floating foundations

The northwest corner of the house was not resting on the rock pier that is supposed to be supporting the weight of that portion of the house. We have no idea how long it has been floating without support.  Martin added the shims.  I think it bothered him to have the sill up in the air like that.

Sill work

We needed to know what shape the sills are in, so even though it was 90 degrees and high humidity, we tackled taking off the shingles and the sheathing to expose the sills.

Once Martin determined that the sills don't need to be replaced (we still need to compare costs of tearing down and building new to keeping the old and jacking up the house), he filled in the gap left by the extra wide boards that were used as sheathing.  He used lumber from the job to fill in between the sill and the sheathing board above the gap.

The boards were 1 x 12 and 14 to 15 feet long with just as wide but shorter boards to finish out the length of the sill.  They were in great shape with really straight grain and definitely will be reused somewhere in the reconstruction process.

consistency is the key

At least the builders were consistent.  There is a nibbed scarf joint on every sill.  We knew about the joints on the north and south sills, but hadn't had a peak at the east and west sills.  Well here they are.  The good thing is that all of the sills are solid and rot free.

91 year old square nails

Working on an tigin is often a dirty slog.  After the initial clean out with its few treasures, there haven't been very many interesting discoveries.  The calendar in the wall was the best and the bottoms of the draws being made out of wooden crates was right up there.  Today Martin and I took off a few bottom layers of the cedar siding shingles so he could get a good look at the sills.  As I was helping him, I realized that all of the nails holding on the shingles were square.  My only knowledge of square nails was that they were hand forged by blacksmiths.  This sent me to the internet to do a bit of research.   

 http://www.glasgowsteelnail.com/nailmaking.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_(fastener)

Sources seem to agree that square nails were manufactured starting in the 1800s and continued until the early 1900s.  The nails that we were removing were square, but probably had not been hand made.  

The treasure in this discovery, however, is that the cedar shingles and the nails were original to the building of the house. They hadn't been replaced and updated at all during its history.  The nails were in incredibly good shape with little rust.  The shingles on the north side had obviously been protected by the porch and are in excellent shape. The shingles on the east and west sides of the house are cupped, but they lasted 91 years and were still doing a reasonable job of protecting the house and keeping the weather out.  The sheathing on the sides of the house has not deteriorated, especially if you compare it to all of the rotten wood we found under the roof shingles.

It was a humbling experience to realize that I was standing in the same spot as the original builders, pulling out nails that they had hammered in.

Truly another treasure.

left handed midget scythe

When you have a scythe blade, what do you can you do with it?  Actually, maybe the question should be, who would have a scythe blade just lying around?

We had a problem at an tigin, WEEDS. We had lots of briars and other tall unwanted weeds growing up where we had been digging to remove junk and where we had loosened the top soil with the back-hoe.

So, Martin hauled out his scythe blade and attached a handle, turning it into a scythe for a left-handed midget.  (The handle is about three feet long.)  Martin is left-handed and I probably qualify as a midget, but the scythe doesn't work well for either of us.

I spent a chunk of time scything the weeds on the day that Martin finished taking down the kitchen addition.  I pulled a few nails and stacked a bit of lumber as a break from chopping weeds.

You are probably asking yourself why we didn't just use our string trimmer.  The simple answer is that we don't own one, so left handed-midget scythe it is.

Update on the nail pail

Nails were first put in the nail pail the week of March 29, 2013

Nails from interior walls were put in first.

Nails from removing rotten barn roofing and taking down one barn wall. (Below)

Nails from taking down the front porch. (Below)

Nails from removing the roofing shingles were added to the pail above (not including the kitchen addition roof).

Nails from the kitchen addition added below.

Nails taken to metal recycling on June 22, 2013

One more thing checked off of the miles long renovation list

Martin had two of the three kitchen addition walls down by Friday afternoon.  That left an easy day for us on Saturday.  In less than two hours we had the third wall down, nails removed, wood stacked, and the truck loaded with metal that we were taking to be recycled. 

Martin had already taken rotten wood from the roof and the two walls and shingles from the roof to the waste center and gotten rid of it.  We have some salvageable lumber from the third wall and a pile of wood that we will haul off soon.

maintaining two yards is a challenge

I was finally able to mow the lawn.  Between a long stretch of rain, Martin and I being sick, and then another long stretch of rain the grass had grown up to be too tall for my reel mower to handle.  When Martin and I showed up on the job site a few days ago, the lawn had been mown.   Thanks go to our wonderful neighbor to our east. He took it upon himself to mow, which will allow me to use the reel mower to keep it under control again.  Wish I could say the same for my yard in New Gloucester.

the next step

The kitchen addition is almost down.  As you can see, Martin has removed the roof and the windows. If we have one more sunny day, the walls will be gone.

Martin needed to build a wall and install a door to ensure the house was enclosed and secure. Now the house is its original size.  It is so tiny.  I have a difficult time imagining living in the house, much less raising a family.  Granted 91 years ago there wouldn't be a bathroom, a kitchen sink, refrigerator, etc.  Still it would have been very cozy!

How embarrassing

After spending quite a lot of time digging to find the water valve and making a whole that was four and a half feet deep, the road crew graded the shoulder of the road in front of an tigin and uncovered the water valve.

I had been digging in the wrong place the whole time. The water valve is only about 6 inches below ground and about 7 feet from where I was digging.

I ended up spending Friday after work and a good portion of Saturday filling in my hole.  

Too many layers

Saturday and Sunday we tackled the north roof of an tigin.  This roof consists of the roof on the main house and the roof of the kitchen addition.  Initially we planned on taking the roof of in one day and the addition off the second day.  Unfortunately once we started tearing off shingles, we realized that we had more work than we had realized. There were six layers of shingles on the main roof.  Also, Sunday afternoon it started to rain, so we weren't able to get the shingles and tin roof off of the addition.

We started to remove shingles from the kitchen addition, starting near the chimney hole.  We were rewarded by finding a colony of ants that frantically scurried in all directions carrying their eggs with them.

Then Martin decided that we should go ahead and take the shingles off the entire roof, since they needed to be removed anyway.  It would make it easier to tarp the whole house and it would also give us a full load of shingles (and rotten wood).  Once the shingles were off, we found lots of rotten wood.

Martin covered a section with a sheet of plywood, pulled out rotten board (well actually he knocked them down into the house), and replaced the rotten boards with lumber from the porch.

The original roof had been cedar shakes.  The shakes had been pulled off and the nails holding them had been hammered flat.  (This could cause problems with wear and tear on the tarps.) The addition roof still has cedar shakes for the first layer. We aren't sure how many layers of asphalt shingles are on the lower roof, but it is topped off with tin roof.  Martin gets to peel all of that off on his own today (Monday, June 17th) since I still have to go to work.

Addition removal step one

Before we climbed up on the roof to start removing shingles, Martin decided to support the roof.  He used lumber from the porch to put in the temporary support beams.

front porch

Martin got the front porch taken down.  The shingles were well nailed down and took a day to remove.

The rest of the porch came down on the second day.  We will be able to salvage and reuse some of the lumber from the porch.  Martin did take a trailer load of shingles and rotten wood to the dump.

That big ugly outside light is down and stored. Now I just need to convince Martin that we really don't need to put it back up after the renovations are done.

With all of the demolition, cutting down of trees, tearing up the yard, and moving topsoil, I was feeling like I needed to add a little color and life to the property.  After a quick chat with the neighbor to make sure I wouldn't be stepping on any toes, I dug up a small area along the fence posts, added a bit of potting soil, and planted sunflower seeds.  I got a variety pack so I have only a small idea of what will actually come up.  I did plant a few standard traditional sunflowers that are expected to grow 10 - 12 feet tall and have those beautiful big yellow flowers, but along with those I should have sunflowers with multiple heads, reds and oranges, some smaller and some taller.  

China continues to be out of reach

I spent a bit more time digging in the hole to China trying to find the water valve.  It is getting to the point where I need help to get back out of the hole. I've gotten past the fine sand and am now digging in coarser sand/fine gravel.  Still no water valve.

last addition to the barn roof

Martin added some Tri-flex along the peak of the barn along with some battens that are parallel to the ridge to allow him safer access to working on the roof if needed.  I got volunteered to help. So while I climbed to the top of the ladder, Martin tied rope with a weight at the end around the end of the Tri-flex and tossed the weighted rope across the roof.  Once I shakily got to the top of the ladder, I pulled the Tri-flex across the peak (against the fairly strong breeze - felt like I was attached to a very large kite).  Once I had stapled my end, I needed to get the stapler to Martin on the top of the other ladder at the other gable end.  The barn should be snug until we tear it down and rebuild it.  The temporary measures  give Martin a dry safe place to store tools and materials.

complications

Martin built a beam to support the roof and any weight that would be on the roof (Martin while he is working on it or snow in the winter) only to discover that the stud under the support beam was floating.  It had, at one point, been attached to something at the bottom, but over time the bottom of the stud and whatever it had been attached to had rotted.  That left the support beam being supported by a stud that was floating. Not much support. As you can see there are now a few new studs on the gable wall of the barn, solidly attached to real wood.

more on the mystery plant

My favorite niece-in-law, Lisa, decided to chew my ears off about the pictures that I took of the flowering bush that I thought might be an azalea. Now that I am left with bloody holes on both sides of my head and am too embarrassed to be seen in public (if I don't die from blood loss), I thought I would post a few more pictures in hopes that Lisa or any other plant enthusiast might be able to identify the mystery bush.

I've reposted the best picture of the blossom that I have. I did take more pictures after Lisa let me know that I utterly fail at taking pictures of unidentified plants, but the blossoms were on their way out and I was unable to get a useable picture.  I tried!  I climbed into the bushes, but just couldn't get the angle and focus right for a useable picture.

roof weather proof...at least for now

After Martin finished resheathing the east side of the barn roof, he volunteered me to climb up a ladder at the gable end and help him put the plastic on.  I'm really afraid of heights, but I shouldn't complain!  After the plastic was on Martin had to climb back up the roof to put the battens on to hold the plastic in place and prevent the wind from blowing it around and tearing it. My heart was definitely in my throat watching him do that.