April 23rd - Most of the Structural Work is Done

A lot has happened since late February:

• Almost all of the destruction is done.  The only destruction left is to strip off the (perhaps original) clapboards and blow away the front porch.
• The destruction in the past two months includes:
• Stripping off two layers of siding: 1st vinyl siding and then asbestos shingles,
• Tearing off the roof on the back of the house (where MBR will be),
• Cutting holes in the brick foundation for new windows,
• Tearing off the shingles on the top part of the mansard roof.
• Almost all of the indoor stud walls are up - in preparation for the plumbers and electricians.
• The rough plumbing is pretty far along - the vents and drains are in, but not the supply lines.
• The new MBR exists - new floor, walls, and roof.
• The new windows are just starting to go in.

So far there have been no big surprises... 

Here is a tour of the state of the basement about a month ago:

As you can see, the walls are up - the spaces are defined.  This is true now in the rest of the house as well (but I don't have any photos of the rest of the house).

On the outside, they ripped off the vinyl siding and then the asbestos shingles, exposing some very old clapboards.  We will eventually rip off the old clapboards and replace them, but at the moment the outside looks considerably worse than when we bought it:

Here is another shot up close - yuck!

On the bottom right of the photo above, you can see some vertical yellow lines on the brick.  These mark where a guy cut openings for some new windows with a CHAINSAW!  You can see the saw kerf below.

And from inside you can see daylight.  In person this is just plain odd.

The most satisfying change, however, was the creation of a new room on the second floor in the back of the house which will be the master bedroom.  For some odd reason, the original house had a second floor everywhere except in the back.

Here is the (non-mansard) roof that was blown away:  

No more roof!

New floor joists:

Once we had a floor to stand on, they cut a hole in what had been the roof...

Hello Cindy!

Next came the knee-wall that sits just below the mansard.

Then ceiling joists and roof rafters:

Roof rafter art...

They put a roof on top of the MBR and then they re-roofed the entire house (except for the nearly vertical mansard which happens later).  The windows for the MBR have been installed.  So the envelope of the house is essentially complete.

The next phase will be putting stuff in the interior walls - pipes and wires, installing windows, and getting ready to work on the porches (we are waiting for the gas company to install a new gas line before we can start on the new front porch).  

The one big structural change remaining is blowing away one of the walls in the living room to open it up to a new wall of windows that we have not yet built.  This needs to wait for the front porch to be done.  Other than that, all of the interior walls are up, and all of the framing for the windows is complete, so it isn't too hard to imagine what it will look like in the end.

When the inside doesn't look quite so messy, I will take some photos of the completed stud-walls and post them.