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October 7, 2008

What a Difference a Day Makes!

Filed under: Restoration Progress — admin @ 3:21 am

The carpenters were busy today. They uncovered some more goodies, and also more problems. Yep, it’s a good thing we’re pulling the aluminum off. It was doing a really good job of trapping moisture, and hiding squirrel damage. I hate squirrels. They’re nothing more than RATS with big eyes and bushy tails. they’re EVIL, I say.

Here’s a couple of examples of the hidden squirrel damage

soffit 1

soffit 2

Here are the “goodies” we uncovered.

First is the detail below the window.
goodie

And here is a close-up showing the paint color, strikingly similar to the Rookwood Dark Red we chose.
paint

Here is a picture showing the beltline which, as we thought, goes all around the house!
beltline

Here’s another view
beltline 2

and here’s a close-up of the beltline
beltline close-up

The good news is that the beltline material is in pretty good shape, which is actually GREAT news since that stuff would cost a fortune to replicate. There are more pictures in the /restoration/exterior folder, I just didn’t want to post them all here. Feel free to browse the folder.

October 3, 2008

Friday Update

Filed under: Restoration Progress — admin @ 11:37 pm

Well, the upper front of the house is, for the most part, finished! We still need to put the soffit trim pieces up, the quarter-rounds need to be installed, and the plinth blocks need to be installed on the window casings. The only other thing is the arch.

Here are a couple of the pictures from the end of today:

Friday Update

Friday Update

Friday Update

Friday Update

Friday Update

October 2, 2008

Tuesday Surprise

Filed under: Restoration Progress — admin @ 11:04 pm

Well, today (Tuesday) we came home to a surprise. We didn’t expect the carpenters to be here today, but they were, and did more work!

There’s only one more section of clapboard on the upstairs front to be stripped off. We’ll see if they can finish up the top by Friday. That would be really nice.

It would help if I could get the moulding run prior to then, however. But the moulding knives are back over at popco. Maybe he’ll call tomorrow and I can pick up the knives.

It would be nice to have some gains over the setbacks.

Snags, hold-ups, and delays

Filed under: Restoration Progress — admin @ 5:02 am

I managed to get a few things accomplished today. I got our cornerboards from Tiny Timbers. They gave me a price break on the wood since it apparently wasn’t graded correctly. They’re really nice people up there (in Deputy, Indiana) and they’ve been very willing to work with me on things before.

I ruled out Architectural Salvage and Joe Ley’s for a replacement for the exterior bullseyes. It’s looking like cast resin (UGH!, ACK … TTHHHHPPPPTTT!) or hand turning at a high per-piece rate (not extremely high, in the overall scheme of things, but still, I want to find out the best, cheapest way to go.)

The carpenters were off on another jobsite today, so there’s no more new work to post pictures of. Look forward to tomorrow, however, for new picture updates.

We had a decent rain last night, and now we know that ALL of our box gutters need to be relined. We saw the water streaks coming from behind the soffit board and running down the frieze board. The gutter frames are in GREAT shape behind the center section, but the pans are leaking. Along the left section and along the left-center wall (the deep wall), you can look up through the gutter (with the soffit removed) and see daylight through the pinholes. Several of the lookouts are a bit rotted and will need to be repaired. Some of the gutter framing on the left section is rotted, and some of the sheathing needs to be replaced cause it’s rotted… and the list goes on …

September 30, 2008

Exterior Work, Day Two

Filed under: Restoration Progress — admin @ 3:12 am

Well, the work continued today on the exterior of the house. I took a few and will post them for your enjoyment.

There were a few more setbacks today. Good news is that I DID find a key for the moulder. I also found out why the other key broke. It was operator error. When I set up the moulder for planing, I wasn’t paying attention, and set up the rollers for moulding, which put too much tension on them for planing, which is why the key snapped. Oh well.

So I set up the moulder for moulding, put in the knives for the exterior trim, and … came to a screeching halt. The knives are too tall and hit against the chip deflector. So I had to take them back to where I had them made, and have him cut them down. He’s backed up because he is in Shively and had no power for a week, and, being that he is a machine shop, well, nothing was machined for a week.

I talked to the carpenter today about the cornerboard reveal. He knew what he was doing, and that was not the permanent reveal. That was just a storyboard / spacekeeper. Anyway, rather than use poplar cornerboards, I went ahead and ordered some S4S cypress from Tiny Timbers, milled to 6/4 x 3 1/2. It will be ready (hopefully) Wednesday.

The soffit rebuilding is time consuming. I hope we’re not looking at completely rebuilding the entire run of horizontal soffit, or we’ll end up like WaMu! We’re figuring the front upper part will be finished by Friday. The crew is off on another site tomorrow.

Here are the pictures from today’s work.

This is basically two days worth of work. Not bad, but I had hoped to see a bit more progress. I expect that once they start getting “into a groove” they’ll progress faster.
End of day 2

Here’s a close-up of the work. The soffit looks pretty good.
closeup

Here’s a “batman camera angle” picture of the work. On the section to the left, where you only see the felt paper, the box gutter is filled with pinholes and will need to be re-lined. Additionally, at least one of the lookouts will need to be replaced at the inside corner back there. Ugh!
Batman camera angle view

Here’s a close-up view with our paint chip next to the window.
our paint chip on the house

September 29, 2008

Exterior Progress …

Filed under: Restoration Progress — admin @ 4:59 am

Well we have a slight hitch in the works. I need to get a key for the feed roller drive gears on my moulder-planer so that I can run the moulding for the soffit, plus we also need to plane some wood down for the cornerboards.

I went to harbor freight and bought a metric key set, but I don’t think China’s metric system is the same as Europe’s or here, because they weren’t even CLOSE to the size needed. The other possibility is that Jet doesn’t have the correct dimensions listed in their parts manual, but I dunno, I’d tend to trust Jet over Harbor Freight.

There’s a place in Louisville that is an authorized Jet tools service center. Hopefully they have the proper key. If not, I’ll have to order it from Jet, and that’s probably a 3 day wait, unless I want to pay 40 bucks to overnight a $1.65 part. OUCH!

What really surprised me was that not even Woodcraft, which is a BIG Jet Tools retailer, carries any parts, not even something as common as the square key for the feed roller gearbox. I find that a bit shocking because it is very possible to lose one of those keys when changing over from moulding to planing. You’d think it’s a standard part available at most hardware stores.

So, I’ve got a bit of running around to do tomorrow. I need to go to the machine shop and also to the lumberyard. It’s a shame that dimensional lumber isn’t true to its dimensions. Granted, even the 1×3 of 1891 is 7/8 x 3. But a 1×3 of today is 3/4 x 2 1/2. I’m not sure when that happened, or how or why, but it did. I guess that’s a different rant for a different day.

September 27, 2008

It HAS Begun!

Filed under: Restoration Progress — admin @ 2:17 am

Finally, work has begun on the exterior of the house. I’ll be including pictures with this post to show the progress. I know, it’s not much, but not too bad for a bit less than one day’s work.

I forgot to get a picture BEFORE they started, so this is as close as it comes:

close to the start of the work

Here’s a bigger picture of the section they are working on. The contractor recommended that we have the guys do a small section to help us gauge the total cost of the work. so far it looks like it’ll be reasonable. We opted to NOT do Tyvek or backpriming. (I know … GASP …. Sacrilege … ) Well, we have our reasons, and cost didn’t factor into it other than the questionable cost benefit, and that was largely due to the questionable cost benefit of insulating the walls.

bigger picture

Here it is with most of the siding removed:

most of the siding gone

And here it is down to the diagonal sheathing:

down to sheathing

Here’s the siding starting to go back up:

siding going back together

These last three are some views of the results after the first day of work.

end of day 1 - 1

end of day 1 - 2

end of day 1 - 3

The work looks pretty good, but I need to get on the carpenter about the cornerboard reveal. Currently, he’s using box store 1×4, which is actually 3/4 x 3 1/2. Per what we discussed, we need to have a 5/4 thickness on the cornerboards, which will give a 1/2 inch minimum reveal. currently, there is 0 inch minimum reveal, the clapboard lower edges are flush with the cornerboards. Other than that, so far I am impressed with the speed and quality of the work.

September 26, 2008

The Work Begins …

Filed under: Restoration Progress — admin @ 6:00 am

Tomorrow (9/26) is the beginning. The first day of our own version of “Extreme Home Makeover, Exterior Edition”. The carpentry work begins.

I have to meet with the carpenters to discuss what needs to be done. I am happy and upset about this. Happy because the work is FINALLY starting. Upset because I have to go over with the carpenters what they are to be doing. Upset because this is what the CONTRACTOR was supposed to do. I’ll be mentioning it to him for sure.

I just can’t wait till it is over and finished. I still have a bunch to do inside, but I have trouble finding energy and time at the same time. Heck, I still haven’t taken pictures of the outside as “recent before” pictures. I should probably do that tomorrow before work begins.

September 11, 2008

Our Siding is Here! WooHoo!!!

Filed under: Restoration Progress — admin @ 12:58 am

Well, we got the siding delivered yesterday. All 3500 square feet! Man, that’s a lot of wood! We will decide tonight who is going to do the woodwork, and call them tomorrow so that they can get started. Today my sweetie came home and said that she had contacted some people in the construction department to see if any of them knew anyone who does exterior woodwork. I told her that I wasn’t interviewing any more contractors. We need to get this started like YESTERDAY.
I think I’ll start moving the restoration portion from the main site over here to the blog. I have to mull that one over and we’ll see how it goes. What ever happens, keep checking back as I post up some recent “before” pics, and the “during” pics also. If all goes well, I’ll be posting up the “after” pics by the end of October!

September 3, 2008

The Contractor Saga Continues …

Filed under: Restoration Progress — admin @ 1:35 am

Finally got one of the earlier contractors out here to talk again.  He came out Monday.  He’s going to give us another bid, and says that he’ll be able to communicate with the painter so that we can actually start painting before the entire house woodworking is done.

Pam had a much better feeling about this guy this time.  I liked him from the start, and I hope his bid isn’t stoopid high.

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