An Apple a Day

This post isn't really about the renovations so much as the yard that we are going to have to get in order and then eventually maintain ourselves.  Our yard is huge.  Well, huge to us former city dwellers.  Neither BJ nor I have ever been super excited to do yard work.  In fact, when we figured out how much 1.1 acres really is, we called the guy who used to mow the lawn for the previous owners and told him to keep it coming.  During settlement we had negotiated to keep the contents of the garage thinking that the lawn and garden items would be sufficient for lawn maintenance.  HA!  There are two push mowers, status unknown on both, and one decrepit Gravely walk behind mower that had gas left in the tank for the past 30 years.  We negotiated for duds. 

When we figured it out, BJ was so excited to buy his own lawn equipment that we went right out to Home Depot and I let him go wild.  I did not interject.  I did not protest.  I let him tell me what he thought we would need to maintain the lawn.  We came home with a pick ax and a machete.  Nice. 

BJ has spent many weekends knocking down vines, trees, weeds.  When you go into the yard it looks no different then when he started.  Not because he didn't do anything, but because there is just so much dense brush bordering the yard.  But there is one thing that I love about our yard.  We have apple trees.  3 really really old apple trees.  Not crab apples, but real, majorly large apple producing trees.  Lets just say the Amelia has a freezer full of organic homemade applesauce to last her until she turns 5. 

The discovery of the apple trees has me so excited to see what else this mysterious yard can produce.  We know there used to me a kitchen garden on one side, a herb garden out front, and a huge vegetable garden about half way down the hill.  Hopefully we can bring the yard back to its glory days.  We just need to move into this house first. 

Thank You for Your Support

When we started scoping out the work on the kitchen, we knew there was a little bit of degradation of the support structure in the crawl space.  We did not realize that since 1916, when that section was built, much of the support under the kitchen was gettin' low down and dirty.  There was no foundation even built under that section of the house so over time the kitchen sank further and further down into the ground.  So far that you could see a really deep slope towards the front corner of the house.  In other words, the kitchen and everything above it were leaning forward, threatening to detach from the house.  The upstairs showed signs of support issues where the floors slanted and the windows are no longer square.  The issues goes as high as the third floor.  The dormer on the third floor was even angled. 

Notice the dormer on the third floor behind the chimney. Instead of going straight across it angles down to the left.

In the picture above, the area of the house with the three windows on the second floor and the two windows on the first floor that face out is the area where the structural updates were being made. 

THE PLAN:  Tear out all rotted floor joists, sloped flooring on the first floor, plaster, and exterior wall on the first floor below the kitchen windows so that the house could be raised about 6 inches or so that it has sunken, level the kitchen, poor a concrete foundation wall under the exterior wall, replace the wall, replace the joists, lay new sub floor, and build a new kitchen. 

  

They started by gutting the kitchen.  Out came the plaster and the floor joists.  These were original and we noticed that some of these were cut by hand and had hand forged nails in them.  They were beautiful.  But they were causing my house to sink under their weight so they had to go.

The original floor joists from the kitchen

When all was finally demolished, we  left with nothing except the walls and a big ol' pit of dirt.  I like this idea.  Start from scratch.  Literally from the ground up.



Who tracked mud into our kitchen?

  

Next came the prep for the lifting of the house.  They weren't exactly sure how many inches it was going to be lifted until they leveled it all off of a point in the house.  In order to do the lift they needed to cut open the walls and cut down the studs so that they could actually lift the exterior.  So there was lots more cutting and lots more wood piles.

These dudes actually dumped the heap of wood on my peony bush!  We are not off to a good start.  I had just driven past our old house that we are renting out and saw that the tenants took my liberal policy of "feel free to do what you want with the landscaping" a little too seriously by letting all vegetation, including my peony bush, die.  After I get over the shock I see that the wood heap is impressive.  There are large clumps of horse hair insulation.  Now that is old school.  Nonetheless, it wasn't impressive enough for me to forget the peony bush that they crushed.  I used one of the pieces of wire in the heap to prop up the peony.  Wishful thinking that it will come back to life.

My peony is under there somewhere. RIP peony bush.

But I quickly refocused my attention to the area of my house that was missing.  Like totally missing.  A huge wall of my house was literally cut in half and peeled away.  By the time I got to the house to take pictures this week they had already lifted the house so I don't have "before" pictures.  I only have the "in the process" pictures after the foundation was poured.  How cool is this?!

The poured foundation footer and temporary support wall.



The exterior wall cut in half.

The supports on the exterior of the wall while the foundation is curing.



Close up of the new support structure.



And now we have support.  Under this side of the house, that is.  So next up is setting the new electric meter, running the aerial electric service underground, installing gas line, and then running all new electrical. Oh boy! We are rolling now!