One Giant Skylight

Such is the fate of homeowners who are also their own general contractor:  our walls are going up but it'll still be a while until we have a roof.  Until then we have one giant skylight! Before we could put up our very first wall (that's me with the first wall!) we had to dismantle part of the existing exterior wall so we could tie in the new wall to the old house.  We saved the ship lath for Jeff to re-use as the siding of his dream garage.  Ask him about it sometime - he has great plans!

   Next came the framing and heaving into a vertical position of that first wall. (Walls are heavy.  And require a lot of nails.)  More walls then sprouted with some speed, this time built mostly in place and sheated afterwards because the bigger walls would be REALLY heavy.  Framing is one of my favorite parts of building - much quicker and more forgiving than finish work.  Something a bit out of level?  Just give it a whack with the sledge hammer.  Can't do that with finish work :)

Our friend Richard has been a huge help in our building project; of all of us he has the most construction experience.  He and I (mostly him) just keep on putting up more walls.  We have since finished the front, which will be living room on the left and maser bedroom on the right, and have moved on to the back addition.  That part will extend the kitchen an additional four feet and make room for a third bedroom in the back.  When we get this beauty finished we hope to fill up those bedrooms with kiddos!

Help from all sides (of the country)

     From Seattle to New England folks are coming out to work on the house.  It's been so much fun to have friends and family help us out.  If you're in the neighborhood come on over.  We even give naming rights for free!  No mutli-million dollar deals to get a wall or a window named after you - just a little hammer swingin'.   And if you can't quite make it all the way here to Congress Street, well, we'll take the work and the naming rights to you!  So far we have Pepere's Bathroom Wall, Nana's Nail-Free 2x4s, Andrew and Sharon's Crib Walls, and most recently, Matt and Angela's Egress Windows.

Andrew and Sharon came down in January for a long weekend of building and skiing.  You'll have to ask them which was more fun - I think it was a pretty close call :)  We all jumped in "Fluffy," our work truck, and headed off to the lumber yard for supplies.  Back at the house we started in on the crib walls which will complete the front foundation.  They were willing workers, eager to work on whatever needed doing.  (thanks, guys!)

The egress window naming rights went to Matt and Angela who helped durning their recent (short) visit to Portland.  They didn't have time to get all the way here, so we went up to visit and took them to our new favorite store:  the Rebuilding Store in North Portland.  The place is a gloriously messy maze of anything that can be salvaged from houses being torn down or renovated.  We found an impressive front door and two matching wonderful windows to complete the window needs in our master bedroom.  (thanks to Carol the photographer)  We're moving right along thanks to all our helpers!

A Dig Jig

I was mundanely pulling nails from 2x4s when I heard a deep rumble from the alley.  I peeked through the boarded up window in the back and did a little jig when I saw a Bobcat excavator rumbling into the yard.  They were here to dig!  

We have been waiting over a month now for the foundation pouring stars to align (well, actually, for the bids to come in and the weather to warm up) and now everything seems to be in place.  The digging happens today and tomorrow.  Then the foundation forms are put in place, the city inspector comes to (hopefully) give his ok, and then comes the concrete!

We're hoping Monday will be the day for our new foundation, but even it takes an extra day or so we'll still have it very soon.  Just in time, too, as we slow down with jobs to do in the existing house.  Once we have the foundation we will certainly have plenty to do!

Four people, two hours, one stud

"Four people, two hours, one stud." - But things went much faster after that!  At the end of an afternoon of work where we had planned to put up our first new wall, we had one stud in and darkness encouraging us to call it a day.  That's when Dad came up with the previous quote...

Only a third of the family that was supposed to come out for Christmas actually squeaked through a window in the winter weather, so Mom and Dad were our skeleton crew for the house last week.  We were sad to be missing the rest of the fam, but those of us here had fun and actually got a lot of work done.

 With the air too cold to pour foundation, we're working inside while we wait for a warm-up.  We cleared out all the remaining trash - old electrical, a built-in cabinet we hoped to save but couldn't, LOTS of nails in the studs we're reusing, etc.  And then we started in on new walls.  Very exciting!  We built my closet and the wall dividing the master bath from the kid's bath.  (No kids yet; the state frowns on placing kids in houses with no walls and lots of nails on the floor...)  After lots of work on floor plans, it was a thrill to walk around and see the plans coming to life in the new walls.

And now Mom and Dad are back home, the weather is warming up, and we're hoping to pour foundation very soon.  Then we'll really be building some walls - hopefully at a better rate than one stud every two hours :)

History Found

With the front porch mostly gone, leaving only a deck, the next to go was the back vestibule.  Before actually crowbar-ing the little addition off the back of the house the siding had to come off.  Here is where we found the history...  Instead of today's tar paper between wall and siding, folks in the 1930's used newspapers.  These newspapers have been hiding behind the siding for over 70 years, yet they are still in remarkably good condition.  We read through the society pages (actually the front pages of the Sunday edition) about brides and fetes and socialites.  In the classifieds dealership ads encouraged us to come in and buy a new Chevy for $525.  We read an article refuting the idea that American college students have "communistic tendencies" and one detailing a reorganization of Oregon's WPA units.  

Lots of history-in-the-making in May 1935 when some previous owners decided to put an addition on their little lumber mill house.  The mill must have been doing o.k. even during the Depression if these people were expanding their home.  The first deed for our property is dated 1918 (any Red Sox fans out there?) so this addition may have been done by the original owners.  As we take this house apart and rebuild it to make it our own, it is a lot of fun to wonder and imagine about who used to live here...

Permitted

I have learned more about lateral bracing, foundation tie-downs, structural speciality code, 16 inches o.c., and high efficiency ducting than I ever thought I would need to.  Frankly, I hadn't heard of any of these a month ago.  But in the process of drawing up plans to submit to the city for a building permit I have mastered them all.  (Special thanks to my dad for loaning me his plans and coaching me over the phone!)  Handing in the building application was like handing in my master's thesis - I had to just wait and hope I would pass.  And Monday I got the call - a passing grade.  Phew...

We now have the magic florescent green sticker posted at our front walk that indicates a permit and the (de)construction has begun in earnest.  This morning Jeff knocked down the porch roof and by dark had everything down to the floor; now we have a deck :)  The crash of the roof falling apparently reverberated through the neighborhood and one of our new neighbors came over from across the street to make sure we were o.k.  Such nice people here!

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and get to eat your favorite foods.  We have plans to have a Thanksgiving picnic on the floor of our new house.  Turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce, pumpkin soup, apple sauce, and peach pie.  Yum!  We had thought earlier that we'd feast on our porch but the porch no longer exists, so we will have to eat inside.  That will be warmer which is nice.  It will be a Turkey Day to remember, with much to be thankful for.  Building permits, for one.

it's beginning

The cast iron tub is in the middle of the master bedroom, listing on its side due to two lost claw feet.  A large hole gapes in the window pane in the back bedroom.  Insulation blows lazily around, inside and outside the house.  The house seems to sigh.

I think it's a sigh of relief and anticipation.  This is progress after all!  We have owned this house for a  month and in that time have taken the inside down to the studs and removed the topmost layer of exterior siding.

When I say "we" I refer partially to Jeff and I but mostly to a couple of guys we hired from craigslist who have done a lot of messy work for us.  Because, really, who would want to take down ceilings with attic insulation falling all over you like dusty, dirty snow?

We have discovered that the past owners of this house never threw anything out.  Instead, when they wanted a change they just layered.  And layered and layered.  We found that clawfoot tub inside a "built in," to make it look more modern, I suppose.  I can't tell you how many layers of flooring we have (and still are) peeling up.  My favorite was a linoleum-type flooring made to look like a rug.  I'm not sure I can explain it well.  It was as though someone had photographed

a wall-to-wall carpet and reproduced that photo on this flooring. Cheaper and easier to clean than real carpet I imagine!  I'm glad we've decided to keep the hardwood floors, though....