T -minus 1 and counting...

Tomorrow is the day the old house comes down.

June 2011

We all worked this weekend to clear the rest of the items out of the old house.  Windows have been renoved so we don't have broken glass everywhere.  Doors we will be using in the new house have been removed.  (I wanted there to be a bit of history of the old house in the new house).  The doors were basically the only things left from the original house.  The front door will be our laundry room door.

Demo blades are ready, additional line-man cutters will be purchased (wires will be holding the walls together, so we'll need to be able to cut them).

Nathan was up on the roof this morning with a chain saw cutting the beams in half (12 foot trailers & 16 foot beams - beams at a manageable size will be a good thing).  He's pretty tired.  He said if he never does that again, he'd be fine with that.

East side, relocated 'front' door.

Looking east to west.  Alley side of the house.  There was a tool shed built later that was almost tall enough to walk in...

In the alley looking south.  From left to right, dining room window, bathrrom winow, shed area.

Looking down the west side of the house, bedroom windows closest, living room next to new house

Dining room looking through to kitchen.  The house is so small it's hard to take a picture of any one room

We have Keith and friends doing dump runs all day tomorrow.  It's goning to be a batch of work for sure.

Deep sigh before another climb up the ladder, chains sawing a house apart = hard work

New house and old house roof are less than a finger width apart

The house was built in 1921 on wooden peirs.  This is why most parts of the house were sagging or falling in one direction or another.  Doors no longer closed fully & showing signs of being cut at odd angles to accomidate the new 'shape' of the doorways.  It was one of the first houses on our block of Clark.  It was  probably a Sears & Robuck kit house although I did not find the specific floor plan on any website.  It had small, intimate rooms.  Room for necessities.  Closet space for a couple of house dresses and a Sunday dress. Remanents of days with much less belongings.

The people we purchased the house from still live in Billings.  In their late 70's with both houses as rentals, we offered to buy at a time when ridding themselves of the work of these two rental houses was a welcomed relief.  His mother was the first resident in the house and until our purchase of the property this had always been in their family.  At some point "Grandma" (as she was always referred to - no talk of "Grandpa"...) decided to use the house as a rental.  From our conversations, this house had been a rental property for at least 40 years.  When we moved in to the 811 square foot house (200 sq ft of that was finished attic space), all charm had long been removed or replaced.  Years of tenants left grime that one couldn't scrub away.  It was rode hard & put away wet. 

Our friend, "Mr. Bill" with his 84 years in the neighborhood, living in the house he was born in just a block away, will be there to "Snoopervise" the process.  A few neighbor children will be at a safe distance watching.  I can't help but want to rearrange my work hours to be there too...

A little chunk of history is standing for it's last day today.  Tomorrow this part of Billings will make way for new history.  Just as the little white house was trend setting in it's time, this lot is once again prepping to host a new century of family.

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...