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.