Framing and Structural Supports Almost Complete

Walls came down in the kitchen and upstairs bedroom.  Framing for new walls are up/coming up for the new bathroom

Beams in the kitchen, attic and basement are all in

Amy showing off new bathroom framing in the upstairs.

view from the living room to the kitchen -- totally open with
new posts and beam.

new wall in the bedroom (new bathroom wall).

new wall in the bedroom.

Extra 2x4 supports jacketing the existing 4x4 posts and beams.

Concrete and rebar to hold up the new floor and stairs.

New beam in the basement to hold up the new supports
in the kitchen/dining room.

This is some serious stuff... next up: HVAC, electrical, plumbing and drywall

Chimney and Fireplace are Done

Progress!  Fireplace and chimney are now complete.  There is a ton (probably two tons) of cinder blocks, mortar, concrete, brick and rebar sitting at the foundation of this structure -- this thing will never move again.

Check out the before pictures here and then it's:

Picture time!

Under Construction.

That little black rectangle in the fire box is the fireplace vent. On the other side of that black handle, is a small hole in the side of the chimney. If there's not enough oxygen going to the fire or there's too much smoke, you can pull that little handle and the fire will get more o2 and burn hotter/better/brighter.  Not a problem right now because the house is a sieve.

She's a brick.  house.

Temporary shoring while they jacked up the house.

The "used" bricks are actually new bricks that are put
 in a tumbler and distressed  to look used.

New foundation.

This is what leveled out the living room.

large.

One thing that isn't pictured is what is holding the chimney onto the house.   There are metal straps that are secured to the wood structure of the attic that make sure there's no movement or tipping over.

in charge.

finis.

Soon, we'll strip the paint and stain the original wood mantle and put it back on the brick hearth.  Same with the two smaller mantles on either side.

Bungalow Naivete

Not knowing much about the world, I had the romantic idea that our new house was lovingly and expertly crafted by an architect in the late 1910's and built by a professional craftsman (probably specifically for the site; possibly making the doors and builtins on site to spec from the new owner). But, alas, this house and its plans were probably ordered from a catalog and delivered as a "kit" -- essentially a big truck with all the pre-cut lumber, nails, trim and fixtures needed to build a new home.

This was news to me -- and a little disillusioning -- that our new home's mystique is shared across many many homes in the northwest, California, Illinois, New York and other spots where craftsman homes were popular.  The nice part is that there is a ton of really interesting research being done on it.  The Oregon History Project does a good job of summarizing it.

After looking at a few sites, it looks like every old house in East Portland came from a catalog of some kind.  I now go through neighborhoods and can pick out the houses that were probably "kit homes".

The Daily Bungalow on Flikr is a giant, fantastic repository of all images Craftsman, Arts and Crafts Style Architecture, and old Portland homes.  After looking through their pictures for hours and hours, I think I may have found the plans for our place:

It could be this guy or this guy or this guy or this guy or this guy or (most likely) this guy.  I'm guessing it's the last in the list from Architect H. M. Fancher.  That picture looks eerily like our house.

Also, Craftsmanjunky on pinterest is a great source of images and old house catalogs.

Not to be outdone, our current house is probably also a kit home:


you can compare:

Around 2010 when I bought the place.

Around 1920 when these little guys were built.

Those are the exact dimensions of our little house though the walls have moved around a little (also in NE Portland).  The "Dearborn" was part of the Aladdinette series by Aladdin Homes around 1920.  The thought was that some people liked living in apartments, so they took an apartment and made it a house... there was even a graphic in one of the catalogs of pulling out (what looked like) a tenement apartment and putting a roof on it and calling it an "Aladdinette".  (U Mich has all the old Aladdin catalogs archived as PDFs - the picture above is from the 1922 annual sales catalog and can be found here).

Gone are the murphy beds and wood stoves, however. Though we've enjoyed our time here, our little 650 square foot house is lovely but a little small - hence the project.

I wonder if in year 2112 people will look at Renaissance Homes (assuming they're still standing) and think that they're a perfect representation of the aesthetic of the early 21st century.  I hope not.

Happy 2013!

God as My Witness, We Will Rebuild (the chimney)

Mason Randy and team just poured a giant amount of concrete into a hole where the former foundation used to be. This new chimney ain't going nowhere.  Also, the fireplace looks straighter already...


Next up: rebuilding the chimney and hearth.  But before that, a little background on the chimney discussion and how we got to where we are today:
 

Direct vent on the side of a house.

• Amy is super allergic to smoke and soot - she presented the idea of a gas insert instead of rebuilding the wood hearth (that way we don't even need to rebuild the chimney - we could vent it right outside -- savings!).
• Craig said "sure - one problem, though, when you take out the chimney, the house will be naked without siding and the chimney there to cover it.  The siding is old and we can't repair a hole without it looking like a giant zipper on the side of the house.  You can replace the siding so it matches, but you'd have to replace the siding on the entire south side of the house."  No savings there...
• Craig is has a solution, though: "we could build a faux chimney out of wood, cover it with faux brick and it'll be cheaper than a masonry chimney"
• this was actually our plan until we got a good price on rebuilding the chimney and the wood burning hearth so we're just going with that...  Amy's not thrilled about it, but there are some supporting viewpoints:

• I think gas inserts look like microwaves.  
• Friend Bob offered another benefit: it's good to be able to use an "analogue" fuel that can heat your home in case of gas/electricity service disruption. (e.g., a main break, storm, zombies, peak oil, socialism, fascism, end-of-days, 12-21-2012.)
• Craig maintains that a wood hearth is more "period".   And we're all about that...
• Having an old fashioned chimney will probably maintain the value of the house best.
• Theoretically, new fireplaces don't get as smokey or sooty as 100-year-old fireplaces...
• Getting the mason to do this and the other stuff (like demolishing the other chimney and fixing the foundation) makes the overall project a little cheaper.

"Vancouver used"

"Homestead Used"

"Mutual Used"

Randy Sprenger (Sprenger Masonry) is our mason.  We're getting bricks from Mutual Materials.  Should be picking out colors and styles soon.  We're leaning towards one of these:



"Used" just means they "look used".  They're new bricks with holes in them that will later be filled with rebar and mortar.






Also, I'm thinking gargoyles...

bleah.

 

Demo begins!

Got a call from Craig, he said that the Keen Store (his other project) is all done and launched and he's ready to show us some love.

The love starts with the demolition of the chimney and fireplace.  As you may recall, the chimney is not so structurally sound anymore and needs to be taken down -- the foundation is cracked and the entire brick stack is peeling away from the house.  No es bueno.

Here are the results!  [Edit:  for the impatient, here are the new chimney and "after" pictures]

Before:

The Mystery Spot.

Those bricks moved.  Creepily.

After:

This hole goes down about 3 feet down into the crawlspace.

Amy rises from 'neath the floor.  Creepily.

Before:

 

  

After:

All this took a day -- the before pictures were from the morning and the afters were from the night on the same day... No neighbors or neighbors' cars were injured. [Edit: talked to the mason the next day -- he said that 2x8 next to the hole in the roof was the only thing keeping that chimney from falling into the neighbors garage.  He said it started peeling away towards the workers as they started demo... bullet dodged...]

[ "after" pictures of new chimney and hearth ]

Next up, demo of the other chimney!

Waiting... and possible lead poisoning

Fun hasn't begun yet...

We've been sitting around on our thumbs for a while waiting for the permits to clear and for our contractor to free up some time to get started (he's working on a big remodel for Keen's store in the Pearl).

And the permits just came through today!  Here's the latest from www.portlandmaps.com:

Activities	Must Check	Activity Status
2nd Screen App Set-Up	Y	Approved
P & Z - Property Check	Y	Approved
Life Safety - Application Check	Y	Approved
Intake - DSC	Y	Intake
Corrections Received - RS	N	Completed
Point of Contact	N	Completed
Planning and Zoning Review	Y	Approved
Life Safety Plan Review	Y	Approved
Structural Review	Y	Approved
Urban Forestry Review	Y	Approved
Pre-Issuance Check	Y	Completed

Evidently the urban forestry review went well... whatever that is.  [I was just told by the contractor that it's the city's prerogative to make you plant trees in the strip of grass on the street when you remodel your house.    Fortunately, we've already got a couple of trees there.]

These permits were more expensive than I thought. As in, price-of-a-nice-new-refrigerator-expensive (major appliances are going to be my unit of measurement for cost from now on).  I'm a little surprised permits cost anything, frankly -- they seem to be a giant neon sign that reads "RAISE MY TAXES" so you'd think they'd comp you the cost of the paperwork...  I guess not.

In the mean time since our Black Friday credit spree, we've been doing a few little things to keep busy on the house:
 - we sold that ridiculous stove the jerkhole appraiser made us buy.  for $15 profit - savings.
 - we borrowed some tools from friend Bob for demo (chisel, sledgehammer, crowbar) and have taken out most of the kitchen cabinets with it.  We wore NEPH-rated respirators, but I wouldn't be surprised if we got a little lead in our brains from all the paint chips and dust.  It'll help in the long run.  We think too much as it is.

Next up: Chimney demolition and talking with the masons about new fireplaces.  Hopefully they're free masons.  Probably not.  And they probably get that joke a lot.  I'll still ask.

Black Friday (for the SAVINGS)

Aside from the $60 stove we got from the meth family in Hillsboro, the new place doesn't have any appliances.  Thanks to Amy's innate sense of savings (it's italicized because that's how she always says it: "Savings!") we decided to hit up Best Buy for appliances on Black Friday.  We didn't stand in line at midnight, but we did go to the one in Jantzen Beach and rub elbows with the (other) materialist dbags and random people taking advantage of their only day off to buy water filters and video games.

Anyway, we signed up for all of the rewards cards and 0% down, 18-month financial shackles, first-born, etc.  We got a fridge, washer, dryer, and dishwasher.  And a molehill of debt.

We'll never be going out on black friday again.