Cancelled Utilities!

Today is fun (and momumental!!) day! 

I called all the utility companies this morning to cancel, turn off, and remove meters from the old house!

Last week Nathan, Keith & Terese started packing up the shop items that were in the house.  Nathan moved his office to our rental property (can you say: "squished like sardines, we are!").  Tools & lumber & kitchen items & doors and everything else have been/are being removed and reorganized in other areas.  We left our kitchen in the old house to serve as Nathan's 'break room'.  He was having breakfast, lunch & other breaks over there.  Fridge is cleaned out and hopefully will find a new home.  Water heater was removed (and water turned off). 

Once we have confirmation from all utilities that we are all turned off, the demolition will begin!

We haven't had any luck with finding someone to come take the house and salvage the clear lumber, copper wires, etc.  We are at a good point to get this done.  Having the building demo'd now means we don't have to get our bond extended for the city requirements.  That will save us some money!  We can also start getting our  utilities hooked up to the new hosue.  Plumbing leaving the house is close to completion and wiring is set to begin soon.  We're putting calls out to contractors to get a bid on them removing it and bids on the rental equipment to get it done ourselves.

I'll let all my kiddo friends know when this is happening as we all know the kids LOVE a good show with heavy machinery!

Cupboards are empty!  Now I just have to work on the counter tops!  Now you know what I'll be doing later today!



A funny side note:  While cleaning yesterday, Nathan came across a handmade tool box he did in Middle School.  We were laughing because on the bottom it says:  Nathan Blanding B+  He didn't get an A on that project because it wasn't square (I didn't this see this issue!)  BUT anyway, it made us laugh.  Fun to get a picture of his B+ project while standing in front of an A project   : )



promotional drawings- rough draft

Nathan here...

I've been so happy building this place for my family, I'm thinking about doing it again for someone else. Being able to design, build, and do all the work of building a house is really a deep pleasure-  great phyical activity all day, a change of work tools and tasks every week or so, being outside a lot, and having a flexible daily schedule when I can go hang with my girls sometimes in the mid-day are all great aspects of the job for me....

Being able to build "high-performance" houses- pushing the envelope to make houses that produce more enerygy each month than they consume- feels like good architectural practice.  Finding existing lots in established neighborhoods like we found make building a house feel like actually building community.  We have great interactions with our neighbors throughout the building process...

All that being said, I've decided to put up a little 5-page spread out on my construction sign post that I've had up since we started building... We've just had the basic elevations on it for people walking by who were interested in what we were doing- before it was obvious...

We get a lot of people walking by- it's a great neighorhood for walkers- part of why we like it so much.  Come Mother's Day, we have a walk/run that goes right by our house that thousands of people take part in every year. It's too good an opportunity to pass up.  The 5 pages will have one fixed panel and two "doors" (2 sides each) that can close over it.  I figure I can use it for a printed brochure as well.

I've clipped in the first draft below... Not sure if they will be big enough to read...

If you click on the image, it should pop up large enough for you to read. Let me know on facebook if you have comments, questions or suggestions...

Super Insulation

We mentioned a while back about our super-thick walls...

When Nathan was framing last summer and fall, the focus was on getting us dried and closed in- he just framed up the extior bearing wals with 2x6s, sheathed them with OSB, caulked the joints, put on the "stucco wrap" and stood up the walls...

Over the winter now, Nathan has been framing up the other non-load-bearing walls, partitions, and the "double-wall" assembly for the exterior wall insulation.  That double wall is an additional 2x4 wall framed up with 2" of space between it and the 2x6 exterior wall.  All told, the wall thickness is like double 2x6's- both layers packed full with R-21 Batt insulation... R-42 when we are done...

Walls framed up on floor...

Stand walls up in place...

Secure walls in place...

When we get back outside in the spring/summer of 2012, we'll add rigid insulation befor we put on stucco and siding- that will help improve our air-tightess and get us up over R-50!

We got the first layer of insulation put in early this winter, so working inside really hasn't been bad at all.  A little bit of electric heat and the occasional blast from a gas construction heater, and it's easy to work, even in the coldest of days!

Nathan had a local spray foam installer take care of the deep floor joists under our roof deck.  If we ever get a leak in the roof deck membrane, the foam allows water to move directly through it so we could have some chance of locating the leak and repairing it.  Batt insulation there could allow water to wick down and drip a long way from the original leak, necessitating a much more involved repair.  It also should be an improvement in our air-tight-ness!

The spray foam goes on like paint....

...but then expands like CRAZY!

More to come...

Stairs

We've been working inside all winter, plumbing, ductwork, wiring and STAIRS!

Nathan got the first set of stairs (for our part of the house in the front) done weeks ago,
but yesterday, he finished the back stairs (for Keith and Terese).  Actually, they aren't "finished"
they are just the plywood sub-stairs-  the same wood flooring we are planning for the bulk of the house will be installed on the stairs as well, but we can now walk upstairs and have put away the ladders...

Nathan- with the first stair stringers cut ou with"strong-backs" attached...

Putting the stringers in place...

"Box Treads"- with risers pre-assembled...

The upper flight of stairss going in...

"Barrel blocking" for the winder stairs at the bottom...

J came by for a photo op with the "J" treads...

"Bendi-plywood" wraps around the curved risers...

The Stairs are done!  Good to walk up on.  Now, back to Ductwork!

More to come as we keep making progress...

Time to Remove Old House

The original house on 539 sat on the alley as a rental home for many years.  It was put on
wood "foundations" that have obviously settled and decayed, resulting in a roller coaster of a floor and lots of cracked walls, ceilings and trapezoid-shaped doors...  We've always had it in the plans to remove this house, and now is the time.

It did serve us well as a construction kitchen, bathroom, mini-shop and storage area, but now that our new family home is all closed in, it's time to get the old place removed. There is a fair bit of old lumber from the 1940s tied up in the house:  2x4 walls, 2x6 (and 2x8?) floor framing, 1x6 sub floor and even some t&g fir flooring.  It all looks to be fairly clear, vertically-grained fir, but I don't have the time to take it apart carefully to salvage.  If any of you are interested, it's free for the hauling.  I just have to have it down by May to comply with my demolition permit.  Photos below:

The East Side

The South Side- right next to our new home...

The North Side- from the alley

The North-West Corner

Ship-lap Siding (covered with fiber-cement shingles)...

Typical Rafter Tails and Soffit

Old T&G floor boards (above)...

Typical Wall Stud- siding boards attached...

Floor Joists w/ rough-sawn floor boards above...



That's all for now.  More updates on the new house progress later...