Now we're accumulating piles of demo trash to be loaded in what will be the fourth dumpster from Mike at DiBussolo Container Service. They are really great, and I would recommend them to anyone who has a big cleaning-out job.The old furnace
found a home with the excavator and John wants some of the baseboard radiators.
Gene took the 500-gallon gas tank--with the 30-year old gas--that was tucked in a corner of the hay shed.
After hauling away 90 cubic yards of trash
(and likely at least another 30), I'm surely happy whenever we can match up some of the old stuff with new owners instead of adding it to a landfill somewhere!
This has been a productive week. Almost all the wallpaper is gone.
Although some of the walls are in good shape, many of them have issues. But I think we're not going to go to great lengths to repair them--just fill in the nail holes and cracks, but not smooth out the rough spots. As John says, that's all part of the character of an old house. Nicole said she'll show me some neat painting techniques that will mask the flaws, yet are beautiful in their own right.
We took down wall cabinets in the back bedroom and the laundry room, the huge green closet in the bedroom, the ugly paneled closet with the pocket door in the upstairs hall, and the china cabinet in the LR.
I exposed an old window frame underneath that china cabinet which I left intact for John's demolition crew, because I don't know if it's embedded into the stone wall. We removed the window in the bedroom to load all the wood from the closet onto the skid loader.
I removed the carpet on the stairs and started scraping and sanding the stairwell. The wood on the stair treads is really worn, but except for the green paint which does not sand off, they look pretty good.Meanwhile, Keith's been tracing and labeling all the electrical circuits, removing all the old knob and tube wiring, and locating the plumbing lines for the domestic water and the radiators.
We're digging up the cement walkways, breaking them into pieces and using them as fill in the milking troughs in the barn. That saves on hauling fees, and will cut down on the amount of modified we'll need to level them up to the rest of the barn floor.
We met Jules the plumber yesterday. He stopped by to get permission to take photographs of the farm because he's also an artist who paints watercolor landscapes. I mentioned to him that I had just discovered a leak in the upstairs bathroom sink. He took a peek and showed me that it was a massive hole in the drain pipe that empties all the water right onto the floor of the vanity. The wood is saturated and I think that leak has been there for a long time, which may explain the water stain and bumpy plaster on the living room ceiling:
John had Tim, a tree surgeon, evaluate the 2 big oaks in the back yard. He and Charlie were really advocating keeping them, although Mark had recommended taking them down. Mark's reasons were potential damage to the roots from excavation, leading to future damage to the building, in addition to the fact that they were on their downward trend in their life cycle with significant amounts of dead wood already. Also, they will obscure the view from our bedroom window--instead of seeing the open vista of meadows and woods in the distance, we'd be looking into tree branches. Well, Tim independently came to exactly the same conclusion, so we've decided to take them down.
Charlie finished the drawings this week, and they are a work of art. We can't stop looking at them and imagining the reality of what they represent.
John is finishing the application for the building permit and is anxious to get started. His goal is to have the addition under roof before the deep of winter. Good luck, John!
I called Gary back this week about his painting bid.
It was acceptable, and we will probably contract with him next spring to paint the hay shed and the tractor shed. We're going to do some major work on the barn--the windows and
some of the wood siding need to be replaced, so there's no point in painting it until that work is done.
Also, I don't want to do exterior painting this fall. It's so wet, and I'd rather do it when the temperature is getting warmer, not colder. And I still haven't decided on a color scheme for the farm. Bernie from Pella came this week to measure the windows for the replacements. We went to the showroom a couple weeks ago and decided on the top end windows: their Architect series. They use low-e glass and are argon-filled between the 2 panes, and they're aluminum clad, so no painting!
John took us on a little house tour to get some ideas for our project. We loved the random yellow pine flooring, and guess what? For once, the thing we like best is also the least expensive! As for the exterior siding, the Hardie board is okay. Cedar looks nicer, but it's more expensive and it requires much more maintenance, so we'll use Hardie board on the addition. The random shingles look fine. John is really trying to get a raised seam roof in our price range, but if it ends up being too much money, we'll be okay with the shingles. We also saw a cute little round smokehouse made from field stone by the Hoffmans.
Well, we just happen to have a nice pile of field stones sitting on the silo pads, old slab doors and a bundle or so of cedar shakes in the barn,
and we love smoking, so we may have a little talk with the Hoffmans as time goes on.We ran into Will the other day and I mentioned how I liked the way he embedded objects into his cement sidewalks. I told him we were planning to make a concrete countertop
http://www.concreteexchange.com/
and were interested in using some of his glass as inclusions. He's been experimenting lately with glass and concrete, and told me to stop into his shop to see some things and talk more about our project. John told us he would build the mold for the counters, so it's beginning to feel more doable for us. The molds are what require the most skill. According to Jaap, the rest of the process is just a matter of plodding through step-by-step, and of course, brute force!
No comments:
Post a Comment