It's Demo! "After" Is Better Than "Before"!

Remember Ty Pennington from Home Improvement TV show fame?  He took such delight in the demolition stage of the building project with his megaphone!  Sometimes he would even take down the whole house!

 We have been in the demo stage at our little beach cottage for about a month.  We aren't taking down the whole house but things certainly look different from the Before pictures.  We actually have had a few happy surprises!

Here's the Livingroom/Diningroom Before

And here is the Living/Diningroom after demo

The room looks so big now thanks to removing the wall between the rooms.  And don't you love the vaulted ceiling we found when the low stippled ceiling was removed?  Once the sheetrock and bamboo paper came down we found wonderful wood walls.  Also it was a happy discovery to see wood floors underneath the carpet.

Yaaay!  I think I like the "After" better than the "Before".   If everything goes like this in the rest of the demolition stage, I'll be a happy lady!

The "Before" Grand Tour!

It's time to take the grand tour--the "Before" grand tour, that is! The previous owners took most of the furniture before the house was moved so now we can get a good view of the rooms .   I'll try to "walk" you through so you understand the layout...

Here's the Front Porch.

 
  Eventually we will have stairs on the right side of the house and will enter  from the right side of the porch (just past the swing).  The entrance used to be right in front of the front door but to meet setback codes and still have room to park, we moved it.  You can see the front door on the left side of the photo.

How does that little poem go?....  "Step into my parlor said the spider to the fly..."  Well, here's our Living room/Parlor.

Wow--that's some attention-grabbing wallpaper!

In the above photo, the door on the left goes to a bedroom (future bunk room)--we are planning to move the door over to the right and to put 2 sets of built-in bunk beds in this room.  The door on the right opens into what will be the dining room.  Our plan is to take down the wall between the living room and dining room.

Here's the Bunk Room (to be)

We will take out the closet and put bunks along the wall with the fake paneling and there will be another set of bunks on the opposite wall (where I am standing to take the picture).

Dining Room

View as you step into the dining room from the living room opening--straight ahead behind the dining room is the current kitchen which will be converted into a bedroom.

 Let's take a look at that Kitchen/Bedroom-to-Be.

My headboard will be against the wall where the little stove is :)  There is an adjoining full bathroom to this room so it made more sense to me to make the room a bedroom.

Now back to the Dining Room for a moment....

View from the opposite corner of the dining room from the previous dining room photo--You can see two doors--the left looks back to the living room and the right one is currently a bedroom but will become the kitchen.

Our Future Kitchen

Ah yes, the lovely and popular bamboo wallpaper once again.  Are we going to keep it?  That's a no.  We will remove the closet and an opening will be made to connect the kitchen and dining spaces 
with a bar for folks to sit at and eat.

On the opposite wall from the eating space is a Connector to the "little house".  The connector will house a powder room, laundry room, owner's closet and the water heater and electrical panel.  It will also be the way out to the back deck and stairs.

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At this point the tour ends--there was no floor across to the "little house" which will hold a bedroom with its own tiny front porch and bathroom.   

And there you have it--demo is coming up next--not the Ty Pennington kind where the house is leveled but lots of ceilings and walls will be coming down!  Grab your hard hat!

Seas The Day? ~ I'd Settle For Seeing My House!

My little beach cottage was standing proudly on its own piers and I couldn't wait to go inside again.  It had been months since I had seen it and I was ready to get reacquainted. 

There was a flurry of activity going on...the house was connected to the city water system.

Photo provided by Tom McPhee

Photo provided by Tom McPhee

This was a necessary step before the concrete pad could be poured underneath the cottage--great--but I wanted to see my house.  

Construction workers were building the connector between the little house and the main house

Photo provided by Tom McPhee

This was all well and good--necessary even.  But I WANTED to see my house. Everyone had been in my house except me!  

I was ready to climb a ladder and have a look around when...

 

 Stairs!.....the clouds parted and a rainbow appeared (at least that's how it felt).   I walked up onto the little deck at the back of the house...

and finally I got to walk inside and see my house!  I'll take you on a tour of the glorious "Before" pictures next time!

 

Laid To Rest

My title sounds very solemn but in actuality it was a very happy time for our little beach cottage when it was time to be laid to rest on its own foundation!  I was very eager to see how this was going to be accomplished.  

Thanks to Anthony Sapone and Tom McPhee I have some pictures to go along with my own--but I must confess that I felt I needed to stay out of the way and I wasn't there saying "Hold that pose".  I didn't want to suffer the fate of the wicked witch of the east from the  Wizard of Oz when Dorothy's house fell on her.  Setting the house down on the piers was a difficult, dangerous job!

 So this is how they did it...here was the house being supported by metal beams that were resting on stacks of railroad ties slightly higher than the piers:

Next wooden supports were stretched across the top of the piers.

This was hard work--there was just enough room to stretch the boards under the house 

and across the piers.

Once all the boards were in place they were permanently connected to the piers with metal straps that were inserted into the cement piers when they were being filled with cement...

 and then anchored together with these corner supports.

Once all the wood support system was in place and anchored securely, the wooden railroad ties and metal support beams holding the house up could be removed.

Yaay!  It's standing on its own as some of the railroad ties in the picture above have been removed and the metal support is below the top of the piers.  Eventually all of the railroad ties came down and were hauled away with the metal supports by our wonderful housemovers, Braswell Brothers.

The strapping of the cottage to the foundation will continue to take place throughout the renovation of the house--it's done in layers so the house will remain even when 

severe weather conditions occur.  

Rest in place and rest in peace, little cottage!

 

"Pier" Pressure

My little beach cottage has "legs"!  They're actually called piers but whatever they are called--they make my house look so tall!  This week I showed you how the crew laid a firm foundation for the piers in this post and this one.

Now that we have the rebar and the concrete has been poured,  you may be wondering--what's the deal with the rebar poles sticking up?  I'll show you--it's cool.

 

Our contractor, Anthony, told me about his subcontractor, Vicki, whose business is stacking concrete block--she and her crew thread the blocks through the rebar to build the piers. Anthony seemed to be  rather impressed with this lady so it piqued my interest.  I made a point to stop by to watch her and her assistants in action.

First they put a layer of cement around the rebar poles that were sticking out of the cement footing.  The cement applied was the size and shape of a cement block.

Then Vicki lifted a cement block over her head (wow!) and threaded the rebar through the holes in the block.  Go Vicki!

 Her assistant guided it down the rebar to set it on top of the cement.

Next they made sure the block was completely level--each block has to be perfect so the pier will stand up straight.

Once some minor adjustments were made to level it, then cement was applied to the 

top of the cement block.

...And everything was repeated 

And again...

 

Until the rebar was totally covered and the pier was completed! 

 Once this process was finished for all of the piers, the cement truck came back and the holes in the cement block (with the rebar inside) were completely filled in with concrete--and that is the way you do it!  Those are some strong piers!  

And speaking of strong, I'm still awestruck every time I think of Vicki doing her work--I may just break out in a chorus of "I Am Woman".  Well done, Vicki, well done.

Putting Our Best Footings Forward!

Who knew that Vicky Patton would ever be so interested in how to anchor a house to the ground?  I didn't expect it but I found it to be fascinating!

At the beach with its sandy, shiftable foundation, it is imperative for a house to have strong footings.  My last post dealt with the grid of deep holes that were dug underneath the house.  Next two grids made of rebar were placed at different levels in the hole along with two tall rods made of rebar.

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Rebar (short for reinforcing bar) is made of steel and is used to reinforce concrete structures....which bring us to the next thing.  The cement truck was next on the scene to fill each hole with cement.

Source:  Tom McPhee

Source:  Tom McPhee

Once the cement dried--in about a week--one of the coolest parts of the process happened.  I'll show you in my next post!

Building A House Upon The Sand--Wise or Foolish?

There's a parable that speaks of the wisdom of building your house upon a rock and the foolishness of building your house upon the shifting sands.  With that in mind, it is time to see how we are anchoring our house firmly in place--at the beach you can't avoid the sandy foundation, so what gives?

This is the sight that greeted me one day when driving over to check on my house....There were plumblines hanging from every corner as well as many others hanging at different intervals all over the underside of the house.  Squares were drawn with spray paint under each plumbline.

Deep holes were dug in each of those orange squares.

There was a grid of holes all over the ground beneath the plumblines.

 

 Our contractor, Anthony Sapone, explained the next step to me...rebar would be placed in the holes along with cement.

Rebar grids

Rebar poles

 More on this next time!