Progress plods along

We've gotten a lot done over the past couple weeks, but we're also realizing how much more needs to be done before we move in!  Before house project pictures, here are a few more outdoor/yard pictures.  My wonderful, helpful, energetic, photographer-mom came to visit last weekend, so many of these photos are hers.  (Thanks again!)

The house and barn from the field:

Out for a family walk in the woods behind the house: 

Trout lilies - next to the stream in our yard!

One of the lilac bushes:

Enjoying the (short-lived?) novelty of a lawn to mow, and a new tractor with which to mow it:

Mom transplanted a bunch of lilies that would otherwise be excavated/trampled when our water service is connected (later this week!)

I planted a few fingerling potatoes (which I had started in the greenhouse at work from too-old potatoes that had sprouted in our pantry).  I used a chunk of fence that I had removed from elsewhere in the yard.  We hope to eventually have a much larger garden, but don't really have time this spring!

On to the house!  Meg has been in charge of painting, and she's made excellent progress on the kitchen.  We decided to paint the existing cabinets white, and the walls a light orange.  Started by removing cabinet doors - most were just a matter of unscrewing hinghes, but the false drawers in front of the sink were tricky.  Turns out there were two screws on each one that needed to be removed (with no access due to the sink), and then a sort of spiked spring clip on either side needed to be pried up, which finally released the false panel.

We had very generous help from some friends last weekend also - many hands!  Thanks Sarah and Sue! 

And Meg watching THREE babies (Sarah brought her little one; so far there aren't any problems with our two boys and only one lady-friend...)

One interesting thing we noticed while painting was that in some areas, a brownish color from the cabinets bled right through the first coat of primer.  We used a better oil-based stain-blocking primer on those areas, and that took care of it.  The smell of oil-based paint sure made Meg appreciate good Organic Vapor cartridges for the respirator, and low-VOC latex paints that can be used in most other applications!

Brighter kitchen - everything's primed!  

Tireless Multitasking-Momma paints while Eric looks on: 

 Here's the first coat of orange; Meg just finished the second coat tonight.  I also installed the microwave vent and mounting plate - almost ready to install the microwave itself.

Close-up of the microwave mounting plate, vent hole, and new microwave outlet.  The old range hood (which just recirculated air back into the kitchen) was powered by wires that were hanging out of a duct-taped hole in the wall.  This interior work wasn't too difficult - the outside part of the vent is what kept me from getting this done earlier.

The reason I was hesitant to start the outside vent work is that I had to cut through our old fiber-cement siding, which almost certainly contains asbestos.  I had heard that these siding panel/tiles were very brittle and hard to cut, so I was nervous, but eventually decided I just had to go for it.  I ended up using a diamond blade in my angle grinder, and the tiles cut very nicely.  (A regular abrasive wheel did NOT work well).  The diamond wheel cut very quickly and smoothly - it was dusty, but I wore my super respirator under a full-face mask, and long-sleeve clothes & gloves that I removed before entering the house.  Also, the siding tiles were surprisingly easy to remove (one nail in each bottom corner), so I was able to remove the upper tile and re-install it OVER the flashing on the vent.  Glad I don't have to rely solely on caulk to seal this!

Also in the kitchen, we have marked out (in blue tape) the future location of the kitchen island.  It was helpful to mark out the size of our table in the dining room (background), and the size of the island (foreground), to be sure we'd have enough room for both.

One other little project - removing the knotty pine paneling that dated the living room, and cutting a passage door so it's easier to get from the front bedroom to the bathroom (without walking all the way through the living room).  

What actually surprised me about this wall was how very normal it was!  Paneling on one side, modern 2x4's in the middle, and a single layer of drywall on the other side.   Woah.  Just need to frame in the new door, put a layer of drywall on this side, and we're set.  (This wall was clearly added after the house was built, and is not structural - the flooring goes straight underneath, there was no header above the wide opening, and there isn't anything directly above it to support.)

Now on to the front corner bedroom, formerly known as the Turquoise Bedroom, now known as the Boys' Bedroom.  With help from mom & our friend Rachel, the turquoise carpet was removed, revealing this fine linoleum.  Henry inspects the work so far:

Under that linoleum was... wait for it... tar paper!  (Huh?)  Here's the original floor (check out those wide planks!), thoroughly stained with tar.

Apparently someone was concerned about drafts under the baseboard (even though this was never an outside wall), and stuffed some fabric in the crack over a floor board: 

After painting is done in this bedroom, I'll work on installing the new floor (cork-topped laminate).

Now out to the garage briefly - I need to at least install some sort of shop floor before I move the bulk of my shop.  I can work on walls/insulation/electrical/ceiling later, but it'd be tough to do a floor after I move in!  There's currently a poured concrete floor, which is in decent shape, but is quite uneven.  So the first step was to find out exactly how uneven it was, and measure to find the high and low spots.  With help from friend Josh, I stretched a maze of string over the whole floor, using a water level and 6' bubble level.  Then we measured down from the string to the floor, and wrote the measurements on the floor.  I have since transferred these measurements to some graph paper, and now need to decide what I'm actually going to do with it.  I'm thinking I'll scribe and shim pressure-treated 2x4's at 12"OC to make a level floor, add a little bit of foam insulation between each joist, and cover the whole thing with OSB.  Anyway, here's a detail of the string network:

And finally, I've spent quite a bit of time upstairs ripping out flooring, ceiling boards, closets, etc.  Here's a Before shot of the purple bedroom - you can't see the sloping ceiling, but note the tiny closet...

In process - carpet gone, closet gone, ceiling started.

Ceiling on the floor!  (Felt a little like Chicken Little; glad I had a hard hat while working on this...)  Still haven't found any insulation in the attic, besides one little wad of fiberglass sitting on top of the knee wall.  That's surely helping.  We're planning to hire someone to do spray foam in this attic section - seems to be the best choice since we only have 4" of space to work with.

Another view of the ceiling removed; you can see the lack of a ridge beam at the peak of the roof.  What's that against the far wall?  Yes, a CHIMNEY, mostly hanging out over the room, obviously not still in use.

This chimney must have vented an old woodstove (or something that is no longer in the house), and a previous owner completely removed it on the first and second floors, but they left this tiny chunk in the attic.  Strange.  Looks like I'll be removing that before the insulation goes in.  I'm a little nervous that there's so little support underneath it - I'll remove it carefully!  (All kinds of beetle & wasp activity up there too, most of which is thankfully not active, and most of which will be scraped off before insulating.)

Next steps for me are to work more on the shop floor, install flooring in the boys bedroom, install a vent fan in the bathroom ceiling, and start on flooring the kitchen (as soon as painting is finished).  After kitchen flooring goes in, I'll construct the island and move appliances back in.  Then refinishing hardwoods, and re-doing the bathroom (at least new flooring, maybe a new wall as well, if we decide to really dive in and remove the vanity...  We'll see!)

Next steps for other people (that we're hiring) are to connect us to public water (this week), install a new roof with a dormer (next week), and install 6 new windows (main floor living areas plus boy's bedroom, probably 2 weeks from now).

Yard, Barn, Front Stoop, and a Bedroom

Starting today with some non-project pictures from around the yard...  

When I arrived Saturday morning I found a visitor in the yard.

I love it out here at night - it's very quiet, very dark, and very peaceful.  Moon over the barn:

Oak tree in the field behind our house.  I've seen lots of deer in this field, and the neighbors have warned me that there are lots of coyotes around.  With carnivores around we'll keep an eye on Leo, but in general, we're excited to live among wildlife!

Large puddle (small pond?) in the back yard - I think it might have been a swimming pool at one point, which was filled in, then settled, leaving a low/damp spot.  I planted a bunch of shrub willow here.

And not so much the house, or even the yard, but a few future inhabitants of the house:

OK, on to projects.  Meg has made amazing progress on the corner bedroom.  Here it is with the wallpaper stripped, some lower paint chipped away, low spots mudded, and some sanding done.  (Note the contraption on the bucket - that's a "Dust Deputy" cyclonic separator that hooks to a shopvac, which is made by Oneida right here in CNY.  A vast majority of the particulate stuff picked up by the vac spins around in there and drops into the bucket before going to the shopvac.  This prolongs the life of the filter and speeds everything up - it's a lot easier to dump a bucket than to clean a filter and dump a whole shopvac!)

Already primed!

For me, Sunday involved another Lowe's run, and fixing the front stoop.  I think there are pictures in one of my first posts that show how the concrete on this stoop is just falling apart, which means the metal supports that hold the bit of roof above the stoop are... precariously perched.  Both the home inspector and our homeowner's insurance flagged this area as a potential hazard.  

I started by jacking up the roof a little, and temporarily supporting it with angled posts.

Then I put down new pressure treated wood, which is attached to the concrete with outdoor "Landscape" adhesive caulk and Tapcon screws.  I cut down the permanent support posts a bit with my angle grinder (made lots of sparks) to account for the difference in height, put them back in, and lowered the roof down onto the new wood.  Granted, this doesn't really do anything to keep the concrete from falling apart.  But with the wood planks like this, the steps would have to completely disintegrate before the support beams are in danger of collapsing.

The wedges like this are temporary - I need to brace it much more securely before calling it done.  We don't intend to use this door much (the back door seems to be the main entrance).  But whenever this is used, I have to assume people might grab the support posts as hand holds, or kids might swing on them, or whatever.  So in addition to supporting the weight of the bit of roof, they need to tolerate some lateral force. I also haven't finished attaching the decking boards closest to the door, but the hardest part is definitely done.

Finally, a big barn project, that mostly involved testing the limits of my respirator mask.  (Happy to say it passed handily - despite some of the worst dust I've worked in, I didn't cough or sneeze once.)  On Saturday I cleaned out the portion of the barn that will become my shop!  This needs to be done before I can move my shop - I want to get some sort of flat-ish wood floor installed, and at least frame the walls before moving the bulk of my stuff.  I eventually want to insulate this shop room to some degree (no pun intended), but the insulation can wait until later this summer or fall if necessary.  

I plan to put my shop in the middle "room" of the main part of the barn.  This middle "room" had previously been split into two horse stalls, with a walkway between them.

"Before" view from the north, looking at the two stalls:

"Before" veiw from the south, looking at the two stalls.  Also note the little room at the far right - that's the well head, pump, and pressure tank for the whole house.  Also note the angle grinder - this is also an "after" picture, because I had just cut off two bolts that had been set into the concrete and were sticking up out of the floor.  

A few more "before" pictures.  Like I've mentioned previously, the whole barn was covered in cobwebs, dust, and hay.  Ew.

The flash really brings out the creepiness:

Saturday's dirty project involved knocking down a few stall walls, and getting rid of all that dust/cobweb/hay nastiness!  I started by using a snow shovel to scoop out the first layer of crap that was on the floor.  I don't think too much of it was literal crap, but there was plenty of stuff that I didn't poke through too carefully - mostly rotted wood, horse bedding, and horse food, I think.  Once I got the shovel-sized stuff out, I swept out the ceiling to collect/knock down most of the dangling goodies, and shoveled again.  Results of shoveling filled up most of a contractor bag.

Then I shop-vacced the floor:

And also shop-vacced the walls and ceiling, to pick up anything the broom missed.  I used the "Dust Deputy" described above, and filled up the 5-gallon bucket three times.  That's after shoveling out all the big stuff.  But the shop area now looks much better!

Removing the wire mesh "windows" was a lot more difficult than I thought.  (No, not the screens in the photo immediately above - the big fence-like mesh in the earlier photos.)  Whoever installed it used good heavy-duty staples, and pounded them in nice and tight.  The staples were tough to pry out, and the fence didn't want to let go.  I ended up going through with my angle grinder and cutting each individual staple.  THEN the wire mesh let go easily!  It was easy to flatten/pound in the exposed sharp edges of the staples that remained in the wood.

And here's all the decent quality, full-length lumber that used to be on these stalls (stacked under the ladders).  There is another stack almost as large of short, or damp, or partially rotted, partially horse-chewed bonfire material stacked outside.

Finally, I made a little more progress on taking apart the kitchen wall.  Even though the short partial studs were not tied to anything useful, and were not serving any structural purpose, they are still built into the framing of the house, so plenty of nails are buried deep under the floor or above the ceiling.  Cutting them seems to be the only option.  I'd just like to take this opportunity to say I'm REALLY impressed with my Ridgid 18V cordless tool set.  I bought the drill new (to take advantage of their lifetime warranty on batteries) and found the other tools (impact driver, recip saw, circ saw) for cheap on ebay.  Both saws and the drill seem to have every bit as much power as any corded tool I've used.  I've used and abused them a good bit already, and have yet to bog anything down.  I've done what I consider some pretty serious cutting and drilling, and haven't even unpacked my corded tools.  Good stuff.  Anyway, here's the disappearing kitchen wall: