Our Moat and Other Things

Days 3 & 4

Y'all probably think all I have been doing is taking pictures of the guys working. Not so.

I am acting as the general contractor so have been very busy getting estimates, hiring sub contractors, ordering windows and doors, going over building details with our architect and builder, taking materials deliveries and writing checks (sigh) and trying to keep the flow of the project going smoothly. Not to mention I have been working on taking the inside of the house apart. Removing kitchen cabinets, hardware, trim, etc. in preparation for the removal of ceilings and walls. We will reuse any of the original 1953 door/window/mop board trim that we can (of course they no longer make the original trim). We are having more milled at Indiana Lumber to match the original.

School has started so Rowan is filling her role as Associate Dean for Research as well as running her lab and teaching. Yes, we call it bringing home the bacon :o) I am taking a small leave from actually going into the lab I manage until the house project is well under way. I do work remotely via computer a little every day as well.

This morning the tractor/backhoe arrived so the footers and crawl space can be dug. It's great to have a machine to do this heavy work, even though the guys will still be slinging their share of dirt with shovels too. The bucket on the front of the rig is a gift when it comes to moving the rest of the old foundation block and loading it into the big dump truck.

Digging the footers

Jim begins to fine tune the sides and bottom of the footer trench (we are now calling it our moat. It is so medieval! :o)

...and the rest of the guys get into the action too.

Jim uses a Transit (scope) to make sure the depth of the footers is exactly right and to code.

He looks through the Transit at the story pole that Rob is holding.

A story pole is basically a 2x4 that Jim marks all of the elevations on - bottom of footing, top of footing, block coursing, top of foundation, floor heights and grading. He will use this from beginning to end, as it gives the ability to locate any point at any time from any place on the building site when using his Transit. We will have our first inspection today, so all of this HAS to be exactly right.

Here is our Mr. Inspection Dude from the City of Bloomington. We passed with flying colors, so now it's on to pouring the concrete.

It wasn't 30 minutes after the inspector left and we heard the cement truck coming up the street. We are so lucky so far that this whole project has worked like a ballet - one thing just flows into the next thing (let's see how long THAT lasts! :o) I love it that the cement truck has polka-dots. I mentioned to Jim that it must be a female owned company and he said that it is!

The only female owned cement company in Indiana. How about that!

The guys wasted no time in getting the footers poured as there is a chance of rain this afternoon, and definitely by late tonight. Fingers crossed it won't be a gully-washer.

It is amazing how much the guys have accomplished in this short 4 day first week of the project.

All of the demolition of the porch and garage, insulation out of the attic, crawl space and footers dug and all of the concrete poured. Pretty impressive. We can't wait to see the progress that next week brings. Stay tuned............

Shake it, Shake it, Baby!

Day 2

So, if our neighbors really loved us yesterday, we expect they really, REALLY, are loving us this morning as the jack-hammering started at 7:25am!

Maybe our new student neighbor who is a DRUMMER will think twice about practicing his craft at midnight from here on out. :o) He does sound like a beginner, so our worker guys said maybe the sound of the jack hammer will teach him how to do a proper drum roll. Too funny! Luckily, our immediate neighbors are very excited to see the transformation of our house, so they will put up with the occasional bad day of noise coming from our property.

It is amazing how the shaking and noise from the jack hammer penetrates the house. The cats, bless their little hearts, are just not quite sure what is happening. First we moved all the furniture, walled off the doorways, moved their feeding location and have completely turned their world upside down. Now, it's like we are in the middle of a day long earth tremor. I finally took them down to the basement where the noise is more muffled. If they can just survive this day, it will be great. Hopefully, they won't start losing their hair because of stress (nothing worse than a bald cat. So unattractive and chilly as winter is approaching).

As the concrete porch and garage slab were being demo'd, a couple of the guys were set to the task of removing the many nails from the garage framing lumber.

A tremendous pile of broken concrete and old foundation block began to take form in the front yard. Because it freezes here in winter, the footers and foundation can't begin above 24 inches below grade, which means there is lots of old concrete to remove well below ground level.

To get the concrete loaded into the salvage truck, the guys had to build this long ramp. We are not quite sure how any of these guys will be able to move tomorrow morning after jacking out the concrete and then moving it by wheelbarrow load up the ramp. UGH! Don't try this at home.

So while all of the shaking and digging and destruction was going on at the front of the house, the insulation removal guys were sucking the old blow-in fiberglass out of the attic. You can see in the photo the big hose going up into the attic. Once the loose stuff was out, they removed the roll down stuff below that. This has to be one of the most horrible jobs in a remodel job, besides digging out a broken sewer line. YUCK! They hauled away around a dozen huge bags of insulation on a huge flatbed.

After only 2 days the dumpster is full. A sign of good progress. If they can keep up this pace, we will have that new roof on in no time. Fingers crossed it will be before the rains come.

Half A House

Week 1

7am, Tuesday, Sept. 7

Ask me how excited I am that our builder, Jim Wright-Kaiser, has his crew start their work day at 7am!!! I guess if there is one good thing about my hormone chaos right now, it is that I am usually awake at 5am anyway, so the coffey pot just goes on then :o)

As the sun came up, the dumpster arrived (we suspect our neighbors are loving us more than they already do!)

Jim's crew of 6 strong young men landed on the house like a swarm of flies and took no time at all raising the front porch. It took them about 3 hours to remove it. This brought us great pleasure as we have wanted that eye sore removed since we bought this house.

You can see why this porch needed to come down now before it fell down. YUCK! We expect the porch was added about 25-30 years ago and wasn't built very well. It has always leaked since we have lived here (9 years now).

We are having the crew remove the original cedar siding so that we can reuse most of it to re-side the new addition. This house was built in 1953 and the siding is in fantastic condition. They just don't build houses today like they used to. The quality materials used in 'the old days' last a lifetime.

Wow! The house already looks so different without the porch.

This is our friend Josh who is also on the crew. He used to live in one of our rental houses. He is the one who introduced us to our builder Jim (who is his step-dad).

The crew quickly moved on to raising the garage after the porch came down.

This is our builder Jim. A really wonderful guy and a great builder. He helped us remodel the roof and add on a new front porch to one of our rental houses a few years ago. Please take note of this friends if any of you have any building needs. And, yes, that was a plug for Jim :o)

Once the siding was removed from the garage we noticed what perfect shape the original douglas fir framing was in, so we decided to salvage most of the lumber to reuse in the construction of the addition (ching, ching! I can hear the savings). That cedar siding really has protected the framing for the last 57 years. Absolutely no bug or water damage anywhere. Not even on the roof.

This is Chris, our youngest member of the crew at 20 years old. He is a solid ball of testosterone. He attacks every task with gusto and wasn't even asked to take this sledge hammer to the concrete porch slab. He just wanted to do it for fun! Just couldn't wait until tomorrow when the jack hammer shows up to help out with that task.

It is amazing how they got the porch and garage raised in one day. They are certainly moving right along.

At the end of the first day, we now have about half a house.

Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow :o)