Down to the wire

The windows arrived and needed to be put up right away since we didn't want thousands of dollars of Andersen windows laying around. It has been pouring outside and windy and the Tyvec wrap needs to be put on the house before the windows. Since we don't have a siding contractor yet, we are going to have to do it ourselves. How hard could it be?

Hard. It was like gift wrapping a gigantic Christmas present. We were able to get Chas to help out.






The porch was able to be poured before it got too cold.

Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving at our house as usual since it's my favorite holiday. We thought we would take a break and celebrate with our great families. We had a good time (even though it snowed and we were thinking of our uncovered roof getting all wet again). The roofer (Valley Roofing) left with the roof only half covered with weather guard because he ran out and he hasn't been back since. We left him an unpleasant message on Saturday. A recession? People out of work and desperate? Not in NJ. We've gotten sky high prices from just about everyone, contractors not bothering to show up and jobs left half finished. We were at the house this weekend putting spray on foam insulation in the crevices between the roof and the stone just trying to keep it dry inside until our contractor comes back. The doors and the big arched window for the kitchen should be in this Tuesday. The two glass doors came in two weeks ago, but the framer doesn't want to put them together, the lumber yard where we bought the windows from won't and Andersen Windows doesn't want anything to do with them. No one wants the responsibility. Now we have to find a carpenter to put them together so the framer can install them this Friday. No worries.

The big push

The framing continued at a fevered pitch - everyone pitched in to help - even my daughter, Paige and her friend Izzy

The building inspector gave us a hard time with the sheathing. Make sure your builders ask the town if they want a gap for expansion or not. We had to rip out all the plywood along the sill and redo it. Also, make sure they use galvanized nails with the new treated lumber otherwise the copper in the lumber corrodes the nails. I'm learning a lot.
The floor in the basement was finally poured after we put down the tubing for radiant heat.


Here are more framing photos
A picture of the crew. As you can see they more than happy to pose!

The new builders

The new builders pulled up to the house with dust and gravel spewing out behind them. The door to their van opened and just like that little car in the circus they just kept coming out. Twelve in all and three more in a second car. They couldn't squeeze in three more? They attacked the house and in about 5 minutes the living room deck was on.

Now, I was used to things crawling along at a snail's pace for the entire summer. Suddenly, things were happening! Wait! Too late.
The walls were up. It seemed as though things were happening just that fast. I loved it. We were running out of time.

In less than 3 weeks the house was framed. Arturo and his workers (John Prevete Framers) were amazing workers. They each had their part of the framing to do and they did it very well and even though it was quite complicated, very fast. Our architects were impressed and every other contractor who came to the house asked who did the framing. They all thought it was great. We had made some changes to the plans and Arturo was very patient with me when I wanted to change something else. One day though, he said "I change nothing else! Talk to John!" I knew I had reached Arturo's breaking point. Below are some photos of the framing.

Another beginning

Well a lot has happened since I last blogged about our project. We replaced our builder because after three months the roof still wasn't finished. He deviated from the plans (which was why that beam was sagging - the way he built the roof, too much weight was transferred to the center of the house instead of the sides) which did not make the building inspector too happy. We had to have the engineers come up with a solution which the builder had to complete before we let him go. As we were digging for the foundations, we found an old well. It was a thirty foot deep, hand dug well lined with stones and about three feet wide. I can't imagine that someone dug this with just a shovel and went that far down. I'm sure many people were killed by cave-ins digging these wells so long ago. Unfortunately, the well was in our living room, so we had to fill it in. My husband and I felt guilty destroying something that took so much hard work to make. Here are some photos of the well.



The foundations were dug and poured by the Guiliam's brothers without any problems. The block work was finished and passed inspection.

So you want to build a house....

Well. I haven't blogged about the house we have been building since June because I had to clear all the profanity out of my head first. It's almost gone but not quite. It is now October and we haven't started framing yet. Why? That's a good question. Maybe it's because our builder was in a contest of wills with our architect and engineer and spent weeks arguing that his design was right instead of following the plans we spent thousands of dollars on. Maybe it's because he decided to spend all summer with the interior of the original house instead of taking advantage of the dry, sunny weather to do all the outside work such as framing and block work and pouring concrete. It took awhile but we realize we made a huge mistake in our choice of builder. I think the project was beyond him and he just wasn't the right one for us. We now have a crew coming in to frame.

It's not just icebergs

Our excavator, John Peach, was working at the house with his trackhoe grading, doing foundation work and pulling out stumps. He walked across the front lawn and noticed the top of a rock about a foot across showing in the grass and asked if I wanted it removed.

"Okay, sure!"

The builder versus the engineers

For the past couple of weeks we have been between the builder and the engineers. There are two 5"/14" beams that will hold up the entire house now that we have taken down the stone pillar that was resting on one rock. Will they hold or won't they? The engineers say yes, they will hold, no problem. The builder, the person right there watching this beam bow with just a little weight on it, says no way is he taking out the support. The engineers insist the beam is large enough to hold but the engineers are in Philadelphia. The builder is standing under the beam. Who would you go with? We went with the person under the beam. We now have two 7"x14" power beams in the basement and so far, so good. Still waiting for the other chimney to be built. Still waiting for the chimney professionals to come up with one answer for lining the chimneys. We have been told a 5" flu is sufficient, a 9" flu is good, a 10" is okay and 'I wouldn't go with anything under 12". Two flu liners, a 9" and a 5" would be just as good as a 12" (wrong). The liners need to be insulated to 'Why insulate? It's a masonry chimney'. The chimney needs to be pargeted to 'Why parget it? You're going to need a liner anyway'. We now know the elusive mathmatical formula to calculate the size of the flu (height x width divided by 12 - not exactly rocket science) and are looking for someone to install it. Summer is winding down and we haven't even started on the footings yet.

Visitors

Early one morning a couple of weeks ago, Jeff and his sons were working on the roof and an owl landed in the tree right next to the house. The next morning the same thing happened. Gary and I went up to the property at dusk just to see if it was around and there it was in the tree- a barred owl. Then another one. We stayed for about an hour and watched two owls hunting all around the house coming very close to us. We did this for a few evenings. One night about 7 PM we went up to see them and what do you know? They had two babies with them! They were feeding them and teaching them how to hunt all right in front of us. One of the babies was curious and landed on scaffolding next to us and stayed there for about 5 minutes. The babies would emit a high pitched shriek and a parent would come and feed it then the baby would land in the grass and fly off with something he caught. This went on for five evenings and then they were gone. I'm guessing they have to teach them how to hunt in daylight and then they are on their own as we haven't seen them since. It was fantastic to watch. Here are some of the photos we took of these remarkable birds.

Repointing

Jeff gave my husband and I a quick lesson on how to repoint stone but we thought if we wanted to move into the house sometime this century, we should get a professional to do it. Our stone mason, Vince Iacampo (stonemason.org) started yesterday. My son Brad spent two weeks with his friend John jackhammering the old mortar off before he went back to Colorado. I hope it comes out good because if it doesn't, I'm pretty sure Brad will come back and kill us all.

Up on the roof

The chimneys are finally going up. We have stayed as close as possible to the original design but with a bluestone cap. The brick we picked out is Robinson - Cambridge and we are using JM Construction. As you can see from the photo below, Jim likes to live on the edge.


Here is the almost completed chimney. There is one more to build.

More sand blasting was done on Sunday. The cherry picker we rented is something no family should be without.


This is the future dining room wall with some of the plaster jackhammered off.


This is the same wall completely uncovered and sandblasted.

Bobcat!

In a previous post, I mentioned we had seen bobcat tracks in the snow on our property. We were able to find it's den (deer legs and lots of deer hair in the opening of hollowed out apple tree). We were determined to get a photo of it so my husband spent two hundred dollars on a critter cam which has a motion detector. We mounted it on a tree opposite the den and in a couple of days the camera had taken twenty-four photos. We ran home and downloaded the photos on our computer. Here, for the very first time, is our bobcat:
Two hundred dollars for a lousy groundhog.

Here he is mugging for the camera:


We took the camera down after he fell out of the tree. It was just too humiliating for all of us.

Headaches and sudden stops

The new roof is going up and causing major headaches for Jeff. The building is slightly out of square so every rafter has to be cut individually. It's 100 degrees and humid. Some of the original rafters in the attic are charred. They must have had some wild chimney fires. Thunderstorms are threatening. The engaged dormers in the front had to be changed a little and we decided to put more elegant windows in them now that the stone work on the outside looks much, much better. Thanks, Brad and John. We've also decided to put an eyebrow window in the living room ceiling - something I've always wanted. Building can be hazardous to your health as Jarrison can attest. He was walking up the staircase to the third floor holding two big boxes of nails and was almost on the top step when the stairs collapsed. Luckily, they hit a ledge on the second floor and Jarrison didn't end up in the basement. It must have been a wild ride but there was the inevitable sudden stop. He thought his ankle was broken but fortunately, it was only a bad sprain. He was back to work in a few days. We have kept all the chestnut rafters in the barn and will do something with them in the future. I've included a picture of the barn.

A new face

While the roof was still being worked on, Brad said he felt the mortar on the outside of the house had to be removed and better yet, he would do it. This was an enormous undertaking as the house had been over mortared and only some of the stone was showing through. Of course, when Brad and his friend John (a fellow WVU grad) started working on the jackhammering the heat wave hit. It was almost 100 degrees every day. They removed all the mortar from the entire house. The difference can be seen in the photo of the side of the house. Now all we have to do is repoint all the outside walls. Simple.