Whatcha working on?

We are preparing for an open house that we will be hosting on Saturday from 10am-2pm.  The annual Montana Women's Run brings thousands of runners right by our house, so, we're taking this opportunity for some free publicity :)

With this we've talked about how it looks like 'nothing is happening' right now.  We have lots of people asking us "Whatcha working on now?"  The beginning of the project, earth moving & big diggers make for some donut, coffee and a lounge chair event.  Through the winter it looks like from the outside that NOTHING IS HAPPENING.

Well, we that go inside daily DO see what's happening! AND we are seeing all this hard work add up!

In honor of Mother's Day and this run and the fabulous weather, Nathan will be working on the front and side porch and roof lines.  It will look like 'something is happening' and we can take advantage of perfect weather and be on the outside and then move inside on days that it's really hot. (The house is already AMAZINGLY comfortable when it's hot out.  Because the air isn't moving through the house, on the hottest days we've had (80+), I was downright COLD walking in the house.  HOW COOL IS THAT?!  NO A/C in this house!)

For those that don't get to see daily progress add up and wonder what's happening...

Prepping for concrete foundation for the porch

BIG things are happening when Bloedorn makes a delivery!  AND using the Piggy Back!

 

Yep!  That's work!



All switch, outlet and data boxes are nailed in place

Welcome to the crawl space!  This is just the right height for J to help out a ton in!  She can get in and out so quick!  We can squat and not hit our heads, but moving around needs to be done very carefully.  The line in the background is connecting the house to the city water line.  Foreground pipe is not connected yet, so it looks funny...

What could this be?  Why, Yes, that IS the conduit that will connect my solar panels from the roof to the meter at the back of the house!  Contributing to the grid, we will be!



Spaghetti in the ceiling!  Keith has been busy pulling wires everywhere!  Extra lines are also being pulled in.  We have a few ideas for the future of some rooms and are placing the wires in the walls in the event we decide to do these other projects in years to come.  Much easier to do this NOW, when everything is easy to get at. 



Getting those lines to where they count!  Switch boxes!

 

If you take a quick look you can just see 'In Progress', but when you visit everyday you get to see when all the outlet boxes are places and more wiring is in and your fireplace has been framed in. (Dru!  This is for you...see all that pretty light coming in?  Not blocked by a old house anymore!  This has done WONDERS for that room!)



Although this house needs no furnace, the city code requires the house to have a heat source (and apparently they don't think my fridge will be enough ;)  ahhh, how things are a-changin'!).  It's also not romantic to cuddle around the fridge OR knit around the fridge, so we'll be putting in a fireplace.  We could have put in electric baseboards, but really, the same goes for fridges and baseboards...not romantic at all!



Next Steps

Now that the house is gone, Nathan and I have both wondered where something is, with head down walking over to the old house to get it, only to find this:

and this

No House!  :)

It's funny that we spent all this time tearing it down and then walk over to get something out of it!  Old habits die hard, I guess.

Now we are on to the next step.  Wiring the house and calling for an inspection from the city.  Keith already has the lines coming into the house complete.

Nathan will be interviewed by the Billings Gazette later this week for an article on multi-generational housing.  He's also completed his work on a brochure for building a house "Like they used to...Only better".  We will be doing an open house for the public on May 12 after the Montana Women's Run.  Nathan's also made a presentation with Ed Gulick, an architect at High Plains Architecture (he did the design of Good Earth Market and Northern Plains Resource Council, both Green buildings in Billings) to a Environmental Studies class at MSU-B and is planning on also doing a presentation for Senior High School science classes. 

Now off to get flooring samples coming our way!

Demolition Complete!

The last load of demolition debris was hauled away to the dump Saturday afternoon.   Kip and Dru came up from Cody and volunteered for two and a half days for their "Spring Break",  helping Papa and Dan drive truck and dump trailers. Our dear friend Robert helped one afternoon and the next morning.  Kristen and Papa made the last couple of runs together on Saturday.  The last one was quite an adventure, getting one rear wheel stuck in the fine dirt.  After they were pulled out by another dump-goer, the last trip to the dump was complete! Thanks to all for your help!  We can't tell you how much we appreciate it!  Nathan spent the whole time on an excavator, tearing down the old house and loading the debris...

I'll sort through the videos to find some to share later.  I'll also post a picture of what it looks like now.  We've had the sewar line rotor-rootered (we had tree roots everywhere, even through the cast iron pipe, actually breaking the collar!  This was certainly what caused our plumbing problems), we've made the connection to the sewar and the fresh water.  The big hole has been filled and is safe to be around again.  Sure is nice to see the backyard!  We have a lot more sunlight for the garden than I thought we would have!

Photos below:

First load getting ready to go

Garage is gone, bathroom wall is the center doorway.  Happy to see that bathroom go, it was Nasty (notice the capitol 'N'!)

Bathtub and the 'bathroom'

Mr. Bill said it best: "What would you have done without me Snoopervising?!"  Very true!  Bill rode is bike by every couple of hours to check on our progress.

Lots to haul away...and the majority of the house is still standing...

Starting on the main house

Cute guy running the equipment :)

LUNCH! Not your ususal construction worker spread!

I was helping too!  Cutting wires so peices would release from each other.

Bathroom gone, Back entryway gone, working on the kitchen.



Kitchen gone.  This is the corner the stove used to be in.



Yes, that is cardboard and newspaper built into the house.  This was common thorughout the whole tearing down...finding cardboard as insulation.

Happy with our Team Work!

Second Day: House is going bye bye fast now...

J probably spent a couple hours in the digger with Nathan!  She LOVED it!

YEA!!!

And now more mess to clean up...

We can finally see the elevation of the backhouse!  Before now, we had only seen it in drawings!

did I mention there was lots to haul away???

Part of the trick of this was avoiding the 'crawl space' in the center of the house.  We didn't want the digger to go down!  AND we had to be careful while cleaning up.

These two bricks served as part of the 'foundation'.

Kip driving the digger!



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.