Scary Heights, Heavy Work , Great Progress July 29 - Aug 4 2019

Scary Heights!!! It's me who is not fond of heights, particularly when Scott is up on the roof. He always tells me he won't fall but I'm happier when he's on the ground. I don't want him to get hurt and at the very least I tell him he's not allowed to hurt himself until the job is done. LOL!!  

From afar this looked like a brick chimney however it had long been replaced by a flue with a decorative metal cover to look like a chimney. The flue did run from the main floor up to the roof with 3 layers and "we" (you won't catch me up there) needed to get the top off in order to take the rest down. The ladder we have isn't long enough but split in two and each end secured with the rope, Scott was comfortable going up. I insisted on staying outside to watch and call 911 if needed.

Taking up a rope to secure the 2 ladders for "safety"

Loosening the decorative cover

Scott said sitting on the top roof edge felt like a torture device we saw in
 Jamestown earlier this year. The prisoner was made to sit on a sharp edge
with feet and arms shackled for whatever length of time they were sentenced to

He got started just in time for the arrival of a stone slinger which delivered 11 tonnes of gravel.  The stone slinger can shoot the gravel further back into the basement so not all of it had to be moved by hand. We wanted to do this to help make walking around in the basement dryer.

Stone Slinger setting up

Another gorgeous day - getting humid but beautiful

Even with the stone slinger a lot needed to be shoveled and wheeled back

He is a worker bee, that's for sure

Meanwhile, upstairs I continued removing the flooring.

We're trying to reuse as much as the upstairs flooring as possible. Scott got out our thickness planer and tried one of the boards. Worked great and we're looking forward to using them wherever we can.

The pile has been dispersed and it's so much nicer walking around on stones rather than mud.
Little shorter now though so watch your head.

A little excavating happening

Next step was to have some excavating done around the house in order to put 

insulation in and protect the foundation a bit more.

New foundation wall going up

With the stones in the basement it was time to build a wall where the kitchen basement joined the main house basement. It was very hot and heavy working 

with the cinder blocks and concrete but he got it done.

We had cleaned out the dirt between the stone blocks on the east wall of the foundation to help straighten it. Now we worked together to mortar the holes up. 

Happy 4th anniversary. We celebrated by mortaring one wall and chinese food for dinner.

Next step, get the main floor up. It is soft, rotting from below but has several layers, some which are very tough to pry up. We are replacing all the joists and the flooring.

Suffice it to say the toilet was only held up by the cast iron pipe which was underneath it.
Floor around it was completely rotted. Gross!!

It was a little cooler on Friday. Back on the roof he went to finish taking the flue down.  Murphy's law, one big piece got stuck on the edge of the roof.  

No worries thought, he was able to dislodge it will a long 2 x 4.

Murphy's Law - It is can catch, it will

Piling stuff up for dump runs on Saturday - 3 trips in all

It took some doing to get the flue out inside as well. 

Above is a panoramic view of the upstairs with it all gone. 

We are very excited and feel on quite a roll lately. The destruction is almost complete and we've done a few things which are part of the rebuild.

Saturday we enjoyed time with Matt, Chas and the kids. Loving the pool.

Today Sarah and Tyler arrive for the week so we won't be getting too much work done 

while we enjoy time with them.