May 2, 2020

So we removed some more of the floor.  And then we removed some more.  And then we removed some more.  It looks like the original house built in 1931 was about 21×24 feet and was built on an interesting wall of rocks and mortar. The house was built on in 3 directions over the years, but the original section is where we found the damaged floor.  We found joists with water damage, joists with termite damage, joists that were notched so that only 2” was resting on the sill plate, joists that were not connected to each other correctly, joists that were terribly bowed, joists that were more than 2” out of level.  We found a single 2×4 girder that held ALL the floor of the house, and it was supported by tree stumps. 

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Obviously, previous owners had issues with the floor not being level – the tree stumps did not do their job.  First they used an old crank jack with spider gears.  Maybe that fixed it for a while, but they needed a bottle jack for more leveling! By the time we were finished, the engineer recommended that we remove ALL the flooring, all the joists, and replace everything according to current code.

It was an orchestrated plan to dig holes for concrete footers as we tore out all the tile, floor boards, and joists. Although the joists were pretty scary, we were impressed that they were true 2x8s. It looks like they were hand hewn.  We are going to cut off the bad parts and use the good parts for something – we don’t really know what yet, but it will be something!

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The other thing about the floor joists is they were all oak.  That means the nails are held in super tightly.  I didn’t think it was possible, but we broke our heavy-duty pry bar!

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Since the floor was opened up, we went ahead and removed all the HVAC ducts, the old plumbing, old gas lines, and LOTS of garbage.  We think some critters had their homes in the crawl space, and furnished it appropriately (leaves, sticks, twigs, acorns, grass)! We had to dig under the foundation wall to get the new water line in from the well-house. That was NOT an easy job!

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We brought out a few HVAC contractors to give us bids on a new AC/furnace.  The cheapest bid was from the company we liked the best, but it was still about $5000 over our budget.  The most expensive bid was more than double that!  We decided against the high expense of a traditional ducted system.  We’re not convinced they’re very efficient and since the house will be relatively small with only the great room and 2 bedrooms, we are going to put in a mini-split unit.  So now, we’re researching how to install a mini-split system.  I think we can do most of it ourselves.

We finally got to use a nail gun that we “rented” from a friend.  (We have to return it with some of the beer we bottled!)  We used it to build the girders, that will support the new joists, that will support the floor.  We have been sharing pictures and drawings with our engineer to make sure we build this correctly.

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We had ANOTHER bonfire to burn the damaged and rotten wood we removed from the house. It probably the largest one yet!

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Taking a break from working on the house, Joshua and John spent the day clearing the fence line in front of the bee hives.  It really opened up our view to the wooded part of our property.

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The “Stay at Home” order for our county will end on Monday, so our focused time to work on the house is coming to an end.  We are both so grateful that we have jobs to return to – there are so many who are in such terrible situations.  We know we are blessed to have had these last 5 weeks home to work on the house and spend lots of time as a family.  It will be good, however, to return to work and see our colleagues, our friends at work.  Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have contracted CoVid-19, for the health-care workers, and all those who have been negatively impacted because of the ramifications of this virus.