Another laugh care of Friends of Coal....

I spotted this fine collection of bumper stickers this afternoon.  Now, I'm no big fan of Obama.  However, if his energy plan really could be summed up in one word, and that word was bicycle! then I'd be behind him 100%.  Come to think of it, that would make a decent health care policy too. 

Don't miss George W on the right saying "MISS ME YET?".  
Hmm.  Let's see.....Nope.

this week....

got the south facing wall framed, sheathed,

and wrapped just in time for the rain....

the view

looking south from the kitchen, through two big windows to the right (behind the sink) and through 8 ft tall french patio doors to the left....

 

More work

Over the past few weeks....

I replaced the rotted joists in the living room floor, added blocking down the middle, laid a crawl-space vapor barrier...

replaced the sub-floor...

finished framing and sheathing the west wall....

installed the housewrap...(now my house gets to be a giant billboard for my favorite corporation - DUPONT
CHEMICAL until the siding goes up)

And installed the first two windows!

Also, Mom dug up the front yard and replaced it with a beautiful shade garden! Thanks mom!

And Aiya bravely treed two raccoons who had been living under the house and made the mistake of trying to get into her dog food bucket.   I haven't seen them since.  Thanks Aiya!

Back to building

It's really nice to finally be building rather than taking apart.  Knowing what I know now, after almost a year of off and on demolition, it would have been a whole lot less work to simply build a house from scratch on an empty lot.   But I guess this way I get to  rebuild from the ground up with a roof already over my head.  
          There are a few of piers on the front half of the house (where the two original porches were closed in) that were twisted or shifted and I got around to dealing with a couple of them last week.   When I began digging the first one out I realized that it wasn't much of a pier at all, as it only went about 8 inches below the surface.  In this climate, with its freeze and thaw cycles you want your piers to extend down below the frost line, typically 3 to 4 feet to prevent your foundation from being yanked around by the freezing soil.   So I got the old pier out and commenced to dig a proper hole for my new pier.  I dug the hole wide for the footer I thought I would have to pour but about 27 inches down I hit a nice layer of solid sandstone.  I expected it to be down there somewhere because from inside the basement I can see that the sandstone block cellar walls and the chimney foundations were build on that layer of sandstone.  So, with solid rock as my footer I drilled a few holes for rebar and poured the new pier, bringing the concrete form up to just below grade so that I could top it off with sandstone blocks and maintain the original character of the foundation. 

Then I got to do it all again with the next pier over.  There will be a couple more to do when I get to the other side of the house.  

Then I got to do some framing for the new windows on the west wall of the kitchen...

and then set up a temporary roof support system so that I could remove the living room west wall altogether and replace the main support beam prior to framing in the wall for the new living room windows. 

It's been a busy week.  And a pleasant 99 degrees.  Life is good.  

Back!

       I'm back in business after suffering a stolen camera (lesson - don't leave the car doors unlocked all night) and general lack of internet connectivity due to our recent transition to "camping out".   Now that those issues have been remedied (new camera, internet hooked up in the camper today!)  here are some photos of the "house" I've been working on when I probably definitely should have been working on the House.  Nonetheless, It's cozy living and we've got a firepit again.
       So, you may recall, I got an old Airstream "Argosy" a few months back.  It looked a little like this inside, only in the photo you can't see how dirty it really was.  You can't smell it either, which is to your benefit.  

I tried to just clean it up and move on (or rather, in) but got carried away and gutted it.  

....then a quick and cheap remodel....

...some new built-ins, and voila - home...

Dad and I tore down one of his old barn-sheds that collapsed in last winter's snows and I used the wood and the metal roofing to put a quaint little front porch on the side that closes up with curtains for private outdoor showering...

and of course, the firepit

U* is learning to defend the homestead with knife and bow&arrow...

LANDFILLS KILL BUNNIES

If you've never been to a landfill, this pretty much sums it up....smelly mud, and cute-fuzzy-stuffed-animal death.

This place is hell.   My landfill receipts now total close to 25,000 lbs of toxic rubble (mostly lead painted plaster and siding, and asbestos siding).   They know me by name at the weight station. 
Way to go humans.  Lets keep manufacturing toxic, non-biodegradable materials that have to be disposed of in a giant toxic smelly hole in the ground to pollute our drinking water for eternity.

It occurred to me while I was there that this mountaintop was once an ancient forest. 

By the way, that big complicated machine (which looks much bigger when it's plowing a fresh mountain of trash directly AT you!) has a very simple purpose - It drives back and forth, back and forth over the trash mountain all day long, compacting it with enormous studded steel wheels.   We call it the "trasher masher". 

siding - gone!

just a bit more...

bare bones...