foam core reality

I often feel like a hypocrite writing this mostly happy little blog about all of the wonderful experiences that we've had since we began building Doug's fantasy house. Now I know full well that I have been a participant in this venture, and in spite of the fact that I never ever thought it was realistic, it is as much my house as it is his and so it is as much my problem as it is his. It always has been.

I know that Doug believes with all of his heart that he wanted to do this for me and for us, or so he says, but the truth is I didn't want to do it this way for a number of really important and practical reasons. It has always made me feel uncomfortable. The fancy things in this house are inappropriate for our income level, especially considering the fact that Doug's insistence that we do it ourselves has enormously reduced both of our incomes. I've been absolutely miserable not being able to work the kinds of gigs I used to do. I loved my life before this house fiasco began. I feel like I've been sentenced to hard labor for three years - so far.

When we were deciding what to do way back in the fall of 2005, I wanted to have the insurance company do the normal thing, which would be to restore our house - that's what they were going to do. They said it would take six months. Our house was nearly completely paid for so we could have used a home equity loan to cover the additional costs of bringing the basement up to code and to get our addition finished in a minimal and affordable kind of way. And by hiring professionals to do the work, however sloppy that might have ended up being, as least we could get back on track as quickly as possible. It seemed to me to be the most reasonable way to deal with the aftermath of the fire.

We had a very nice life together before the fire. We both had gigs doing what we loved most - playing nearly every night and travelling. But we disagreed about what should be done about the house. I felt very uneasy about Doug's plan. I didn't want my old house to go away - I wanted it to be repaired, which the insurance company expected to do. His plan involved a lot of work for him, I mean us. I had just finished painting the exterior of our house a couple of months before the fire. It was not as much work as the first time I did it, but it was still pretty exhausting. I wasn't in the mood to do more, and why should I be? I'd rather live in an apartment than paint another house. I knew from years of experience how Doug's projects never seemed to get finished for one reason or another. And I knew that ultimately Doug would never be satisfied with anyone else's work.

I found myself not really trusting that it would work out with the two builders we attempted to use and I'm quite unhappy to say that I was right. I didn't enjoy thinking we were headed for financial disaster as we planned, well mostly I planned, this absurdly lavish house full of all kinds of ridiculous and amazing things that neither of us had ever had or needed before.

Doug, not surprisingly, was completely overwhelmed on a daily basis by all of the unnecessary complexities of being tour manager, a job we had mutually decided would be unwise for him to do again considering everything else we were suddenly having to deal with. It was impossible to talk sense into him when he made the decision after that, while I was away for several months, to be tour manager again after all.

So you can probably imagine how it went whenever I tried to suggest a more conservative plan for our house while we were out on the road that fall. He was so stressed out once again by all of his various duties that he wasn't able to seriously consider that it might be better in this particular situation to be practical and unambitious for once. He basically told me that what I wanted was not an option. "That's just how it is - we have no other choice." Nice.

So I gave up and went along with him and his fancy ideas. I hated myself for feeling so negative about "our" dream house. On the other hand I didn't feel like it was appropriate for us to have a dream house. Just a plain old house would have been fine with me. One that we could live in sooner rather than later.

I've always been completely happy living in a hotel or a cruise ship cabin. But since it seemed that I apparently had no idea that we could afford all this, or even how little time it would take, I decided that I would attempt to disguise my feelings of negativity as much as I possibly could and just devote myself to this lovely project known as Foam Core Fantasy until it drives itself into the ground. And I guess that is what this little blog is all about.

A Strange and Disconcertingly Productive Week

Saturday 1/3: The drywall finishers worked for a little while in the morning and said that they need to wait until Monday or Tuesday to do the "final" sanding because the mud needed to dry enough first.

Sunday 1/4: Surprise! They showed up with 5 additional people to completely sand all the walls. I was at my brunch gig and by the time I got there they were gone. Apparently, suddenly, the walls were dry enough a day earlier than inspected, but they showed up before they knew that for sure so who knows.

Doug informed me that they expected to start spraying the primer the next day and we needed to completely vacuum all of the walls and floors to get the house completely free of wallboard dust. So that's what we did from 4:00 pm until 3:00 am. Utterly miserable filthy hellish work.

Monday 1/5: We finished the vacuuming from 6:00 am until 10:00 am. That's right, we only got 2 1/2 hours of sleep. It was not a good day. They put plastic over all of the windows and fixtures and sprayed the upstairs.

Tuesday 1/6: Doug went over to the house early. I was attempting to sleep in and get an actual 7 hours (which I didn't) when Doug suddenly came home and woke me up with the news that we needed to buy the finish colors as soon as possible. Um, I thought I was going to be doing that painting, but whatever.

I wasn't really quite ready to make a final decision - I hadn't even been given a deadline. I was kind of freaking out about having to make such important decisions in such a hurry. Doug was in on the color selection process so it became a little more involved and complicated, but we picked what we thought were some decent colors. We knew a couple of the colors were a little over the top, but in our sleep-deprived state we were feeling a little adventurous.

Wednesday 1/7: They started painting the living/dining room. My first reaction to the color in there was a mixture of horror and glee. I think Doug thought the color was a little too crazy, but he was willing to wait to pass judgement. The kitchen was being painted a color called silver gray and I immediately didn't like it, but didn't say anything. Doug seemed to like it okay. I was embarrassed that I picked such an ugly color which had looked so nice on the paint chip. We had the hallway paint but they didn't get to that, fortunately.

It was raining like crazy and all of the windows had plastic over them. The lighting was a couple of flourescent strips so it was really dingy. The living room color which I had been admiring for months on the paint chip looked super hideous in this light and the kitchen looked even worse.

By the end of the day, after everyone had left, I finally voiced my displeasure about the colors, which looked absolutely horrible together, and also the way in which I'd been forced to select them. I've done a lot of painting, and I'm picky about colors, so I usually buy just a pint, see how it looks, and then adjust accordingly before I commit to a couple gallons. And I do one room at a time.

When I told Doug I wanted to repaint he was not too happy about that. I showed him the colors I was thinking about and he agreed that they looked better. I told him that I wanted to paint the rest of the house later because railroading me now would only lead to additional regrettable choices. Then I told him I wanted to get rid of the kitchen color ASAP and he said his usual "I think we should wait." "For what?" I wondered. Anyway Wednesday was a horrible day that did not conclude in a satisfactory manner.

Thursday, 1/8: Doug woke me up and said he'd decided (overnight, apparently) that his choice of eggshell for the finish was a mistake and that I should hurry up and buy a new kitchen color and change the hall color too if I wanted to. Even though we had already bought 4 gallons of eggshell finish paint for the hall, he wanted to replace it with flat.

I am not a morning person so I usually gear my brain up for the next day before I fall asleep so that I won't have to think too hard the next morning. So it doesn't always work so well for me to be awakened with the announcement of an exciting new change of plans. But today, after I recovered from my disbelief, everything worked out great.

I decided, since I suddenly had a choice again, to use the new color in both the kitchen and the stairwell. It's a creamy light slightly greenish yellow and it looks lovely. It also seems to have calmed down and beautified the sort of chartreuse color of the living room. It looks amazing in the sunlight. And if it looks too weird after we move in I'll change it to something more sedate but so far I like it more each time I see it. The hall and stairwell color is definitely a keeper.

Tommorrow we look at countertop materials and in the afternoon we are going to start installing our kitchen cabinets. I'm so excited!

So far, our wall color scheme seems to be heading in the direction of greenish-yellow (celery-ish), and various shades of blue and purple. I'm not going to decide on any of the bathroom colors until after the tile is in.

These are the two brightest/deepest colors we will be using. In these photos they don't look as bright as they really are.

I'll be smiling in this room from now until we come to our senses and repaint it - but maybe we won't come to our senses. Why start now?

This dark purple tones down the eastern light in the morning, is quite vibrant during the day, and is an excellent sleeping color at night.

good times . . . . .

We've been putting in some really long days lately. We have an occupancy permit deadline coming up that we are trying to meet. Don't ask me why Doug is suddenly interested in taking a deadline seriously, but for some reason he is. Maybe he noticed that I was finally getting kind of comfortable with the lack of progress. We certainly can't have that.

Anyway, all of a sudden we have people helping us, which is great, but the coordination of schedules between our drywall putter-uppers and our drywall finishers got a little out of whack and as a result we've been putting in some really long and exhausting days putting up some of the drywall ourselves. I knew this would happen, dammit!!! We basically get up, do drywall, sleep about 6 hours, get up, do drywall, sleep about 6 hours, etc. etc. etc. I've noticed that our pace is about 15 times slower than the two guys who did most of the rest of the house. That makes me feel especially glad that I had this wonderful opportunity to participate in the drywall installation. It just makes the whole process that much more special. Right? Doesn't it make you feel jealous? It has been such a meaningful experience.

Yesterday we finally finished the three rooms that were left to do and today there were some final touches that needed to be taken care of here and there. I had a brunch gig and Doug probably slept in so we worked late, as usual. It's midnight now. We were too tired to continue, so tomorrow we'll get up, probably at 4AM to finish the cleanup so that the drywall finishers won't have to deal with our tools and other junk lying around all over the place.

For the second floor Doug ordered 125 sheets of 12 foot x 4 foot drywall. I don't know how this happened, but I for once did not check his math, partly because he didn't ask. I certainly regret that now because there are 27 (that's TWENTY SEVEN) sheets of absurdly heavy drywall left over up on the second floor. Guess who Doug thought might help him carry these down the stairs, out the back door and down the driveway around to the basement today? What? You have no idea? Well I helped him carry one of them all that distance and then six more from the first floor to the basement since he also bought way too much for the first floor as well. That was all I could do. I will have to use my brain (somebody needs to) to figure out a more intelligent (and probably expensive) way to get all of that drywall moved downstairs. I've done enough (hopefully not permanent) damage to myself on behalf of Doug's Foam Core Fantasy. It's neither smart, nor worth it, to completely destroy yourself just for a house.

Speaking of permanent damage, Doug chopped off about an eighth inch of his index finger with a circular saw the other day. So now our subfloor has blood all over it. He wouldn't go to the doctor. He thinks it will grow back. I guess fingers don't matter as much to trombone players.

some men beat their wives....

Mine just makes me be a construction worker. I was so enthusiastic last week because my foot was finally out of the cast. I suddenly felt all excited again about the house. It was so great to finally be free to wear shoes, walk easily, and climb ladders and scaffolding. But I really overdid it with the hammer. My hands are killing me this week and I feel very grumpy about that.

Our house is never going to be finished. The only reason I agreed to tearing down our original house was because Doug promised that we would get professional people to work on the new part - and that meant not us. What I feared would happen did happen. Why in the world is someone like me building a house? It's ridiculous. I wanted to do the normal thing and let the insurance company restore our original house after the fire so we could move back in as quickly as possible and get on with our lives. And here we are, a couple of musicians still slaving away on our house that we haven't been able to live in for almost four years. Four Years. I can't do what I really want to do because I have to stay home and build my house. But I digress....

So we worked extremely hard last week and nearly all of the siding is up. But not quite all of it. Because not finishing anything is what it's all about around here. So now we are working on the trim - another long, drawn out, tedious process that will probably take several weeks before it is nearly done. I got really out of shape for construction work after being laid up with a broken foot for six weeks, and now I am really paying for it, both physically and mentally, after last week's burst of enthusiasm. I am not in the mood to build a house anymore. Why should I ever be in the mood to build a house? I never wanted to build a house. Why in the world am I building a house? Lots of people don't have to build their own house all by themselves. But I guess I should just suck it up - after all the pioneers used to build their own houses. Who do I think I am, anyway, complaining about this? I am a musician who needs the use of my hands. I don't want to destroy them just because of this house that I don't want to build. That would be really stupid.

Well I'll probably be feeling much more cheerful when my hands stop hurting, my foot is completely better, my back stops hurting, and we actually completely finish one of our many homebuilding tasks before moving on to the next one.

even more siding progress

So I've been kind of detached from the housebuilding scene lately. Look what has happened to the nice neat workspace that I used to maintain:

There are siding scraps everywhere, all over the entire floor. Hey Doug! Where's the trashcan? I can't walk through this room in my cast. There is no clear area of floor big enough to safely set my foot down. I know what I'll be doing when I'm back in action. But he's made really good progress on the siding all by himself, with no help whatsoever from me. Check it out:

September 24, 2008

October 3, 2008

When we were first talking about siding (about 10 years ago) the siding people convinced us to go with vinyl. I was really burned out from scraping and painting the exterior. They said "vinyl's final." I didn't like the idea of it too much, but the low maintenance was very appealing. Doug immediately went nuts about "Cedar Impressions" by Certainteed. It is quite a bit thicker than normal siding and does not look cheap like some vinyl siding does. And it most certainly is not cheap. But he had to have it and it has held up so well over the past 10 years that we decided to use the new version of it for the new version of our house. The color is called "Granite Gray." Most people say they can't tell it's vinyl. Maybe they are just being nice, but they seem to mean it. The new stuff has an even better texture.

One thing that's cool about the new siding is that it has temperature gauges built right in so that the siding can be spaced to allow for expansion and contraction based on the temperature at the time of installation. The nails go into slots, so that the side can move as it needs to without buckling.

Now that I'm back at work with somewhat limited use of my foot (no ladders for now) I'm putting up the siding in the lower sections while Doug works from the ladder. Doug has figured out a way for me to use the hammer with no risk of injury to my fingers. So I hold the nail with the needle-nosed plyers in my left hand and hammer with my right hand. Two tools at one time - aren't I something. By the way, the hairy arm shown below is not mine! I couldn't get Doug to take the picture I wanted so I photographed him doing it instead.

One thing I've noticed is that I seem to have a lot more control over the hammer when I used a backhand stroke. Isn't that weird? It seems so wrong. Maybe it's because in real life I play with a French bow and the backhand stroke of the hammer approaches the nail just like an upbow. The normal forehand hammer stroke seems more similar to the way the German bow is used. I guess we all can figure out what I'd rather be doing.

blah blah blah blah blah......

I've been feeling a little detached and uninvolved in the housebuilding process recently. My broken foot has been the main cause of this. It is extremely frustrating to not be able to work on my house. When both of us are there it seems like we get three times as much work done as when it's just Doug. That's mostly because I help him arrive at decisions faster when I'm there, and believe me, there are tons of tiny decisions that need to be made all day long. And I haven't been there.

Not being there is stressful because one of my "jobs" is to make sure that Doug doesn't engage in risky behavior while he's up on the ladder. I have no idea how far over he's leaning over or whether the bottom of the ladder is sufficiently stable. I cringe to think about it. Maybe he's more careful when I'm not there. I can only hope is that he is so careless about safety in front of me because he enjoys hearing how much I care about him when I yell at him about how unsafe he's being. That's kind of sick, isn't it?

We've both had our share of injuries which have slowed down the progress of the house. Mine tend to come from over use and Doug's are usually from accidental mishaps. We both messed up our knees and totally trashed our backs carrying in 25 of the new windows all in one day. My hands were stiff for months last year after I dismantled all of the old stud walls. My knees didn't enjoy that activity much either. Last fall when Doug decided that planting 2500 liriope would be an excellent activity for me, I ended up with a mild case of carpal tunnel syndrome. And my broken foot is the most recent housebuilding injury. It happened as an encore to the sprained ankle on the other foot. Doug's first house related injury was when he tripped in the dark over a circular saw that he had neglected to put away. He hit his chin on something on the way down and his teeth seriously cut into his bottom lip. Ouch!!! He couldn't play for a while but he used his other skills to deal with that. When we were carrying in all of the windows he thought he had a hernia, but it turned out to be "just" a strained groin muscle. Last spring he mis-stepped and fell through the floor joists on the porch and cracked one of his ribs. He's had occasional hand issues because of the nail gun, but he sometimes wears anti-vibration gloves to help with that. I always wear work gloves when handling wood and I haven't gotten a single splinter. As a bass player, I am terrified of getting splinters. Thankfully neither of us have suffered any permanent injuries. I think we're actually going to make it through this ordeal relatively unscathed!

Doug has been putting up the siding kind of randomly recently. He wants to get all of the tricky parts out of the way before we do any more big areas. I say "we" because I'm due to get my final X-ray tomorrow where the doctor tells me my foot is fully healed and I can get back to work next week. Wish me luck! Anyway, the screened-in porch has a bunch of different angles and we have to figure out how to do the siding and trim it attractively which means that sometimes we need to work through different opinions about what is attractive. I'm usually trying to find the least complicated way to make it look good whereas Doug seems to be highly attracted to complicated ways of doing things. So we are constantly trying to find the balance between those two philosophies.

It constantly amazes me the way "men" seem to think that carpentry and construction require mysterious abilities that only certain people have. There seems to be a certain mystique associated with it or something. I prefer the practical and matter-of-fact attitude that is presented in the Journal of Light Construction and Fine Homebuilding. We've both been reading these magazines for at least 10 years.

It seems to me that the main things that are required to do a good job building a house include common sense about structure and how things go together, measuring accurately, and using materials of good quality. It is no different than sewing in that regard. At this point, having done quite a bit of both, I actually think that sewing is more complicated. I am really grateful that I have that background because I've managed to come up with some solutions for our house that I know damn well came from the sewing part of my brain. The similarities are really quite amazing. The biggest difference between the two is the physical part. It's definitely not the most ideal activity for a couple of musicians, that's for sure.

more siding progress....

The siding has gotten a little farther along. Doug's been working pretty hard although it probably doesn't look like that much progress has been made. When we are working together we get about 3 times as much work done as Doug does when he is working by himself.

I have about 3 more weeks before my broken foot comes out of its cast and I'm really looking forward to getting things back into high gear. The trimboards were kind of tricky to put up because there is a lot of shimming involved. And as you can see there is still a bit of trimwork left to do in the front. But our goal right now is to get up all of the siding and then go back and finish the trim. I'm so glad he covered those gable boxes though.

When Doug showed this blog to his friend Steve at the car show, Steve commented that in Canada where he's from they call those little windows like the ones on the first floor "piano windows". I had no idea - I guess my instincts for choosing windows for the piano room were right on target.

I got Doug to make a little house on the side of the house to enclose all of the utility ugliness. It even has the same green shingles on the roof. There will be a removable panel on the front and a hole to read the electrical meter through. So it won't look like this for too much longer.

This is our electrical box plus the 3 phase stuff that Doug had to have and the FIOS conduit. The hideousness of all this equipment was driving me nuts, especially since it's so near the front of the house.

Now that the broken bone in my foot is starting to feel a little better, I can see that I'm going to have to get out there in my cast and mow the lawn. I have no experience in nagging Doug to mow the grass since I've always just done it myself. So far, the gentle suggestions have not resulted in any grass mowing action on his part.

Siding Progress

Today Doug finished the siding on the front of the house and put the trimboards up for most of the front windows. I'm really looking forward to seeing the cornerboards now!

These two vents look surprisingly good, in spite of the fact that they are on the front of the house.

We experimented a little bit with window trim styles.

For now we are going to stick with the plain ones. After we install the cornerboards and finish jazzing them up with crown moulding, we will know whether or not the windows need something fancier. For now I kind of like the understated and simple look. I think it fits well with the style of the house.

Beginners' Luck

We passed our big inspection! Yaay!
We've never built a house before, but apparently we are doing it right. We now have official permission to finish the house. It is a big relief and we are thrilled to have reached this milestone.

The three parts of today's inspection were:
Framing - passed
Electrical - passed
Mechanical - passed

The next inspection is the Final Inspection!!!

More Odds'n'Ends

No photos this time - unfortunately the appearance of our house has not changed much during the last month. Things are kind of poking along and hopefully that will change as soon as we get our big inspection.

Doug wants/needs a 3 phase electrical hookup for his mouthpiece equipment and although we applied, paid for, and received permission for a residential version of this, the power company sent out a commercial inspector who wasn't familiar with residential meter applications and we had to redo everything to meet commercial requirements. We have to add some extra things to the box on the outside of the house and it's been kind of a pain for everyone involved.

In the meantime we ordered the replacement basement steps from the same excellent company that made our upstairs stairs. Doug installed them and they look great and feel really solid. They are at the correct steeper angle now so we have more floor space, more clearance overhead, and more useable room underneath them. Doug is going to have an excellent office/studio area now.

Doug finished up with the bathroom exhaust vents and is almost finished with the central vacuum. I still can't believe that we are having such a thing in our house. It wasn't my idea. We saw it at a home show and Doug went nuts and bought one immediately.

There are two outlets on each floor and the hose stretches (hopefully) to all corners of the house. There are also going to be two plates at floor level in the kitchen that kick open with your foot that will suck up anything that you sweep up to it. Supposedly the system is very quiet and the suction is greater than any normal vacuum cleaner. All of the dirt goes from the hoses down through pipes in the wall into a can in the basement that gets emptied out every couple of months or so. I don't think we need something this fancy, but it will probably be fantasically convenient after I get used to it.

Also this month Doug did a week long tour and went to the trombone festival in Salt Lake City. I'm glad he got a break, even though it always delays the progress when he goes out of town.

I should talk.... I really haven't been helping much lately. Between gigs it's all I can do to keep the grass mowed. We didn't used to have so much grass, or maybe it's that grass takes longer to mow than weeds. I had a nice break last week playing at the Glenn Miller Festival. As soon as Doug is finished generating sawdust I will be scraping off all of the foam that has seeped through the cracks and doing a thorough vacuuming of all surfaces in preparation for wallboard. That's a bigger job than you might imagine.

But I really really really mostly want to hurry up and start putting the rest of the siding on. I will be so happy when that happens!

OUR FABULOUS KITCHEN PLANNING EXPERIENCE

Our contractor told us we had better hurry up and order our kitchen cabinets because it would hold things up if they didn’t arrive in time. We started meeting with a fantastic kitchen designer who used the architect’s kitchen plans as a starting point and turned our kitchen into something incredible.

It was an amazing experience that we thoroughly enjoyed. Kathy Schmick at Smoot Lumber is awesome. When we were first planning our house the architects kept implying that we could only afford standard stained wooden cabinets,not the painted ones that I wanted. But now I’m getting high quality (at Doug’s insistence) cabinets by Bertch in a really groovy blue-greenish color. I’m kind of in awe of them, and very excited. The day after I picked them out I bought a copy of Architectural Digest and there was a featured kitchen in exactly the same color. It looked fantastic!

We are getting tons of drawers and lots of counter space and storage. Doug is getting two microwaves, a convection oven and he insisted that we get a double drawer dishwasher. Cyndy is delighted to be getting a dishwasher, period, and also two sinks (one for Doug on the other side of the kitchen). I don’t know why we need such a fantastic kitchen but somehow that is what we are getting.

The cabinets will arrive in May right after the wallboard goes up. The timing should work out perfectly.

The bookcase in the lower left corner is the same color as our cabinets.
Imagine an entire kitchen that color!

WE ARE GETTING TOO OLD FOR THIS

After they finished installing the water line not much else happened for the remainder of December. The 25 Anderson windows I ordered earlier this fall arrived on December 18th and Doug and I carried all of them up the stairs and into the house that same day. Carrying windows is a very physically awkward activity. We both completely trashed our backs and visited the chiropractor more often than usual for the rest of the month. In addition, Doug thought he had a hernia, but it turned out to be “only” a sprained groin muscle. Needless to say, we had to take it easy for a couple of weeks.

All that Remains....

When they finished tearing down our house and finished hauling it all away we both felt kind of empty and yet also very relieved. It had been difficult to see our house in such a state of disrepair for well over a year.

But now we can finally begin to move on.

This is when they were beginning to fill in the former basement.

Our house is smaller but our front yard is bigger.

They left a big trench in front of the house so that Doug could do the parging and then apply the tar and plastic sheeting all the way down the front foundation wall. Then he added a drainage system. Thanks to all of this we should never have a wet basement.

This new, smaller version of our house does not look so good just yet. It is rather unattractive and a little sad without any windows in the front.
Maybe we should plant some grass now.

Installing the Upstairs Wall

We finally installed the foam core panels into the remaining open front wall surface on the second floor. This was the trickiest thing we've had to do so far. The panels had to be cut and assembled with extreme accuracy and in a very definite order for it all to work. It did work, but it felt kind of like climbing a cliff - scary, and once you start you have to keep going no matter what. And those damn panels are HEAVY!

Here is the center top gable section just before it was pushed into place. This was taken on a cell phone and the lighting wasn't so great. We put in a lot of really late nights working on this - because it was cooler at night. The horizontal thing going across the middle of the picture is a collar tie.



Here I am exhibiting my Herculean strength, pushing that center panel into place. Besides the weight, there was the also the friction of the splines. But the wet glue made a nice lubricant, so pushing it up wasn't as hard as it might have been. hmmm.... Then I had to hold it in place while Doug nailed it with his big strong nail gun.


And now I am inserting the splines into the bottom piece, this time after it was installed because that was an easier way to assemble it on this piece. There is going to be a window in the middle part so we'll just leave that section open for now.

Okay, now I really need a vacation. Scotland here we come!

Preparing the Foam Core Panels for Installation

Here is the melting device that we use to remove the foam so that we can insert the panels over the awaiting 2x6s. It is a heating element that is sized to fit in the foam section between the two layers of OSB. The foam needs to be taken down to a certain level so that the 2x6s will fit exactly between the OSB layers. So instead of cutting the foam out, we are melting it out. The cross piece on the heating element adjusts to accomodate the exact depth of the 2x6.



Somebody commented that our house smells like a crystal meth lab after we've been melting foam. So I want to know how would they even know that? Notice the happy expression accompanying the lack of gas mask.
BRAIN DAMAGE ALERT!!!



The foam is cleaned out and we are ready for insertion.
oooh, that sounds dirty....

Almost Ready to Install the Front Wall

Doug is so happy about having finally finished sawing the house apart. He stands proudly by the light-emitting gap that he created with his mighty saw.



We've put in the 2x6s around the perimeter of the 2nd floor and attic. They are now ready to receive the panels.



Here is the collar tie system that Doug came up with back in 1995 for the roof structure. It's probably overkill, but it works and more importantly, the structural engineer passed it.



This is the final shot of the exterior wall of the old house, which thankfully kept the fire from spreading into the addition. We are putting up the new wall right next to it so soon it will no longer be visible. It's weird way of doing it but it's also the only way, and we are pretty sure it will work.

Installing the Floors and Moving the Panels

During the month of July we removed the basement steps and installed the subfloor on the main level, which means that we can now only access the basement from the outside.

After we put in the floor, we installed the new front wall panels on the main level.

Then we used a pulley to lift the panels for the 2nd floor up through the floor joists.


We stored them in "hallway" of the main section of the upstairs, which already had a floor installed.

Once we got all of the panels we needed moved upstairs we put down the subfloor in the open areas that had originally been designated for the stairwell in the former design. We left a little opening around the wooden ladder that we've been using all this time to get to the 2nd floor.