The Cedar Shed

A small hole in the floor.

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Tue, 03 May 2011 02:42:00 +0000

I do not recall ever watching the entirety of "the money pit" (with Tom Hanks), but I vaguely remember a couple of scenes wherein Tom is sinking into the floor and another having a hole in the floor the size of an elephant from the tub falling through.

While this may bring a few laughs to others it mostly brings a few sobering tears to my eyes. I purchased this beast about 2 years ago, hoping to stabilize the foundation, replace windows and make a few functional improvements and repairs to kitchens and bathrooms. To date I have spent something in the area of 1800-2000 man hours replacing the foundation, several load bearing walls, the roof, the windows, and now continuing on with the small hole in the floor.

As I have mentioned before after gutting the interior it became clear that there was a house fire, which I date sometime in the 30-40's, which damaged some of the floor joists. In conjunction with needing to file a major overhaul permit I am compelled to bring the entirety of the structure up to current day code, which means replacing sections of the sub-floor and joists.

I have been taking my time with the sub-floor replacement to ensure that I get it reasonably close to a planar surface, but one section of the living room area requires complete replacement. So I have removed both the sub-floor and joists in this section even though the picture might cause a weaker man mental neurosis. I may have needed to wipe my eyes a few times, but I swear that was because of the dust.

Now is not the time to visit.

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 02:14:00 +0000

About six weeks ago I was working on re-organization and cleanup of tools for the thousandth time and as I walked over to the tool box I found myself much like a trapeze artist who misses the wire, dangling with one leg on each side of the rope. Everything is fine, though I can now sing half an octave higher.
With the winter I have finished the exterior shell of the structure to the extent that I am able. The walls are relatively straightish and sort of vertical, but most importantly they are structurally sound. There is no more rot on the bottom edges of the studs, no more cutouts without headers. House wrap has been installed as are the windows and the vast majority of the construction debris has been cleaned out and removed.
The next stage of the project is to adjust the interior framing to be reasonably straight, parallel, level. Also I am going through very carefully to make sure that the fire damage is repaired well and appropriate fire blocking is installed. I am working from the basement up as any adjustment made to make a floor level will effect the floors above. The basement girders/beams are very close to perfectly planar (I think that one corner was about 1/32" off) and the floor joists are bearing correctly on the girders. However, since the lumber has a large amount of variance, there are joists which are 1/8" difference in height from the adjacent joist. This calls for patient endurance.
The major sections accomplished on the main floor joists I spent a good deal of time inspecting the sub-floor to make sure that it would be able to be used for installing wood flooring on top. I was not at all satisfied and so while the cost is not too substantial (less than a grand) the time certainly is. I am going through very carefully, removing a single 4x8 ft segment at a time, shimming the joists if required, and installing new sub-flooring (3/4" osb) with glue and screws. In this way there are going to be far less structural stability issues, although it is rather inconvenient to replace the floor under a load bearing wall.
With all of that said, now is not the time to visit with small kids.

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:40:00 +0000

As spring draws near, here are a couple of picts for those flower lovers.

These are non-hybrid canna flowers which I grew last year, height was about 6-7 ft, very healthy and vigorous. I as always saved plenty of bulbs for this year. This year I am hoping to try a little hand at cross breeding, but we shall see. I have a few seeds from yellows and a couple odd balls also.. Who knows. If you want some bulbs please let me know, reasonable offers accepted.

Pictures are, red stem orange flower. Basic profile and vigor. And lastly, the healthy rhizomes I dug up before cleaning them off.

I just do not feel supported.

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 03:53:00 +0000

The exterior shell is now a completed structure, house wrapped and windows installed. Much thanks to my brothers and Mr Gbr for the help in getting the house wrap on. It was great fun monkeying around on the scaffolding 30 feet above the rocky bottom.
Now I am plugging away at the interior walls and structure. For the last several weeks I have been doing my best to ensure that the beams will be level, the walls moderately perpendicular, and nothing majorly damaged. You may have noted in a previous posting my concerns with what is considered abnormal joist framing, but my notes today center around the stairs to the basement.

The basement is an interesting scenario, we ended up replacing the whole foundation and while I am very glad that we did there have been some technical issues resulting. One of these issues is that the stairs going to the basement, in addition to being ripped out with the old foundation, do not have the required headroom and do not have enough length to accommodate a straight run before running into the exterior wall. My solution is that I am making a U-shaped stair. However, as the landing occurs prior to having enough depth for the required headroom I am forced to have a segment of floor aprox 16" higher than the main floor. I doubt that this would be a major issue, except that the stair walls are both load bearing and I must shorten one.
I am not able to do walls from the basement floor as I have not had one poured yet so I am using a triple 2x8 load bearing beam and using the assumption that I will not have any support under it. While not true in the end, it will be until I have a basement floor. The ends are supported at the foundation wall and also on one of the two main steel beam girders. All of this to say I rebuilt the wall after placing a temp support which would hold the load of the second floor bathroom and the ceiling. The temp support was jacked to a position 1/32" above my desired final wall height. (My philosophy is using the "least change poss") After building the wall I removed the support beam and jacks, the wall came down 1/64th and hoovered there. I had to go up top practice my awesome dance moves in order to get it to make physical contact with the new "load bearing wall". I find it rather amazing that a floor and ceiling would just "hang out" only being supported by one side but as they say old wood has found itself a set position and just does not like to move. It is now well secured and up to current codes (ish).

A bridge to nowhere.

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 03:06:00 +0000

Those filthy politicians are doing it all the time and desiring to get into politics someday I thought that I might join in the fun. What fun you might ask, well, building a nearly useless bridge of course.
In my attempt to throw money at everything that either moves or is nailed down I just purchased a large pile of lumber which should be delivered sometime next Friday. While other people may enjoy the idea of hauling 30 sheets of 3/4" plywood up and down the muddy embankment that is the front yard, I do not. It was my original intent to build a small "normal" front porch, followed by a bridge to the sidewalk, however, I am not planning on building the porch for a while. Now is a good time for building a bridge that I can cut to size when the time comes. I doubt that I will be able to do so, but if I can convince the Inspector to buy off on only having a bridge than I will opt to not build the porch and recover the structure with plank instead of plywood.

The construction is simple enough. Four sixteen foot 2x8's, some solid cross bracing, covered with a couple of sheets 3/4" treated plywood. For the supports I took some 4x4's and made a center support. The two ends are supported one on the ground and the other sitting on the old cast cement stairs. There are a couple of additional pcs bracing to keep the whole structure very stable. Before commencing on such an endeavor I would recommend conversing with your local building inspector. I did not in this case as I have a occupancy permit out and do not intend on leaving the bridge in its current configuration as a final design.
One thing that is a good idea on anything that will be subjected to dynamic loads is to build in some overkill. In this case I like to refer to an easy to use span chart as the start of my design, such as this one from AWC. Noting 2x6 16" OC, exterior and the species I am using: I could span greater than 8 ft with a 50Live,15dead load. So using 2x8 ft is reasonable overkill. The whole of the structure floats and is not connected to the house, for this reason it is important to have the supports well braced as shown. Also side loaded movement is minimized by using plywood and having a small cross brace on the center support. I should mention that all the lumber I am using on this bridge is coming from my culled lumber pile which I purchased about 6 months ago, mainly 2x4 and 2x8 ish treated lumber in the 16 plus foot range usually having a twist or split at an end. I purchased the whole of the pile for under $200 and have been using it ever since. I am thankful that God has helped me in finding some good sale items as I as yet have not found a corporate sponsor.
I will likely throw on some basic rails after getting the lumber inside. If I am able to make it permanent I will likely be forced into using footings for the support, but we shall cross that bridge when it arrives.

Coiled to spring

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:53:00 +0000

Well folks,
By now I am more than ready for spring. The yearning for the freedom of outdoors and the enjoyment of fresh veggies is almost too much to bear. While many people do not have the space, time, or energy needed for a larger garden, there are a few thing to consider in preparing for the Spring.

(A) Indoor prep. I am no fan of spring cleaning, but if you take the time to do some de-junking during the winter months the spring cleaning becomes a little easier.

(B) Outdoor prep. Now is a great time to spend a few minutes cleaning up the yard tools. Clean and oil your shovels and rakes. Give your lawnmower a decent cleaning, and for the mechanically skilled, its a good time to change oil, and filters. Maybe even flush the fuel system. As the ground starts to soften up it makes a good time to aerate your lawn or maybe even go so far as to do some top cover of some straw or other mulch junk. Personally, I might de-thatch if I care.

(C) Garden Prep. I start my plants usually around 12 weeks before the spring frost date. Rosemary takes a while to grow so I start it pretty early, usually I throw in some small pot basil and thyme. If you do the compost thing, I think that you can kick start that beautiful decomposition by throwing in some manure and straw. You can also get things warming up in the garden by tossing on a row cover or mulch on your gardening area.

Joists Solutions Desired.

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 04:34:00 +0000

OK, here is the problem.
What I have is the second floor joists span front to aft a distance of 24ft, being supported about the middle, the joists are 2x10 roughly 16" OC. Some of these joists are spliced with an overlap of about 4-5 ft being centered about 2-5 ft from the exterior wall. As shown.

Additionally I have a spot where there is a case of odd framing best shown. What you are looking at is the second floor joists and the strange 'header'.

And the last location is very much like the second.

Now that you have an idea of the problem areas, what I am needing is a solution here. The best world would be some old official manual that shows framing repair options. If you know of any technical data that shows what is permissible in terms of old framing system repairs I'd appreciate it.

Fruit and yardwork

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 02:56:00 +0000

I wanted to take a moment to talk about growing your own fruit. Unfortunately, a lot of people have written of the persuit of cultivating their own produce and fruit. After spending the last few years learning about general gardening and implementing that knowledge into garden plants and fruit trees I have a few pointers for those who care to listen.

Fresh fruit is awesome. You simply can not buy the greatness of picking your own fresh fruit or produce. This is why U-pick-it farms and road side stands sell. The fruit and produce that you purchase from the market usually have been in the transport cycle for a while (with bananas a good long time as they pick them very green and ship them off). Here is the trifecta of fruiting goodness from my garden. Raspberries (yellow here), Grapes (training on the wire trellis), and apples (young tree in back).

Fruit can yield an abundant harvest. For most people it may not be entirely desirable to have a few bushels of fruit and for these people some brilliant people have used a hardy root stock and grafted smaller trees to mark dwarf trees. These cute little trees will product full sized fruit in smaller, more manageable quantities. However, what ever you choose allows you the opportunity to make new friends by sharing your produce. Additionally, I think we all know a few college kids, young mothers, or neighbors who could use some help or encouragement. This heritage pear tree yields consitantly large crops of firm pears with virtually no effort. If anyone can help me identify the actual species please contact me.

Fruit can reduce your expenses. Everyone knows the ancient adage about apples and doctors, however, how about simply making small improvements in your health by have more fresh fruit and less processed foods. This will increase your health and reduce medical costs, additionally, a well planted raspberry patch or fruit tree can be accomplished which gives many years of fresh fruit for the very little cost. Our red raspberries, cost about $20 and now yields more than 4 gallons of raspberries per year, the only work I do is to mow it down every fall and water it a couple times during the driest parts of the summer. These grapes cost about $60 and should yield about 20-50 gallons per year.

There is a myriad of so called experts out there who will try and sell you on their system. I will not suggest that I have attained all wisdom here, although I will throw in my two cents. My suggestions are as follows:
1. Keep things low maintenance. Stick with hardy, disease and drought resistant plants.
2. Start simple. Do not buy $700 of plants if you have never planted tulip.
3. Experiment with what works well for you.
4. Educate yourself. I have a few books I recommend for the new initiate that can contribute well to ones overall understanding (Gardening without work: Ruth Stout, From Vines to wines: Jeff Cox, Square foot gardening: Mel Bartholomew, are three I can think of quickly)

The CleanUp Crew

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 03:07:00 +0000

After the installation of the roof I spent a couple weeks doing a medical study to garner more funding. For those of you who are able to take a week or two in relative seclusion and have a desire or need for bulk funds than this is something to consider. I will write again about this method of gaining useful blobs of cash, but for now if interested have a look at trymds.com and if you screen for a study mention my name. And by the way I am soliciting corporate sponsorships, if interested please contact me.

My most recent funds have gone mostly to the purchase of siding and exterior cleanup. It is somewhat surprising that after 4 large dumpsters we still require more. We brought in another 3 dumpsters and filled them with the help of a skid loader with grapple bucket. This is really the only way to go when you have large piles of debris or massive clean out to remove. The rental is not cheap, about 200-250 per day but well worth it when making the comparison of several days labor. In this scenario I will not go into details, suffice it to say that the major things that you must have in order are loader delivery, all dumpsters on hand, the wheels of the loader should by non-pneumatic (filled or solid). A one day project stretching out another 2 weeks, modus operandi.

Here is the great before Shot, actually other than the big piles of lathe, siding and wall remains it does not look too bad. Certainly the exterior looks pretty scary, but this is a process that flows slower than molasses in winter. And sadly I sacrificed a lot of those green weeds you see to the gods of heavy equipment.

Now that we have cleaned up most of the trash here is a look at the property. I am not saying that the yards is fully cleaned up however, as I plan on burning off some oak flooring for a little heat as the weather gets cooler. There remains plenty of low level yard work but things are starting to shape up there also.
I will post something about the land and plant life shortly. We managed a few treats from the asian pears, the regular pears, and the yellow raspberries. I am hoping that next year we will see an actual harvest from those plus some extra treats from some of the younger fruit trees and black raspberries.

Amazing New Roof

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:10:00 +0000

It has been a long time coming but after raining pretty solid for the last couple of weeks we now have a new roof installed. Here we have the roof prepped for roofing.

Here is a roof from the front with the siding removed.

Hardwood flooring.

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:28:00 +0000

I am really only posting this pict because I am hoping to remove the existing Oak Solid Hardwood flooring and sell as salvaged flooring. It is very usable and would be a great addition when refinished. Here the pict shows flooring that I have picted up over time sitting on top of the existing flooring. I think that the flooring was installed in the 20-40's when the house was refinished after the fire. I would like to get about $1/sf and there are 320-360sf.

Alright, I got a couple extra picts here to post. First is general grain from top, note there is some scratching etc, but clearly can be sanded out on install. Second is side view showing minimal cupping. I will note that this particular sample pc was taken out of a section which had moisture damage on subflooring, but there are others with more cupping than this. I would call it minor to moderate, easily sanded out with drum sander but would take a little longer with orbital style. Last is showing the nails used. I think that these were hand driven as the 'blow out' section indicates a slower drive than any pneumatic tool would leave. This adds to my theories of dating for remodel in the 20-40's.

Here is the pict of floor as installed, note that there is a little bit of cupping. I call it character.

Woofing or roofing.

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 02:11:00 +0000

Currently the big push is to finish the repairs and modifications to the roof system and get a finished roof installed. This would be a great benefit in light of the nearly gone felt that we stuck up before winter.

Rain is less than helpful at this time. Currently we have windows, flooring and insulation sitting inside under tarps, however, after the last rain I had about 6 gallons of water pooled up in the tarp. I tried to dump it toward the outside but failed. I am sure it is not the first time the floor has been wet.
There are a couple repairs and modifications we are making to the roof structure that bear mentioning. In this picture you can see the existing rafters are cantilevered over beyond the exterior wall. If you think of how the load is transferred from the roof to the foundation it is not all that pretty. So what we are doing is adding a short stub wall which directly ties the exterior wall to the roof rafters. We also are adding blocking between the ceiling joists to prevent twisting under load. Here we show the completed stub wall.

Two additional items of interest, first, as the house suffered some fire damage (1940’s?) some of the ceiling joists are damaged. The repair joists will be installed immediately adjasent to the damaged joists. Secondly, there is nothing like a collar tie for the rafters and our building inspector wants some type of middle support. While my solution will not win any awards for efficiency it is practical and effective.

After these items are completed the roof should be ready for the shingles. In light of a very reasonable bid I am declining to install the shingles myself and I will not cry about that.

The rot and bug damage

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:24:00 +0000

I thought that you might be interested in seeing the damage located on the lower 12" or so of the studs that were next to the ground. (There is a reason why codes require 6" min seperation from the dirt to wood).

Also here you can see that I have removed all the damaged studs and am re-framing the sections. The door and windows are framed in. I have sheathing installed on the inside of the framing to provide stabilization and security, After all the framing repairs are completed on the exterior shell than I will get an OK from the city inspector and install new sheathing and siding. These repairs include obviously the rot and insect damage, also re-framing windows for egress compliance in the bedrooms, and replacing a few stud that have splits, warping, or charring from the fire damage.

Adjustments toward level

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:41:00 +0000

It becomes a important to describe some construction methods of the late 1800 period. Conventional framing today would construct a house by building a platform for the floor, followed by supporting walls, followed by roof trusses or another platform for second floor. This system is usually called conventional or platform framing. The main advantages in conventional framing is that the length of the pieces can be shorter and that the floor platform distributes the forces more uniformly.

However, there was a time when trees were plenty, tall and straight. In these days a 24 foot 2x12 was not in scarce supply. In those days it was common to build a house either with large timber beams, or the other method of the time was called balloon framing. In this method the exterior wall is built directly on the foundation and the floors were attached to the wall members. The primary disadvantage in this system is that the wall pieces were long (thus added cost as time progressed) and also that the vertical stud could be under significant loading (because they carry point loads instead of distributed loads).

Our house was built in the 1890s and is a very good example of balloon framing. However, it has for many years sat with the front wall being in direct contact of the dirt and grass. This I am sure would have resulted in extensive termite damage except that there was plenty of other dead wood in the yard. However, the damp rot mad a good spot for borers and other opportunistic bugs to chew or dig away the structure. When we raised the house, removed the lathe/plaster and removed the lower section of the siding it was clear that while the damage was substantive, it did not go beyond the damp rot area. For this reason it was important to remove the damaged section and repair/replace. This is why the balloon framing has a downside, as significant damage to a section of studs could cause the wall or house to collapse.

I decided very quickly that it would be cheaper and safer to replace the wall than to repair it. The entire side of the house was sagging perhaps 2+ inches. First we installed a few beams across the joists of the second floor and carefully jacked them to remove the loading on the studs. At this point is was critical to establish a planar point of reference in order to find dimensions of the replacement wall. This was not all too difficult as we have replaced the foundation and the sill is level around the perimeter. The side was again raised sufficiently to something around level. At this point I discovered that the wall was not vertical but a parallelogram. It was off by about 3 inches from vertical on only the wall we are replacing. This of course can be corrected by using a hoist or simile pulling device to pull the opposing corners back to straight. What you see here is the replacement wall built and in place with the internal sheathing acting as bracing for the wall. It is not quite finished, but it gives a good idea about both the process and the result. After finishing up the replacement wall in the next week or so, the next project will be to complete any other planar adjustments to ensure that each floor, the exterior and of course the members are as level as can be reasonably accomplished given the limitations of the existing materials.

Fire in the 1940s

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:10:00 +0000

The cold weather was certainly less than entirely pleasant this last week when plugging away. Currently we are working on giving the structure much needed adjustments and reinforcements. The structure is basically a 24x30 four square two story. The house was built in the 1890s. After a full inspection it was clear that the structure was involved in some type of house fire and restoration. Based on the materials and objects found in the house it is my opinion that this fire occurred either sometime around 1940s but possibly back to 1920s. If anyone has knowledge of how to determine the actual history let me know. There were several remnants of the Omaha World Herald from the 1940s in the attic.

Now the structure has managed to accumulate damage by foundation failure and also by insect damage. The foundation had two major problems, shallow foundation walls and no footings. The resultant effect was the cracking and sagging of the foundation walls, and also some shift. It also had a dirt floor and poor drainage causing it to remain a little damp. The insect damage was caused, I think, by dirt build up close to and above the siding. I think combined with the damp provided opportunistic insects the chance to chew up the rotted wood. I think I can say this with confidence because there is practically no insect damage outside of a damp region distance from what was the existing grade. As you know we have jacked the house and replaced the foundation, but it the picture here shows the potential damage area with siding removed with the house set on the new foundation. Because of the extensive damage on the front side of the house I am working on a complete straightening the whole of the structure and replacement of the studs on the front wall and that should be the next posting.

Twas the night before Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:00:00 +0000

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house.
Not a creature was stirring,
not even a hammer...

Yup, that's about the state of things right now. Checking under all the mattresses to find spare coins to finance the effort, but you can only look so many times. Also its plenty cold enough to find a way to believe that a persons effort could be better used elsewhere.

Here comes the snowman

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:57:00 +0000

If I had hoped to get roofing installed before the winter than my hopes were cruelly crushed. NE picked up enough snow that I have a couple drifts up to the knees, never the less I am able to wade through the piles to continue some work on framing adjustments and repairs.

A long time coming

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:07:00 +0000

It was not my fault that I did not post, the dog ate my email. That said its hard to tell a substantive difference in where things are at in the restoration process. There are two reasons for this, time and of course money. Neither seem to be in abundance.
We are currently shoving dirt from one spot to another under the pretense of calling it back fill. Most of the time people will wait until the floor and main flooring is installed before doing the backfill to avoid any buckling of the walls during backfill. Since this project is now a one man show than it was important to get the dirt work done for drainage purposes.
I am hoping to wrap up the dirt moving portion of this project in the near future as there are a few other things on my to-do list before winter. I would stick up some more information or pictures about dirt work, but there is not much to it. You look at your pile of dirt and see if there is any where you can stick it while still having the yard look decent and have good drainage.
The little skid loader has been nothing if not consistent. Consistently down for maintenance. This turn of events is not unexpected as it is an older model which was not well maintained, hence the word cheap, yet it is frustrating to have spent the large amount of time and money to get it up to good working order. I should be able to get the money back out when I sell it.
Next in line is the basement plumbing and cement floor. Since we are basically broke in an effort to save money I will be trying my hand at cement staining for the basement floor. I am looking forward to this part as I have seen some exiting and inexpensive ideas out there. It will likely be several weeks before I rustle up the money for that project. Keep us in prayer on that one.

We have bees!

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:44:00 +0000

Oh, and pears.

Too bad the bees aren't producing honey for us. But they are providing entertainment.

One of those days....

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:38:00 +0000

It was the kind of day that makes you glad not every day is like it.

You know by now that this house requires a new foundation. We toyed with some ideas of doing it ourselves, but in a rare moment of sanity decided not to be quite that adventurous. So we called around, got a bunch of bids and hired two companies. One to dig out a basement and jack up the house, the other to pour the new foundation.

It started off great. The diggers were surprisingly fast, and after a few hours, the house was on the rise.

Chester and brothers were actually on the roof of the house when the buys lifted the house with a giant hydraulic lift. So no pictures of that.

We are now known as the family with the house on sticks.

We had them dig down far enough for a walk-out basement with 8-foot ceilings. The pile of dirt is about twenty feet tall.

Shortly after the house rose, Chester noticed the scent of natural gas.

To their credit, the diggers had also noticed the smell and moved their equipment away from the source -- a one-inch pipe they'd hit.

In short order, the pipe was plugged with a rag and screwdriver and the gas company called to come cap it. No explosions (though now we wonder if we might have preferred an explosion...)

The next morning, we received a call as we were eating breakfast. The same diggers were now pretty close to done digging, but had hit the water main. They wanted to know what to do. Chester suggested calling the water company, and said that he'd be out later. It seems they interpreted "later" as "sooner", because everyone was still standing around waiting for him three hours later when he arrived. (No, the water wasn't still gushing forth -- the water company had crimped it). But boy were they were mad.

Chester tolerated quite the lecture from the water company guy. And in many ways, he had a right to be mad, and Chester's the land owner. God helped Chester control his own temper through it.

It took the yard two weeks to dry out from that water.

Later the same day, we discovered that sometime in the course of digging, the main sewer pipe had been broken off and buried. Some kind friends lent us their metal detector, and we eventually found and capped that.

On their way out of the neighborhood, the digger's truck took down the phone line to the neighborhood.

The only utility left in tact was electricity.

Did I mention that at this point, we hadn't obtained any building permits? As far as we know, there isn't a permit for jacking a house, nor for replacing a roof. But the city wasn't terribly happy with our lack of obtaining something. The next morning, the city called us to notify us that our work was halted until further notice. (Which, it turned out, was about two weeks, during which we made drawings for several parts of the project and received various levels of approval from the local inspector).

When it was finally dry, and we had permission to work again, the whole foundation was poured in less than a day.

The walk-out basement requires a retaining wall along the grade of the dirt, hence the wings.

The wall with the walk-out is left open, so that we can install windows, a door, and a load-bearing wall of course....

In case you were wondering, any lawn that was once there is no longer. But they were courteous enough to work around our section of fruit trees that we planted. I hope they live.

How to lose 10,000 pounds in a week...

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:55:00 +0000

We have lots going on, so forgive the infrequency of the posts here!

To catch you up:
After noticing that our humble house was without a foundation, we decided that the rectifying that would be among our first tasks. We did some research into doing this ourselves, but decided to contract it out.

So we called contractors, and got bids.

While waiting for bids, and for work to begin, we gutted the house.

It was a big mess.

The mess poured down the stairs from second story.

And filled the largest dumpster that we could rent four times.

Each dumpster contained about 2500 pounds of stuff, according to the dump that was charging us by weight to have them emptied. So we figure the house lost a lot of weight. We tried to use that as a bargaining point with companies bidding to lift the house -- hey, it weighs less than a normal house! Don't know if the bargaining worked, but we did get a reasonable rate in the end (and paid for that reasonable rate with a lot of inconvenience!)

In the gutting, we found this treasure.

In the room that you walk in the front door to, (the living room? the great room? We'll have to come up with some name for it....), there was this wall paper. Under the painted paneling. Have you ever seen anything like it?

Historical Interest

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:57:00 +0000

It is not often that a person has the chance to look into the lives of people who lived 90-100 years ago but this week during our excursion into the un-named depths of the Ashland attic-quarium we had just such an encounter.
I don't know what people used for medicine in 1922, but here we found a prescription on a bottle from that time. I found several medicine bottles with 'poison' marked on a label on the neck, but the prescription not readable. The label reads: "Dr. John Lance" "Mr. Tom Dailey:-" "Add one-half warm water and gargle every three hours." "3-4-1922-E" "The Muller Drug Co." "The Rexall store" "Ashland, NE"

Also we found what I would describe as an early form of micrometer. It is metric and it measures accurately within the limits of the markings. This has no real value but if you want it send me a few couple bucks for shipping and its your piece of history.

Lastly, perhaps some of you will recall the good old days of mail order household items. Here we have a selection from 1933, a full printing of the 'Zanol' catalogue. Herein you can find just about anything your heart desired, from powdered amonia (25c/box), to emulsified pine tar shampoo (50c/6oz), to one of my favorite Zanolax-the candy laxitive (25c/30 tablets). "Eaten like a piece of candy, it relieves biliousness, torpid liver, sick headache and dyspepsia caused by constipation. Positively non-griping, and so gentle in its action that it may be given to very young children-even those under school age-with absolute safety."

An interior Before tour, AKA: What were we thinking again?

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:39:00 +0000

This week we closed a short chapter of our lives (by closing on the sale of the Havelock House), and opened a new one, which we hope will also be somewhat short, in purchasing another house to refurbish. (I mean, we hope the refurbishing will be somewhat short.)

This one needs a bit more work than the one in Havelock. And it was accordingly cheaper.

We're reminding ourselves that we like a good challenge as we tour the inside of our new purchase. It promises to be replete with learning experiences.

So, here's a bit of the tour.

The main floor:

You walk in to the living room, and there's another nearly identically sized room to your right. I doubt it's intended to have two living rooms, and that one is closer to the kitchen, so it's probably a formal dining room. The kitchen is big enough to eat in though, so who needs a dining room? It looks like a good school/play room to me.

The floor has a built-in car ramp. We're such cranky parents that we hope to remove it before the kids figure out how much fun it could be. (There's actually two buckles, but the other one didn't show up in pictures very well. This one is a couple of inches tall).

The kitchen doesn't have much in it.

And yes, it's that color. The ceiling is peeling ("Hey Mom! peeling and ceiling rhyme!")

The pantry boasts built in cabinets.

Our plan is to make the pantry into a laundry/bathroom and put cabinets in the kitchen.

That's the main floor. Out of the pantry is the stairs to the basement, but before we go there, why not finish looking at the more "finished" spaces?

Out of the living room/ entry room, whatever it is, there's a door with stairs going upstairs.
The door has a warning note. It says "Do not open door. I have a couple cats up stairs. unless I'm here. Thank you. " On the side it says "Don't want them out".

The stairs are the only place in the house with carpet.

The owner wasn't kidding about having cats up there.

If pictures could communicate a smell..... it seems they at least tried to deal with it.

(The house has been unoccupied for 3 or more years, and it's still smells enough to make you realize the value of a decent gas mask).

In addition to the nice, historical carpet, the landing on the stairs is cool. It has floorpaper.

Upstairs is a standard three-bedrooms and a bathroom. The bedrooms are stylin' with their papered walls AND floors.

Anyone need to use the restroom? It has two toilets! (One is even hooked up, but neither look operational).

Now for the bizarre architecture moment. Inside the bathroom, way in the back, are the stairs to the attic.

We'd like to make this attic into living quarters for Nate, but seriously, he'll have to go through the only bathroom in the house to get to his bedroom? Hmm....

Moving the stairs will require remaking the roof (which wouldn't hurt the house any). Maybe Nate can live with going through the bathroom? Maybe we'll be ambitious and actually remake the roof. If you know us well, you already know what the plan is....

Back to the tour.

Just in case you weren't convinced that we should do a full gut of the house, this is the pantry wall, at the top of the stairs to the basement:

Now, the basement. The stairs are directly under the other two sets, which go from the west-middle of the house to the middle-middle of the house. Just in case you care.

It's dark down there. (Did I mention that there's no electrical service to this house?) They tell me there's moonshine and old canning jars hiding down here. I'm looking forward to seeing those, but I don't plan on visiting the basement in person too soon.

The house has been jacked before. It needs it again.

And this is probably why: it would be nice, maybe even expected that a house would have a foundation. Especially with nice, poured basement walls that are obviously MUCH more recent than the rest of the house. A little digging proved that assumption presumptuous.

That would be the bottom of the basement walls. They just end. No footings. Nothing even approaching the frost line. No supports. Wait, why is the house still standing? Maybe we should get out now.....

First order of business: Get that house supported. Bet that won't be as fast or cheap as we were hoping.

The element of surprise is half the fun, right? It's a good thing that we like a good adventure.

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:03:00 +0000

"I'm never going back there", says the seller. Yet, there's tickets for overgrown weeds taped to the front door. So it wasn't difficult to convince the seller and realtor to give permission to do "yard work" before closing (still a few weeks away). They even gave us keys.

To say the yard was overgrown is rather accurate.

The back yard is big (about 1/2 acre total), but you could hardly see the house from the boundary of the yard.

After removing that line of "trees" (large brush is a better description), you can now see the house from behind.

We selected about three trees to save:

The perfect shade tree on the south side of the house.

A really nice "let's have a picnic under it" tree. (Is it a locust tree? It doesn't have thorns.)

And a lopsided pear tree.

Everything else either has or probably will go. Of course, there are plans to buy and plant fruit trees :)

After clearing up most of the trees, Chester tried out our new mower.

A fork in the road

noreply@blogger.com (Chester Davis) — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:26:00 +0000

It was not that long ago when I would have said "I just don't understand people who _____". A meaning to be taken, those types of people clearly must either live in some alternate universe or be crazy as a loon. However, it should be noted that not all loons are actually crazy.

It was not all that long ago that I encountered a fork in the road. It was not your usual fork, stamped metal, chrome plated, plain design, but it was a fork that you would remember. The type of fork that projects a curious vibration suggesting there were choices to be made that would impact a persons future. Perhaps the kind of fork you might find when leaving a job you had been at for 7 years, or by purchasing another house at an auction and walking through the kitchen.

Some people don't ever even see that fork, while some may choose to ignore it, I however have picked up the fork , washed it and added it to our silverware drawer. I hope to share some of what transpires with you, perhaps without boring you to tears or driving you to madness.