Demo Round 2 and Attic Clean out

Amazing progress made this weekend with what seemed like a skeleton crew.

After leaving work on Thursday, I picked up my sister in law Cindy and brought her back to Winchester with me. Friday morning, after dropping off my car and having a little breakfast, Cindy and I threw on our gloves and got to work pulling out box after box from the attic and began sorting the keeper items from the trash.

After a couple hours of work, we headed out to inspect the dumpster. Last Wednesday, we had about 13 inches of snow. On Tuesday night, I covered the dumpster with a massive tarp and tie down straps. For the most part, it worked, but the weight of the snow and the melt pulled the tarp into the dumpster. Before we could dump trash, we cleaned out the dumpster. I straddled side of the can while Cindy went inside. Between the two of us, we dipped and scooped the snow out of the dumpster, and didn't spill a drop.






Cindy 'dumpster diving' to remove snow and ice.



The dumpster covered in snow.

After the snow removal, we trashed what we could, took a break for lunch, and went back to work. Everything was sorted into one of several piles: pure trash, burnable trash, potential keep/donate/yard sale, keep for one of two stepfamilies, keep for other Eckley family members.

At the end of the day, not much of our body wasn't aching, but we made great progress.

Before the attic dig out - to the left of the stairs.

Before the attic dig out - center.

Before the attic dig out - to the right of the stairs.

Day one completion - all unearthed antique furniture to the left.

Day one completion - the view straight ahead.

Day one completion - great progress on the right side.

On day one, we found some interesting family finds. I was happy to find one treasure for Cindy, a craft she had made for her mom. So cool! Here are a few other cool things.

Cherry pitter - part of the Eckley family heirlooms.

Who knows which Eckley this belonged to, but it was hilarious.

Grandpa Vikingstad's old planer.

Ghon wanted to buy a metal detector, and fortunately, our friend Steve lent him one on Saturday. Kevin came over as well, and gave Ghon a hand with removing the floor boards to expose more of the supporting foundation. While Cindy and I worked the attic again, while Ghon and Kevin found a great groove raising the floor boards, sawing the nails, and removing the boards. Ghon didn't find any buried treasures in the house, but had fun trying. At the end of the day, we decided that we should insert a time capsule in the floor for the next crazy family member that digs up the floor in 100 years.

The view down into the living room. Ghon is searching for buried treasure. Early Saturday afternoon, he and our friend Kevin finished pulling all the floor boards up.

Searching for treasure. Thanks, Steve for lending us the metal detector.

Digging for treasure and the rock foundation wall.

No treasure was found, but these are two of three skulls found in living room pit.

Saturday night, after walking in the house and immediately showering, we headed to the local firehouse for a spaghetti dinner, chilled at the house with our friend Tim and some homemade apple pie and slept!

Sunday morning, Cindy and I had to move three pieces of furniture and trash a few curtain rods before calling the attic COMPLETE! Ghon and Tim started doing demo work in the kitchen and dining room until Cindy had to head back to Rockville. After she packed up her take homes, I headed back to the storage room to tackle the last room of "stuff " to pack. We also had a stone mason visit us in the afternoon to give us some ideas and prices for opening the main fireplace and making room for an insert. Ghon, Tim, and Myron headed up to the hill and found a good number of rocks to use to face the fireplace.

The fireplace wall. Ghon and I are debating leaving the logs exposed or recovering with drywall.

You can see the stonework from part of the original hearth. This week, the stone mason will be back to start removing the brink, mortar and years of grime stuffed in the fireplace so we can later put in an insert.

The front dining room wall. It's hard to see in this picture, but to the right of the window is where a second door was located.  Ghon thinks for the most part, the room is in great shape and won't need many repairs.

We (well, Ghon and Tim) tore the ceiling out to expose the joists. We wanted to know if we needed to do more joist support work, and so far, it looks like a no.

Exposing the kitchen as well. At one point, as expected, there was plaster on the walls. The slats held the plaster to the walls - and there is still some in between.

Removed some cabinets and the drywall behind.

View of the kitchen from the other side of the room.

And the big unveiling...the finished attic!

The finished attic - left side is all furniture.

The finished attic - center. Look how big it actually is!

The finished attic - to the right. The chimney is in the background. The only items left on the floor are  huge mirrors.

My attic savior, Cindy, just before we finished.

That's me, sitting in the stairwell, right before we moved the final pieces.

Here is a video of the before and after attic clean-up - to get the full 360 degree effect.

Stink bug colony inside a book!



The finished, cleaned out storage room.



Another view of the cleaned out storage room.

Anyone need a light?

My to-do list from demo weekend #1. We haven't been able to install new joists - the lumber isn't in. Removing electric from the dining room isn't imperative and we kinda need the outlets to power the living room. We can't frame in the walls until the joists are in. So....success!!!

The dumpster is being picked up tomorrow. There is very little drywall left to remove in the house, and the upstairs rooms have paneling we can remove and burn, but not anytime real soon. We are almost done with demolition. All of the carpet is gone. I can't wait to start rebuilding.

Demolition Weekend Photos

Warning - this post is photo heavy.


If you haven't started from the beginning of the blog, I'll give you a quick reminder that the original house was built roughly in the mid to late 1700's and is all log cabin. From there, we aren't 100% sure if the additions were done in one or two phases, but leaning toward one, in the late 1800's. Each time we remove more of the wall coverings, we are finding more neat things on the logs or original part of the log house. Like Roman numerals carved into the logs - in order - to apparently keep track of the order! Or windows.



The top left picture is where the built in bookcase was in the living room. The top right is the view from the front porch of the side wall of the house - the living room wall. When the built in bookcase was knocked out, we found the original window. The partial wall blocking the full window is what is seen on the front porch.



Look how big our bathroom is now that the wall was knocked out! The hole in the floor is where the tub sat.

All those walls....GONE!

Out comes the final piece of carpet off the stairs.

That's what they looked like before.


Chopping old 80's furniture for the burn pile.


Removing the rough hewn lumber from the walls. The lumber held the drywall in place against the logs. We have been saving all the wood for a billion and one projects Ghon has in mind to reuse it.


This is how we roll - the attending surgeon prepares the pork shoulder.


Cutting the floor to expose the support beams underneath.


After the tub was removed - the the floor boards, a damaged support log was found. This discovery halted progress for the rest of the day. Ghon has started pulling up floor boards one by one, trying to save them to reinstall after the repairs are complete.

All in all, a ton was done last weekend. I'm finally finishing this post after another 3 day weekend working. But that, is for another post.

Demolition Before and After Videos

On Sunday, March 3, Ghon and I went back at the house. We were joined by Ghon's sister Cindy and her friend Rod, and my best friend Missy, her husband Kevin and daughter Rylee.  Rylee helped entertain the kids inside and outside while we worked inside.

Ghon and Kevin worked in the living room sistering more joists. By the day's end, all of the joists in the living room were sistered, a major goal for the weekend. We still plan to add additional joists in between the existing joists, and some of the previously fixed joists may be doubled up on. However, every board we had was used - and that is a success. Thanks, Kevin!

Cindy, Rod, Missy and I tackled the storage room and attic. Trash was pulled, the burn pile added to, and quite a few items set aside for either a yard sale or major donation. Rod manned the attic, handing down boxes to Cindy. Cindy and I rummaged, while Missy and I ran stuff out and sorted. We were also able to pull the carpet from the last bedroom. The only carpet that remains is in the storage room. With everyone's help, we were able to actually make a path to walk into the attic.

Ghon took before and after videos of the weekend. The before is before the weekend; not the entire project. After is at the end of the day Sunday. What a difference.

The before......

....and the after.

What do you think? Yes, still lots to do, but great progress was made.

I'll do another post with pictures later this week. For now, I need to figure out how I am going to cover the dumpster before we get a foot of snow on Wednesday. Don't want to pay for the weight of snow when it is time for pick up!

Demolition Day One

Friday - March 1, 2013

Ghon and I both took off work on Friday to prepare as much as possible for the big demolition 'party' on Saturday. After taking the kids to daycare, we headed out to Home Depot and Lowes to purchase a few additional supplies, of which included a new mailbox. The old mailbox’s door didn’t like staying closed, and as a result, last weekend we found several pieces of our mail near the creek bed – and it was 2 months old. Not a good thing. That’s probably where the first phone bill that I never saw is buried.

Ghon did the HD shopping while I took a phone call for work. A quick trip to Lowes and we headed back to the house where our friend Tim was going to meet up with us to give us a hand. I headed back out into town to pick up the drinks we needed for Saturday.  When I returned, Ghon had the new mailbox post installed (but no mailbox installation) and was getting ready to work inside.

The task of the day was to get as much sistering of the floor joists complete. In the middle of the room, the joist was cracked and completely separated. Here, three of us installed two new beams. This basically acted as a new joist and the broken joists as the sister beams. After securing this section, we hauled out a ton of drywall and lumber and tried to neaten up a bit for the next day.

That evening, the kids helped pick up some of their toys while we started food prep. Three pork shoulders went on the smoker, macaroni and cheese and baked beans were prepared, and two BBQ sauces made. I pulled the pork off the smoker about 1am before going to bed.

Saturday, March 02, 2013

The Jonathan alarm went off at 5; and the Genevieve alarm when off – and never hit snooze – at 6am. Ghon rolled out of bed and to the house about 7, while I got the kids ready and got our sitter Aly oriented to the house and waited for her reinforcements. I baked a coffee cake and started packing the truck.  Our friends Larry and Charlotte were the first to arrive, followed by Charlie, Tim, Cassy, Clint, Kevin, Dave & Jen (to our live-in house where Jen helped watch the kids), Travis, and last but not least, Kathryn and Cecil. When I arrived everyone was busy working in multiple areas of the house.

Before everyone arrived, Ghon made a video tour of the house. We’ll make video tour #2 tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll post more pictures then. I'm having issues uploading the video to the blog, so bare with me.

The teamwork was amazing. Husband and wife demoing closets and pulling carpet in the master bedroom, rough hewn lumber being removed from the original logs in the living room and full on demolition of the lower level bathroom – everywhere there was activity. A mallet was swung to knock out a wall while I ripped carpet up off the stairs. We cut a hole in the screen of the upper level porch to toss out carpet, sofa cushions and just general trash – and someone below hauled and sorted to the burn pile or dumpster. It was amazing.

For as much as we were able to finish, we did lose about three hours of time when a big issue was discovered. I had to make a trip to Lowes for additional washers and bolts. When I left, there was work everywhere. When I returned, I walked into the living room with everyone staring into a hole – and saying “we found a body.”  Well, while they did not find a body, yet, they did produce a skull. Now, I am petrified of going in the attic because I don’t want to see the snake skins or run into a snake. I can only imagine what I would have done if they showed me a human skull. Thankfully, it was an animal of some sort, but no one is quite sure of what kind of animal. I’ve decided to dub it a unicorn. They guys are thinking a sheep or goat, but yeah, I’m going with unicorn. Ghon just Googled sheep skulls, and is going with sheep. Now why is a sheep skull buried in our house foundation…

Only one side of the floor was able to be resupported and leveled, knowing we could not find a way into left side of the room. After the bathtub was removed, Ghon could see dirt near the plumbing and decided to pull off the plywood to see underneath. Here is where you can either 1 – curse that he did, because he found a new issue. Or 2 – be thankful he did as we found a support log with damage that needs to be corrected. The discovery brought us to a standstill. There wasn’t enough room to get under the floor to jack the floor to support and level it out. There was also a concern regarding putting pressure on the floor to jack up the living room ceiling joists. There could be a plan in place that starts tomorrow – but it took a lot of deliberations and a variety of ideas to come up with a plan.

After this discovery, the damaged beam, not just the skull, a fire was built, a BBQ dinner served and a bit of relaxation followed. We slowly started bidding our friends goodbye, and were able to get a pic with most of our help. 

Remember the long list of to-do items? Here’s what we did:

Inside Jobs

Hang sister joists

Install new joists

Remove remaining drywall from living room

Remove drywall from dining room

Remove electric from living room

Remove electric from dining room

Remove linoleum from kitchen floor

Remove linoleum from bathroom floor

Remove everything BUT the toilet from lower bath

Remove drywall from bathroom

Remove all carpet and padding from 2^nd floor

Remove carpet from stairs

Empty/clean out storage room

Remove closet from master bedroom

Remove partition from sitting room

Finish removing partition from bdrm/storage rm

Trash mattress/boxsprings

Trash recliners/chairs & wood frame furniture

Haul wood furniture to fire pit & cut

Frame in two walls, closet, bathroom wall in living room

Empty/clean out attic

What a success!

Larry & Charlotte, Kathryn & Cecil, Kevin, Dave & Jen, Cassy, Tim, Charlie, Clint, Travis & Aly – THANK YOU. Thank you for driving the distances you did to wreak havoc on our house (or watch our kids). You really did take us leaps and bounds further in this project, and we really can’t thank you enough for spending your day with us. What an amazing day. We are nowhere near ‘done’ this project, but are so much further along with the help of great friends. For those of you that didn’t make it and wanted to – let’s pick a day to share the fun. There will be so much more to do.