With the upcoming visit by our friends Doug and Tonia, who will be here in a couple of hours, we’ve wrapped up the current projects, cleaned up the ell workshop, and are putting away our work gloves for a bit. It’ll feel good to take a break and do some tourist-y stuff. After four months of living here, we really haven’t done much in the way of siteseeing.
We did run over to Hampton, NH last week with the pup, as we realized he’s likely never seen the ocean. While he enjoyed spending the day with us, and the lobster roll lunch, he was uninterested in the water, but not about the other dogs on the beach.
One project we wrapped up was the stripping and refinishing of our laundry room/back mudroom door. This poor door has been on the sawhorses for at least a month, as we kept getting distracted by other projects. But it’s finished, and it’s beautiful!
Another long-awaited project was the removal of a maple trunk and debris that was cut down a long time ago, along with the removal of about 14-15 other trees in the back yard. Clearing these trees will open up a ton of sky, and bring enough light into the back yard for a pretty healthy garden. It will also (hopefully) allow some seasonal views of the Wapack range to the east/southeast. We’re really pleased with the results, and as long as the machinery was onsite, we had some boulders moved around and rock walls repaired.
Just a quick barn update… the jacking has finished up, amounting to a total of 14″ of level correction, with another one to two inches still to come in some places when it’s set back on its re-stacked foundation. Because of a jacking location, a piece of sill was replaced to give them a solid jack point. A new 8″ x 8″ hemlock beam was slid in and joined. The old sill beam was completely rotted away to roughly 2″ left. Our contractor told us that the sill would likely have failed within the next two years, and the back barn would have fallen. Zoom in on the first picture; what you see literally crumbles when you brush your hand over it.
Here is an image illustrating the difference in the level of the barn- notice the latch in the photo below. Between the door and the jamb, there is at least an inch of movement. This is why there will need to be so much re-alignment of doors, windows, and roofing, when the barn is back on its feet.
The next step is the drainage system installation and foundation re-stacking, which I expect will start tomorrow, as some heavy machinery was dropped off today.
Things are really (FINALLY!!) happening here, and we’re making a lot of progress towards restoring Daniel and Abigail’s home. While we’re finally getting to where we can start imagining the finished project (kidding, its never finished), and we’re excited to someday see the outcome, we don’t want to wish away the process either. This is our job, our career… and we’re here for the rest of our lives. Can’t imagine spending our retirement years any other way.
Until next time…. thanks for following along! Leave us a comment or question if you have any questions.
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