Rebuilding From the Underground Up

Ryan started the second week of November in the backyard. We don't actually have many trees on our property, but our neighbors Bonnie and Art have a quite a few in their yard that like to grown into ours. Most the trees are the hearty Mulberry variety, which if you know Mulberry's, you know how quickly they can become unruly. So the Mulberry branches had wound their way into our yard, even wrapping around electrical lines. We also have a large rhododendron by the garage that had long since passed the point of control. Ryan wanted to tidy up the yard before the first snow and start the spring with a clean slate as far as landscaping goes. We actually don't plan to do anything extravagant with the yard. We do have plans for a deck, but would like to keep the yard fairly simple besides. One thing we're not sure about is what we want /will be able to do with the cement structure that we found out was a fish pond in the past. It's poured concrete and appears to be quite solid and unlikely to give up easily, so we'll have to see about that come spring.

With some branches and shrubs already down from work that we did earlier, Ryan rented a chainsaw and chipper and decided to finish off the job. He had hoped to have the rentals back by 1:30pm the same day he rented them to get back some money, but by noon it was clear that the project was going to be a day-long event. When he left that house that morning, he was excited to play with his rented "toys," but by the time I stopped by the house on my way to work, the novelty had worn off and the battle with the chipper had begun. Apparently, the chipper doesn't do all the work and there's quite a fight that occurs just trying to get the brush through so that it can become mulch. It was a long day, but the backyard looks large and neat and ready for the winter.

As I mentioned in my last posting, Ryan started taking down the left chimney in the front room that proved to be even more unstable that we had guessed. We are thinking about possibly leaving some of it to incorporate into built-in shelving on that side of the room. It would be an interesting look, but we're not sure yet if we like it. For the time being, that part of the chimney will stay.

On Tuesday night Ryan was finally able to attend the HARB (historic architectural review board) meeting. We had been warned by numerous people about difficulty with the board and obtaining approval from them and were nervous that they might be a roadblock in our plans. After all that build-up, Ryan met with the board for all of five minutes and they quickly approved our plans. Like many problems, it seems that we are able to avoid any issues with the board by presenting our plans clearly and professionally. Ryan reported that they were glad to see someone working on the house and appreciated our well put together proposal.

On Thursday and Friday Ryan prepared the foundation for "man weekend" by cleaning out the mortar joints of the stone foundation with a wire brush and pointing tools and an air brush. A while back I wrote about pointing in relation to a description of the brick work in the house. The foundation is made of bluestone in varying sizes and besides a few patch jobs it has not been touched since the house was built. Ryan needed to clean-out the old disintegrating mortar and get the walls ready to be reinforced with new mortar. Pointing itself refers specifically to packing in the mortar. The process/method is usually referred to as tuck and point, which is sort of an all encompassing term, but the tuck describes applying the mortar and point refers to adjusting it and packing it into the crevices between the stone. As we start the rebuilding process, the foundation is the first and most important piece of the puzzle. The crevices between the stone have to be tightly packed with mortar to stabalize the foundation and make sure that it's prepared to last another 150 years.

Late Friday night our friends Mark (you may remember him from September entries when he was here with his wife Kate) and Pete, another of Ryan's roommates from college, arrived in town from Boston. We are very appreciative that they were able to take time out of their busy work schedules to come down and hang out and do some work. I had to work Saturday morning, but the boys headed over to the house to begin re-pointing the foundation. I arrived after lunch to join the party. The work is not physically demanding besides an ache in the arm form working the mortar into the crevices. It's fairly mindless work that at the same time must be done with attention to detail. I followed Ryan, Mark, and Pete with a wet sponge which I used to smooth the mortar that had been applied so that when Ryan paints over the walls, the waterproofing sealer will go on smoothly and easily. Sera, one of my coworkers stopped by to lend a hand later in the afternoon and we had a quite a crew going by the end of the day. Since we had joined the work so much later, Sera and I were still in the groove of work when we ended around 5:30, but Ryan, Mark, and Pete were loosing focus and spending more time sipping beers than mixing mortar by days end as the task became tiring. We got the large room done, but Ryan will have to tackle the back room of the basement this week before Thanksgiving.

It was great to see some friends and it continues to be amazing how willing our friends are to help us out with this project. It's exciting to think about how many people will have had a hand in the restoration of the Zeller house by the time the project is completed!

A Variety of New Projects

I think it's two weekends away from work on the house in a row and the fact that the current projects are not as satisfying as pouring a slab and seeing the finished product right away that have made things seem a little bit less productive lately. Anyway, it has felt that way recently, but it's really not the case. I know Ryan has felt a little bit scattered as he's had to reset his focus after the first round of concrete play and although I'm not refocusing on actually doing the work, I do have to think about writing about it.

So when I last wrote the slab was done and the forms had been poured in the basement. Maybe you felt a sense of finality with that task, I know I did. Unfortunately, the battle with the concrete was far from over as Ryan learned last week. Because some of the forms had not been able to withstand the concrete as it rushed out of the larger tube, the liquid concrete had splattered all over the basement floor. There was really nothing that could be done about this until everything dried, so last week Ryan began the arduous task of breaking up the misplaced concrete with a sledgehammer and carting it out of the basement. There was more of it than he thought and removing it was a real hassle, as would be any difficult task that could have been avoided. So there was concrete where there shouldn't have been any and there was concrete missing where there should have been some. By Wednesday, the clean-up was sufficient and the repair began. For the money and the convenience, it made more sense to mix the concrete by hand than bring in another truck for the touch-up work. By Friday Ryan had gone through 58 bags of Quickcrete. The local building supply store thought Ryan was crazy and I think everyone was in agreement by the end of the week after Ryan spent three days mixing bag after 80lb. bag of concrete by hand in a wheel-barrow. Ryan himself said that the simple the moral of the project is: "An 80lb bag of quickcrete doesn't go very far."

Between bags of concrete, Ryan started another project. You know that the back addition has been taken apart and is starting to come back to life, but the side porch was still intact. It too, is structurally unsound and although it too will be back, it has to come down first, so Ryan began dismantling it from the inside out.

The week ended and it looked like the battle of the concrete was over. We were away all weekend and the first half of Monday in New York. I know you must think I'm a slacker, just writing about the work, never doing much, but I did do some hard work this weekend. I ran the NYC marathon. In short, a great marathon and a great experience, I recommend it to everyone. Ryan jumped back into work on Tuesday, building the new floor system for the kitchen starting with the rim board, the ledger board, and then the floor joists and bolting this all to the finished concrete knee-wall. He wrapped up early on Tuesday to get to the monthly HARB (Historical Architectural Review Board) meeting. Unfortunately when they say that they meet on the second Tuesday of the month, they actually mean it, since last Tuesday was not yet November. A bit frustrated that he had knocked-off early for a non-existent meeting, Ryan headed to work early on Wednesday. I stopped by that day and saw all the joists in. The floor joists are 2 x 10 boards. I noted that the new joists look new and clean, but a lot thinner than the old rotten ones that we removed. Ryan explained that they don't make joists that large anymore. Even a 2 x 10 is not the same size as it used to be. Pretty confusing to me that 2 x 10 could change, but these days 2 x 10 really means 1.5 x 10. By the time I stopped by on Thursday afternoon, the OSB (oriented strand board), otherwise known as the sub-floor was in. This board is essentially made up of wood-chips and resin and is all made to be fitted together through a tongue and groove system. In the past, the resin in OSB has contained formaldehyde, but a few companies have started to make a formaldehyde free resin. We were able to use this more environmentally friendly product for the kitchen sub-floor and plan to continue to use it throughout the house.

When I stopped by today, the kitchen floor was done and Ryan was nowhere in sight. The first thing I noticed, however, was that the living room is once again full of bricks and when I looked to my left, I realized why. Ryan had begun taking apart the chimney on the left in the front room. We have decided to restore the fireplace on the right and probably turn it into a new type of gas fireplace that is ventless and 90% efficient. Ryan called to me from upstairs and I climbed up the ladder. It turns out that even though he had reinforced the chimney on the second floor, as he began to take it apart on the first floor, the second floor section began to come away from the wall and bricks began falling. Ryan spent the rest of the afternoon making sure the second floor section would stay up through the night. What's the worst that could happen I thought? If the second floor chimney fell on it's own that would be less work, right? Well, not if it fell right through the second floor into the front room on the first floor! Since it was such a beautiful day here in Lewisburg, high sixties, not a cloud in the sky, Ryan took off early for a bike ride. Yes, in case you were wondering, he does do other things.

In other news, if you've driven by the house lately you may have noticed the sign in the window. It says Champagne Carpentry, Green and Sustainable Building, and there's a phone number. You might be wondering, did we give up? Who have we hired to do the job for us? Not to worry, Champagne Carpentry is Ryan. He's got his own business and will be doing other work throughout the year, so don't hesitate to stop by or get in touch with him if you need some work done.

Another exciting development is the discovery of the CPGBC (Central Pennsylvania Green Building Council) Who knew Central PA was so on board with green building? Ryan is now a full-member and if he hadn't been wrestling concrete he would have attended his first seminar in Harrisburg this week. It's exciting to know that California isn't the only state taking an interest and moving forward with green building and education.

We'll probably make this a work weekend and we're looking forward to the following weekend when we will be joined for the second time by our friend Mark and for the first time by another friend, Pete. This is the first in a planned succession of "Man Weekends" at the house. I plan to make myself scarce...

Lastly, to respond to one of our reader's comments to " Please post a blog about how your relationship has matured (or immatured, is that a word?) because of this remodel." we would like to say that although we had a brutal argument back in September the first time we discussed the layout, things have been going smoothly every since:)