We decide that our plan of action is going to be work from the outside in. Actually it wasn't that hard to formulate that plan of action since the last few years of miscare had left the structure pretty holey. Basically being in the house wasn't any different than being out in the elements, and I swore at times we had more wildlife indoors than the nearest zoo.
We also started calling contractors to get on their schedules. Our first call was to Bonzer Building Repair to repair the sad looking limestone foundation. They could come in a couple of weeks, but then were very busy after that. So we made a very hard decision. With the approval of the owner we started fixing the foundation before we even had possession of the house. It made for a lot of restless nights.
Bonzers came and gave the house a look over. We were very happy when they came back with their quote saying that there were only three trouble spots in the old limestone foundation. The north east front of the house under the library, and the two side porches on the north and south sides. We had been having nightmares of having to jack the whole house up and re-pour the entire foundation.
The guys are old barn nuts, and so of course they also had to check out ours. They informed us that our barn is a "peg barn." That is is built not with nails, but with holes drilled into the wood and wooden pegs inserted into the holes to hold the structure together. They said that at the current time the barn was probably more valuable than the house.
And so about a week later the work began. When they got the house up on jacks they discovered that things weren't going to go as smoothly as originally planned. The foundation had been made of two separate stacks of limestone, and under the front of the house and the south porch the first layer had bowed out so much that when the house was lifted off of it it just fell over. So under these two areas we decided to pour new foundations. It's not a pretty solution, but it is the most structurally sound option we can currently afford.
Tearing out the old foundation Our new poured concrete foundation
Our foundation fixing created a mystery that still has not been solved. We worked on the house until late one Sunday night and then headed for home. That previous Friday the foundation guys had gotten the south porch jacked up but hadn't removed any of the stones to pour the new foundation yet. So there was a gap in between the foundation and the house. When we arrived Monday morning the gap was filled with pieces of limestone. When we asked the foundation guys why they had done that if they were going to pour a new foundation they replied that they had thought that we had changed our minds and done that. Strange. We went over to the pile of limestone that had been removed from the front of the house and some one had clearly sifted through the pile and picked out pieces that fit into the crack in the foundation perfectly. We've asked everyone we know and haven't come up with the culprit. Maybe the ghost of William hates the idea of poured concrete as much as I do!
We finally closed on the house with no problems what so ever. In fact, the owner even gave us some old photos of the acreage that we figure date to around the 1940's when his family purchased the house.
What was interesting is that the photo of the house shows that the south porch was originally open. It really makes the house look a lot nicer so we got our sledge hammers out and started to restored it. We got to the point of having the decking built for the floor of that porch and the wrap around porch we are putting back on the front of the house when we ran into the problem of it taking FOREVER to get the tong-and-groove flooring in.
Tim also started working on repairing the old windows in the house. He started in the master bedroom and scraped all of the layers of paint and varnish off and then re-glazed the window. Unfortunately it appears that all the paint layers were what was making the window weather proof. We struggled and struggled with this decision, but finally decided to purchase new insulated windows for the house. It is not something we wanted to do, but see it as the only way that we can afford to heat such a big house.
While Tim struggled with the windows I began my own battle with the trim. I started by taking digital pictures of each room of the house and printing them off. I then used these as a map for the woodwork that I was taking off and labeling as I went with a sharpie. I used just a simple hammer and crowbar for the job. Some rooms went with out a hitch. Others had experienced water damage making the wood very brittle and difficult to coax without snapping the nails off before it had cleared the wall. Inevitably causing a lapse in my typically easy going attitude.
I had planned to store the woodwork from the house in one side of my mom's 2+ car garage. However, once we got most of the first floor woodwork there we discovered we would need to come up with a plan B. The garage was FULL! So plan B ends up being using the upstairs of my uncles pole building in town. Which means down the stairs - to the truck - up the stairs again. Shouldn't I be skinner?
We also discovered the joy of E-bay, and started bidding on light fixtures like there's no tomorrow.
May brings the argument of what to do now that the woodwork is down.
It's the classic Tim and Becky fight. I, the perfectionist who has no
concept of time, wants to strip it all down and refinish it. Tim, Mr.
quick and easy solution, thinks a good bath will do the trick. It's the
first of many battles, I mean discussions, that we will have
over this home. And I would like to gloat right now and say I won it.
Yeah! Nah Nah Nah Nah Naaaaah. But restoration within a marriage is
about compromise, and I know I will pay for this win at another time.
Before we tackle that we turn to the reason we tore all of the woodwork from the walls in the first place. We had the local church's Luther League kids out to tear out our lath and plaster. They do a service trip for Habitat for Humanity every year and do odd jobs around the community for donations to put towards that. So I was letting loose 20 or so teenagers in my house with crowbars and hammers. I was more than a little nervous. In fact, the morning of I woke up and almost called them to cancel all together. Thank goodness I didn't because they were incredible. They started at 8:00 in the morning and had the downstairs pretty well wrapped up by 10:00. By the time they left at 3:00 in the afternoon they had taken the plaster out of every room that was ready for them (I didn't have quite all of the woodwork out yet), but they had also done a great job of cleaning up. I think I can safely credit them with saving our marriage because if Tim and I had to do this together it would have taken months.
May also brings the start of the project that I believe brought the most positive alteration to the exterior of the home. The front porch. Yes, the new roof and paint job did a lot to spiff up the outer looks, but the addition of the porch took away that wicked witch's home look it had going.
Tim started by digging the porch post holes. And ladies, not only is he handy, he dug them by hand using a post digger. What a stud-muffin.
We then made a trip to the lumber yard to purchase forms to hold the cement in place. We found out, much to our surprise, that these simple little cardboard rings seemed to cost more that any other material we have in that project. Who'd a thunk?
After the cement was pored we borrowed Tim's dad's skid loader and back filled under the porch. Our neighbor across the mile has a lot of excavating equipment and brought us the load of sand. What a great neighborhood!
The lumber yard then shows up with the pile of boards that will become my porch. Tim put so many braces in that deck that it was the summer's joke that the house could fall down and the porch would still be standing.
And we're still waiting for that tongue-and-groove flooring we ordered!?!
We have the greatest roofer in the world!
Stop joking around dear and get off that roof. No one in their right mind is going to believe you roofed the house.
Back in March we had contacted about 5 roofing companies who came out to look at the house. One said right off the bat that he wasn't comfortable working on it. I can completely understand. Out of the other 4 the only one that we didn't have to call back constantly and pester for a quote was Jensen Construction. In fact he mailed us a typed out quote of the project with all the details with out us even asking. He was scheduled to come and complete the project the first week of July. Well he called us the first week of June and said that he had some tin for another job that didn't come in on time and that he would like to do our roof now. We were ecstatic! He finished the job in a week and did beautiful work. And get this, he came in under budget (and we're not talking a few bucks). Can you nominate contractors for sainthood?
When they tore off the
shingles on the front part of the house we discovered a cut out for a dormer in
the attic. This corresponds with a cutout for a door I thought I had found in
the master bedroom. This means that at one time very early in the house's life
there was a two story porch or there had been uncompleted plans for one. We're
leaning more towards the latter assumption because no one remembers the porch as
being two stories. I wish we had money in the budget to put it on because I
think it would give an awkward spot in the front of the house a visual interest
that it was lacking, but money doesn't grow on trees.
While the roofers were working Tim decided to air out the dining room. This section of wall was cover by a piece of plywood. The plywood trapped the moisture and rotted that section of the wall.
I start on the seemingly never ending task of pulling the nails that held the lath in place from the studs. I carried out so many gallons of old rusty nails that it seemed like that was what was filling the dumpster up at times.
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