Standing the Walls

I told you on Thanksgiving that it was only with the help of our friends and neighbors that we were able to stand the walls and roof.  Over the course of three weekends, ten of them came to help us.   Mark even brought his saw down for us [He's a cabinet maker] to make things go faster [It did!]. 

This is what it looked like the morning this phase began. They broke into teams and laid out the walls, nailed them together, put the decking on [plywood on the outside] and the supports and then they all stood them together. 

It was totally nerve wracking to watch.  

Each wall had to be scooted to the edge, but not allowed to fall over before it was nailed in place. 

Think about it.  It took at least 6 people to support every wall section while it was nailed in.  Except that one that Mark built which was twice as long as the others and which took every last person to help move, stand and get into place.  [He decided smaller was better after that.]

Mind.  Blown.

And they did it laughing the whole time.

You can see the exterior walls in the top pic and this one.  On the left you can see the diagonal supports that we held on to while the wall was scooted to the edge.  Once the wall was nailed in place, the supports were nailed in place too, to keep the walls from falling over before the ceiling and roof were put on.  

This is the pit where the stairway will eventually go.  You can see the old roof covered with tar paper inside the pit.  Eric cut the peak of the roof off, but left the rest to be taken out when we redo the downstairs.  

Right now we're using a ladder to get on top of the back addition roof and then walking up that roof into the new addition via the girls closet.

By the end of the second day, we had all of the exterior walls up and a lot of the interior walls up.   That's the closet area between the girls new bedrooms. 

After we got the walls in, the ceiling beams had to be set so the ceiling joists could be put in and the roof put up.

In the meantime it rained.   A lot. 

Canning Turkey Stock

If you're like we are, you have a turkey carcass left over from yesterday's feast.   Yum!   We've got ours boiling in a big pot and later today I'll can the stock for later use in our favorite soups.

Here's the page from the National Center for Home Preservation:  http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_05/stock_broth.html

This is how it works:  Make your stock with the bones [bone broth is very good for you - hence the tradition of feeding chicken soup to the ill.]  Boil it all well, with seasonings or without.   Skim the fat if you like, then put it into jars and can with a pressure canner.  20 minutes at 10 lbs for pints, 25 minutes for quarts at 0-1000 ft altitude.   Go to the link for info on other altitudes.

Thanksgiving

Over the course of our insane decon-reconstruction house project, we have been the recipients of all kinds of help and on this day of thanks, I wanted to acknowledge some of the people who have contributed.

My dad, Joe Edmundson, showed us that it was possible to build a house.   We learned a lot watching and helping mom and dad build their house. 

Our parents, step-parents and sibs have been great supports, cheerleading from near and far.  Thanks, guys!   We'll finally have a guestroom in a couple of months and you can come and see it all for yourselves.   [Bring your work clothes.]

Thanks to Rich, whose engineering skills and advice have helped us ensure that the foundation is good, the walls right and that the roof will stay up.    It's important that the roof stay up. 

Thanks to our neighbors, ten of whom showed up to help us stand the walls and roof.  Thanks to the entire Hewins family:  Michelle, Mark, Colt and Cheyenne.  Thanks to Dave and Jeannette.  Thanks to Mary and Ben.  Thanks to Kate and Michael.  Thanks to Robert and Alexia. Thanks to Mike and Danielle.  Without them,  we'd never have beat the early winter.   I thank heaven every day that we moved out here and landed among the best people on earth.  Thanks to all of you who wave as you drive by and stop and chat when I'm out for a walk.   You're the best. 

Thanks to my girls, who lift, haul, dig, dump, haul more, push, pull, hammer, mow, cook, clean, haul more, dig more, build, climb, plan, paint, and haul more with smiles on your faces.    This house is for you and we hope you're thrilled with it when we're done.  [You better still live here.]

And the biggest thanks goes to Eric, who planned and built so carefully that when we measured the new second floor for square, the house was only 1/8 inch off [which is crazy good building].   Thanks for lifting and hauling more than anyone.  Thanks for thinking everything through so that the walls are plumb and the roof stays up.   Thanks for believing it's all possible [it is!] and for helping make it real.    You deserve a vacation.  

Old Roof Out, New Floor In

At last we got all of the new 2nd floor floor joists in and the old roof cut out.

Next we did the decking, which is the subfloor for the new second floor.

Here's a pic of the floor of the new second story.  It's kind of open to the wind and weather.

Which makes it kind of tricky to work up there if you have vertigo.

I have vertigo.    I did not enjoy my time up there, except that one last very warm evening when we were scrambling to get the last of the decking on and the whole thing under tarps before the rain.  [We did that A Lot during this project.]   That last night was glorious.   Beautiful warm late October breeze, beautiful sunset, great company [Eric].  

Then the weather turned cold.   The next step was to raise the exterior walls and enclose the space.  Then the interior load bearing walls.  Then the roof. 

And for all of that, we decided we needed some serious help.   And not just the therapy kind.

Putting on a New Second Floor

As you know, we've been doing some renovating.   We started by digging and pouring a whole new foundation.

Then we built some new walls around the old house.

Then it was time to put the second floor on top of the new walls.

Just how did we do that with the old roof in the way?, you ask.

That's a good question.   It took a lot of planning.   Very careful planning.   And very careful placement of support columns in strategic places inside the existing house.  Because the first thing we had to do was put in a beam in the new ceiling that goes the entire length of the house [north to south].   Then lay the joists east to west. 

Eric did that through the existing roof.  There was a lot of old roof in the way.  It had to be stripped and sawzalled out.   I love the sawzall.   In the pic above, you can see the rafters of the old roof sticking out of the floor of our new second story. 
 
Here's a view from the ground, up into the floor of the new second story.  

Yes, all of this meant that for weeks we had an open roof. 

No.  The weather did not cooperate.   More on that later.  

The Dumpster

At the end of October, we decided that we needed a dumpster to hold all the trash that was going to come off the roof.  

We got the big one and promptly started filling it.   Eric peeled the old roofing off and dropped it down and at the end of the day, the girls and I bagged it and hauled it to the dumpster.  



Roofing is freaking heavy.   In case you wondered.  It's also full of nails.   It's also really ugly.

There were three layers.  Gray, Pink [yes.] and tar paper.  Here's a pile of the bottom layer of tar paper.   

Then there was the old decking - cedar or poplar planks with the occasional oak one thrown in.  

Then came the rafters.   I'll tell you about that in the next post.

Digging Out

I've been neglecting the blog this fall.   I've missed you!

We've been working on some pretty intensive house projects over the past few weeks and now that we've got a handle on that, I'll get some of these pics up for you to see. 

While Eric was doing the decon-reconstruction so we could put on a second floor, the girls and I had the very glamorous job of digging out the ell and picking up the roof trash and putting it in the dumpster.

This pic is of the ell, newly dug out.   That's the basement wall on the right. The phone line comes up on it.  You can see the dirt line and how far we had to dig down.   By hand.  Into buckets.  Which we had to haul up and over the new foundation to dump. 

It took us 3 days.   I dug and put the dirt in a bucket, Lily moved the bucket to the top of the foundation and Claire dumped.   We had a 3 bucket system and things moved pretty smoothly.   Now there is a very nice crawl space area under that part of the house.  

Smartweed

This is smartweed.   You gotta love that pink, even though it's a pretty invasive weed.

The Latin is Polygonum cespitosum.   There are a bunch of smartweeds.  Here's a site that describes a bunch of them.

The bees love that pink.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the bees all over it this fall so I'll be less likely to totally eradicate it next year.  It's an important late season nectar plant. 

It is a perennial and it will take over so I'm pondering ways of giving it some space, but not all of the space.  I'll let you know what I come up with. 

Little White Mushroom

I saw this in the grass the other day.   It was charming so I snapped a pic.

Mushrooms grow all over, here.   They like the damp.  We know a few edible varieties and just stay away from the rest.  

I went to a mushroom ID site rogersmushrooms.com to find out what this one is. I think it's  Leucoagaricus leucothites.

It looks similar to an amanita, which is deadly, so we won't be messing around with these any time soon.  David Fisher's American Mushroom site has some great descriptions of the two.