Archived House Updates
…And then it was back to the cabinet shop to plane, plane, plane… two and a half thick cherry to be planed into one and three quarter inch thick. Then the boards are cut up in 33” lengths with the radial arm saw, then onto the jointer followed by sawing on the table saw to one and three quarter inch wide… spindles here we come… We’ll need eighty
six of them, but since we are bound to mess up some during the manufacturing we will make a hundred. Just to be safe. After the spindles are cut “in the rough” on the table saw
several more operations involving the planer, the shaper and the sanders will have to take place. Making spindles is basically very simple, but the job is oh so time consuming.
Now that Sara and Elias are “living” in the house, we are getting some help in finishing up things. The mortar leaves a residue on the chimney stones and only elbow grease, time and vinegar will remove it. Sara to the rescue! Thanks “kiddoe”!
The picture above shows a nice view of the little hallway. Just for orientation: the visible door leads to the bathroom, off to the left in the hall way, not visible, is the door to the master bedroom.
Meanwhile, back in the shop the first 50 spindles have been ripped and planed to their final dimensions: 1 3/4”x 13/4”. Top and bottom tenons will be cut using the radial arm saw and a forty-five degree angle jig. Once that is done, another forty-five degree jig will aid in making the top and bottom sections of the spindle octagonal. Manufacture of the spindles is just beginning! Sure glad to have the tools and the know-how to do these things! It’s sort of fun too!! How many spindles did you say we need?
Cutting the tenon on top and bottom requires eight rotations and one flip-flop of the spindle blank. Then, on the spindle shaper, the dado cut requires nine more operations: four “stick it in, pull it out and rotate”, one “flip-flop” and then again four “stick it in, pull it out and rotate”. Altogether there are thirty-one operations for each spindle, anyone
of which can render the spindle useless… That’s not counting the final operation: sanding… Are we having fun yet?
Once the dado cuts are made the corners of the middle section (four more operations) are rounded off on the router table and then it’s back to the spindle shaper and the forty-five degree angle jig to complete the octagonal shape of top and bottom sections…
This is looking a lot like WORK! Phew! The first sixty are done! From the beginning of this addition to this line only took three days….
Now to the sanding table… Sanding… It takes around five minutes to sand ONE spindle. Looks like we’ll be sanding for a few hours…. Being, at times, somewhat impatient we just had to see what a finished spindle looked like, so #1 went all the way:
Ninety-nine to follow… but OH! they’re gonna look beautiful! The center section is square with rounded corners; the bottom and top sections are octagonal with subtle corners. Enough bragging! Go sand them thar spindles!
Sometimes sitting down on the job is a good thing: it takes TIME to sand ONE spindle. Ninety-two to go… :-)
No matter how one looks at it, sanding is slow going. Took a day and a half to do the first sixty… Now for the next forty.
Today the flat dado cut, tomorrow the angle chamfer… and then we will sit down again and sand, sand, sand….
Meanwhile up on the scaffolding in the house: Ellen is almost done stoning the chimney. Can’t wait for the scaffolding to be gone so we can see the whole thing!
The end is near! The picture on the right above shows a good view of the aforementioned doors: on the left of the chimney the bathroom door (Yes! The upstairs bathroom is right above the downstairs bathroom… such planning and easy plumbing! ;-) Partially visible behind the chimney is the door to the East bedroom, off to the right the door to the West bedroom. There’s no drywall on the far wall because it is going to receive the door panel wall out of the guesthouse. Years ago I took the raised door panels out of old doors and created a whole wall section out of them. The space between the bedroom doors is the width of the panel wall in the guesthouse… The sections to the left and the right of the bedroom doors have to be made yet… In due time!
…And there they are…. inspected and filled as needed…tomorrow we sand again…
Alternating between applying layers of spackling compound on the ceiling and cementing stones on the chimney, Ellen is very busy on the scaffolding. This day the LAST chimney stone was cemented in place! Work on the ceiling is progressing nicely too and it won’t
be long or we can seriously think about the removal of all the scaffolding. Once the scaffolding is gone, laying the rest of the floor and finishing it will be our number one priority. The plan is that Ellen will start finishing the drywall in the master bedroom, while I’ll lay the rest of the white oak T&G flooring. Once the floor is done… oh my gosh…. It just might be time to move in….
“But for cleaning up the mortar joints, this job is DONE!”, she said and walked away.
Now that the chimney is done, the finishing of the loft ceiling (no scaffolding needed) will be done simultaneously with the finishing of the drywall in the master bedroom.
…And then all the building activities were interrupted in a spectacular way… Ellen managed to keep a secret for weeks. Not until it was all over did I understand why she had been working her fingers to the bone trying to finish the chimney so the scaffolding could be removed in time to unveil the secret. Removal of the scaffolding was not to be just yet, but it really did not matter as the unveiling of the secret blew my mind anyway:
Drum roll:
The secret 65th birthday party.
Life’s a little hectic lately. The house is coming along nicely, thank you. All are getting used to the kids living temporarily in the house. The dogs (now four!) are getting used to each other and the scaffolding is almost out of the house. Earlier this month Ellen and I celebrated our birthdays, but unlike previous years, this one will not soon be forgotten. Since my birthday is March 8th and Ellen’s birthday is March 11th, we’ve never made a big deal about our individual birthdays. We’d celebrate both somewhere in the middle by going out for dinner. So my birthday came and went (worked on spindles) and Ellen and I made plans to go out for the usual celebratory dinner the following Saturday night, a day before HER birthday. So much for birthdays…
Earlier in the birthday week Ellen had talked about making a ramp so the house would be accessible for our long time wheel chair bound friends. The weather getting nicer every day might bring a visit from Leroy and Sandy (She’s in a wheelchair) and the interior of the house IS shaping up. Being involved with building the house the last two years did not leave much time to socialize. The idea of getting to visit with some of our favorite friends again sounded nice and making a ramp would not be so difficult. Friday morning we started building... Ellen and I began the project, but since I had to run errands in Terre Haute, Elias pitched in and when I came home: Voila! One ramp. Beautifully put together and perfectly safe for Sandy’s motorized wheel chair or any other wheelchair for that matter. Shucks, we should have built one a year ago for our OWN benefit! Bringing in firewood just became a lot easier!
Saturday morning our neighbor Barry came over and asked if I could help him with a project. So we drove to Sullivan, and dealt with the project at hand. Then it was off to Wal-Mart where Barry needed to pick up a few things. Feeling a little low on oxygen, I waited in the truck. Who should walk up but our friend Chuck. We visited a bit, Chuck went his way and Barry and I headed home. Turning on the road that leads to Riverview, we noticed pink balloons tied to every available post along the road. "Hm", I said,” Somebody is having a baby party or so”. Barry and I both chuckled a bit as we are trying to figure out WHO might be having a baby shower or some such. As we approach Riverview there are more balloons. Why even our new house has balloons tied to the ramp railing and above the door. It goes through my head that Sara and Elias’ best friends just had a baby and this must be a welcome home party or something like that. To the studio I go to check the E-mail, then to the guesthouse. Sometimes I am SOOOO dense… Minding my own business, I went to the guesthouse to see what Ellen was up to. As I entered the guesthouse Ellen just came out of the shower. Here it is in the middle of the day “What’s going on? Why a shower in the middle of the day?”, I asked. Slipping by me, Ellen went to the garage and retrieved two one and a half gallon pails of ice cream. Still I had no clue… “Follow me”, Ellen said.
When we arrived at the house Janene (friend from way back) was there, Elias was there, but still I had no clue. Janene had driven up un-announced in the past… and then I spotted the table, the balloons and the streamers...”What’s that for? I asked…
It did not dawn upon me until the first people arrived that Ellen had managed to keep a surprise 65th birthday party totally secret! Barry, Chuck and everyone else knew about the upcoming event except me… During the next few hours sixty some people drove up to wish me a happy birthday and partake of pound cake, ice cream, strawberries and punch. Some friends came from as far away as a four-hour drive…
Wow...it was a total surprise!
Doctor D. who saved my life twice now, on the left and long-time friend Roger from Amaco on the right
Chuck and wife Becky (one of the reasons for the ramp!) left, on the right Roger’s grandson Bobby in the train room
Ellen and two of my train buddies, Paul and Pat on the left, “Bubbleface”
Aaron and Lynette on the right
“Long time no see”, Ilana and Ellen on the left, Sandy (another reason for the ramp…) and Jan on the right
One of my favorite families, Jackie, and JT, son James, daughter Julia and son Joshua
Ellen is telling George and Ilana how the water is NOT going get us this time…Roger’s grandson Bobby is going “nuts” in the train room
Ellen and Rita on the left … I’m explaining to Steve how the stair spindles are made on the right
George and Ilana in the train room while Elias is chatting with his father-in-law
That’s good friend Jenene and daughter Jodi. Way back when they were in first grade Elias and Jodi were an “item” ;-) Jenene drove over four hours to be part of this party!
What a surprise!! Thanks Ellen.
Thanks Sara. Thanks Elias!
And all those who came down to visit:
Thanks!!
OK! Party is over, get back to working on those spindles! Wood being what it is, not all spindles were created equal. Of the hundred that were made, sixty some were “perfect”, i.e. not a blemish in sight! Then there were twenty-five that needed some filler
here and there but even with the filler they looked pretty good. The remaining few needed a little more filler than one would wish, but since all of the spindles get treated to a light coat of “Golden Oak” stain to equalize the color, the presence of the filler does not impede the
overall looks of the spindle. We’ll just install the “worse” ones in places where the imperfections are not readily noticed… We MADE a hundred spindles and only NEED eighty-two, so chances are we will not have to use “seconds” or “thirds” (perish the thought!) anywhere…
…and then there was a stupid smile: found the spindle that was sought….the last one to be sanded…
Next is the planning of the remaining “2by” cherry out of which the parts for the railings will be made. Another tedious and time-consuming job. The scaffolding is still in the house, but the removal of same is getting closer.
Maybe tomorrow!
Up to now (January 28th we haven’t had much of a winter. Temperatures were so high that the Jotul wood stove was able to keep it sixty degrees in the house. The last few days of January, however, brought some really cold, single digit temperatures so we thought it prudent to turn on the furnace. We would not want the pipes under the house to freeze and some additional heat would be beneficial for the fresh mortar on the hearth and the wet spackling on the ceiling! Not to mention our bodies!
Having a pile of cherry, we’ve decided that the living room and the stairs will be trimmed out in cherry… So I get to pick and choose those boards that look promising to be made into trim. While Ellen is installing more stones on the chimney or sanding on the ceiling, I’m working in the cabinet shop. The solid walnut mantelpiece that was made
almost thirty years ago has never looked so good! Hanging it level was one thing, fitting stones around it and still be able to remove it from the hanging screws something else… It took the master mason (that would be Ellen, of course!) a couple of days to find and cement just the right stones, but OH! The result is most beautiful! Placing the stones is a lot harder then it looks: there are times Ellen spends hours selecting just the right stone for the
location. Lots of times she has to spend time cutting the stone to the right configuration and sometimes, after spending all kinds of time chiseling and hammering away the stone
decides to breaks where it is not supposed to and all is lost. Fortunately the latter does not happen too often! Where the chimney narrows Ellen wanted ONE stone on the slant as opposed to two or three small ones. It took almost a whole day to chisel and shape the two large stones needed for the job….
… And,
as a diversion from watching bad television, Ellen is up on the scaffolding
doing some final sanding. The center ceiling section is almost ready for paint!
The next day Ellen was a mason again. After carefully cutting the “cap stone”,
Ellen fitted it in place and then
proceeded to cement the front stones in place so the following day there would be a solid
foundation for the capstone… a long and tedious process this!
…And now for the other side… While the mason was laying stone, the cabinetmaker was in the shop making cherry surface trim for the windows. Once the trim was installed, one definitely gets the feeling that the house will be a home soon!
This jumping back and forth between jobs, makes for a hectic schedule: The masonry can only go so fast and then Ellen has to wait for the mortar to set before more stones can be piled on. The same thing is happening on the ceiling: the fresh spackling is dry when it is dry and then needs to be sanded, so Ellen is slowly going nuts! Nah! Perseverance and it will all come out in the wash and look beautiful. What a woman! A couple of weeks ago
we celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary, who “wouldathunk” that we would be building a house from the ground up at ages 57 and 64…. We find it hard to believe, but the evidence is all around us! Unreal!
The stonework has reached the second floor and it already looks majestic! That chimney is going to be a beautiful focal point of the house.
Now that Ellen is making real progress on the ceiling, I better find things to do! During the second week in February the three pieces of plastic that covered the upstairs door openings to the bedrooms and the bathroom were replaced by actual DOORS!! Progress is being made! Those upstairs doors come with a story: The door to the computer closet originally came from Beesie’s house in Indianapolis and was a bathroom door in our guesthouse for the last twenty some years. The door to the upstairs bathroom in this house also came from Beesie’s house, but twenty-five years AFTER the computer closet door. The two bedroom doors were purchased for ten dollars each at a lumberyard yard sale in rural Illinois. All four doors have the same raised panel design… THAT goes down as another minor miracle! Since 2”x6” ‘s rather than 2”x4”’s were used in the construction of the house walls, jamb extenders for the windows needed to be installed. The bathroom needed oak, the bedroom walnut. So off to the old house we went to see what we had available. Strips of old oak trim, no problem, cut down a bit and we had the pieces
we needed. The pieces of walnut, that once covered the 2”x6” beams in the old bedroom, proved to be plenty long and wide to make the jamb extenders for the master bedroom. Once that was done, it was back to the shop to make the picture frame for the cold air return
grille. And THAT finishes off the cold air return! Now it’s back to the shop again to make the surface window trim and the floor trim for the master bedroom. The master bedroom, with it’s walk in closet that has the salvaged round top walnut doors that were made years ago, will be trimmed out in walnut so as to match the walnut bedroom suit that’s Ellen’s pride and joy. The armoire was made in 1974, the bed side tables with tile tops in 1978, the bed head board in 1984 and the closet doors in 1988. When it’s all finished the various pieces will look even nicer than they did in the old house as there’s a bit more room in THIS bedroom!
…And then it was time to move the scaffolding for the last time. The center section of the ceiling matched up with the first section paint-wise and spackling pattern-wise and looks
absolutely beautiful! Imagine THAT! :-) The picture below, which is looking up to the ceiling, does not do it justice! Using floor joists and floor plywood from the old dining room an additional scaffolding platform was built over the staircase and around the
chimney. I stand in awe over that God given ingenuity that allows me to dream up a safe platform for Ellen to work on. Really!
Between building scaffolding and going out on kiln repair jobs “little” things are happening. Using pieces of floor trim from the old house as pole supports, the walk-in closets in the upstairs bedrooms now sport ten-foot long closet poles. While we are doing everything we can to move into the downstairs as soon as possible, man-made timetables have a way of not working out… Sara and Elias have sold their house in Tennessee and need to have a place to stay up here in Indiana by the first of March… The guesthouse is still occupied by the old fogies, so the kids will move in and rough it in the unfinished new house for a little while. Once we move into the new house, the kids can move in the guesthouse and stay there while they are building THEIR new house on their Fairbanks property.
May 15th it will have been two years since we started building. The biggest project Ellen and I have ever undertaken was the creation of this new home, without a doubt! The new house is so much more spacious, so much nicer in so many respects that it is almost difficult to believe that we are actually pulling this off! Amid all this building, figuring out and generally being focused on the big project at hand, I did take time here and there to make something I’ve always wanted to make: a kaleidoscope. Using some scrap walnut and cherry wood, the body and stand were created in a matter of five half hour “fun time periods” in the cabinet shop. The mailman brought the mirrors and the “oil filled magic tube” and shortly after receipt of same, the commercial parts were installed in the custom wooden eyepiece which can sit in it’s own stand. Nifty! All in the name of maintaining one’s sanity!
“C’est ci bon, non?”
“Food for soothing of the soul”, as my one of my best friends used to say when he discovered some of my reasoning for taking time out to create “things”.
Enough of that, there’s work to be done in the shop! A set of new blades in the planer and it is time to make staircase parts. First the risers, solid clear as a bell, cherry wood except for one board. Hey! That knot gives it character! When the risers were “dry fitted”, they already made the stairs look like a million bucks! Can’ wait for the stain, finish and permanent installation! The next couple of weeks will find me more in the cabinet shop than in the new house. Staircase parts, bathroom cabinets and trim for this and that need to be made. The old cabinets have been installed in the new bathroom, but the false front behind the toilet has to be made, as it differs from the old. Aside from
being a little different the “boss” (That would be Ellen!) wants new doors. The front will have to be made out of “pin” oak, which is no longer commercially available … An acquaintance happened to hear about our plight and came up with a few pin oak boards.
Years ago the bathroom cabinets had been made out of salvaged pin oak from a hundred year old corncrib. After surface planing that old wood, quite a dark color was revealed. These new boards were not a hundred or so years old, so the wood was quite light in color. How to match this new wood to the color of the old cabinets? Doctoring a little golden oak stain with some rutile and black iron oxide from the pottery department glaze lab proved to be the solution. “How to age wood one hundred years in two easy steps!”…. What a life!
As I write the house is still not ready for occupancy, even though it will be soon. Elias and Sara closed on their house in Clarksville and are now occupying the master bedroom in the new house. In a way they are going through a similar ordeal as Mom & Dad in that all their “stuff” is in storage and they have to “live” around the finishing of the house. As soon as WE move into the house, the kids can move into the guesthouse and things will be back to “normal”….
Normal??
January 2007 saw all kinds of wonderful progress. Now sixteen years old Caleb, who was our “Number One!“ helper when we first started the construction of this new dwelling is coming over after school to lend a hand here and there. In order to reconstruct the hearth for our trusty Jotul wood stove, stones had to be laid up on the chimney and old and new flooring had to be laid. Once the first row of stones was in place, the hearth was reconstructed, the covering tiles were laid and the walnut trim finished it all of. Just like it used to be in the old house, except NICER!! The old and the new flooring meet underneath the hearth and all discrepancies between old and new are hidden from view. Only one course of new flooring needs to be re-manufactured (no biggie for this guy!) and then the rest of the living room can be “floored” with new flooring.
In between working on the living room ceiling and doing touch up and painting in the bathroom, Ellen lays up a few more stones on the chimney in the way that only SHE can do. Things are beginning to look beautiful!
All of the parts of the hearth were salvaged from the old house. Since the whole hearth had been under water for several days, the cement that held the firebrick base together had disintegrated as had the glue and grouting that held down the 10”x10” tiles that finished of the top of the hearth. The trim around it all COULD have been used, but since it was twenty some years old and full of nail holes, new walnut trim was made.
Just as well! Flaunt it if you have it!
No sooner was the hearth/stove project “finished” or installation of the vertical “telephone pole” red cedar was started. The neat thing about all this beautiful cedar that Steve provided is that it has a history: The cedar trees from which Steve made this wall covering started their servitude to mankind as hundred –year- old- trees that were made into telephone poles. For fifty years the poles carried electrical and phone wires throughout Crawford County, Illinois. Crawford County is across the Wabash from Riverview. When a few years ago the poles needed to be replaced, Steve contracted with the County Fathers to pull all the poles out for “a small fee” and ownership of the old poles, which he transported to his saw mill. Some of the poles were as big as sixteen inches in diameter and, when sawn up and kiln dried, yielded an enormous amount of
board feet. Some of those boards now are gracing the walls of our soon to be new home. One hundred fifty year old telephone poles! Thanks Steve!
Since the scaffolding had been moved to the center of the living room, there is now ample room for me to fit, cut and install the boards. Installation was quick and painless thanks primarily to the power nailer that made quick work of a potential tedious job. Once started, the river wall only took a day and before the first week of January was over all that could be covered was.
And remember back when the guy was “complaining” about the time Ellen spent finishing that gambrel wall and the first part of the ceiling? Well…. By the time the cedar was installed on the upper part of the North Wall it was evident WHY it took so long: Each and every cedar board met the gambrel wall and the ceiling perfectly, nary an opening, NO TRIM NEEDED! A finish carpenter’s dream! One won’t hear another!
complaint about the time it took to do the job correctly!
The bathroom ceiling received some last minute spackling and then was painted. The wall heater and the shower doors were installed and all that remains to be done in that room is some trim around the window and the final floor. It won’t be long now!
In between Ellen laid up more stone on the chimney. The nature of the project requires timing and patience. Sorting out stones, “nibbling” some to size for the space available all makes for a slow and tedious job. Then of course one has to consider the mortar, that dries slowly and does not allow the mason to lay up too many stones at one time. OH! and the walnut mantel piece, salvaged from the old house, needs to be fitted between the stones precisely….So… stones are laid on this side, then on that side and oh so slowly the job gets done. Only eighteen feet to go!
Once the side wall of the stairs were covered with cedar it was time to install the walnut stereo cabinet that used to be in the master bedroom of the old house. Earlier careful planning resulted in a near perfect fit underneath the upstairs stair landing. The flooring between the stairs and the scaffolding was installed by the second week of January and we are now anxiously awaiting the finishing of the SECOND part of the
living room ceiling. Mind you: no complains about how long that will take!
During the middle of the month the Wabash River once again decided to rise at an alarming rate. Not to worry though, the house is build much higher than the old house!
Matter of fact we are kind of laughing at all that water!
On the anniversary of the flood of 2005 (the 17th of January) what would we spot when we came out of the studio but a deer… standing in a foot of water in the lower yard. Apparently it was wounded as it made its way up on the upper yard right in front of the bedroom of the old house. The deer laid down there, soaking wet, shaking like a leaf; it obviously did not have long to live. Sneaking up to it, through the old house, we noticed it had been shot several times. One front leg was just dangling by a piece of skin and it appeared to have other shot gun wounds in the abdomen, side and back. Deer season was NOT ”in”, so we called the game warden. A sheriff’s deputy showed up and he gave
Elias permission to help the deer out of its misery. One head shot with a .22 and we wound up with some free deer meat in the freezer. Legal too! ;-) We surmised that the deer had been used as target practice on the other side of the river, in Illinois. It’s only way of escape was the river so it swam across and wound up in our yard.
Even though we decided to do some more “hakwood” ceiling in the utility room, we had enough of that nifty stuff left over to do the ceiling over the stereo cabinet. Once painted white it will reflect the light and show off the big bowl and other “stuff” that will find a home on top of the stereo cabinet. Once again: what graced the bedroom in the old house is now ten times nicer in the new living room! Whilst I was installing the music corner ceiling Ellen was busy up on the scaffolding to build up the center section of the ceiling. Since the ceiling is really getting close to being finished, Ellen goes from working on that, to working on the end wall of the landing, to spackling in the bedroom, to laying up more stone on the chimney. All of those jobs require just the right timing and only so much can be done at one time…
Before the small triangle wall of the living room can be finished off with old 8” lap cedar, the end wall of the upstairs gallery has to be finished. A temporary piece of trim was screwed in place so Ellen could spackle the wall and get the edge just right. Once that’s done . the cedar can be installed. In the meantime the last “superfluous” cabinet from the guesthouse kitchen was installed on the utility porch. To make cutting
up deer and other counter activities easier, a four foot utility light was installed under the cabinets. Life in the “mud-room” never was this good! The vacant space above the
cabinets in the utility room will be filled with more cabinets, to be made later!
The last weekend in January and Brock came to stay overnight. Now a strapping fifteen year old , he likes to come over and help out. Thanks to his presence, the shop was cleaned, cherry wood was planed and we are making great strides to make the stair steps and the trim that will finish off the house. Two years before the flood (2003) the power company needed to trim some trees up on our hill. Since we were planning to clear the hill top anyway we asked them to just cut down everything up there. So they did. When we were clearing and cleaning up on the hill we found , among all kinds of “junk” trees, some wild cherry trees. Sixteen inches in diameter, just right for a “saw log”. So a friend cut up the cherry, kiln dried it and we netted something like 750 board feet of prime cherry! At the time we had no plans for it, but now that we need some trim and stair steps… Hey! The house will be trimmed out in cherry… again flaunt it if you have it!
We have not yet set a “moving in” date, but it sure looks like we will be in the house soon… Sometime in February probably!
Here we are on the last day of 2006 and it is about time to add another update…
Thanks to the bronchitis things are moving along slowly as I run out of energy quite fast. Things ARE getting done though and the moving in date is fast approaching!
Sitting around hooked up to oxygen is definitely NO FUN!! It is boring too!!
Plans were that before the snow flies this winter the beginnings of the ramp, that forms the front porch, would be started. Our friend Don has a small backhoe and with his help we will dig the footer and have it poured before winter. Next Spring we will build the actual ramp. The first week on oxygen and all the medication sure made an improvement upon my disposition and since the weather forecast called for ten dry days, we thought to take advantage of that by laying out and digging the footer for the ramp/porch retaining walls. Since I basically really feel good, but am just weak from lack of oxygen, Ellen took the oxygen machine to the new house, hooked it up, and sent the hundred foot long tube out the window and Voila! I was able to lay out the footer with stakes and string. Bring it on Don! Three hours later the footer was dug, the dirt was piled up away from the trench and this coming weekend, barring unforeseen circumstances, I’ll install the re-bar and get ready for the concrete pour next week. Hard to keep a guy like me down, but granted, the job sort of tuckered me out so afterwards it was off to the guesthouse, oxygen and rest again.
Between the golf cart and the oxygen tube I was able to remove the temporary steps and wrestle them out of the way so Don could do his backhoe thing.
My Canadian cousin William Bannister and his wife Carol came to visit for a couple of days. Bill helped Ellen move the dirt around so later Ellen and I could build the form for the footer. This will be the footer that supports the retaining wall that in turn will support the slab of concrete that will be the front porch floor, with a concrete on and off ramp on both sides. Handy for the four-wheeler, the golf cart and later possibly a wheel chair. Hey! We’re thinking ahead!!
What? Us slow down? Nah…. Bring the old oxygen machine on site and let’s build that ramp footer form! Ellen does the heavy work; I do the brainwork and lend a helping hand here and there. We can DO this!! The South end of the ramp is going to be curved.
Sitting in the chair sucking the old oxygen, I was still able to be of help. While I cut up old 3/4” thick plywood from the kitchen floor of the old house into 8” strips, Ellen screwed them together and between the two of us we were able to build the form for the footer. A little tricky to build, but once we had a system it did not take very long to establish the ten foot radius curve. Once past the curve, we can use 2x6’s to build the rest of the form. It only took the better part of the day to build the form, but then the real work started: Ellen had to build up the edges so as to contain the cement. THAT part of this particular job took “forever”. All I could do was sit there and be emotional support! Hey! It could have been worse… I could have been in bed! “Mudding in” the sides is just like building an adobe hut, Ellen’s Indian background came to the fore and it was not long or we were ready for the concrete.
Monday November 6th and the concrete is supposed to be here at eleven a.m. Elias and Sara came up for the weekend to go hunt, close on their twenty acres and help with the concrete. By ten o’clock, an hour before the concrete was to arrive the footer form was ready and the “crew” could step back and relax. And THEN! Ellen came up with the great idea to build a form at the deer cleaning area, just in case there was some concrete left over….
Ah! What pre-planning! After the slab form was put together, complete with center drain the waiting for the concrete began. As per usual the concrete company did not know what scheduling meant, so by twelve o’clock we decided to have lunch. Roast pork BBQ sandwiches, left over from Elias’ and Sara’s hog roast a week earlier. Hm, hm, good! We had our first meal in the new house by the warmth of the good old Jotul stove.
Here it comes! One o’clock! Two hours later than scheduled… What schedule? Captain Donker took charge and between him, Kevin, Ellen and Sara the actual pouring of the footer took less than an hour… AND there was concrete left over for the deer cleaning station slab!
… And then it was done! Now for phase 2: the building of the retaining wall forms. First however we will be a good boy and go back to the rest and oxygen schedule to recuperate fully from this bronchitis. Ellen will go hunting for a few days and relax a bit too!
It is now Sunday November 12th; Elias has been up here since the pouring of the footer. He’s been helping Mom and Dad install the “Warm Morning” wood stove in the guesthouse and generally helping with this, that and the other thing between hunts. Both Ellen and Elias are having fun hunting on our “private hunting preserve” as well as in Don’s river bottoms. Deer aplenty!
The pictures above show the footer that will support the ramp that will go up to the flat slab that will be poured at door entry level or slightly below that. The left picture shows the start of the ramp right at the road, the picture on the right gives you an idea how the “down” ramp will curve. When all is said and done we will be able to drive the golf cart or the ATV right up to de door to unload passengers and or fire wood. Of course those ramps will also come in handy if one of these years I wind up in a wheel chair! Such planning! The weather is turning colder; chances of building the foundation walls are slim. Ellen and Elias needed to go hunting anyway so here’s to the hunters:
They both harvested a nice buck, Ellen an eight pointer, Elias a nine pointer.
Enough of that! The month of November has flown by and it is now back to work. The old T&G white oak flooring dried out completely after being submerged in the floodwaters and we are now ready to install it again. Tricky job that, as we had to start at the bathroom threshold and work our way to the foyer. Fortunately the good people at Lincare installed another oxygen concentrator in the new house, so other than having to put up with the ever-tangling tube we can WORK! We’re putting that floor nailer to good use and the old flooring is going down quite nicely, considering what it went through! We are hoping that the transition from old to new flooring will come out nice. Hope is that all the “hassles” will be hidden under the stove hearth… The hallway to the bathroom proved to be square, imagine THAT! When we came around the corner into the foyer we were only “off” by a quarter of an inch along the East foyer wall…Not too bad for used flooring, a rambunctious nailer (Elias!) and an oxygen supported half cripple…. ;-) Unfortunately all the cedar that was stored on the West side of the foyer had to be
moved to the East side once the flooring was laid there. So I sat in a chair, sucked oxygen and moved the whole stack to the East. Piece of cake, since the cedar does not weigh a lot. Meanwhile Ellen is still working on “that wall and piece of ceiling”. It should be said though that the end is really in sight as the wall and the ceiling are beginning to look absolutely straight and square to the adjacent walls. One could pick up the eight-foot level; lay it anywhere on the 26-foot long gambrel wall and it would lay FLAT!
Anywhere!
Meanwhile, Elias went back down to Ft. Campbell, I had moved the whole stack of cedar and started to lay more flooring. Only to find out that after I laid down a few boards I ran out of steam and had to quit. Sitting in a chair I supervised Kevin and Caleb,
who very ably finished up the flooring in the foyer. By golly what a difference that 3/4” under foot makes! Almost feels like home! When the job was done and Kevin and Caleb were gone, Ellen and I took an “end-of-work” break and it was good!
It is now December 27th and a historic day it was: Ellen declared the gambrel wall and the first section of the ceiling done, so the day was spent moving the scaffolding to the center of the living room so the center section of the ceiling can be finished. Kevin, Don, Neva and Barry all came to help dismantle the scaffold work floor and moving the scaffolding and rebuild the work floor. Fortunately Kevin had a bunch of superfluous 2x10x16’ so rebuilding a super duper LEVEL work floor was a snap.
Last week Caleb and I laid new flooring on the North side of the stove. The new flooring was cut slightly different than the old flooring, so matching them both up nicely was a challenge. Careful measuring brought us within a quarter of an inch of the old flooring in front of the stove. Some of the lines in the new flooring on the North side of the stove and old flooring on the South side of the stove even matched up! We will only have to re-cut one run of flooring to make the transition between old and new flooring! Meanwhile, hooked up to the oxygen I built the chimney superstructure as in the morning Caleb and I are going to be masons and something will have to support all that stone! Here we are, the next day and Caleb called in sick… Oh well his absence gives me time to think and haul in the necessary tools and equipment to start laying up the stone.
The neighbor kids helped me carry in the first load of rocks and now we can seriously THINK about the pattern of the upcoming job! Since the scaffolding was moved, Ellen’s superb job of finishing the gambrel wall was revealed for the first time. No wonder it took so long to do! Whoa!!
Straight lines EVERYWHERE!
While work in the living room is proceeding at a slow pace, the utility room is taking shape. During the second week of October the washer and dryer were installed and hooked up. For now there is only cold water available, but that will soon change. Thanks to Ellen’s foresight and the strong backs of some youthful friends all the heavy furniture was moved out of the finishing room and cabinet shop and into the new house. I immediately took possession of my cleaned up work space and made and finished the cherry shelf for above and behind the washer, dryer and slop sink. It’s looking good!
Now for the water system… The small Gould pump in the studio building was incapable of pumping water all the way to the new house, so a submersible, much more powerful pump had to be installed. Ellen and I took a Saturday and laid up another row of well curbing on the well behind the studio and then installed the submersible pump. The old Gould pump under the sink in the studio was replaced by a small pressure tank, which makes for really good water pressure in the studio. Another, larger pressure tank was installed in the crawl space of the new house and Voila! More water pressure in the new house then we have ever had! Shortly after hooking up the water, the water heater was connected to the system and now (as of Friday, October the 13th!) there is HOT and cold water available in the new house! Bubble baths! Showers! Wow! We won’t know how to act! The “new and improved” front door was also installed. Hinged on the left side, it now opens up all the way back against the kitchen wall instead of
hitting the utility room door. The only thing that was not taken into account is that the light switches for the entry hall and the outside are now BEHIND the door when it is opened. Oh well, we’ll get used to that. We never said we were perfect! … and besides… I was on Predisone when I installed the switch and was not in my usual “Right” mind… :-)
The installation of the new door proved to be another “hassle” The antique lock of the screen door that was very old when we acquired it 20 years ago gave up the ghost and broke… Dunno if it can be fixed, we may have to install one of those “newfangled modern” catches. For now we will rely on the door closer to keep the door shut. In the meantime I’m busy in the shop making a new threshold. It is a good day to be inside, four rainy days are in the forecast…
While the threshold is in the clamps, the new faucet was installed in the kitchen sink. Another giant step forward! The installation came off without a hitch, not even the slightest leak! Ah, we’re getting good at this sort of stuff! ;-) Meanwhile Ellen, while waiting for her spackling compound to dry, is up in the attic installing six inch thick
insulation. We’ve salvaged quite a bit of insulation from the old house AND the guest house and it looks like we will only have to buy two additional rolls…
The third week of October witnessed the mudroom door being installed. We still have to fine –tune the frame a bit, but at least the hard work is done and we can now say that all the door and window openings in the new house are covered properly!
Meanwhile, inside, things are shaping up too. What used to be the slop sink cabinet was cut down a bit, re-shaped and voila! One cabinet just for Ellen’s hunting “stuff” neatly tucked between the furnace and the wall in the utility room. First time ever that Ellen has all her gear in one designated place!
…And then…the fourth week of October I came down with a case of flu. No biggy we thought…. Ah but like every other time I get sick this became a dozy…the flue was accompanied with a high fever for three days and when that passed I was a wreck, physically. Off to Dr. Dupre, who determined that I suffered from a severe case of bronchitis, which is not a good thing when one is already suffering from a chronic case of silicosis… A shot of cortisone and massive doses of various medicines will hopefully get things under control…. Not this time…as of Friday 27th I am hooked up to an oxygen machine and am not allowed to do much of anything until this bronchitis is gone…. a few weeks they said…. Hello! So you wanted to move into the house by Thanksgiving? Fat chance! Oh well, Ellen is not yet done with the spackling anyway. Ellen, Muazzez, Jan and Doctor Dupre all say to take it easy, so I guess I will! Are we having fun yet?
“Maybe tomorrow!”
Now that all the windows are installed, things are really moving fast. Even though Ellen is not quite done with the spackling, the end of that difficult and time-consuming job is in sight. The bathroom is getting along too and it seems as the days go by the house is beginning to look more like a home.
Putting the bathroom back together is relatively easy, Ellen’s spackling job seems to be never ending…Just when she thinks she’s done, she finds yet another eye sore that needs her attention. But Oh! How beautiful the end result will be!