A reprieve for a minute

The rain has stopped, for a minute.  Per KSL:  2.53 inches of rain here in Brigham City. The wind was crazy here last night, so I can only imagine what it was like over in Hyrum.   We got snow in the mountains last night.

I went over to the house this morning.  The 5-gallon bucket I put in the kitchen last night in Hyrum was full to the brim.  There are more places where the water is starting to drip into the kitchen.  The ceiling (over the bucket) fell to the floor, and there are at least two more places where the ceiling is probably on its way down.  

The floor is still soaking wet.... but it looks like the underneath will all be ok. 

I can't wait til Curtis comes home.    

Did I mention that it's raining a little bit?

OK, more like a an almost steady downpour.  Day two.  I know Curtis tarped the roof the best he could, but I have just been worried about it today and I kept feeling like I needed to go check on everything.  So I did.  

Why, I don't know. 

As soon as I stepped inside the house, I could hear water hitting the floor.  In multiple places.  This can't be good.   That spot where Curtis ripped out the kitchen cabinet and found a door?  Water is just running down the walls. Dripping of the wires.  I didn't even dare turn on the lights to see just how bad it was.  The counter top was wet. The pile of insulation on the floor?  All wet.  The laminate floor 3-4 feet in front of the counters?  Wet, all the way to the wall. From the new old door all the way over to where the fridge is supposed to be. 

I hear dripping in the pantry. But its dark and I am not going in there. 

More dripping at the wall over by the laundry room... the carpet is saturated here, in a space at leat 3' x 3', maybe just larger than that.  Squishy saturated. But I could at least put a bucket here and catch the water.

There was more leaking at the sky lights in the laundry room.  But I KNOW all of that is getting replaced so I am not too worried about all of that.  

The floor is wet over by the door going into the garage. But I couldnt figure out for sure where it was coming from. 

Now, where the water is running down the wall, there is brick there, the old exterior wall.  That should be OK.  Not sure about the floor... it might be concrete under the laminate but I dont really know.  The other spot? I dont know about that either.

Now..... I understand this is not entirely as bad  as it could be.  I mean, the house is OLD.  It has not been taken care of.  So many things are being replaced anyway.  But still, it just freaks me out because Curtis isn't here and it is hard to guess what he would want me to worry about. 

If I thought he would be home today or tomorrow, I wouldn't worry so much.  But.... when he says "I'll see you when I see you," I have no idea what to expect.  It could be several more days of rain and waiter before he gets home.  

And so, I just worry about everything. 

No new progress, just random photos.

This week's renovation has been interrupted by what else but.... the deer hunt.

The reality is, Curtis is living with a houseful of girls and hormones now, so I am quite certain he needs some time with the guys. Deer hunting is a good excuse for that because we -- the girls -- aren't interested.   And besides, today is day two of a pretty heavy rain.  So, he wouldn't be getting much done on that roof anyway. 

Before he left, Curtis got the floor in for Cara's dormer, and he has a couple of the walls framed in. All of the above has been carefully covered in blue tarps. I don't have any pictures of the walls yet. But, I do have some random pix from last week.  

Curtis loves to have people stop by so he can give them the grand tour.

Yeah!!!! Uncle Maurice brought a roll off - that ought to help the clean-up!

Think it is close enough to the house?

In front of our surprise door.... LAYERS.

New roof, old roof, which roof??

The brick here was once the exterior of the home.

Got my irises from home planted in a temporary spot.

Some of the "treasures" we have found... the shoe was in a tree.

And... because it is almost Halloween..... this was left in the kitchen. :)

Surprise-surprise!!

Last week was been full of surprises! 

After Curtis got the building permit, he went back to work on the roof, tearing apart half of the back section, the part over the kitchen.

Well, we stopped in to see him one day and found quite a mess in the kitchen, which surprised me – I thought he was working on the roof, right? 

It turns out that when he started digging out the insulation on the roof, he found the old, very old electrical wiring…. I think he called it hook and loop wiring.  

old old very old electrical..... it is gone now.

Well, there is no way Curtis was going to leave that in place, so he had to find just what those wires went to. So, one of the cabinets came down. Sheetrock came down. 

 Can you believe….. one piece of sheet rock started at the floor and went just up to the wire, and the other piece of sheetrock started at the ceiling and came down to the wire…. which was then mudded right in between the two pieces.

Well, in the process of making a mess and tracing those wires, we found another surprise:  there was a door hidden behind the kitchen cabinets. We have no idea if it was an exterior door or maybe an entry to the kitchen at one time.

Another door?

Once the wiring was replaced, Curtis went back to the roof.  Or should I say….. roofs?

The back portion of our house includes the kitchen, the pantry and the laundry room.  It appears what is not the kitchen was added on first….. you can actually see it in the old photo I posted the other day.  Curtis thinks the pantry was probably added as a porch to begin with, because the roof is sloped away from the kitchen. 

The old kitchen roof and the old porch roof are still there, under the existing roof. He found another small chimney also, although who knows what that went to. 

 

 The good news is that the support spanning the kitchen is heavier than Curtis anticipated.  And I guess it was well insulated, with a nice thick layer of sawdust, topped with a good layer of loose papery insulation.

Curtis took Cara up on the roof so she could stand in her bedroom – she was quite pleased with herself, silly girl.  

And then, Curtis took ME on the roof to take pictures. 

I think I turned green. 

I know I wanted to puke. 

Hope he doesn’t need help up there anytime soon because this girl is afraid of heights!!! 

We have a building permit!

OK, so that is today's news, in its entirety. But it is a good feeling just the same. Curtis will be calling to order the materials today and he should be back on the roof in a day or two.  

Weather permitting of course.

Oh, speaking of weather, particularly COLD weather, the new boiler is on order as well.  Not so exciting, but these are some of the major, yet basic projects that must be completed before we can move in. 

No, the roof isn't done yet........

It rained a lot this week.  Seems like a good time for a break.

OK. You know Curtis.  He doesn't take breaks. 

So, just a change in focus for a minute.  In between storms, he did finish the roof on everything but the garage and the two add-ons in the back.  There are two separate pitches on the roof here, which is just beggin' for trouble.  Add to that a little girl who wants a window-less room upstairs to be her bedroom.  

To proceed, Curtis needs a building permit. He went in to the Cache County Building and Development office with a nice set of drawings on Tuesday, but the dude wanted them drawn larger. So, Curtis spent most of the night redoing them, and we went back .... now we are just waiting on the official OK. 

In the meantime.......

Curtis went to work inside...... in the dungeon, haha.  I don't like it down there much. Creepy.  And I can only imagine how many spiders are down there.

Before: this room looked so small when it was full of stuff.

The creepy stairs going down into the creepy dungeon.  Did I mention I don't like going down there?

Well, OK... this is kinda cool...... I have been told this is where the old coal chute was.

There is a cellar/partial basement in our house, with one larger room and one bitty room, where the furnace/boiler/water heater go.  Well, now that the old furnace and  water heater are gone, that bitty room is a lot bigger..... 9' x 4' . 

Curtis had to take everything out and upstairs in pieces.

All  of this out of the dungeon.

Then, he dug out the dirt floor ..... about five inches of dirt, or 100 5-gallon buckets up the stairs and out the window to the wheelbarrow. Who counts this stuff?????  Yeah, Curtis does.   Oh ..... and the giant boulder  that had been pulled from the cellar wall to put pipe where it needed to be....  I was waiting for Curtis to tell me that he ate his spinach and hauled it up the stairs by himself.  I was impressed when he said he didn't. That boulder is now buried in that dirt floor,

Curtis hauled a bunch of square pavers down into the dungeon, so the bitty room has a nice concrete floor now. It is still creepy in there .

the smaller part of the dungeon after Curtis got done with it.

The cluster of pipes that will heat my home.

In the upper-righthand corner of this photo, you can see a portion of the hole that the boulder came from.  Curtis said that boulder was at least two feet in boulder. 

We went  up to the house together today.  My house is all but done and on the market now, so I can go to Hyrum more often.   We didn't do much.... just cleaned up his mess in the yard.   Shingles, shakes, nails everywhere.  He filled in one flower bed for me so I could get my irises in the ground.  It isn't perfect yet, because let's face it... he isn't done making a mess. But it does look like a house again, instead of a demolition site. 

Curtis should have his building permit tomorrow, so he should be back on the roof in a day or two.   

A Glimpse into the Past

The Hyrum House, date unknown.

The Hyrum House was built in 1890, by a farmer whose name was Jens or James Jensen.  I am still working on digging up the history of this home, so we still know very little about the house.  I know it was originally made of brick, and because the home has been added onto many times, so one of the former owners covered it in siding at some point.  When I have gathered all the stories I can, I will post the story of our home.

In the process of buying the house, Curtis founds some photos in the county treasurer's office, and yesterday, we were lucky enough to get a copy.  I took the photo to my friend, Sean Hales, who is a genius with Photoshop.  He scanned the photo for me and enlarged it just a bit.  I mean, let's face it.... I can take a good photo, but I haven't mastered the editting possibilities. He has. 

So..... check out the house.  And while you are at it, look closely at the car in the lower left corner. Based on that, what era do you think this photo was taken??  Comments are welcome!