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!!!

Rats, Foundation Walls, & No More Stairs

With it being about a month since I last wrote, a lot has happened on our little house!  After two wicked weeks of school at the beginning of May, I am finally done with the semester.  And not only done, but also sporting my first 4.0!  Yay!!!  I must like interior design.  Meanwhile, only a little of work got done on the house during those two weeks for various reasons--whether it be Gabe helping out a friend with his concrete pouring project, hosting Gabe's dad, or attending my honor's society induction, we were super busy.  We stopped at the house on the Saturday Dad Cropsey was here so they could do a few things, one being to gather up the copper piping on the second floor so we could get it out of the way, which we ended up getting $200 for--not bad!  We also met with the president of a local organization that is working to fund different restoration efforts, who gave me some information for the project I was doing for my Historic Preservation class case study on the historic district of our little town.

Here's a little better shot of the work Gabe and Dad did on the east side of the house building up the foundation:

The weekend of the 18th was the next weekend we were able to really get out there to work.  Gabe's sister Eva was in town for a visit too, so she came to help on Friday.  I was ready to get back to work since I had been gone so long--so I started with the task of moving the bricks from the porch, including removing most of the mortar off of them, to a concrete pad out of the way where the barn used to be.  It was a dusty, hot and unglamorous task, to say the least.  Eva worked with Gabe for a while on supporting the kitchen roof. Then we worked at cleaning out the space under the stairs in which Eva found a nasty surprise:

We have no idea how it was preserved from rotting.  Gabe was busy removing some of the old sheathing in-between the porch and the bathroom additions so that the next day he could work on getting floor joists hung above the cement pad in the porch area.

Oh, and we got the new electrical box hooked up this past week!  No more ghetto fabulous electrical wires hanging out on the front porch anymore.  Yowza.

The next day Gabe and I went out to the house and Dad met us there later.  We sprayed poison ivy killer since the grass is getting really high which makes it really hard to see where it is, and believe me, it is everywhere.  I moved all the tools down from the second story because we planned to remove the stairs today.  The hardwood flooring is still up there, but that is ok, since there really isn't a better place to put it.  Gabe and Dad worked on building up the wall from where they left it last time to the pier under the bathroom addition.  Here is a video showing some of the work on the foundation wall:

Views of new foundation wall from opposite ends

View from farther away (from east)

Then they worked on hanging floor joists in the old porch area (in the photo above to the right).  I did random gopher tasks and acted as the photographer until I left for a bachelorette party for most of the afternoon.  It was really hard to get good images because they were working in an area with really dark and light areas--indoor and outdoor areas at the same time.  Here's a good shot of the new wall from crawl space height under the existing walls:

As you can see in the next image it is hard to even get more than one person in the space at a time.  Gabe is careful to wait to take down walls (the one right in the way) until entirely sure the weight is being supported (and for security--out of sight, out of mind).

We plan to outsource the majority of the construction and framing, but the job of leveling out the floors and building the foundation are tasks for my fastidious husband.  It is a cumbersome task and we just don't want to pay for that.  It has been fun to listen to my dad and husband interact on this project.  Dad says Gabe is "the boss" and really wants him to have ownership of it, so he lets him make a lot of the construction decisions.  My father has been very involved in construction and design and is a great motivator.

Here is a "before" and "after" of that day's work outside constructing the foundation walls and joists:

Before

After

This next shot looks into the kitchen/dining room area.  The wall with the opening will be removed, we are just keeping it up as long as possible for security sake at the end of the day.

The lighting on Gabe's face is washed out but it shows the space beyond nicely

Detail of the joists hung

Here are some angles from the north:

The last project of the day was to remove the stairs.  I had just gotten back from the party and Dad was winding down.  Here is a video of Gabe removing the stairs:

It gives a good perspective of the inside of the house.  It looks very strange without the stairs!  We are moving the stairs about 7 feet to the east so we have more space in the main living room.

The progression:

Here is a shorter, silly video of Gabe getting down from the second story:

And done!

I'm outta here!

That's all for last weekend!

Finally seeing visible progress!!

This past weekend, it really started to get interesting.  I was actually on site for a little while that day, even though I really didn't have time to be....I could barely stand it!  So, I spent a little bit of time cleaning up the site, doing a few things the guys weren't doing, like cleaning up debris around the back.  There were piles of broken cement blocks that needed to be trashed.  Also, some bricks were strewn about the yard that I piled up a hundred yards away were the barn used to be, on a remote concrete pad. The bricks on the porch that are taking over will eventually need to be taken there as well.  Notice the plentiful brick soldiers on the front porch: 

Getting ready for the day

At least most of the work this weekend will be around the back of the house.  First, Gabe worked on removing the exterior wall between the stairwell and the bathroom on the east side of the house.  He eliminated rotten sheathing and floor joists from this area.  Let's take a look.

Here is the "door" opening to the bathroom and the exterior wood siding separating the (1980's) bathroom addition:

Next we see how Gabe has removed the exterior sheathing:

Even all the way across behind the stairwell:

And what it looks like from the other side:

This is what you can see when perched on the stairwell, looking down:

Gabe is cutting out some of the rotten sheathing behind the stucco before they build up the walls of the foundation:

Originally that was where the tub had been.

                                                                                           Remember this?                                     Now this.

The next step is to start in on building the walls up on the northeast corner, where the porch was.  They start by cutting holes in the wall through to the kitchen so they can work to level the floor first (the wall will be coming out anyways).  Here is the first hole; notice the red laser level line:

It took them a little while to figure everything out, but once they got moving the next day, they were cruising!  Here is another pic of Gabe hacking another hole on the other side:

One final surprise of the day, the cement foundation we got poured was level!!  Check it out:

Yay!!!  The next day, Saturday, Gabe and Dad made a lot of progress.  I missed a special visitor too!  I was working on a school assignment at Mom & Dad's that day, and when Gabe came home, he told me about someone that stopped by whose aunt used to live in the house!  Just a little bit of background--I am doing a historic research project on the house and the Historic District nearby, and in my findings, I came across an article about the woman that used to live in the house, his aunt.  She lives in an assisted living place in a nearby town now.  Her nephew that stopped by gave Gabe his email address so that we could contact him if we had any more questions.  Jackpot!  I also went and did a little research at the county court house a couple of weeks ago and discovered the owners of the house back to 1899.  We hit a snag around 1900, when there was a chancery suit, and no suit number to look it up with.  So, I went down to the archives and spent some time there looking into the situation.  So, I'm still trying to track down the nephew, since the email he gave Gabe is no good.  Too bad!!

So, Mom and I stopped by the house Saturday evening to check out progress and took a few pictures.  They are a bit dark, but you can get the gist:

Looking Northwest

Looking Southwest

And that's a wrap!

Old and New

Howdy folks!!!!

It has been a good three weeks, hasn't it?  Well, I am in good spirits today since I just found out I have been fully accepted into Marymount's Interior Design graduate program!!!  As of today!  I have already been taking grad classes there, but there was one last thing to do: Portfolio Review.  That was a beast, but is finally behind me.  One more week of classes and then one more week of finals/projects, and I am done for the semester and will be able to work on some other projects.  Namely, THIS ONE!!!!!

Ok, back to business.  This one will be relatively short, since I have a lot of school stuff goings on.  But, I did want to keep you in the loop of the exciting things going on our little site out in the country.  Gabe has been very excited lately with the visual progress that is being made.  We have now officially moved from the destruction phase to the construction phase.  Yippee!

A couple of weeks ago, we left with pictures of a concrete form constructed, ready to accept a "mud slab" (I learned this is not actually mud, but what they call a rough poured concrete pad, usually for crawl spaces).  In our case, the mud slab was being poured and leveled over the trenches that were filled with cement to be part of the foundation on the east side of the building.  Here's a good shot:

Notice the wood forms are still in place

We really felt like were making progress now!  As you can see, there is only one remaining existing pier.  The plan is to build a wall of wood around the perimeter of the whole space that has been layered with concrete.  The space on the right used to be a covered porch, but we are going to be extending the kitchen out to meet the wall and the concrete edge as seen.

Here are some pics of the crawl space opening from the original 1890's build:

From the outside, under the existing bathroom space

From the inside, through the floor joists of the existing main living room

They had some extra concrete, so they extended and smoothed it out into the main house crawl space.  Also, you might notice the raccoon trap moved from the crawl space in the previous picture...we never found him; he must have found a new habitat, thankfully.

And a complimentary picture of the happy couple, tools in hand:

In all honesty, I didn't work that day.  I did stay on site and work on one of my projects for school though!!  Gabe and Dad were the ones busy at work.  I must say I was a bit jealous, somehow.  I wanted to be in on the action!  Gabe was working inside on leveling and securing the transition of the dividing wall from the dining room to the main room:

Dad was working on getting the last of the bricks removed from the chimney stack.  We were originally going to leave it as part of the aesthetics of the main room, but when we tore out the floor, we found that it wasn't properly undergirded and was pulling the house off level.  So we are taking it out.  So sad.

                                                                   This is where the stack was

The next day, Saturday (April 14th), you can see Gabe got cement leveled off on top of the existing rubble foundation:

On the other side of the divider, after they removed the rotten wood supporting the studs, they replaced it with new boards.  See before and after below:

Before

After

I thought this next picture showed the old and the new together really well:

And Dad finished removing bricks:

He also carried them all out to the porch to be stacked.  Ei yei yeo, so many!  They are original to the house.  We plan to re-purpose them as pavers for a backdoor patio.  Dad says Gabe is gunna kill him with all the work, but I propose that Gabe is keeping him ALIVE!!!  :)

THEN, they started working on reinforcing and leveling floor joists in the main room.

Dad, what balance you have!!  That must be were I get my balance beam skills

They must have gotten 4 joists reinforced that day.


The next weekend, we made loads of progress.  When I say "we" I really mean Gabe and Dad, because I literally didn't help at all, minus taking a few pictures during breaks from my studies.

They hung more joists, continuing to reinforce the ones on the main floor, almost all the way to the stairs!!  They also took out the 2 risers in the way of the door as you see here:

Then they tackled the kitchen/dining room area, hanging a good lot of them, as well as blocking a few of them too:

At the beginning of the day

At the end: Look at all the joists!  We have a floor skeleton

The proposed dining room/kitchen area

Here is a detail of the joist hangers:

Detail of blocking work:

OH, and more good news!!!  We have an electrical box installed.  It's not hooked up yet, but at least it is there.  :D

And an exterior view of the electrical box

Here is a pic of the beautiful valley views just an eighth of a mile up the road:

Just gawjous!

Ok, now I've gotta run.  Class time!