Tear out continues...

Another weekend over and work is slowly progressing.  Did a little cleanup around the outside, mowed the yard for the yard for the first time.  Learned that mowing the rental house and the new house in the same day with a push mower was not a pleasant thing.

The water was still not turned on even though they were told to have it on by Friday.  Ah the joys of a small town.  The city maintenance guy is less than dependable and evidently no one is willing to challenge him. 

I did manage to get more of the tear out done.  Now there is no wall between the kitchen and the bathroom.  The washer and dryer closet wall is gone too.  I am still tearing out flooring in the kitchen and bathroom, trying to find a decent end to the water damaged sub-flooring.  There is a little more joist and sill damage than I was hoping to find but seems to be mostly in the kitchen and bathroom areas so hopefully the rest of the house will give me a break. 

From the way things are looking so far, I am going to have to jack up the exterior wall from the outside, above the joists so I can cut the wall loose and replace the band joists and sills and put in flashing.  Then I will have to jack up the floor joists to replace or repair them one at a time.  Most likely I will have to jack up on both sides of the one I am replacing and move the rig each time.  I hope I won't have to do this on too many of them and can just sister in some of them instead of full replacement.

This week I am planning on cutting a number of support struts that will allow me to jack up the outside wall and still have clearance to remove the old band joists and sills and put in the new.

The back porch is finally gone

Finally after a few days work the removal of the back enclosed porch is done.  The floor and support structure was in worse shape than I originally thought and the roof was almost totally shot. 

With the porch gone, it will make it a lot easier to work on fixing or replacing the sills and rim joists on the main part of the house in that area.  The steps were built improperly to begin with and caused snow and rain to rot out the siding and allow animals to chew into the rim joist at a seam. 

We have been getting some of the yard cleaned up, volunteer trees cut down, good trees trimmed a bit and have started planting some of the fruit shrubs and vines.  So far a  Currant, Blueberry and Catawba grape vine are in.  I still have to get the Strawberry and Asparagus beds started.  I am still trying to decide whether we need to have raised beds for some of these. 

The water table is high here apparently.  I found a well or cistern under the back porch when we tore it down and the water level is about two feet below ground level.  Hopefully I will be able to utilize the well/cistern for watering the garden.  First I have to determine that it is suitable quality wise and whether its a cistern or a well.  If it is a cistern, I am not sure what is keeping it full, since it was sheltered by the porch and the downspouts are not directed into it. 

Another weekend about to start.

So here it is Friday night, just got off work and looking forward to a busy weekend of nice weather.  Saturday I get to show off the new place to my parents and uncle who knows a lot about construction.  I hope that he can give me some encouraging info on what I have gotten into and some good direction on how to proceed.  I will have to remember to take lots of notes. 

Sunday I hope to get more work done and get started on the gardens.  I have some plants already needing to get in the ground like asparagus, currants, blueberries, strawberries, catawba grapes, etc.  More to come.

Beggining batroom tear out...

So this weekend began the tear out of the old bathroom.  The first day (Sunday) I tore out the sink, tub, most of the drywall on the walls and most of the floor.  I left the toilet and a little floor in just because I wasn't quite ready to tear that out yet.  I was surprised to find that most everything above floor level was fine internally.  Unfortunately the under floor was a bit more damaged than I had hoped but not as bad as I had feared.  the sills are soft and the top edges of the joists I exposed were dry rotted about an inch down.  One joist was rotted completely off from the band joist and sill though.  This was from water problems outside that created a breach and was further damaged by a rodent.

Post Closing - Now for the fun

     So we have gotten through the purchase process and successfully closed on the property.  We are now awaiting the title work filing verification.  Now comes the fun part of the adventure.  First, I have to change the locks and go through the house to better secure it.  Last time through, I noticed that some of the windows were not able to be properly locked due to miss alignments from swelling, settling, age or whatever.  Then the plan is to begin taking better stock of immediate repairs needing to be done and get preliminary measurements of the rooms, roof, walls, windows, doors, etc.
     The house needs a lot of attention as it has sat empty for awhile and the plumbing froze.  The bathroom is the worst room as the floor is almost completely destroyed and will probably need some work on the walls when I start tearing out the tub and shower enclosure.  The laundry area in the kitchen is on the other side of the wall from the bathroom and it also has flooring issues due to the water heater bursting.  Hopefully both of these areas can be repaired fairly easily with only sub-flooring and a new bathtub.  I should know more once we start actually tearing out the old flooring.
     I know from the termite inspection that we are good on pests but there are some real rot issues due to prolonged poor water management in the crawl space.  The previous owners did not have downspouts to direct the rainwater away from the foundation so it actually ran down the corners of the house into the foundation.  In several areas the sills are going to need replaced and some of the joists may need sistered ends.  It should be ok for a few more years if I get the crawl dried out and proper drainage.  There is a lot of mold down there that also needs addressing.
    All in all I am very optimistic about what we will be able to do with our new home.  It will take time but if we can get it liveable by later this year, we will be moving in and then the money going to rent can go into our property instead.  The house is now paid off in full so I just have to get to the point we can officially occupy it.

So it begins...

After a little bit of initial work, today is the day!  We are closing on the new property and then the real fun begins.  Hopefully this will prove to be a good decision though it is going to be a lot of work.