More Attic and Basement Work

Yesterday the only work I got done was sanding plaster in the attic.

Then I met with Drew and four other people from his company about the geothermal system. Ben, the stone mason, will make a hole in the basement wall for the new water line and then close the window opening. He's also building the chase for the ducts through the 2-foot stone wall and the new concrete block wall (more about this is on my other blog!). Harold, Drew's son-in-law, helps design the system. Rich and Rick are the duct installers. We went through the whole house with John to develop the ducting plan and a timeline for the work. They should be able to begin later this week.

Last night we met with John S. to talk about custom kitchen cabinets. He'll come to the farm on Wednesday to take measurements.

Today Keith took off from work and we got a lot done. I painted the Zinsser BIN on the attic gables and it looks fabulous! I would take a picture, but all you would see is white. There's no creosote anymore. After all the masonry, structo-lite, plastering, sanding and painting, we've finally gotten our payoff.

Meanwhile, down in the basement, Keith pulled out miles of wire and copper--about half the copper is out now. The rest is tied into the radiators, and must stay in until the new heating system is up and running. I cleaned up the mechanical room even though the stone mason's just going to trash it again. Tonight we cleared all the junk and stuff we want to keep out of the basement. We made runs to the metal pile with the hot water heater, pipe and wire, to the burn pile with old wood, to the barn with furniture, to the garage with old pottery jugs and crocks, and to the dumpster with the toilet and buckets of debris and other trash.

Jules and his helper were here today putting in vents so the roofers can come next week. The plumbing code says you need a separate vent for every fixture. I think that adds up to ten. I've been wondering why there are so many little pipes sticking out of the roofs of newer houses, and now I know!

Steve and Stevie were busting up old concrete from the side porch today. They filled the hand-dug well and there's still a lot more to dispose of, so they'll dig a pit to bury the rest. While they were here, we decided to pay them to break up the rest of the sidewalks, since we wanted to get rid of them eventually. But we had them leave the material in place, so tonight we cleared away all that debris with the skid loader.

Dan applied a layer of structo-lite on all the walls of the entryway and new stairway and it looks really good. He has the perfect touch with that stuff. It was fascinating just watching his technique. Garrett started putting the foamboard insulation in the ceiling of the library. He has no idea how easy this job is compared to the attic ceiling where we had to make cuts around all those collar beams!