Bring me the Circular Saw

After a few days off helping Ray get ready for his trip to Turkey and then having David and the kids in for the weekend it was time to get back to work on the new wall.  I went over on Sunday for a few hours and got the wall positioned, anchored it to the floor and nailed it to header.  

Monday it stormed so no activity.

Tuesday I got off work a little bit earlier than usual.  Gloria and I headed over to begin sheathing the wall.  I added a couple of anchors to the wall and then started setting up a piece of plywood that needed to be cut.  I asked Gloria to go in the kitchen and get the circular saw.  She came out after a bit and said it wasn't in there.

Huh?  I was sure I put it in there after we used it last.  I go in, check the kitchen, check the TV room, go check the playroom, Did I leave it under the carport?  Nope,  What the heck?  Back into the house, wait a second wasn't the new chain saw sitting right there.  Suddenly the realization hits, somebody must have stolen it.

This lead to the beginning of a mental inventory of what was here before vs. what is here now.  Over the next hours and then days the list begins to build:

• Circular saw
• Brand new Stihl Farm Boss chainsaw
• Old barely running chainsaw
• Brand new Echo Lithium Ion Weed whacker.
• 30 year old, worn out echo gas Weed whacker
• Air Compressor
• Brush Cutter
• My Nikon DSLR (Yes the one I bought off ebay to replace the original one that was stolen from our current house)
• My old Baritone from high school
• and the list goes on

Probably well over $1,000, maybe $2,000 worth of stuff, and no the vacant house insurance doesn't cover any of it. There were a few lucky breaks, for some reason they missed my new hammer drill, they left the air hose for the compressor and more importantly my Air Cat Impact wrench that cost more than the compressor.  When they stole the Baritone, the left behind an old bugle.  It probably isn't worth much of anything but to me it was priceless as it was my Mom's bugle.  I can remember her playing it a few times, she was really good.  

Gloria called the police the next day to file a report, they sent an officer out who was very helpful. He  helped identify several possible ways that they could have gotten in.  Still don't really know, there was no sign of anything being forced open.  She went on the war path for the rest of the week trying to improve the security and removing anything of value.  

As I look back, it stinks that the stuff got stolen but like anything it could have been much worse.  For the more than two years the house sat empty with no insurance at all I feared this would happen and be a lot worse.  It isn't uncommon for thieves to tear out all the copper pipe and wiring in a house.  It still isn't as disturbing as the time we were robbed at our home while we were sleeping.  On that one Roger was up doing homework, heard noises, came down stairs and came face to face with a couple of guys who were unhooking the TV.  They acted like they had a gun and ran, thankfully I doubt that they really did.   We learned from that experience and made some changes.  We are learning from this wake up call as well.

That's about it for now, no pictures cause my stuff is gone.

The Wall

After tearing the old wall down it was time to begin building the new wall.  We spent most of the week after demolition trying to figure out exactly how we would build it.  Since this was originally a porch the wall construction is a bit different than traditional home construction. I talked to Bill on the design, he ended up drawing up a design for us.  Unfortunately it was based upon my memory of the measurements so it took a few iterations to get he actual dimensions.  Even the final drawing was off by an inch here and here.

We headed out on a Friday to pick up a pile of 2x6s and some Anderson 200 series windows.  Bright and early on Saturday morning Ray and I began our first framing exercise.  It was a long frustrating day;.We found additional rotten wood that needed to be torn out, Every time we tore out another board our dimensions for the new wall changed.  There was also a lot time spent trying to figure out exactly how this is was going to work.  We began building our masterpiece.  The first thing we learned was that  we couldn't make a straight cut with the circular saw to save our lives.  We seemed to bend as many nails as we pounded in.  Also had to redo about half of our studs   By the end of the day we had one small section created:

Seems fitting that my finger is in the picture of the disaster!

 Everything about it seemed cockeyed.  Despite our best efforts to square everything before nailing it was as crooked as a dog's hind leg.  We were pretty demoralized at that point.


Sunday morning back on the phone with Bill getting our design updated once again.  Also consulting on how we were supposed to build this thing.  He gave us a loAt of advise, The real game changer was when he explained how to cut with the circular saw by using a quick square next to it.  Here is the youtube he sent: Using a speed square with a circular saw

Ray and I arrived around noon on Sunday, made a few test cuts with the saw.  The results were nothing short of amazing.  Time to measure and cut was reduced to less than half, cuts were straight and exactly the correct length.  After reviewing our day 1 effort we knew it was time to tear that one down and start over.  We began rebuilding the first section.  Things went much better.  In a few hours we had it done.  After getting started on the next section we realized that we were out of 2x6's due to the waste from the first day.  I decided to go get some more supplies while Ray worked on getting what we had already cut ready for assembly.  We I returned I find Ray and Gloria working together to frame as much of the next section as there was wood for.  Ray told me "Mom is the X-factor in the operation".  Before long it was time to wrap up and go to church.  Ray had a change of clothes already over at the house and was able to get cleaned up.  I was too filthy to even consider it so Ray and Gloria headed to St. Monica while I headed home for a quick shower and change of clothes.  I then headed downtown for the second week in a row to catch the "Last Chance" mass at St; Johns.

Monday I took off as another vacation day so that we could finish the framing.  By the time we quit we had it looking pretty good.  We were getting better at the framing, Our big challenge then was trying to get the walls in place under the header from the original porch.  We used our jacks to raise things up a tiny bit and then beat it into place with Ray's large dead blow hammer.  At the end of the day we had it basically in place:

Ray measuring that in fact the door opening is exactly 38 inches.

Time to head home after a long sweaty day in sweltering August heat!

We managed to get back over one evening to get it in it's final location, anchor it and begin sheathing.  We spent at least an hour getting everything just right to we were plumb in every direction the window sill framing was level etc.  By the time we finished this we realized that somehow we had managed to get it just right but sticking out almost 1/2 inch too far.  We began working to correct but after a short time I was having back spasms and Ray had a headache and it was starting to rain.  Quitting time,  This was hard because I knew that this was Ray's last day to help as he needed to get ready to travel to Turkey with his new job.

And the Walls come tumbling down

One problem that has existed for a while now is the decay of the "playroom".  When the house was originally built there was a screened in porch on the back of the house.  At some point in the 60's my Mom and Dad had the porch enclosed to create a room.  This is where all of our toys went as well as the TV!  Needless to say we spent a lot of time out there when we were little.  The room had a gas space heater as it was not part of the ducting for the furnace. Here is a picture of the back of the house:

Over the years the room transitioned into more of a junk room.  The space heater quit working decades ago.  About five years ago we had the washer and dryer moved from the basement to this room.  For quite a while it has had a bad odor about it.  I noticed that the baseboard along the wall was mostly gone leaving a trail of black mold behind.  I started by tearing the paneling off to reveal what sort of problems we might have.  Here is what I found:

As you may notice the sill plate is completely gone as are the bottom 4 inches of the studs.  I don't think I ever made a video of it but with a light pressure of the foot it was pretty easy to move the wall out by six inches or more!

I got one quote to replace the wall, it was going to cost at least $8500 , Ouch!  With Ray egging me on the decision was made that we can do this our selves.  How hard could it be?

This past week end with Ray's help I tore down the wall.  Here are a few pictures of the job:

So whats next?  Good question.  I was so exhausted after Saturday that I couldn't work on it at all on Sunday.  Gloria did go through and get a lot of cleaning done.  Looks like we will build a new wall late this week or over the weekend.  Our plan is to have three sets of double hung windows similar to the remaining windows seen above on the left.  The small wall that is still standing is the dinette area of the kitchen and is original to the house.  At some point I plan to pull the aluminum siding off of it to see how much rot we have there.  The root cause of this mess is fairly obvious.  Notice the concrete slab which forms the floor.  The wall was located such that it had about a 1/2 inch ledge on the outside which allowed rainwater to seep under the siding and to work it's magic over time.  Water and Wood, not Good!