Today 3 rafters were cut and installed while I took care of some demo and clean-up. Here you can see Ed and Hector on the roof and Mike on the second floor. The construction and installation of these rafters was no small task. First they had to figure out the angle of the roof and cut the bottom of the rafter, then notch the other end of one rafter and create a tongue on the other one so that when they joined up top, the would lock together. The bottom of the rafter also has a tongue that locks into a groove on the tie beam. The rafters are then secured to the tie beam with huge timber locks.

Here you can see how the two rafters lock together.

Ed's saying the whole roof will be on by next Friday -- we'll see!

Memomirs of the trash guy...part 102

Though you will see not photos of my efforts today, I can assure you they were valiant. Hector tore the whole roof of the other day and there was no more space in the dumpster for it. So, today I cleaned up shingles (four layers), wood and rotted rafters and beams. Hector tells me that he didn't even have to use a hammer or any tools to get the roof off...wow. So Ed and crew are re framing the second floor and putting a new roof on. Ed has this handy machine that lifts beams up to the second floor...not sure how he's going to adjust when it has to go back to the rental place in a month!

So there was good progress today - they installed four tie beams that sit on the upper plates and will hold the rafters, which hopefully will be installed tomorrow. Good progress!

Sorry for the long lapse in blog coverage -- my fingers have been too tired at night...we're way behind -- Ed and they guys are moving too fast to keep up! But here's the latest - in reverse order. Alot has happened in the last couple of weeks. We have a second floor on the addition, the first floor of the old part of the house has been re framed and the most of the basement floor has been poured -- oh and the roof is gone. Here you can see a photo of the front of the house tonight. On the left you can see all of the new roof rafters, tie beams and plates that will replace the rotted oak that has been eaten by carpenter ants and suffered from exposure to the weather over the last 40 years or so. You may also notice that the roof is no longer on the house.

Here's another view of the removed roof.

You can see the new plates that are sitting on top of old plates -- these are 8x8 beams that are milled in Rye NH at Rand Lumber.

The view from the addition into what will be the master bedroom.

Last week Ed and crew were working on re framing the first floor and replacing corner posts. They did that on Monday and Tuesday as well as installing the LVL beam that will hold up the back wall of the house. On Wednesday or Thursday (can't remember) - maybe even Friday, I put up new 1" rough cut sheathing on the back and on the front left of the house.

You can see the new sheathing here -- anything over 5/8" is considered structural.

Here's a photo looking down the stairs hole into the addition basement -- Mark E and crew did a great job polishing the floor so that it would be smooth. To do this they used a huge power trowel that we had to slide down a ladder through the bulkhead to get it in the basement.

The cement truck shot the cement through one of the basement windows.

Mark and two of his workers spread out the cement with rakes and shovels and then smoothed it out, waited for it to dry and then used the power trowel to finish it off.

Here you can see LVL that I mentioned before. It covers part of the kitchen and is the outside wall for the second floor of the house.

Earlier in the week, this beam and wall was put up -- it will help support the two main beams in the bedrooms.

The main stairs to the second floor!

New framing for the front wall of the living room.

New framing for the other living room wall -- the one that got new sheathing too. That wraps it up -- it will be very interesting to see how Ed and crew approach the roof project. It seems pretty tricky to me!

Ok - so it's hard to know where to begin this week. With only three days to work, because of the long weekend, Ed and the crew have been working at a blistering pace. Last week, you may remember, the first floor was decked and ready to start framing. Over the last three days the walls have gone up and much of the second floor has been decked. Part of the challenge with this house is joining the old and the new. In this photo, Ed is notching a post so that it will fit in with an existing beam on the old house. This is one of the many posts that Ed will be replacing because of rot and termite damage. Ed is using a special corner chisel to make sure that the corners are notched out.

Here you see the finished product fitting in nicely with the beam. After the post was in place, Hector used timber locks to secure it. With the beam in place, they were able to attach the new LVLs that will support the second floor exterior wall in the addition.

It is somewhat hard to get a sense of the rooms because the walls are just being framed but in the photo below you are seeing the dining room on the right and the front entry hall on the left and you're actually looking right through the stairs. Ed, Hector and Mike are taking great care to make sure that everything is level and square.

The photo below was taken from the Master Bedroom looking out on to the second floor of the addition where the master bath, guest bath and guest bedroom will be.

Here's the view from the second floor looking down into the kitchen. The beam to the left of the photo is an LVL - there are actually four 10" x 17' LVL beams nailed together. This will support the second floor.

Finally you can see that the sheathing is on part of the first floor and the windows and doors have been cut out. Still some problems to address with the joining of the old and new houses but things are rolling along!

Water Installation

Today Eric and Dan and their crew from the Newburyport Water Department came to install the water line. These guys have been great since day one. They put the new water line in by snaking a wire through the old water line, attaching the new pipe to the old pipe and pulling the old pipe out with the backhoe. All in all it was a very smooth operation. They even cleared some brush that was so slightly in the way. Here you can see Eric pulling the old line out with the back hoe. I was impressed by how quickly and seemingly effortlessly they did this job.

Hooray! A basement and floors!

Leigh again - since I was at school all week I came to the house Thursday night for a real treat. The progress is amazing thanks to Ed and his hardworking crew, including Rob, and Mark Eldredge (Chimney Cleaning Experts, 603- - yes purposeful plugs for these guys inserted here). Below I am standing behind our new addition which now has a floor! The side where I am standing will be the kitchen, and in front of that to the right will be the dining room, and on the left the entry. The opening in the foreground will be the cellar stairs.

Look at our basement - woohoo! - it's huge! We were worried about having enough headroom because at some point we will want to make it into finished space (for the media room, says Rob), but the ceiling height won't be a problem.

On Friday I helped out mostly by picking up nails around the site (guess I'm the new trash guy). Rob and Mark E. poured some concrete here - this is the top of the wall that was backfilled with dirt (which Rob described previously). This will be the powder room (aka half bath) and the orange triangle is where the plumbing will go.

Also on Friday, Gus and Mike finished the flooring in the study. The flooring in the living room has been completed as well. This was a major goal for the week and they got it done.

The last thing on Friday was installing this beam in the front of the house where the stairs used to be. Gus and Mike did a great job.

You can see in this next shot the outline of where the staircase was.

On Friday evening Rob and I came back over to start marking out the layout of the first floor addition. Ed made this smart suggestion so we can see where everything is supposed to go, get a feel for how it will be and think about making any changes. We laid out the walls, doors and kitchen cabinets with chalk lines (although tomorrow we're going to put tape down). We like the current setup, and are just thinking about making some small changes to the dining room and entry areas (adding a closet in the dining room that would serve as a china cabinet). Here you can see some of the chalk lines. Riley, get off the kitchen counter!

Rewind: Barn Move Part 1

Leigh here... Just getting a chance to recap the moving of the barn, part 1, which happened a few weeks ago. Our neighbor David did most of the work, with sons Sparhawk and Rowan lending a hand on the tractor. We did our best to roll it along on some round logs and posts, and Sparhawk and I helped move those from the back to the front as we made progress. Even though we added some bracing to the open end, at times it was leaning badly and looked like it might come down. But it held together and by the end of the day, David was able to put enough lumber back on so that Chip (the white horse) could go back into his usual home, although with a slightly different view.

Days 8, 9 and 10

I missed a couple of days because of having to be at work but Ed and the crew made some excellent progress. Everyone is very excited about how the job is going. On Monday and Tuesday, Ed, Hector and Mike started to frame the back addition. Today the framing of the back continued. One of the This first photo shows the footing that we had to add on to today. The other 2x2x2 footing was slightly off center. So today, first thing, I dug a new hole 2x1.5x1.5 and poured more concrete so that the post that will hold up most of the house will be able to be in the center of the footing. It's nice to have people to work with who take pride in the quality and the pace of the work. Ed sets goals each day and they work hard to achieve the goals. Last night he told us that by the end of today that the "deck" would be on the addition and it happened. They started work just after 7am and finished just after 4pm. Besides being the trash guy today, I also attached the joist hangers, dug the previously mentioned hole, mixed some concrete, helped lay the floor and made a dunkin donuts run. In this photo, Hector and Ed are putting in the joists. The darker wood are LVLs. They are plywood glued together. One (actually 4) runs the length of the basement and will be a major support beam. There are several others as well.

Here I am nailing down the subfloor.

The view from the back of the house - there will be a 7.25" step up from the addition to the old part of the house. We had to do this so that we'd have enough headroom in the kitchen for our pantry.

Here's the view from the Living Room to what will be the entry.

We'll see what tomorrow brings -- maybe walls -- but first the rest of the floor needs to be finished.