Farmhouse Addition - Week 22 Updates

Huge progress in week 22!  As many of you know, Erin and I are expecting our first son shortly and my original plan was to wait until after he was born and settled to bite off removing the existing house roof, rotating the roof line 90 degrees.  Well, as luck would have it, we ended up having 4 days of gorgeous weather and opted to dive in and go for it.  Erin and I were joking that as soon as the roof was torn off, the baby would come, but he held out for us!

A special thanks to Dad, Mike, Terri, Dan K, and Ted.  Couldn't have done it without you guys!

Day 1: Demolition has begun!  It started with the dormer, which is now a skeleton frame!

Day 1: Stripping the layers of shingle and siding.  The dormer has also been removed.  Boy was it a fight!

 

Day 1 - The mess you see in the previous picture was cleaned up by the amazingly hard working Dan Kuhlman.  His efforts were rewarded by getting to drive the highly sought after concrete buggy! 

End of Day 1: The "guts" of the are are now removed.  Basically, we cut up the roof between the rafters through the shingles and all and took the roof out in rib-like sections.  I was up on the roof cutting, while Mike and Dad were inside catching the sections.  If you look on the lower roof in this picture, you can see one of the typical sections cut out.  Meanwhile, on the ground, the hardest worker around, Dan Kuhlman was loading all the debris in the dumpster.  We went through quite a few saw blades.  As a sidenote, it was funny because Mike picked up some dirt cheap saw blades as well as a blade that was advertised to stay sharp amazingly longer.  In the end, the cheap blades were just as good as the expensive blade!

 

Day 1 - And in case you were wondering what it looked like from the inside.
 

Day 1 - ...And looking the other way.  In this picture you can see how the roofs used to be tied together.  You can also see the new beam installed to carry the trusses - it will all make sense soon!
 

 

Day 2 - First order of business was to remove the end wall of the house.  This is getting raised up.  Here dad is starting on the demo.
 

 

Day 2 - It's getting there!  

 Day 2 - Not much left.  Mike is on a mission with his hard hat.

 

Day 2:The end wall is down.  We are saving the vertical studs and will tie on, or "sister" onto them to extend the new, higher walls up.  Here we are also loading sheathing to get it ready for the walls/roof.

Day 2 - Here the walls are extended up to produce a flat 8' ceiling inside.  The two window openings in this room are also framed up.  After all the demo, the framing portion of work was a fun relief.
 

  
Day 2 - The first truss is set.  This truss sits about 4" away from the other wall.  This truss was also the heaviest, known as a structural gable truss, as it is spanning over the future hallway at the right.

Day 2: Lifting the trusses up was relatively easy.  We set them on the lower roof and then heaved them up into place.  Here you can see Mike being superman and lifting this truss up solo!

Day 2 - Setting the last truss.  The last 4 or so trusses were set inside and then lifted up from the inside which was much easier than trying to somehow push the over our heads from the roof.

 Day 2 - Success - walls framed up and all trusses set.  It's starting to look like something now!

Day 2 - View from the ground.  We also got busted in this picture having a celebratory beer!
 

Day 2 - View from the inside of the house.  You can see the newly installed support beam.  Exterior sheathing is also being applied to the gable end.
 

Days 3-4 - Sheathing was complete and the gable end ladder truss was installed.  Here we are installing shingles at the end of day 4.  My original goal was to be done by the end of day 4 (Sunday), but missed it by a day and ended up having to take off of work on Monday to finish the roof and get weather tight.
 

Day 5: Here Ted and I are working on finishing the shingles up.  Notice how the two roofs lined up amazingly well to form one large surface!  In this picture where Ted is standing, you can also see the small roof we had to frame up in between the two parallel peaks to get water to shed properly.

 

 Day 5 - After working into the night of day 5, the roof was completed!  Here I was nailing on one of the last shingles.  Special thanks to Mike who showed up after work and brought some flood lights to allow us to finish the roof!

 

 Well, here is what it looks like at the end of 5 grueling days of work.  By rotating this front peak, the original farm house is very well connected aesthetically to the new addition.

 

Just want to say thank you again to everyone that helped.  Couldn't have done it without you guys! 

Farmhouse Addition - Week 21 Updates

After a little bit of rain Saturday morning, this weekend turned out some great weather for working outside.  We moved to the north elevation and completed the soffit and fascia, angled trim, and board and batten detail at the peak.  This is as far as we can go until the new roof is installed.

Angled trim, soffit/fascia and board and batten peak detail are installed and caulked.  This week I will hit with 2 coats of white paint.  I could only reach the left half of this peak from the lift, so I had to build a work platform to reach the right side. 

View from the ground.  It's great to be able to see some progress on the front of the house as you drive in.

Here's a cool picture Mike took of me in the lift.

Sunday morning we pounded in more 3" nails than I would ever care to do again to get the joist hangers fastened to the beam.  The existing roof is better supported now than ever!  

Here's a picture from the other direction.  Pretty solid!

 Mike tackled installing all the insulation baffles.  These keep the loose insulation from dumping out onto the soffit and also keep a channel for air to flow up along the underside of the roof. 

Here's a picture of the top work platform to reach the top of the peak.  It's not quite tall enough, so I had to set up a ladder on top of it to reach the peak.  It's not the most secure feeling being up there, but is definitely stable!  (note - the ladder is not setup - its just sitting there in the picture!)

 We also spent a while cleaning out the garage.  There was leftover siding trim, lumber, etc.  Now there isn't much of anything left!  This cleanup is in preparation for filling the rest of the garage with sand and ultimately getting the floor poured!

Cleaning the garage involved moving a lot of lumber - what better way to do that than with the concrete buggy!

Down in the basement you can see the final column placement.  This puppy runs 3 stories!  It is sitting on the new thickened pad.  With the joist hangers in and beam fully supporting the roof, we also removed the temporary support walls.

And, of course, the Shop Kitty pic of the week!  Hangin out on her corner of the couch, limbless.

Farmhouse Addtion - Week 18, 19 & 20 Updates

Progress over the past 3 weeks has been very strong!  Things are getting finished as fall is quickly approaching.

Siding was completed up to within 5' of the peak.  From here up will be a board and batten detail.  Notice the two green things on the siding - these are Gecko Gauges (http://www.pactool.us/geckogauge/).  You simply flip a lever and the pair of them will hold a 16' piece of siding up all by themselves.

Moving to the inside of the house - I had to cut out a 2' x 2' hole in the basement to pour a 12" thick pad footing to receive the column for the new truss beam support.  It was not fun chipping out concrete, digging a hole and pouring it all back.  It was endless buckets of material up and down the stairs.

To install the column in the south wall involved displacing the furniture in our bedroom.  Then I put up a plastic enclosure to contain the dust.

Here is the column partially installed.  It is made up of (3) 2x4's that run from the top of the concrete block wall in the basement to the top of the 2nd floor ceiling to support the new beam.  The joints are staggered for strength, which you can see in this picture.

 

Here are the three beams that will support the existing and new roofs.  Instead of a wall supporting the roofs, this beam will in its place.  The beams are 14' long, 14" tall, and weigh a lot (+100lbs each).

Looking from the top of the stairs to the west.  Lots of dirty old wood.

Underneath the carpeting in Erin's craft room turned out to be some retro flooring!  Might come back in style some day!

Standing south, looking north towards Erin's craft room.  The ceiling has been removed and rafters exposed.  The new beam will support everything you see in this photo.

More plastic was installed to protect Erin's craft room contents from dust.

Looking west - Here you can see the beam in place.  The wall you are looking through will now no longer be needed and can be removed to create the future open stair concept.

Beam insatlled!  It is crazy beefy.  To the right of the beam you can see the "sandwich" we had to make to stiffen the existing rafters.  2x4's were pieced in, then a piece of plywood was fastened to either side of the truss to stiffen it.  Just to get the trusses reinforced took a whole day.  You can also see the temporary support wall under the rafters.  There is one of these on each floor to the basement to carry the load of the roof while we cut away material to get the beam in.

This week we also received the trusses for the existing house!  The last big item left to complete this year! 

 

Back to siding now...here's a picture of the top condition at an outside corner.  Quite a bit of cutting/fitting to get these corner pieces to integrate with the horizontal trim and trim board that follows the roof slope.

 By the end of this weekend, soffit and fascia were installed, board and batten finish painted, and one coat of grey on the next level down.  I'm pushing to get this high work done, as my lift is disappearing shortly and the scaffold you see here won't go much higher than it currently is!  It's starting to look like something now!

 Saturday morning, 9/13 - first frost of the 2014 fall season!  Not ready for this!

Thanks to my father-in-law Mike, I am the new Owner of this cool free shed.  His neighbors loaded it on to the trailer and Mike drove it out on Saturday.  Now...what to put in it?  I will probably stick my my firewood for heating the house in it to keep it snow free this winter.  It is 8' x 10', so it will hold a lot!

Shop Kitty pick of the week - owning the couch.  You may notice the scenery has changed - Erin and I decided to adopt Shop Kitty and bring her in the house.  It was hard to see her get all wet during rain and didn't want her to loose anymore of her only 6" stub tail this winter.  Her and Tippy are both adjusting to having a room mate!

Farmhouse Addition - Week 17 Updates

Week 17 was another great weekend of siding activities.  Suprisingly, I'm not tired of installing siding yet (my helpers may very well be!), but I am glad areas are getting finished so we can move onto something else. 

The 20% chance of rain turned into a downpour for 2 hrs on Saturday.  Not completely a lost day though - by 2pm, the rain cleared up and we were back to siding on the west side.  During the rain, Mike and I ran to Menards to pick up a bath tub and other plumbing stuff.


Window sashes are installed in the large master bedroom window.  If you remember from last week, they were shipped separately to be installed after the frame was in.  The smaller window to the right will be left out to allow for materials to be loaded in (drywall, etc).

West hallway - the two small windows are installed.

Erin's craft room - both windows are now installed!

Huge progress was made on the east side!  Outside of the corner piece to the right and the last piece of siding, this side is complete!

 Mike finished removing the weeds from the dirt pile.  It looks much smaller without 6' weeds on it!

On the south side, I repaired some Tyvek that ripped, installed about 6 rows of siding and put up the first 8" trim board under the soffit.  Looks great!

Here's a better view of the south side - siding is almost to the top of the windows!  We actually ran out of siding or we could have gone up further!  More siding is being delivered on Friday.

 

Another view looking east - looking great!  

 View looking west.  The windows look great with glass installed!

I worked into the dark Friday night to finish demo in the upstairs room of the existing house.  There is actually a shortage of dumpsters with the construction boom in the area and I got a call on Friday that my dumpster is being recalled as I have already had it for many weeks.  So, I tried to get as much demo debris in it as possible - although it is not that full!

Our apple trees are working equally as hard.  Two of three produced apples this year and we have already picked some.

Shop Kitty pic of the week - chillin up on the deck with the warm weather.

That's it for this week!  Stay tuned for week 18 updates from the long Labor Day weekend.  Maybe the south side will be complete!