Phase 3- fall update inside the 2nd floor

The final phase, phase 3. Erik and I spent the better half of the summer tearing the 2nd floor apart and putting it back together. We found; the insulation that was blown in had trails from rodents, the old mineral wool is very itchy when it gets on your skin, there was a good deal of recycled wood holding the 2nd floor together, the front dormers were floating (there was nothing tying it back to rest of the house), a Ted Williams baseball card, all the razerblades from a lifetime of one man's daily shaving ritual fell behind the medicine cabinet into the wall, there was a 3" difference across the 2nd floor, the dump guys can be bribed to fit 4 trailer loads in only 2 and that we like outdoor showering even into October. Here are some photos highlighting the gutting process. 

Lost & Found, Demo Phase 2 & beginning of Demo Phase 3

While Bartlett & Gunnar lounged on the deck all weekend looking for squirrels and ducks to chase, we were busy inside finishing Phase 2. Let's re-cap since my last post was Jan. 1st and I am a little delinquent in filling in what we've been up to. Phase 2, was gutting, rewiring, insulating, and drywalling and mudding of the existing part of the house. We are nearly done with this Phase 2.  

 I decided if we wanted to finish this phase 2 business, we needed to clean out the little room at the top of the stairs. Originally, when we first moved in I had boxed all unnecessary items in our life and put them in storage, in this room. When we built the addition for the mudroom, we had a space that we thought we could potentially use as storage. Phase 3 is to gut, rewire, and insulate the 2nd floor. So I needed a place to put everything that was in this room. So I removed everything- looked through each box and evaluated if we still needed it. If it made the cut it went in the storage space above the mudroom. The photos below show the built-in that were left over from the Capano family.

There were two beds and a corner unit to fill in the awkward corner of this room. It is really a small room, and this is a good solution to where to put the beds. Not sure we will do anything different to the layout, but we are so far away from furnishing this space. Time to demo....

 Below are the little "treasures" I found in the built-ins. A little kid's watch, a toy soldier's gun, and a goth ring that had some tape on it. I imagined these belonged to Debbie. I believe this was her room growing up.

 Erik in the meantime worked painstakingly to rip up the old kitchen floor. We thought we could salvage the existing pine floor, but it was filled with too many holes from various plumbing and patches. It wasn't worth saving. It looked like at one time there was a wall in the middle of the small room as well? Of course the flooring was attached with spiral nails. Spiral nails are just about like screws. Impossible to remove. It took a good two days to get the all the old pine up. Beneath the pine was the subfloor which was in fairly good condition after we removed the 40 lbs of dirt that was laying on top. Of course, what wasn't laying on top, slipped down through the subfloor and went into the basement. So, lucky me, I got to clean that up too.

 Below is the line where there had been a wall. This part of the house just get's more curious. Maybe it was a stall for some animals? The amount of dirt on the floor, it looked like they were still living there.

The photo above is the subfloor all clean and ready for new flooring. Stay tuned for more on that later.

A full weekend of rehab fun

Well....after tearing out the last of the pine boarding in the great room, which revealed that squirrels were living in the batt insulation, a serious acorn storage unit, poop, and what insulation that was not eaten by the nut-smugglers, was wet. So, friday after work, Erik ripped off the roof and I got right on clean-up. We worked until it was dark, and got ready for an early morning. I was on the roof at 8am on Saturday cleaning off the rest of the rotten shingles and swept off the mess. Erik came with more supplies. He had to rebuild the rotten soffits and added trim to the eaves, before we started rolling out the ice and water shield. The roof over the great room is such a low pitch- 4/12, so we applied this on the entire roof. Meanwhile on solid ground- Eric Preston came with his stump grinder- and took care of the two stumps on the front of the house- where we hope to be able to build a mud room addition at some point. It took him about an hour- and there were two giant piles of wood chip debris. I think I might use this later for mulch? Does anyone know if that is do-able? I was thinking I could mix it with peet moss- if anyone has thoughts- please reply!

By Saturday night, we had the roof waterproofed. Which was our goal, since Kevin Mannix said it was going to be drizzle on Sunday. He was wrong- luckily for us. Erik and I got up early and stopped by Home Depot on the way to the house, and I got some mice poison, and Erik bought a roofing gun, and a chalk line. We got right to work putting the shingles up. Erik got tired of me watching him, and he kicked me off the roof and I started raking the hills of wood chips. Good timing, as Erik started getting going- Carter rolled in, ready to dig in.

Camo and Bartlett romped- they played tug of war, swimming in the pond, and followed me around the yard like I was the "pied piper" going everywhere and doing everything I was doing. It was nice to have 2 dogs to keep each other occupied.

After an unsuccessful trip to Home Depot for two more bundles of shingles, there were 2 more trips to Lowes to get the right shade- finally Erik and Carter were able to finish buttoning up the roof, just in time to make a dinner with friends! We might be too old for this?

Great Room

Here is an image of the "great room" it was covered in a stained pine wide plank paneling. It has a very large fireplace. Today in the rain, we tried it out for the first time. Each panel we took down revealed a storage unit of acorns that the squirrels and chipmunks have been scurrying away. The insulation was not in the best condition either. The wood box has a removable panel to a back room, where you can load wood from the nearby wood shed. Which we have plenty of after the tree removal.