Porches and Air Conditioning

The camera is back in action!

The guys are working on the porch. They dug and started pouring the footings earlier in the week and yesterday they got the first joists down for the porch itself.

Today they started putting up the posts and were working on getting rafters ready for tomorrow when the end of the day arrived.

In the meantime, the HVAC guys arrived to put in the ductwork for the new heating and cooling system. And the guys from Southern Solar brought over the geothermal unit that eventually went into the ceiling.

Slowly but surely it's all coming together.

Disaster!

My camera is temporarily out of commission so I won't be able to publish photos for a few days. As soon as I have it back up and running, I'll let you see what is going on.

For now, it will have to be just words.

Today they started working on the footings for the porch. The porches are going to be eight feet across, perfect size for rocking chairs and swings. They got the pilings dug and all but two of the footings poured. Tomorrow they will finish that up and start working on the framework.

The geothermal unit is on hold for a bit longer. It's just too boggy to get the drill truck in right now. We've rescheduled for next week, but its suppose to rain again this weekend so we may have to put it off again. We'll see. In the meantime, the ductwork guy is still planning to come tomorrow and do the inside of the house.

Otherwise things are going well. My neighbor came home from the hospital, my garlic has survived the deluge this weekend and the roof didn't leak during the rain.

Life is good.

Walls, Mud and Other Mundane Things

I didn't post this week because I was just washed out. I had too many decisions to make and that takes way toooo much out of me. I'm not the decision making type.

But aside from trying to place lights and ceiling fans, pick colors, determine wall coverings and flooring material, not to mention everything that goes on the outside of the house, we had to finish placing all the walls of the interior of the house.

So first we had to finish tearing out the old kitchen part. The cabinets came out, as did the waterheater and then we stripped out the sheetrock.


Before

After


And then with a new wall.

Then, at last, the final wall. We had taken down the living room wall where the exterior wall used to be, and moved it back a few feet to give me more room in the big room. We got the wall up, what used to be the living room will now be storage and I'm turning the corner we opened up into a reading nook.

We also added easy access to the ceiling.




So today I went to clean up because tomorrow they are suppose to put the ductwork in for my new heating and cooling system. I'm putting in geothermal instead of standard HVAC. So I took the girls with me for them to explore their new home. Once Lovely found the windows I got a thumbs up and a "Mom, when can we move in!"

They were suppose to drill the wells for the new system on Tuesday, but the last two days have been nothing but buckets of rain so that will probably have to be put off until later. If we tried that now, the drill truck will be up past its axles in mud.

So tomorrow is ductwork and the beginnings of the porch roof. The cold is coming back in just as the guys have to go back outside. But work continues, and slowly but surely a house is emerging.

Wood and Bricks

Thursday was a high water mark day. They got the interior wall out! It actually used to be the south exterior wall of the house, located under the carport. Since we enclosed the carport, it became an interior wall that has been interfering with my vision during this whole operation. Now it's gone (the wall) and the vision has free reign.


This is what the wall looked like before it went down.





And this is what it looked like after the work was done.




I laughed at Builder. He's such a perfectionist that he had built the support beam in the ceiling so well that when they took the vertical support beam out, the ceiling wouldn't settle to rest on the support beam they had built to hold everything up, until I can decide how I want to work that corner. They actually had to work to get my ceiling to sag. How weird is that?

Today the old chimney came down. I would have like to keep it, but it was chinked and too much of a fire hazard. The bricks came down easy enough, and were in fairly good shape. I'm going to take them and make the heat pad for my wood stove out of them. They will look wonderful and be a continuation of the old house into the new.


Taking out the bricks.





Before in the ceiling.



After in the ceiling



Anyway, things are rolling right along. I can't wait to see what the coming days and weeks bring.

Doors, Windows and Aching Bones

It's been an interesting week. On Monday, along with the windows the guys put in a side door for me. While they went on to work more on the ceiling, I put in the lock and the deadbolt. I stepped out of the door and hit a block wrong and it folded up on me. I went sailing. Luckily, I landed on a strip of insulation which helped to absorb some of the shock, but today I am feeling some of the effects of an old and out of shape woman arcing about six feet through the air and landing prone on her side.


Nonetheless, we got the door up and the locks on. We also got the roof shored up and the final windows in. Like I said, it's been interesting.

Putting in the door I eventually fell out of.





Putting up interior support beams to replace the downward beams where the old carport used to be. Eventually all of that will be inside the ceiling and out of sight. The wall underneath the beams will be history too.


And we finally got the north windows open and installed. The whole room opened up when we cut out the Tyvek and made the frames ready. I am soooooo going to love this room!


And at the end of the day, all of the windows (14)were in and the house is looking awesome.



Tomorrow there is more ceiling work to do and the chimney is suppose to come out too. Once that is all done, we can finally take out the interior wall and there will be nothing to interfere with the vision. The excitement is building!

I Have Windows!!!!!

This is just so cool!! To actually have windows and be able to see outside. It's a wonderful thing. My builder got a call this morning saying the windows were in so after doing some rafter and hip work where the old carport used to be, they loaded up and went to town, bringing back 14 windows (yes, you read that right, 14) and two doors. They got five of the windows in facing east and tomorrow we will get five more in facing south and four in facing north. I will have a room of glass. But it is going to be so awesome.

The Reason We Quit

It may not look like much to my northern readers, but down here it's a lot. Not to mention this was when it first started and more importantly, there's a sheet of ice underneath it all.

Best of all, it looks pretty for a few days and then it goes away. We are suppose to be back into the 40s and even low 50s by the end of next week. Lots of good working weather.

Busy Week at the Farmette

I haven't had much time to post this week as I've been running here and there and everywhere. Busy, busy busy.

We're down to details and whoever said that the devil was in the details wasn't kidding. What kind of lighting do I want? We have to put a load bearing post in this area somewhere. Where do you want it? What do you want it to look like? What kind of flooring are you going to be using? Where do you want your electrical outlets? How many? What are the rough-in measurements for the front door? Where do you want your roof access? Sheetrock or wood? Wood or tile? Where? What? How much? When? Why?

Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I'm better now.

Even with my brain on overload and smoke coming out my ears, I'm excited. I'm finally beginning to see the house that I thought this could be. Now I'm wanting it to be in a hurry so I can get back in it and actually be there.

So this week, they finished up the roof and wrapped the new addition up in Tyvek to keep out the wind.

Then with the outside done for the time being, we moved in out of the wind. What a joy! (And with temps below freezing and a stiff wind from the north west, I mean that with all sincerity.

I took this picture from where the end of the old carport was, facing east out into the new addition. When the room is done, the header in the middle where the old carport used to end will be done, and the wall to the left will be gone. My kitchen should be about where the wall is, the dining and sitting area will be in the new addition with all the windows and I've got my back up against where the front door will be. There will also be a door to the right, leading out onto a nice big porch full of rockers.

In the meantime, the guys drug a kerosene heater into the new addition and finally got to work in bearable temps. With the wind gone, and heat blasting into the closed space, it was almost nice.

No time to set and enjoy though. Starting making room for wiring and deciding on types of lighting. Some of the old rafters needed to be replaced so they had to come down.

But even being indoors wouldn't keep Old Man Weather from trying to do us in.......and succeeding. Thursday started out with an artic cold blast and shortly after sunrise, the white "stuff" started falling from the sky. And kept falling......and falling......and falling.

That wouldn't have stopped my bunch because they are an intrepid group, but the snow wasn't the problem. It was the ice underneath it that did us in. The youngest member of the team nearly spun out getting to work, and one of the guys actually had to drive down the mountain to get home. Coming up wasn't exactly a picnic and going down was going to be worse.

Then Builder's wife called and it took her 20 minutes to go 1/4 mile at the foot of the mountain. That ended it. We gave up and called it quits for the day and for the week. The temps are continuing to drop as is the snow and we're suppose to be in single digits for the rest of the weekend. We turned off the water, drained the pipes, stuffed holes with insulation and called it a day.

Next week, we begin again. Charge!!!

All Wrapped Up

Geez, it was cold today. What a way to start the new year.


It never reached freezing, but my guys are tough and they were out in it. Not only out in it, but up in it. They put on roofing today. It's really beginning to look like a house. Not two sections.

First they laid down the roofing and joined it to the old part of the house.


Then they covered it with tar paper to keep the wind and rain out and the warmth in.


And by the end of the day, they had it all wrapped up.

Tomorrow they should finish the back side of the roof on the addition and then they can work inside. Good thing too, as we are going down in the single digits by the end of the week and the dreaded S word has popped up again, this time with accumulation. Brrrrrr.......