Paint Colors and Siding

Sure are a lot of options, even just within this very small stretch of the former porch.  A couple shades of white, a couple of blue,and of course the raw unpainted wood.



And we haven't even talked siding yet - T12, clapboards, and there's some board & batten as well. 

Start of Framing

Here are some photos of walls starting to go up.

 

Looking at, from left, the entry, stair down, and the master bedroom.

If you look up from about the same point, you see this:

 

Future bathroom and bedroom wall (new dormer wall)

Roof was actually framed as of Saturday, as well, but didn't get a chance to take photos (see 'The Best Laid Plans' post)

And, back downstairs, a scale figure in the closet with master bedroom beyond. 

Even the Best Laid Plans

I have been dying to get something planted where we have a big dirt patch over and around the new septic.  Saturday was the day -- we had 8 hydrangeas (Pinky Winky - wasn't that one of the Teletubbies?) -- and it's supposed to rain for the next several days -- so we got an early start to get them in before the rain. 

The idea being they'll make a nice line at the edge of the property before the land falls off to the neighbor's land.  We have a bag of wildflower seed to cover the rest of the dirt while we figure out what to put there in the future...garden would be great (although we're signed up for the CSA for this summer, so there's no rush), I personally would love a patch of raspberry bushes (although I checked them out and you could buy a lot of raspberries before those bushes pay for themselves!) and Jonathan found this cool espaliered apple tree with six different grafts.  Anyway, I digress. 



We even brought our helpers, who were great at pulling out rocks, mixing dirt, moving plants and just about everything else we asked of them. 

This is where the plans and reality started to diverge.  All the holes were dug and 5 were planted, just as I was starting on the 6th there was a horrible sound from nearby the house.  It had started to drizzle and Jonathan was replacing a tarp that had blown off some lumber when he stepped on a nail in a board. It was a big one, and he was pale. 

Kids helped me plant the remaining plants in record time, and we zipped right over to the hospital, where he got x-rays, some high powered pain relief, and a tetanus shot.   Plans to finish the ceiling in the apartment during the rest of what was now a full-out rainy day were placed on hold.  Needless to say we don't have the 'after' pictures, but will be interesting to see if the specimens that were speed-planted suffer compared to those that were more carefully placed in the ground.

Then, towards the end of the day when I got a ride back to the house to get my car (Thank you Jamie and Melanie!), a quick tour of the house showed the tarp wasn't holding up as well as might have been hoped.

This was the view from the entry - the protective paper over the floor seems to have gotten the worst of it.

And the future mudroom floor had a significant amount of water on it. 

However, the good news is that Sunday morning (Happy Easter!) with the paper up and the sun out, the floor seems to have survived unscathed.  It was dry and looked fine. 

Still Life with Wagon

I think this covers a lot of bases - music, water, and manual labor.  Suppose we could call it a composition in brown as well.  I think the anchor at least is a keeper....don't want any of those boats drifting off!

Electric Trench

This appeared on Wednesday.  It replaces the wiring strung in the trees to get power to the shed. 

It seems so refined and minimal to me, after the dramatic sand pile from the foundation and the huge earthwork of the septic.  Almost cuddly, really.  I'm particularly thrilled that the plants were carefully set aside. 

Also pretty cool to note the missing wall of sand that has been backfilled next to the new foundation wall.

Foundation and Framing

Lots of dramatic change over the past week - here are some 'time lapse' shots that demonstrate how hard it is to take photos from a consistent location!

Here's the 'before ' photo from last fall

First, the footings.... 

Then the walls...

And all backfilled, almost like nothing ever happened. 

That wall of sand is gone now



And late tonight, a dormer has appeared! 

Here's hoping the roof is on before it rains Saturday!

More Boat Accessories

I'm not sure we want to have the kids test these out, but we did find

A cabinet full of

Life preservers and one boat.  this one's plastic. 
But check out the lower right.  Not sure what exactly is going on here.

Yep it's a ladder going down into the floor.  This is in the basement/crawl space remember.

Seems to just be sand and some more crawl space.  Also a good place to check out the undersized structure that I was standing on when I took the picture. 

I think there may be some rainy day potential here - we can tell the kids there's pirate treasure and send them down with a shovel.  Or maybe we should go into the bootlegging business and keep our moonshine down there.  Winter veggie storage?  Any other good ideas?

Yankee Ingenuity

I was baffled by this one

Kind of funky 50's style sprinkler head, but what was it doing attached to the basement ceiling?

Unless of course you're next to a pond and want to shower off. 

(I wish I could take credit for puzzling this out, but credit goes to the better half.  He thought about the odd metal channel that ran just next to this, and the description of the basement/crawl space as a dressing room, and didn't even need a hose hooked up to figure out what was going on.)

More Stairs

The one place we have to cut through the cool wood dance floor is for the stair.  I'm glad I wasn't there for this one, I seem to be inordinately attached to the wood floor and probably would have done something embarassing like cry or be sick to my stomach. 

It is pretty cool looking up from the lower level through the new hole - you can see all the way up to the roof.  That photo was pretty terrible, though, so you'll have to take my word for it.  We'll share this one:

At the same time we're getting ready for the new stair, one of the old stairs has been removed.

This was the second entrance to the second upstairs unit.  Since the kitchen door is just out of the photo to the left, it seems like that concrete pad may be useful for something.  At any rate that lower apartment window is going to get a lot more light now.

Before & After at the Stairs

I realize this is a never-ending task and that the top was starting to fill up with pine needles and leaves even before I made it all the way to the bottom, but it really felt pretty good to be out doing some physical labor on a sunny spring day.  Plus I think freshly raked moss may be the newest trend in landscape design.

The photo on the left is from March, on the right is today.

The physical labor really clears your mind, too - I could see immediately that this exercise would be good practice in ignoring that perfectionist tendency.  Meanwhile, someone else was enjoying that childhood pleasure of being faced with a body of water and an apparently infinite supply of sticks, pine cones and stones all calling out to be thrown.  I pity the fish.



There was also a bit of psychology experiment at the end, faced with carrying five bulky bags of leaves and needles up the stairs.  Do you start with the top bag and build up to that big climb, or at the bottom and get the worst out of the way?



I split the difference, starting with that bottom bag but then rewarding myself with the top bag and alternating from there on.  My legs are still a little shaky.

Spring arrives

 I am so excited to see what comes up this spring.  I've heard that one of the former owners was quite a gardener, but given about five years of neglect (not to mention the sand piled outside the house), I'm wondering what's survived in the garden.

So far, a couple patches of crocuses have appeared.  Raking uncovered what looks like a couple of daffodils and irises (a little scrawny looking though).  And this little guy.

Sweetest thing we've found for quite a while!



School time

Up in the eaves, tucked behind an old metal bed frame was this beautiful specimen.

Brings back memories of architecture school. Yep, spent five years learning how to draft and then worked on the computer immediately thereafter. But I digress.

Someone's been working on some Greek letters on the right, but in general doesn't look like it got too much use. Anyone know if something like this would have been used for general schoolwork?

Made in Boise Idaho. 
Someone hand me a T-square!

Cool Artifact or Junk?

It's a very fine line sometimes.  Take these beauties. 

Clearly their best paddling days are behind them (although someone did extend those days with the black tape).  But wow, they just don't put graphics like these on the new paddles.

But how many cool old paddles (or boats for that matter) can really be used displayed or stored before you start tripping over them?  Keeping these babies for now...





Footings!

Now that the excavation is done, we're on to actually adding things instead of just tearing down. 

Feels pretty good!

Here was the formwork up on Monday for the footings

And the footings in place on Tuesday

Here you can see the formwork for the foundation walls in the background. 

Well, some of it - there were just a few pieces missing from the order, dropped off on Wednesday, so that was a bit delayed, but apparently it's all in place now and the pour will happen tomorrow afternoon.  Part of me is very disappointed that we'll all be at work and school, but then again it may be a bit like watching sausage being made.  Looking forward to seeing the results on Saturday!

Wacky Glass Mushroom

Jonathan found this one. 

Keys added for scale. 

I believe it's an old insulator from electric lines. 

 How it got here I have no idea.

Structural Tips

Ok, quick, what's wrong with this picture?

Don't try this at home, kids.

Not sure which is most depressing, the pieces that were left there but just cut, or the ones that are missing completely.



The trusses were cut so those pieces fit in just nicely, so when they went missing, it also created a nice weak spot for the wood to start splitting.  I guess if it's stood up for the 40+ years since that second floor was added, it will stand for another couple weeks.  Still, I feel better now that temporary bracing is in place.

On the bright side, three of the trusses still have a tie rod in the center.

And look at that nice light coming in!

Welcome

Nothing says 'Welcome to our New Home' quite like a huge wall of sand.

Except maybe the complete absence of an entryway.

It is pretty cool to see things cut away though.  Now back away, kids!

Ice is Gone!

Earlier in the week just the narrow neck where the beaver lodge is was melted, but by Thursday, the whole pond was ice-free!  Just looks like one big target for rocks, sticks, and pine cone tossing, doesn't it?

There are a couple scenic trees over in the water, we have permission from the natural resources committee to remove them but we're going to wait and see if any attract sunning turtles or other interesting items.

Still snow on the land side, though. Mostly where it was plowed into icy piles. 

Certainly not deep enough to be hiding another boat or anything.