May 23, 2015

The guys were here working today (on a Saturday). I think it's starting to become clear to all of us just how much more work there is to do here. We had a set back with the ramp going into the barn. The previous ramp (which went down to the basement of the barn) had been filled with sand many years ago. The ground water mixed with the sand and basically created quicksand. Matt had to arrange for loads of rock to be brought in to displace all the quicksand before he could build a ramp on top of it. But, the fix was successful and we're moving on. They should be able to pour cement next week in the floor of the corridor/laundry/utility room. Then they'll finish the walls and plumbing and electrical. After that it's on to the kitchen phase of the project which might be the most extensive of all of this - certainly the most detailed.

This is where the garden door will be that leads to the back yard.

I'm standing at the entrance to the barn looking toward the house. Where you see the big sheet of plywood is roughly where the hallway ends that will take you into the kitchen sitting area.

Bentley surveying the workmanship of the new concrete wall.

The door on the left goes into our TV room. That's why we have to go outside on the deck to get into the TV room (through the patio doors in that room). The garden door on the right will be removed and a wall will go there.

This is all the heating and domestic hot water lines that will run through a channel under the floor. They connect the barn heating and water system to the furnace and water pipes in the house basement.

Bentley checking that the gravel has been "tamped" sufficiently to prep it for the concrete.

One ramp wall up (on the right) and the form for the second one is built - just waiting for the concrete to fill it.

May 20, 2015 - More big changes

This past week saw the end of several old (very old and very dirty) Poplar trees, the end of the demolition around the carriage house and the beginning of the concrete ramp leading us into the garage.

Trevor Burton, of Burton's Towering Tree Service, swings from one tree to the other as he cuts the limbs off from the bottom to the top and then cuts the tree truck down from the top to the bottom.

From back here you start to get a sense of how large these trees are (were).

The carriage house was quickly becoming a breezeway with open access from the driveway to the back yard.

Here you can see the different levels of concrete that had gone into making the floor over the years.

This wall had to be taken down and the footings rebuilt. As it was, the wood of the wall was about 6 inches below ground. Over the years the soil simply rose up and the old footings sank into the ground.

Matt brought in the big guns to remove the old concrete.

The new footing molds are in place and full of concrete . They will form the base of the new walls and eventually will become the laundry/utility room and the corridor connecting the barn to the house.

Digging the trenches for the footings of the ramp that will allow us to drive into the barn.

May 13, 2015

Dorian VS the wall. It took about five minutes of Dorian struggling with it but he was eventually victorious.

Dorian surveys the fallen wall.

Johnathan looking down through the hole where the skylight used to be over the walkway.

Matt planning the next step.

The outside wall where the window is going to be removed and a set of French patio doors will go in its place. You can also see in this picture what looks like a missing row of shingles at the bottom of the wall. That's actually where the weight of the snow ripped the deck off of the house and pushed it down about 4 inches. The guys will fix that when they do the door.

The same window from the inside of the house. A temporary door will be installed here to tide us over until this section of the house gets renovated in a few months or so.

Big Changes - Update May 12, 2015

My updates seem to be getting closer together and showing more drastic changes. So far this week we've had contractors, plumbers, electricians, landscapers and arborists all here busily creating chaos in our lives and transforming our home. I'll let the photos tell the story of what's gone on since the last update.

Johnathan and Dorian rip the old roof off the carriage house. Most of the larger planks you see in the foreground aren't from the roof. They're from the floor that was torn up inside from the area that used to be our closet, laundry room and hallway leading to the carriage house.

This shot gives you an idea of the amount of debris being carted out of the carriage house. You can also see the difference in the pitch between the old original roof and the new one if you look in the corner where the roofs meet.  There was considerable rot in the old original roof but it never leaked since it was under the new one.

So this is the laundry room and hall and closet floors ripped down to the floor joists. You can see some of the water pipes that ran to the washer and to the barn in the lower right of the picture. Below that is dirt. This part of the house only had a crawl space under it. The further part of the floor (with the blue tub sitting on it) is inch-thick terracotta tiles that will have to be jack-hammered up. That was the old carriage house floor. All of this will be ripped up and replaced with a concrete slab (poured right over the dirt) that will have in floor heating as well as a channel going through the center of it that will house all the plumbing and electrical that goes to the barn/garage.

Looking up from inside you can see the extent of the rot in this one area of the roof.

In this photo I'm standing against the wall (teetering on a floor joist) and taking a photo looking "down the hall" toward the laundry room. It's ironic that the partly demolished area is in our house and the gleaming white surfaces you see at the far end is actually the interior of the barn.

And then there were three. Yesterday morning there were 7 giant Poplar trees. Burton's Towering Tree Service arrived and spent the day dispatching four of them. They'll return today to get rid of the remaining three. Trevor (Burton) wanted to get them down before the leafed out. I'm very happy to be rid of them. They do open the property up quite a bit but at least we won't be cursed with the white fluff they spread over the neighborhood each year. Last year it clogged our pool filter, our heat pump and even got into my car heater and caught fire.

They're here....

Although the contractors have been here for over 9 weeks, the calamity was pretty much restricted to the barn. Those days are done. This week the demolition began in our living space. This morning I enjoyed my coffee and worked on an article with the pounding of hammers and the screaming of a reciprocating saw in the background. This is likely to be a regular morning for us for the next few months. It really makes the washer and dryer and fridge sitting in our den seem normal.

Old meets...old. So, if you look through the doorway you can see the newly renovated barn. This doorway will be expanded and turned into an archway and will lead from the laundry/utility room into the Costco room. The door on the right will be replaced with a garden door that leads out to the back yard. Audrei has requested a cloths line be set up out there. This area of the house (former carriage house) is going to have a cathedral ceiling with a skylight in it to open it up a bit.

It's really like an archeological dig around here. When the guys tore down the walls in the carriage house they exposed the old original roof (with cedar shingles painted mint green). They believe there may actually be a third roof built over the one you see at the top of the photo. It's fun trying to piece together the lineage of the different parts of the house.

The washer and dryer and fridge had to moved from the old laundry room. The only spot we had was the den. The electricians and plumbers are arriving this morning to hook them up. This will be there home for the next month or two while the new laundry/utility room is being created. Rio looks less than impressed.

The new garage door is in. It's not hooked up yet (no power in the barn yet anyway) but it's all in place. The cedar shingles will change to grey pretty quickly on that South/East side of the house. At that point the grey door will match nicely.

This is looking down the hallway that used to connect the house to the carriage house. The wall on the right will soon be gone. When you look down the hall you can see the far wall which is actually a barn wall. It starts to give a sense of how large the laundry/utility room is going to be.

Full of surprises. Our century home appears to have steel studs in this wall. We think this area of the house used to be part of a wood room. Our current laundry room and carriage house access was likely built sometime after the former owners bought the place. I'm guessing this wall likely went in during the early 1990s but it could have been 10 years earlier or later.

May 2015 Update

This will likely be one of the last posts you'll see exclusively of the barn. Matt tells me that they're going to be starting on the carriage house transformation next week. Although it's been hectic lately with a lot of stuff going on, all of it has been restricted to the barn. From now on the work will actually be encroaching into our living space. I think Audrei, our housekeeper, put it best when she said, "It's going to be a long summer."

Here are some photos of the finishing touches that have happened in the barn this week.

Here is my pottery studio space. The walls and window trim are all done. The counter will be just under those windows which are south facing - lots of natural light.

This is the north side which will overlook the driveway and the lower lawn. All the trim is done. The electricians will be back in soon to install the light fixtures.

New windows and doors really give everything a nice, finished look. You can see the scaffolding outside that was used to do the new shingles and the new cupola.

This is a shot of the floor with the new finish on it. The finish is a new product designed to protect and seal the concrete as well as give it a nice shine. The steel door that goes to the basement is in the foreground.

Another shot of the floor. This is  the north side of the garage where the Porches (Mike's and JP's) and the Corvette (someday) will go.

The crowning glory of the barn is the over-sized cupola that Matt built. There was a cupola on the barn originally but it was only about 18 inches square. We decided to upgrade. Our new cupola is 5 feet square with a copper roof. Matt built it in his workshop, assembled it there, disassembled it and then trucked the pieces to our place and reassembled it on the roof. Here they are taking the individual pieces up.

Matt and Jonathan formulate a plan.

This picture was taken from an upstairs window in the house. The cedar shingles will eventually grey to match the rest of the barn.

Here is a view from the rear of the property. You can really notice the copper roof in the sunlight. The new cedar shingles will grey quickly on this south-west facing side of the barn. The new shingles really made a difference in the appearance of the building. It looks awesome but the garage door, the outside lights, the ramp and the driveway are still to come.