Tilting Skyward

We finally have the roof replacement underway. Mac has been up there stripping, putting down new plywood and shingles, and repairing the crumbling chimney.

  Here he is working on the chimney flashing a week or so ago. Over in the lower left corner of the picture above you can see the new skylight he just installed in our master bedroom. Below is the view from inside.

 

It is surprising how much brighter the room is all day now. I see that willow across the street gilded in morning sunlight when I rise. On clear nights I can see the stars and sometimes the moon shines in and floods the room with a magical glow.  Mac is currently installing another skylight in the little guest room.  The happy result is that our upstairs is now a bright haven of golden light each morning.

 

The only down side is that now when it rains,we can hear each drop.  Before the skylights, the upstairs was incredibly quiet, due to all our insulating.  During hurricane Irene a few months ago we were looking out the second floor windows, watching the driving sheets of rain and the trees outside bend and twist wildly in the wind and we were amazed that we could not hear a sound.  Now when it rains hard at night, the sound wakes me up and keeps me awake (not Mac, though- he could sleep through a stampede).

There are handles to be installed that will crank them open to let air in, and special blinds to shut out the hot sun in the summertime but those can wait until spring.  Right now we are focused on finishing the roof, getting a floor installed in the attic so we can have storage space, and getting the living room to a usable state.  One day at a time!

Constructing Stuff

I spent today pulling up old carpet and preparing the upstairs of the house for the new Stainmaster.  My sister, her husband and my brother came by to help.  The carpet came right up, but the old padding was stapled into place and so we had the pleasure of prying out all the old staples.  It was actually a breeze, though, because we had so much help with the task.  Thank you, guys!

Here you can see the new half-bath with the new piping in place. 

Tomorrow the new fixtures should be installed.

Once the plumbing phase is done, the electric will be next.  Mac is still occupied with the fire block.  This involves installing heavy blocks of wood in all the spaces around the outer walls.

 If there were to be a fire this would slow the progress of the flames. 

Without it, a balloon frame wood house such as this would "go up like a tinder box", as they say.

What you see above is just a small example of what has been taking us so long to get the house ready. 

All the new light colored wood you see here is a brand new supporting skeleton for this old house.

Below you can see the framed out skylight in the master bedroom (my favorite thing in the whole upstairs!!! :)

It's "crunch-time" now and we are full steam ahead for April first!  Pray that we can be ready.

Slow Going

We are moving ahead on the work at the new house, albeit slowly.  The damage from the fire was more extensive than we thought.   A few of the roof joists and rafters were burnt nearly through and were not sound enough to provide reliable support to the roof or the attic floor, and so that meant more work for Mac.  The second floor is now almost completely framed, and after we get the electrician in to do his thing, we can install new insulation and sheetrock.

I spent this weekend installing joist hangers with a palm nailer (nifty little device that acts like a mini-jack hammer, pounding in nails with shocking speed) and pre-drilling holes then putting screws into those holes to hold a fire barrier in place where the walls meet the roof.  I also had the displeasure of pulling off more lath and plaster as well as removing more clumps of rock wool.  The photo below shows another wall that was damaged by the fire with some clumps of the dreaded stuff still clinging to it.

I also chose the space where the skylight will be installed a little later this spring when Mac puts the new roof on. I am so excited about the skylight, I can't even say.  I have loved skylights ever since I was a kid and went to a friend's house for a playdate. There in her bedroom was something I had never seen before - a window in the ceiling! She could lie in bed at night and watch the stars! I stood transfixed with my head thrown back, staring at the blue sky and the branches waving with pink and white clouds moving behind them. Since that time I have promised myself that someday, I would have a window into the heavens over my bed.  Now, it's really going to happen!  There will be a four foot high, by two foot wide skylight in the roof within the next couple of months.  I just can't explain how giddy with joy that makes me feel.

My sister and I installed the dark channeled material you see between the rafters here - it is called "proper vent".  It creates a channel for cool air against the outer walls of the house, behind the insulation, thus making ice dams less likely.  We each took turns holding it in place while the other secured it with a staple gun.

 

These horizontal pieces you see below we installed this afternoon.  They will keep the new insulation in place.

Very soon now the plumber will be here to install the fixtures for the little half-bath. Once the plumbing and electrical is complete, we can sheetrock and paint.  It is not looking like we will be ready to move in by our original deadline of four more weeks, but Mac is trying his hardest.  The poor guy is teetering on the edge of burnout this week.  He is spending nearly every free moment at the house trying to do as much as he can, staggering home after midnight.  At least there was no more snow this week to hamper his efforts and distract him with a load of shoveling to do on top of it all.  I thank the Lord for such small favors.

Home Groan

Well, Mac has spent most of the past few days in the basement of our new (old) house, cranking and adjusting the jacks, to level the floors and generally straighten the frame out as much as possible.  At various times in the past, previous owners, or perhaps workers that they hired, had cut into the supporting joists which were not really adequate to begin with, seriously weakening them.  Those he has reinforced and the little house is now sturdier than it has ever been.  At the same time, he also has taken steps upstairs to correct the sagging in the roof, adding a beam and supports.

The house has been speaking to us, groaning and creaking with labor pains as it struggles toward it's rebirth. Sometimes the noises are soft and barely perceptible, other times they are loud complaints.   It increases my sense that the house is almost like a living being-someone I am coming to know more with each passing day.

Last night, Mac announced that he feels it is as close as he can get it.  The floors have been raised a little over two inches.  I noticed the difference as I stood in the kitchen and observed that the floor seemed less lopsided than before.  The changes can also be observed in the cracks that have now appeared in the walls and also in the caulking where the bathtub meets the tile.  This was expected and won't matter in the long run as we plan to eventually replace all of it.

I spent yesterday helping Mac out in the only way I really could, by pulling nails out of the old wood studs upstairs.  It seems that every nail ever pounded into the skeleton of this house is still there - or was until yesterday.  Large nails, medium nails, steel  nails, iron nails, wire nails and teeny, tiny finish nails.  What's with all the nails?

A lot of them had no heads, which made pulling them out more of a challenge for me, but I was undaunted, and kept at them with my crow bar and claw hammer.  Mac has now started the framing, so it will save him time if I can do this sort of small stuff.  Here I am rockin' my safety glasses.

At times the amount of work still ahead feels overwhelming, but we are doing what we can with our limited time and resources.  Mac is never one to take short-cuts and wants to do things right the first time, a policy I fully endorse.
The one thing really slowing us up is the weather.  Mac takes a full day to shovel us out here where we are living now, then heads over to the new house for several more hours, and then eventually has to shovel out the work site at his real job.  All the time dedicated to this snow removal is time stolen from the new house, not to mention trying to keep his supplies unburied.

We are enduring a winter of record-breaking snowfall here in the northeast and as absurd as it sounds, there is another huge storm expected in a few days.  The piles are so tall now that it is getting dangerous just trying to drive around town; you can't see around corners at all when you pull out of a street, and have to edge out so far you risk getting smashed by oncoming cars.

Rigby seems confused by all the huge drifts and piles.  She is limited to staying on the shoveled paths, because otherwise she sinks in over her head.

The icicles hanging off roofs are incredible.

Just look at how small Mac's dump truck looks next to the massive snow mound.  Meteorologists foresee this pattern of a storm coming every three to six days continuing through February.  I wonder where are we going to put it if it keeps coming.

Let The Fun Begin!

It is twelve days since we signed the papers and took possession of the little house on the quiet street.  Immediately, the demolition began.  The entire house(every room) had been paneled in inexpensive (and not very attractive) laminated wood paneling.  It had been improperly installed, sometime back in the dark ages of the seventies (we guess).  As a result of the inept workmanship and poor materials used, it had begun to wave and buckle away from the studs and was relatively easy to tear off the walls.  What we found underneath was ancient, splintery lath and horsehair plaster.  I am really struck by the fact that each of these little strips of wood had to be cut by hand and then installed one at a time, with at least three nails hammered into each one.  There must be thousands of them.  Can you imagine the time that tedious labor consumed? 

My astonishment was increased when I had a look at some of the nails and saw that they too were wrought by hand, judging by their inconsistent size and rough, anvil-hammered appearance.  I think we really take for granted the ease with which we can do things in this day and age.  When this house was built in 1900, there was no Home Depot to run to, just down the street.  When you needed some more materials, you had to go out and cut down a tree or fire up the blacksmith forge in the barn.  Thank goodness for modern conveniences, that's all I can say!

The pile of wood you see above is just a small number of the pieces of lath we tore out.  Behind that, up against the outer shell of the house we found clumps of something Mac calls "rock wool".  Its consists of little balls of cottony stuff that apparently passed for insulation, somewhere back in the mists of time. Now it is filthy and hangs out of every crevice.  I desperately hope it doesn't have anything like asbestos in it.  Mac doesn't think it does.  We are wearing masks and safety glasses as a precaution, for whatever protection they might provide. 

What it does have in it are tunnels throughout, ending in little round openings every few feet just about the circumference of an average mouse.  Occasionally, a small acorn falls out with the clumps of wool.  It seems there were some unseen residents nesting behind the walls in the grubby fluff.  We have to remove all this old stuff so that Mac can properly insulate the roof and walls, keeping in the precious heat, thereby reducing our future fuel bills.  Once that is done, he will put up new drywall and a plasterer will come in.

With some help from my sister and her husband, Mac and I now have the entire upstairs gutted down to the outer walls.  It's a little frightening to think that we will have to move in exactly eight weeks from now.

What you see in the shot above is our master bedroom.  The more Mac tears out, the more I struggle to stem my rising panic... kidding! (sort of.)   He will start framing out a half bath and small hallway in this area this coming week.  He still has to attend to his day job if we are to be able to pay the bills, so most of the work will have to be done at night and on the weekends.   Luckily, I had today off from work in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.(thanks for the dream, Dr. King!)   I have spent most of the three day weekend following behind Mac with the shop vac, sucking up the never-ending clumps of rock wool, splinters, old nails and mouse droppings, so that he can have a relatively clean area to work in.

We were surprised to find that there had been a fire in the roof at one time.  Several of the planks and rafters were badly scorched.  It is something of a puzzle, because there are no wires anywhere near the blackened wood, and the chimney is not close to that area either.  We have not yet been able to figure out what might have happened.

Yesterday, Mac went down into the basement and started to jack the house up so he could shore up the floor joists.  The supporting columns down there were actually only temporary columns that had been permanently secured to the floor and left there, some time ago.  These had become all rotted and rusted - not a good situation at all.  He knew that they were unstable and quite unsafe, but he was still surprised when one of the old supports let go with a loud boom as he was working down there.   I felt the house shift, but Mac had already secured everything with new temporary supports before he started working, so everything was okay.  I wondered aloud what might have happened if he hadn't.  "Well, the living room would have collapsed into the basement, right on top of the furnace."  he answered, matter-of-factly.  I'm so glad he knows exactly what he is doing, otherwise I would be freaking out right about now.

I will try to document the ongoing work at regular intervals so you can follow our progress. 
After this project, if I never lay eyes on "rock wool" again, it will be too soon!