Roofing ON by 10:30 am

Wow! Thanks again to Lisa and Don for all your help!

For Betty

See!  We aren't working Lisa TOO hard!

The weather cooperates- off comes the old roofing

Yay- the storms of Monday have passed and today was a good day to remove the old green painted metal roofing.  Here is Lisa pulling the last nails holding down the metal.

One last look at the old.  After the metal was off, Lisa and Don filled in the hole in the eave where the chimney used to be.

Finally on to reconstruction- laying new OSB board over the whole surface.

Lookin' good

The sun is starting to come out and Lisa is all smiles.

Nice view from the roof peak-

Thanks also to Don- who came and helped.

Next comes the black paper moisture barrier.  Now it can rain.

Here is how it sits tonight.  Tomorrow the new, pretty blue metal roofing goes up!

The floor comes up and the chimney comes down

Lisa is here with us this week- helping with the next phase of deconstruction.  Today she pulled the nails on all the floor boards  and removed the wall board in part of the constuction zone.

So now you can see down to the ground under the house.

And the old root cellar is exposed

One more thing- take out the stove pipe from the woodstove (see the round hole in the wall)

On the outside- demolish the cinderblock chimney.  Whew- what a lot of work today.  (Lisa also removed most of the nails from the metal roofing- in hopes that the weather will dry out soon so they can replace the roof!)

Today the new beam goes in!

(Start at the bottom of today's post to see the progression......)
10:40 am  THE BEAM IS IN and supporting the roof!

and Kurt is a happy boy!

It's level! and one post is in...

Next step RAISE THE BEAM

Next step- prepare the beam

and roll it into the house

Here is the starting point- the hole in the exterior wall where the beam will slide through...

Here is the place on the interior wall where the end of the beam will be inserted

and here is the beam awaiting it's destiny

Slow-Food, Matter Style

We are cooking on our wood cook stove- now that it is our only source of heat.  It is fun and convenient.

Help us decide- fence or no fence

Here is the yard with the fence

Today we took down one section

We think we like it better without.  What do you think?

More deconstruction and shoring

Work continues- this week posts were put up to support each of the rafters.

The crosswise beam is what we are trying to replace.  Here it is still in place...

And in this picture it has been removed.

Here is our front yard- full of the last of the torn out wood-- and the new 6"x16"x25 foot beam- that will go into the house some time this coming week....

Tired tines get replaced

Starting to get the rototiller ready for another season- first task- replace the tines. Here are the shiny new ones

Here are the sorry looking 25+ year old tines

DAY 2 of de-constuction

More wall board, framing and now carpeting came off today.  Pulling back the carpet revealed the old root cellar hatch. 

Here is the root cellar hatch in the floor- and 5 bottles of home-brew beer found down the steps

let the de-construction begin!

Kurt has emptied our 'split level' main room and begun tearing out the ceiling.  Today he tore down most of the kid's old play loft.  All this is in preparation for inserting a beam across the middle of the room- thus eliminating the two posts.  And hopefully assuring that the house will remain standing the next time we get 4 feet of snow!

Here is the last of the old bedroom wall paper...it was so cute at the time...

This is where he got to by quitting time...