Behind the scenes

This is the awkward time to blog about an tigin (the wee house).  The work we are doing isn't dramatic enough to show up well in pictures. It's the "behind the scenes" work.  I could write a long litany of jobs that need to be done and take before and after pictures, but, honestly, I don't want to bore you that much.

At this stage, Martin is trying to figure out several things.  How do we get rid of the big stumps that we are now left with in the back yard before we start digging the septic system.  Where do we put the wood and then the soil when we dig.  They both need to stay on our property, the tiny postage stamp size that it is, and not be in the way. How do we go about jacking up the house to dig the basement and put in a foundation.

Another quandary is that the barn is attached to the house. To dig the foundation, we need to have room completely around the house.  Meaning we have to detach the barn from the house. The problem is that structurally the east side of the barn that is attached to the house is in very, very bad shape.  We don't mind tearing it down, but we want to keep the west side of the barn intact.  How do you remove half a barn without really affecting the other half?

Good news though, a neighbor stopped by yesterday (4/10/2013) and offered to help us jack up the house in preparation for digging the basement and pouring the foundation.  He also said that he has a contact where we can reasonably rent I-beams to support the house while we raise it.

Lastly, we need to start figuring out our footprint size and floor plan.  We aren't planning on making the house any wider (it is an entire 20 feet across).  With the kitchen addition, which Martin will be tearing down soon, the length of the house is 28 feet (the original 20 feet plus the 8 foot addition).  We can make it longer, but need to consider the overall looks, proportions, etc.  We'd love to have floor plan suggestions!  Our goal is to have two stories. The main floor containing kitchen, dining room, living room, 3/4 bath with washer and drier and possibly a small family room/guest bedroom. We would like to keep this floor as open as possible, giving the wee house a bit roomier feeling.
The second floor containing master bedroom and possibly a 1/2 bath (washer/dryer could be here instead of downstairs). We need to locate stairs going to the second floor and to the basement.