Sheetrock!

Nothing makes it look more like a house when the sheetrock goes up. As expected these guys who did it were amazing and carried these 14' sheets of rock like they were made of air.

It looks amazing!

A way down.

It's an exciting day as two of the staircases go in, not sure how the second one will get in place as it weighs about 1000 pounds and, no offense, the crew is a little long on the tooth! 

These are the steps to the basement. Awesome!

Finally the walls go up!

It's actually starting to look like a house. With the sheet rock up you can definitely see and feel how the rooms are going to be when finished.

 The crew putting this stuff up worked until about 7pm one night to get it done on time. We felt a little guilty sitting down to dinner when they were still working.

Looks Great!!

Getting Cold Outside!

The guys were here the other day spraying foam insulation in part of the house. This is a view of the bedroom 2 ceiling.

We also foamed the plumbing in the exterior walls.

Everywhere else in the house we used batt insulation. 

Staining the siding

Prior to putting up the siding it was stained on both sides. It was a bit cold outside so it was spread around the house so it could dry!

Chimney Complete, Almost

So this is the state of the chimney currently, once the interior floor is finished they will veneer the outside but the structure is done. That's a whole lot of block!

Prior to the roof going on they had to veneer the outside of the chimney so that they would't damage the roof, it looks great!

Roof and Siding going up

We are finally seeing some real progress on the exterior of the house. After painstakingly picking colors out of too many choices we are seeing the Hardi Plank siding go up.

 Here is a good view of the metal roof and the beautiful cedar siding we chose.

 They needed a big lift to get to some of the high spots on the house and to put the ridge on the roof. This is a pretty cool machine. Richard is eying it up for the weekend!

Looking good!

New Stone Lintels

The lintels over the windows and doors of our 1700's stone house were completely rotted so Brian is replacing them with stone from the property.

Although stone would not have been a traditional material for a lintel in this area we felt for the sake of longevity and maintenance  that it would be acceptable.  

Breakfast in the new kitchen!

A premature breakfast in the new kitchen with Donut. There is great morning light.

Windows!!

 Our beautiful Marvin windows arrived 2 weeks ago, and when they finally went in the difference was stunning. The amount of light coming in is amazing!

 The Brazilian Boys put in all 52 windows and doors in 2 days!

Chimney

Our large chimney has finally broken ground and it looks great! The steel surround was designed by T. Johnson Metal works and it's amazing.

Moving Quickly!

Waiting on windows and roof.

All buttoned up and wearing a rain coat while we wait for windows and doors. Sure does look big!

 Whats left of our old bedroom and living room! The beams were once the bottom of the living room  ceiling. 

The door above left goes into our "new" bedroom.

More demolition before construction.

This is the 19th Century house before we demolished it. Unfortunately for us it had served its useful life. 

We saved all the hand hewn beams to use as rafter ties, not much else was salvageable.

 This photo and the one below show the state of the foundation. What looks like loose soil on top was actually what was between the stones. There were many snake skins and lots of ivy climbing in there!

And presto a newly framed "19th century" house. Amazing!

 Looking good,

Donut approves of the view from the kitchen.

Some progress!

 After many weeks we are finally going vertical. The crew framing the new section of the house is absolutely amazing. There are 5 guys and they work a solid 8 hour day with very few breaks. 

This is a picture after 4 days of framing.

This is a view looking towards the old house and the 19 Th. century section that we tried to save unsuccessfully. Note that we are living in the section to the left which  makes for some interesting days!

And The Walls Came Tumbling Down!

So, where to start. At the beginning of our project with HMR Architects we decided to save the 19 Th. century section of our house to save some money. We integrated it quite nicely, I think, into the old and new sections and worked off of the things that we couldn't change such as the floor height and roof line. Weeeeelll…….. Once the plaster and the siding came off and the foundation was exposed it was deemed to be not worth saving as everything was out-of-level, rotted, crumbling, uneven, etc. So now we will rebuild this section saving only a small bit if the foundation and encasing that in some poured concrete. On the plus side there are some very nice hand-hewn beams that we will save and use elsewhere in the house. Oh well, we had good intentions. 

Bye Bye Chimney

Since we will not need the current chimney we decided to take it down. It was quite bulky and when we removed the mantle and fireplace facade we realized it had never been a fireplace but merely to exhaust the furnace, which has just been disconnected, and for a coal stove a long time ago. Lets hope for lots of warm days.

It wasn't that hard to get down!

The easiest way to get the bricks down was to cut a hole in the wall and throw them out!

Demolition!

Demolition of the 1800's section of the house is underway and there are lots of surprises. 

This was the main bathroom and a bedroom.

 It's difficult to see but many of the timbers used in this section were from an old barn and you can see notches and old tennon locations. Almost all the wood had been salvaged as evidenced by multiple layers of paint and old nails!

This room was a living room. To the left is the old fireplace and chimney. We had until recently used this room for storage.

What you see in this picture is remnants of many mice nests! Nice.

Giant Chimney

Our chimney is finally starting to take shape.  It sure does look big from this angle.

The footing is ready for concrete

Already at the first floor