieces were shedding off onto him!!  The ladder will need an additional paint job.

The next day, we brought over to the house the Jacuzzi tub that Dad had been storing in his garage for quite some time, as well as the re-used water tank.  It had been in the house previous to our renovation and needed the rust to be sanded down and re-spray painted.

Here's the tub!

I was the gopher/photographer in the morning while the guys finished framing in the wall that we had taken out the day previous.  They also worked to maintain the hole for the window in the 1st floor bathroom.

They finished that (short of wrapping it with Tyvek) and were eager to start on the stairwell.  Dad had spent a good while drawing up the stringer (the part of the stairs that goes up the side and the treads sit on it) on the 2' X 12' so they could cut it out.  It takes great precision--stair risers must vary no less than 3/4" step to step to comply with codes--so no horsing around with that!

Shortly thereafter, Mom brought over lunch after she had finished leading a bird walk in the morning.  It was a nice picnic of bologna sandwiches on our pile of lumber on the living room floor!!

I had been dreading our task after lunch.  Mom and I were planning on removing all the heart pine lumber in the crawl space.  This would be the second task that was made harder with poor planning.  The framers closed in the crawl space without removing the hardwood, so we had to go into the tight crawl space and extract very long pieces of reclaimed heart pine lumber.  Man, was that a chore!!!  I'm glad I had a partner in crime.  At that time of day, we had a little bit of shade to work with, so that was nice.

Here we are, taking a much needed break!

All of the heart pine lumber was getting picked up by a local lumber company later in the week so that they could clean it up and plane it down so we can re-use it.  We needed to get it into a pile and cover it with plastic, so that is what we did.

Meanwhile, the guys made some good progress on the stairwell, but they didn't finish it.  

They finished the platform, which two steps will lead up to it on the front, and then the risers will turn to the left and go up to connect with the second floor.

We needed to leave early to meet some friends for dinner, so we cleaned up shop, organized a bit and then called it a day.  

Hopefully next weekend we can finish the stairs and button up the framing on the east side.  The porch framing is the next big thing, but that can only move forward with a revision of the permit getting approved by the county government.  Here's hoping!!

Finished (sub)Floors!

Insulating the floors was a task that required just grinning and get it done.  Crawling on the gravelly floor and nailing foam sheets to the joists from the underside does not sound like my idea of fun!!  It's a good thing my husband is a diligent man....of course Dad and I helped, but I think the insulation award goes to Gabe.

We had started a couple of weeks ago with the insulation on the dining room/kitchen side, but couldn't finish due to the roof support that was rigged up.  So, we rigged up another support that would rest on top of the floor joist, since it had been on a cinder block on the floor up until then.  Gabe finished it up and then crawled out the crawl space entrance:

Dad and I worked to cut the material around the rubble foundation, which took couple tries:

After that was done, it was pretty much smooth sailing until right before the end.  I was gopher extraordinaire (and photographer) which was pretty necessary that day, as it's really inconvenient to get anywhere when you are stuck working under and in-between floor joists!!  Here's a couple photos of the guys at work:

He is willing the tape measure into his hand

Here is a shot of more cut polystyrene around the foundation:

I had to get a picture of Gabe from the perspective of the crawl space!

Home stretch for the polystyrene....

We also had a neighbor stop by to offer to bush-hog the backyard.  We gave him a set amount and he started mowing and weed whacking.  He came back the next day with a different attachment.  It was a good thing, since the grass had gotten hay worthy and we didn't have a mower on site.  How nice!!

The next day, after a delicious pancakes and bacon breakfast, I went on some errands with Mom while Dad and Gabe got started on the house.  As soon as I got there around 11, Gabe was eager to tell me he had a task for me.  Yesterday, I had been getting a bit disillusioned about my helpfulness (as a gopher) so giving me an "important" task was a good move on his part!  :)  His back had been paining him lately so it worked out for me to be the one to staple down the fill insulation.  They had cut plenty of fill insulation and stapled a few of them in place, so I had my work cut out for me (haha).

On a slightly sour note, a couple days previous, Dad had visited the site to find someone had dumped some spoiled food in our dumpster!!  Needless to say, we were not pleased.  Boy, did it stink!  When we got there on Friday, Dad and Gabe dug and dumped dirt on the problem areas, since getting the dumpster removed would be too expensive, since it wasn't even half full.  When we got there on Saturday, more had been dumped!  This time, it was less offensive, being weird old things, including some Spiderman bedsheets.....sheesh!  Here is a complimentary visual:

Not to mention the signs I picked up that morning reinforcing the message that we do not want anymore such items in our dumpster!

So, Saturday, we had quite the system worked out, Dad would cut the insulation pieces since he was donned in long sleeves and gloves:

I would staple said pieces to floor joists---here is a video to detail the experience:

Boy, were my hamstrings sore after a day with that staple hammer   !

And Gabe would employ himself with things like fitting the insulation into the holes so I could be an efficient stapler ;)

Sprayed Boro-care on plywood to go on the floor:

And move plywood and tools from one end of the room to the other, so we could get the insulation under there too.

Mom stopped by and we had a nice picnic lunch right in our living room!

How lovely--split pea soup and egg salad sandwiches taste so good to the laborer!

The funny thing about putting insulation in the floor is that it provides a false sense of floor, because a foot would go straight through if you try to walk anywhere but the floor joists!!  

Ta da!!

Dad then left for the day around 4:00.  The last task was to somehow seal the leaks in the roof so that the new insulation laid wouldn't get wet.  The north addition has a sneaky way of being wet every time we come on the weekend.  Sooo, Gabe asked me to get the ladder out from under the porch, and no sooner did I step foot under did a wasp sting my leg!!  So, I sat that last chore out while I nursed my bee sting with a mud patty.  I remembered a tip from my youth to do so since it would draw the sting out (had it been that long since I had been stung??!?).

Gabe spent a good hour up on the roof finagling around with a sore back and without a helper.

Now the only thing left to do before the plywood subfloor gets glued and nailed down is an inspection. It was scheduled for the next Tuesday.  Lo and behold, it passed and we could move forward!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next weekend, I wasn't going to make it out on Saturday.  Gabe unexpectedly had to work late on Friday, so we didn't make the trip.  Gabe went by himself and made a day of it with Dad on Saturday.

Apparently, the plastic Gabe put on the roof worked for the most part.

At least he took pictures of the new floors!!

Here are a few:

They started with the southwest corner

They had to cut the 4' X 8' sheets at the ends in order to stagger them.  Notice these boards have been sprayed on the side facing down with the Boro-care, the mildew, mold and termite resistant treatment, previously and will be sprayed on the top face later when the framing gets sprayed.

It was a lot of bending over to glue and nail every board down, so it was a good thing Gabe bought a back brace for the task!

The studs running down the center of the building, right under where the metal I-beam will be placed that will later be removed, needed to be braced while the subfloor got slipped under them:

And then temporarily re-supported:

Remember this?

Now this:

Just notice the exhaust pipe in both and the door hole boarded over in the second.  Major transformation, huh?

The last corner was particularly hard to get nailed into place since, once it is down, it is hard line the grooves up into the edges.

Voila!  if I do say so myself :)

Looking one direction

Looking the other direction

The rest of the floors (in the existing bathroom and porch areas) will not be insulated, so it will be easier to lay those floors.  Also, since the floor joist run perpendicularly, plywood will need to be cut lengthways, requiring our table saw.  So, next weekend it is!  We also plan on removing the rest of the heart pine floors from the upstairs and meeting framers to discuss the next plan of action: FRAMING!!!!  

Soooo excited to see the structure come together.......

'Til next time!