We're in!

Hillgrade:

I have been chastised by a few people for not keeping up to date here. And I'll have to take my lumps because I have been negligent.

We're in the house. Actually living here. Sort of. Here's a picture of what the house looks like now with the foundation finished. In the first picture, the black stuff below the plywood of the knee wall is tar, for waterproofing. In the second picture, the white stuff with elephants on it is a waterproofing membrane. The red stuff is a tape that joins the membrane pieces. And now you know just about all I know about foundations and waterproofing.

When we get to it, the ground level will come up to the red tape. We'll slope the soil away from the house in front (sea side) and the garden showing will also have a slope towards the sea. Just how important this is was brought home to us a few days ago. We had the biggest rain storm anyone in these parts can ever remember. Not to mention the thunder and lightening. We had just gone to bed and I was sure we would all be washed out to sea. In the morning, there was a lake at the back of our house, still forming and draining from run-off from the bog across the road. It's imperative that we find a way to divert this water. Our foundation might be waterproof, but it can't be good to have this much moisture near a building. 

So, what's it like? I have nothing but good to say about this house lifting business. For starters, we have a better view. We can see the ocean from the downstairs windows over the big old rock in the side yard. Previously had to climb up on the rock to do that. The view from the upstairs windows is glorious.

The view I like best though is the one from the kitchen window. Previously we looked up at the road, feeling rather like moles. Now, we can sit at the kitchen table, look directly out at the road and see who's coming and going in good Newfoundland style. Great spot for a cup of tea.

And our floors are level -- well as much as floors in a 130-year-old house can be level. No longer do we almost fall down if we turn suddenly in the kitchen. Balance issues have gone the way of the codfish. People who've come in say the place has lost some of its charm and quirkiness. Perhaps. But I can live with it.

One of the last tasks the house-lifters did was to replace the sills on the back addition of the house. They were rotted through. It was his opinion that if we'd left this job even one more year, we might not have had much to save.

The only downside of it all is that the carpenter ants that lived in the old sills now have to find a new home. They have been roaming around outside like lost souls -- very big lost souls at that. I've never seen ants so big in my life. Some of them are at least an inch long. Hopefully they'll go across the street to the old general store that is slowly rotting from the ground up.

So now the real work begins. We haven't stopped much since we moved back in. The first task was to tidy up the yard a bit. Create a few piles - wood that we'll keep to burn, wood that the neighbour wants to burn, stuff to take to the dump. Then we moved the furnace components out of the shed to under the house in order to make room for the firewood pieces that were already short. We made another pile of wood that we'll have to cut later. It's the biggest pile.

John spent some time levelling off the soil under the house in order to make space to store his supplies and tools. We're using the old concrete forms as platforms for both storage and walking. I gather it was not easy using a pick under the house without room to swing it. And the soil being rocky as it is, is not easy to shovel. 

I learned to make concrete the other day. I could probably make it again myself any old time now that I know what consistency it has to have. The only hitch is finding a way to lift the bags of cement. Those things are heavy. We used some of the sand the contractors left around with a few bags of Portland cement. From this we made footings for the back bridge. We bought some Readi-mix to make the posts. And they look very good, if I do say so myself.

So now, we have to fill in the trench. We could just push back the stuff that they took out of the trench and get a load or two of fill to put on top of it to get the grade we want. But the problem is that soil is rather 'poggy' (word used around here to describe soil that holds water like a sponge) and we don't want to give the run-off a place to live. So we've been thinking of having a few loads of a mixture of sand and shale dropped off. Problem is, where to put it. If we don't move the existing mounds, there's nowhere to put the new stuff. We don't really want to move the existing mounds to another location and then use it later as a top-soil. But we might have to.

I've been devoting most of my back-breaking labour to getting rid of the Mile-A-Minute that was growing along the road-side of the house. I really don't want it there. It takes up all the room on that side of the house and blocks light from the living room window. I've been told that even leaving one little bit of root in the soil will result in two new plants. I expect I'm defeating my own purpose by trying to dig it out, because I'm probably not getting all the little root bits. In fact, I'm sure I'm not. Sigh. I don't want to resort to poison, mainly because I tried that last year and the darn thing laughed at me. It shed the parts of the plant that the poison had touched and the rest of it flourished like never before.

We have not got our new wood stove yet. The one we want is difficult to get. The company sells stoves through at least two retailers - Home Hardware (there is one a few kilometers away) and Rona (several hundred km away). And it appears the stove we want is made for Rona only. However the manufacturer's site lists Home Hardware as their distributer in these parts so the fellow who runs HH is going to call them and give them what for and try to get the stove we want.

As I write, the furnace man is here hooking the furnace back up. Since we had to take down the old brick chimney that the furnace used, we thought we'd have to go with one of those steel chimney jobbies that everyone here uses. But it appears we can get something called (probably wrong name) a power exhauster. It is a short pipe that comes out of the foundation wall and that's it. It has an electric fan that exhausts the fumes and apparently does a great job. Doesn't foul up the siding or poison bystanders. Not sure how but that's what they say. So we're going with that. It's cheaper than buying a 24 foot chimney anyway.

The weather has been the shits, if you'll pardon the expression. We saw the sun yesterday for the first time in nearly two weeks. It was 28 degrees Celsius yesterday. I did two loads of laundry to take advantage of a great sea-breeze and the heat. Today the grey skies are back, but it's not as cold as it was last week.

At one point I was so cold I was starting to remember why I left Newfoundland in the first place all those many years ago. I said in a weak moment, "I want to go home." My dear husband looked at me and said, "I'm already home!"

Closing in on the finish line

Summerford:

[Note: this post was written from a house we were staying in while our place was being lifted. Many thanks to a great friend Pete who let us stay there rent free for a lot longer than we anticipated.]

We're getting there. On the weekend, I actually went to Hillgrade and had a look at the house. First time I've been there in over a week, although it feels like forever.

It was a bit of a shock to see something concrete (serendipitous pun) under the house. The knee-wall is there too, as I knew it would be. Having seen it now a few times this weekend, I'm not as upset by it as I was at first. They have roughed in spaces for windows should we ever want to put some in. There's a door - extra wide - to the crawl space.

The front (sea side) of the house is now in it's final position. It will not be lowered any further. The back will be adjusted as its time comes to rest on the foundation. They still have to put the block wall in the back and sides and are doing that as I speak, I should imagine. They didn't work on the weekend although the bossman said he would have liked to. However, the fellows haven't had a weekend off in five weeks so John said he thought it was time they had one.

So today, apart from finishing the block wall (atop the concrete foundation), they will put the weeping tile into the trench to conduct away the bog water that was causing us so many problems to start with. (Heck, if it hadn't been for this bog water, our house would probably have stood another century without intervention.)

John figures we'll be back in the house by Friday, which means the men will be finished by then, and John will have hooked the plumbing up. He has more work to do than just reconnect what he disconnected because he decided to move the location of the septic pipe as well as the garden hose. However, he's confident he can get it done in a day. We're not going to worry about getting the furnace hooked up before we move back because the weather has turned nice and we likely won't freeze before the furnace man gets to do his thing.

Here are some pics that I took on Friday. You can see the foundation, especially on the front. It gives a good idea of how things are going. 

John is going to sort through the wood that's strewn on the ground today. It will all become firewood. Our neighbour has a wood furnace and will take whatever we don't want, even if it has paint on it or concrete bits. I'm not crazy about burning painted wood but I suppose it's not leaded paint so....

Looking pretty darn good, I must say. Like a house that will stand for another hundred years.  Tis odd to see 90 degree corners. 

That Solstice Thing Really Works

Hillgrade:

Summer has arrived. Right on cue. Sunday, June 22, was magnificent. The sky was a clear and heart-breaking blue. The temp was 20 when we were driving towards Twillingate. It must have gone higher because we had to take off clothing after that.

Yesterday we decided to take a hike to see the iceberg that is just off French Beach. It's really around the headland that is north of French Beach, but we don't know the name of that headland. There is bound to be a local name and I will inquire. But suffice to say for now that the iceberg is just north of French Beach.

We drove as far as is possible. Parked by the sign that declares the Road Beyond This Point Impassible. We ate the sandwiches we had made, reckoning that it was better to fuel up before we started than to eat them squished later. We packed a bottle of water into a knapsack and started off. We really weren't sure of the route but figured how hard could it be.

As we were tramping in, we met some people coming out. I stopped them and asked if they had seen the iceberg. Of course they had and reported that the trail was a loop. Even if you go the hard way, you can come out the easy way. Oookay. They were tourists and were not particularly friendly, being mainlanders and all.

A fellow coming out in a truck told us that the trail started just by an old cabin. Very good then.

We found what appeared to be the start of the trail and headed off. Before long, we were nearly up to our knees in a bog and had to double back. We took a rockier path, although to get across the boggy part, we had to jump stones. I didn't get my feet wet so I guess I must not be that old yet.

The path took us along the coast and the scenery was breathtaking. See pics below.

We had to scramble up some very precarious slopes, grasping at tree roots (at least I was), slipping and sliding. But I made it up! Yay. I consider it a personal achievement. The last time I was presented with a hill like that, I quit. (That was in Point Leamington a few years ago. And before you start calling me names, I'll say in my defense that I was wearing sandals when army boots would have been barely adequate.) But talk about worth it. We were atop a very large headland. Looking down I got dizzy. Looking up I got dizzy. It must be how astronauts feel. Sky everywhere.


What I remember most though is the smell. I can conjure it up now as I type. It's a scent sweet and sharp, high and low, gets into your nose and your stomach. You can taste it as though you had just eaten it. Like it seeps up through your feet. A mixture of moss and berries, lichen and spruce and juniper, and sunshine. It's enough to make you drunk. Certainly enough to make you cry.

Just when the sweat was pouring off us and we were about to strip off all our clothes, a very cool breeze brought on the shivers. We must be close to the iceberg. Over some more rocks, down a bit, around a bend and there it was.

Of course, we had to take a bunch of pictures. John took more than I did and certainly better ones. I was pooped and lay down on the moss. Got a picture of my feet with the burg beyond. It was glorious lying there. Nothing but me and the burg and the sun and the cliffs. I could have happily lain there the rest of my life. As it was, we spent about an hour out there. Then some tourists from Guelph (I know because I asked them after they had been sitting about 20 feet from us for twenty minutes. Only one of them actually spoke though. Maybe that iceberg had the rest of them tongue-tied.

I took a picture of two of them as we were leaving. I like the way she's leaning as thought she wants to get closer to the berg.

[Reviewing this entry, I realize I MUST spend some time figuring out how this blogger thing works. I absolutely hate how it (or I) have handled this pictures. There must be a better way to integrate text and images so it doesn't look like a ham-fisted job like this one.]
Anyway, I'm off to watch Wimbledon at a friend's house.

Good news. Bad news.

Snails¹

Summerford:

The men that were supposed to be moving a house in Stoneville today are not. They are instead working on our house. That's the good news.

The bad news is that there is a shortage of 8" concrete block. We'd have to get them from Clarenville or St. John's if we really wanted them. They were able to get enough for two courses and so the decision was taken yesterday afternoon to build the rest of the foundation out of concrete. So they made the forms for the walls yesterday. Today they are pouring the concrete.

As I understand it, the bottom of the foundation will be poured concrete. The top will consist of the two courses of concrete block. That's because -- again as I understand it and perhaps I don't -- as they get nearer to the bottom of the house, things get fiddlier. They will need room to pull out the rails. Blocks enable this process.

I might just get up the nerve to watch as they lower the house unto [I keep typing unto instead of onto; must be my religious upbringing, ha!] the foundation. Certainly not as nerve-wracking as the lift. Or is it? What could go wrong? Um. Let's not dwell on the negative.

Since John didn't come home for lunch, I imagine things must be in full swing in Hillgrade. Not literally, of course (or should I say, I hope).

So let's see. If they get the foundation poured today, I wonder how long it will be before they lower the house. I guess the concrete has to cure. Probably can't put any weight on it for a few days at least.

Nobody has mentioned the "knee wall" in a while. The original plan (concocted without me) was to build concrete block up to about 2 feet from the bottom of the house, and then put a knee wall (whatever that is) the rest of the way. I have visions of a very ugly facade between the basement and the house.¹

I have asked several times why a knee wall² is the way to go and I still don't understand the reasoning. Stuff about making it easier to put in windows. Duh. I've seen windows in concrete walls. I know it can be done. Heck, they're putting a door in, why not a window? I shall have to ask the gods of house lifting again why a knee wall is the be-all-and-end-all. (Hey, that rhymes.)

And so here I sit. Waiting. Again. Like the prisoner of Zenda. [Sorry. Terrible analogy. I just like saying "prisoner of Zenda."]

The local library is open today from 12:30 to 4:30 and again from 6:00 to 8:00 tonight. I thought I joined the library last year but I didn't get a card. I hear now that I should have got one. Maybe it's time to take out my frustrations on the local librarian.

Over and out.

¹The picture above shows some little fellows who came to visit the other day in the rain. They could have made a great meal for those so inclined.

²John saw a house in Cottrell's Cove the other day that has an area just below the roof line that is clad in fake brick siding. Did they run out of clapboard? Did they actually prefer this? Is this was a knee wall looks like?

The store that time forgot

Summerford:

In the previous post, I mentioned going into a store in Stoneville to ask for directions.

What a place! From the outside it was just a nondescript building. Could be a roadhouse, a storehouse, or an anything house. It had few if any windows that I remember. The door on the right side of the building was reachable by a few large wooden steps.

On opening the door, I thought I was on a stage head. Large coils of rope, balled up tarpaulins and other unidentifiable items crowded the entryway. I had to push the door all the way open to the right to find space to walk.

Ahead of me was a rather large open area and to my right, aisles and aisles of merchandise, some on shelves, some on the floor, some falling from shelf to floor. Some was hung from the ceiling, some propped against the walls. Still more was piled on the floor. None of it looked like it had been disturbed in decades.

To my left was a very tall display, if I can call it that, of more merchandise. It may have been stacked on a counter that I think ran the length of the front of the building. At the far end of this counter were two men: one behind the counter, one in front. Obviously store owner and customer.

I approached them and was completely unable to hide my astonishment at what I was seeing. I probably said something like "Wow. There's a lot of stuff in this store."

The customer remarked with a nod of his head towards the storekeeper, "And he's the only one who knows what's here." The storekeeper grinned, with what could be nothing other than pride.

I asked them if they knew who was having a house moved. They both shook their heads and mentioned the house that had been raised and which we had passed on our way into town. They figured that it probably wasn't going anywhere at this stage since the concrete blocks for its foundation had already been stacked at the side.

The storekeeper asked if I wanted him to call the gas station to see if they might know. Sure, I said. That'd be nice of him. He got on the phone and I could hear the names of a couple being mentioned and within seconds I had the information I had come in for. The house we sought was even further on the other side of town than we had allowed for so we had to go back where we'd come from in order to see it.

While he was on the phone, I was rummaging in the chocolate bar and candy display. It was very disheveled and I found a bar that I had not seen before. Its label said Peanut Snack, All Natural. It didn't have any indicator for Trans Fats. It's ingredient label had a category called Saturated Fats and Cholesterol. I've never known any products to have that breakdown of ingredients. It should have been a clue.

I put it on the counter and told him I'd take it. He said he wouldn't charge me for it because it was probably old. I told him I'd find another one since there were lots there. He said they were all old. I said that was probably okay because I was too. We all laughed.

He said the only way to find out if it was edible or not was to open it. He tore one open and took a bite. Old, he said. It didn't look too bad to me, so I asked him how much he'd charge for the bars normally. Oh, about seventy-nine cents, he figured. I put two quarters down on the counter and said I couldn't take something for nothing. I left, telling him I'd be back since we lived not far away.

And I will be back. Will get Jo to go with me. And I'll have a camera next time. I'll ask permission of course, but I'll get some good pics.

As I was leaving, I got a glimpse of one of those lamps that people used to put in their livings rooms in mid-70s. Like 3 lights on a pole, one low, one medium, one high. With an amber shade on each. Wow.

I'll be back and I'll tell you about it. In the meantime, don't buy any Peanut Snack bars. They probably don't make them anymore and if you find one, it's definitely old. Yowsa.

Things are still looking up

Summerford:

And by that I mean, the house is still up in the air.

And if you're wondering why I've not posted in a while, I've got no reason. No excuse either. Just didn't feel like it.

This living in someone else's house [left] is for the birds. Don't get me wrong. It's a perfectly good house. And I shall be eternally grateful for the senendipitous collision of Pete's departure and our need for a place to live. Not to mention his generousity in offering it to us for as long as we need it. In my naïveté, I thought we'd be back in our place in a week or so. Alas, we may be here another two weeks.

And here we sit. Well, at least that's what I'm doing. John goes up to the house every day to see what's new, to make sure the workmen are not forgetting where the plumbing lines go through the walls, or the furnace fuel line or the water intake line, etc.

Yesterday the boss man (Coates) said that they might not be working on our place today, that they might be moving a house in Stoneville instead, if Nfld Light and Power was going to come through and move it's power lines. The deal was, if he wasn't at the work site by 9 a.m., then he'd be moving the house. When he wasn't at the house by nearly 10 a.m., John and I and Simon went to Stoneville to see the house being moved.

When we were half-way to Stoneville, we saw one of the worktrucks heading up towards Hillgrade. Probably to our site. But we decided since we'd come this far, we'd go on and at least find the house that was being moved, probably tomorrow now.

Now you'd think that since Stoneville has a population of about 150 or so (my best guess), finding a house that is being moved wouldn't be difficult. I suggested we stop at the one and only gas station and ask if they know anything. Of course, that wasn't a good idea according to John and Simon so we soldiered on. We went as far as the road to the Stoneville dump and turned around, figuring we'd missed it. Then we drove back through the town looking extra carefully. Nothing. So we stopped at what appeared to be the only store in town. I went in to ask if they knew anything. They didn't but said they'd call the gas station to see if they knew anything.

Within minutes, we were on our way, past the town dump nearly to the town of Port Albert. We found the house which I'd describe as a large cabin [right]. The hydro people were there when we arrived taking down the hydro pole and dragging it away. The move is scheduled for tomorrow. Simon knew one of the fellows on the hydro crew who said when we walked up, "You never know what's going to walk out of the woods around here." I'm still laughing.

Below are some pics of our place showing the forms for the footings being made; and concrete being poured for the footings. Today the footings are curing. The men might be working on replacing the rotten sill plates at the back of the house, or they might be dropping plumb lines for the block walls which will be the next step in the foundation. John is supervising, no doubt. 

Oh Shit

Summerford:

We took a run up to the house last night because John remembered he left a tarp on the ground. If the wind came up, it would be down on the wharf or out in Friday Bay by morning.

He also went into the house to get a few things we needed (hair dye for me, the electrical meter for him).

I stayed in the car as has been my wont lately. I really don't enjoy seeing the house up in the air like this. But for some reason I got out and took a stroll around. I had my first Oh-Shit-moment of the day when I noticed that the crib under the porch seemed to be on a slant. What the....? It had been raining all day, off and on and perhaps the ground was soft. Did it cause the crib to slip? Or was it always like that and we didn't notice?

Needless to say, my stress level soared into the stratosphere. I called to John and made him come look. He said something that sounded like "Hmm". I think he was choosing his words carefully, knowing what I'm like. He did his best to make me think that this was the way the crib had looked the day before and was supposed to look. I was not buying it.

So we got in the car and we were very quiet all the way up through Fairbank and Virgin Arm. I think we spoke only once and that was when I made him promise not to go under the house again. Ever. I don't think he committed to that. I think he uttered another "Hmm."

When we were almost back to Summerford, I realized that we had not taken a picture of the damn crib. I didn't have my camera with me so I had a good excuse. I'm also not a photojournalist. Another good excuse.

I was hoping that we'd get in touch with Robert Coates last night but we didn't. I'm not in charge of phone calls to Mr. Coates so I don't know why we didn't call. And I'm doing my very best to give the responsibility of the whole thing over to the experts and tell myself that if they're not worried, I shouldn't be. It's just that I know these same people are probably expert also in not showing when they're worried.

Today John went up to the house to see if the men showed up to work. It's raining and they didn't. The forecast shows the next day without rain will be Wednesday. That's 5 (count'em) days away. Yikes.

There wasn't much John could do at the house. He waited to see if the crew would turn up and when he was just about to start the car and come back here, a semi arrived. It was headed to the wharf to pick up a load of crab.

The driver must have been new on the job because he opened his window and asked John if this was the only wharf around here. Poor fellow. I guess he was panicking at the thought of backing this behemoth down the lane to the wharf, especially since John was parked near the corner and there was a load of dirt on the road (from our digger this week). As is the case whenever a load of anything is picked up, there were Fisheries inspectors up the yingyang with their vehicles parked all over the place.

The driver of the semi got out and asked our neighbour to move his pickup. He may have got a strip torn off him for not being able to turn his semi on a dime.

Finally the truck got turned and backed up. But not before it tore through our pile of dirt, flattening most of it and leaving the rest in a precarious cliff on the road. I suspect most of the dirt is bonded to the eighteen tires.

Once he was able to get clear of the cove, John phoned to say he was definitely going to buy a wheel barrow. We'd discussed this earlier and I thought there were things we needed worse than a wheel barrow. But I just got outvoted.

Bonus: John said he'd move the dirt himself since we have only one shovel and one wheel barrow and also since he knows how stressed I'd be up around that damn crooked crib. I thanked him profusely - and then suggested that it might be a good idea to put a tarp over that crib to prevent it from deteriorating any more in all the rain we're going to get.

And the drama continues. Probably mostly in my head.

Postscript: Just noticed that today is Friday the 13th. Good thing I'm not superstitious.

A day off

Summerford:

Today is a holiday, as it were. Nobody working at the house.

Yesterday the fellow from Lewisporte arrived with his digger. Of course, this digger has a name - maybe a Cat? a mini-Cat? a kitten? I don't remember. It's a smaller version of the ones you see working on the roads. It has a shovel and stands on legs that come out of the body of the machine to give it support. The shovel part is quite small and the whole thing can work in very tight spaces, a definition that fits just about any part of our yard.

Along with Jody the digger, there was Keith, one of the lifting crew from Glenwood. He was sent to take direct Jody where and where not to dig, to warn him if he was getting too close to the cribs, as well as to take care of any hand digging that had to be done. And there was a fair amount.

The south-west corner of our house is on sheer rock. Rock that is older than the dirt that is under the rest of the house. Can't be moved, this rock. So the trench that Jody dug was all around the house except where there was rock. Keith hand-dug the soil that clung to the rock. He suggested that we clean the rock off with a water spray to get the remaining soil off and allow a clean surface to put mortar on. Poor fellow had to dig from a tough position. He couldn't stand up straight there [see photo at left] and had to dig with a permanently bent back. He was diligent and the bottom of the trench there is as clean as a whistle.

The trench is (I would say) about three feet wide, maybe wider in spots. And John says it all worked out very well because the bottom of the trench is solid rock. Anything built on that ain't going anyplace. It's wet though. There is a boggy area back of the houses across the road. The moisture seeps through the soil under the road and because we are below road level, around our house. It was what contributed to the rot at the back part of our house all these years.

The plan is to put crushed gravel at the bottom of the trench along with weeping tile which will feed the water around the house instead of under it.

Up until yesterday, John was able to get into the house whenever we realized we had forgotten something. But not anymore. Now we will have to borrow a ladder just to reach the door.

John called Robert Coates, the lifter, last night to find out when he expected to resume work on the house. Turns out it won't be today. Today he and his men are off to Trinity to move a house from one location to another. John and I would have loved to head out there and take pictures of this but it's three hours away by car and with the cost of gas here (over $1.45 a litre, we think today), we just can't justify this expense for a day trip.

So. Instead John has gone up to the house to have a look around. He says he'll probably measure for the plumbing refit he will have to do once the house is on a foundation. He would start now but can't because there has to be work done under the house which would interfere with pipes if we put them back now.

Coates will be installing two built-up beams under the house from side to side under the main house, and from side to side under the back extension. These beams will provide the support that was previously provided (ha!) by shores which were under the middle of the house. From what I understand, we can have this built-up beam put in without any additional approvals being required. If we were to have an I-beam or a laminated beam we would need the involvement of an engineer or something. We don't need any more delays, hence the build-up beam. (For anyone not familiar with this term, I think a built-up beam is a bunch (3 or more?) of 2x10 or 2x10 lumber nailed together. A laminated beam would have this lumber glued together and would look like an I-beam. And if you don't know what an I-beam is, look it up! It's metal.)

But I digress. Coates told John last night that he will be back on site tomorrow, building the foundation forms. Yay.

It's interesting what you hear when you least expect it. The fellow who was on site yesterday (the hand-digger) told us that he was surprised that they were doing the foundation for us since they are trying to get out of that business. They have enough work just doing lifts all over the province. He made it sound like they had just the other day decided to do the foundation, that they had not planned it for this summer's projects. Say what?

I said to John that this is one of the costs of doing business the Newfoundland way. Without anything in writing. You heard me right. We have absolutely nothing in writing for this project. Of course, we wouldn't dream of doing this if we were in Ontario. Hire a fellow whom we don't know to lift our house without a written contract? Never. But here, that's how it's done. Coates and probably every other tradesmen in the province would be astounded to be asked for a written estimate, never mind a written contract. I think they would be highly insulted and might not even do the job. Perhaps I'm wrong. But I have to say the relationship between us and the workmen would not be the same if we were to do it the official way. I'm sure of that. And I like how we all get along now.

Did I tell you that our house is now insured? Yep. We couldn't get insurance before because the house had only 60 amp service, was build on wooden shores and was more than 10 km from a fire station or some such. Now, it appears that our house is completely insured as long as it's up on cribs. That's one way to get coverage.

The pic to the left shows the bits of the side bridge that we want to save along with the fence boards that I lugged up the hill to save them from being damaged during the job.

And on to the dig...

Summerford:



These pictures show what the house looks like in the light of day. You can see from one side to the other underneath it. If you look closely in the right picture, you'll see the furnace lying on the ground. We will put a tarp over it soon to prevent damage in case of rain.

There was no work going on today, Tuesday. We were still waiting to find out when the digger fellow would be available to do the work. It was a good opportunity for us to clean up a little around the site. John went under the house (no way I was doing that) and pulled out the old wooden shores that had been knocked out from under the beams the previous day. They will make great firewood. Very old. Very dry. Very heavy. Ooof.


So John tossed them out - okay maybe not tossed - I managed to heft them across the yard, up some rocks and over to the side of the shed where I made a pile of them. Didn't know I was so strong.


There were lots of bricks that needed to be moved to safety. I want to keep them to make something interesting in a garden one of these days. I had wanted to keep the kitchen chimney bricks so John tossed them out from near the house and I carried them to a far corner of the garden where they should be safe. People have said that they are very valuable since this kind of brick cannot be purchased anymore. I finally realized that we had way too many for me to use in the garden unless I was building a brick shit-house, so we donated the majority of them to Dr John, a retired doctor in aVirgin Arm who, though legally blind, managed to arrange them beautifully around the back beds of his place.

We also took down the fence so that the digger can get his machine close to the house without damaging our nice fence paint job of last year. Those rails and posts had to be hefted across the yard too. I made a pile of them next to the blackcurrant bush near where we've stored the old back bridge which we are going to try to save. It was built by the previous owner of the house, a Mr. Dyke, who we are told is closely following developments with the house via phone calls to his daughter in Hillgrade.

John went into the house to get a few things that we needed. I have no intention of going in there while it's up in the air like that. He says it's very weird in there now. Like it has lost all of its character. I think I know what he must mean. It does build character to keep one's balance in a sloping kitchen where one quick turn can make you dizzy. Hah.

Since we could do no more at the house for the day, we decided to go to Gander and pick up things that we have not been able to get on NWI. I had a long list and we were determined to fill it without darkening the doors of Walmart.

It's an hour to Gander on some teeth-rattling roads. We discovered the health food store had disappeared but were relieved to find it relocated at the Gander mall. Two hours later, we had everything but a few items and were on our way back to Summerford where we are staying for now.

Last night as we were driving back from Jo and Simon's, John's cell phone rang. Since it is against the law to talk on the phone while driving, it was a scramble to pull the phone from John's pocket and the car over to the shoulder at the same time. It was the fellow from Lewisporte returning our call earlier in the evening. He had contacted Coates the lifter (glad his name is not Shirts - sorry obtuse attempt at a joke) and work will be resuming on Wednesday. Yay.

And so it goes.

Post-lift pre-dig

Summerford:

And so it came to pass.

On the first day, the house was lifted. That would be Monday, June 9, for anyone who hasn't been paying attention.

We got up early. John around 7. Me around 7:30. I was coherent by 7:45, sort of. Didn't really matter. What mattered was that I could heft and carry, shove and pull. Choked down some cold cereal with an apple on top. Had to get some carbs because it would be a long day.

We had a few things to do before the lifters arrived.
1. We had to take the top off the living room chimney. (Yes, I know I said in the previous entry that we were going to postpone any action on the LR chimney until later, but the lift man said that the top had to come off now to prevent damage to the roof during the lift. John also had had to separate this chimney from the floors during the previous day or two. I forgot to mention this. He had the pleasure of working in the attic where there hasn't been any fresh air in 100 years and where it is still the temperature of the earth when it emerged from the primordial ooze.
He could not proceed with this work though until the furnace man gave him the go ahead in case he (the furnace man who was due to arrive at 8a.m.) needed to run the furnace before dismantling it.)

2. The furnace had to be dismantled - or at least some of the ducts had to be removed because they would be in the way of the lifters. The furnace man would do all this, freeing up John's time, and also bearing the responsibility for any problems occurring with the furnace when we hooked it back up again. That part is worth whatever we paid him, which was very reasonable.

3. The sewage pipe had to be severed because it is not of the stretchy variety. and would not survive the lift - or the septic tank might be lifted from its resting place.

4. The water inlet pipe had to be severed so it would not get damaged.

As for me, I was tasked with getting us packed up and ready to leave. Clothing. Food. Stuff in general that we couldn't live without. You'd be amazed what's in that list.

By the time John got the chimney taken down to below the roofline, the furnace man was pretty well done with the furnace. John, bless his heart, left the sewage pipe until the very last minute. It's not wise to have a middle-age woman in a house without a functioning toilet for any more than 20 minutes.

The lifters arrived pretty much on schedule. Robert Coates from Glenwood and his crew of four men, two of whom were his sons.

Within the hour, they had cribs (crisscrossed square posts; see top left pic below) started under the house which would support the rails they were inserting from front to back of the house, as well as a place for the jacks which would raise the house, inch by inch.

Within a few minutes of starting to jack it up, the boss realized there was a problem. The floor in the living room was not lifting. Turned out that the living room chimney had been mortared to the sill plate. There was no choice. The chimney had to come down. So the strong fellows bunged a hole in the base of the thing (see top right pic below). John went up to the attic and started bunging the bricks down through and they took them out at the bottom. It was down in less than an hour. And the lift could continue.

By 3pm, with lunch and two coffee breaks, the house was up as far as it needed to go. It is 38" higher in the back than it was before we started. They took a while to get it all level, tweaking this jack or that one to get it just right.

And so it was done. As predicted, my stress level came down as the house went up, although I confess I spent most of the day at a friend's drinking tea and worrying.

We were informed that we were responsible for finding a digger to dig the trenches for the foundation footings. Huh? So why weren't we told this beforehand. We could have had someone lined up to come the very next day. No that would be doing things the easy way. Let's do it the Newfoundland way.

Luckily we had hired a fellow from Lewisporte last year to dig the hole for our septic tank. So we put in a call to him, telling him to call the lifter and arrange a date. We would have see how long this wait might be.

Banging down the LR chimney

In all her glory

 

 

Filling in the blanks

Hillgrade:

I should have made a post between the last one and the one before to show just what we did to get ready for The Lift.

The biggest job was the chimney in the kitchen. It used to be hooked to the wood range but it had to come down since it was leaning dangerously and would have prevented the house from lifting.

It didn't take us long, John and I, to make short work of it last week. John started on the roof and really only had to push it with his little finger to make it come tumbling down. He got it down to below the roof line and then patched the roof with some pink bubble wrap that we had tied around the stuff in our trailer last year when we came down.

Then we got to work on the portion that ran through the Chimney Room (hence the name of the room)[see leftmost picture]. John had a 4-pound sledge hammer (I grew up calling them mauls) for knocking the bricks. The bricks didn't take much coaxing to come loose. We opened the window in the room and threw the bricks out into the backyard.

Pretty soon we could see down into the kitchen, so we cleaned up the Chimney Room and took ourselves downstairs. We had a cup of tea and a little snack before continuing.

It pretty soon became clear that we would need masks for the remainder of the work. The chimney, just below where the stove pipe joined it, was pretty much FULL. Of what we were/are not sure. It was like gravel, but damp and dark [see below]. Probably a mixture of creosote, soot, dust and precipitation that fell through the chimney over the years. It stank. Acrid is a mild word for it.

We needed a tiny shovel to get this stuff out of the chimney before taking the bricks away. John remembered finding a wee shovel in the shed but it was falling apart. However, with a strategically positioned nail, bent at just the right angle, we managed to get a workable shovel.

We were unable to open the window near the kitchen chimney without totally destroying it. So the bricks had to be walked out the door to the yard, two by two.

When we were finished, we were left with a concrete chimney block [at left]. This top of this block would originally have been at floor level, or perhaps just above. Proof of just how badly this house needs to be leveled.

The living room chimney services the furnace. It was originally the chimney for the parlour wood stove. In fact, the furnace pipe comes up through the floor and enters the chimney in the same spot that the stove used [see right]. This whole thing had been boxed in to hide it all, with shelves built around in an attempt to make it somewhat useful. But it took up a lot of space in the Living Room (parlor?) and I was all for getting rid of it.

Except. The chimney was rather nice seen from outside. Gave the house character. Completed the roof line. But not practical inside. What to do? What to do?

We debated long and hard about it. John did a lot of online research to see if our furnace could work with one of those metal chimneys attached to the outside of the house.

It seems that it would, but we decided to postpone this decision until later. Maybe next year. (Update 2023: Little did we know.)

And so. With the kitchen chimney down, we were truly ready for the lift. Bring it on.

D-Day approacheth

And so it has finally arrived. Okay, almost arrived. The big day. Tomorrow they will lift this house. And I won't be anywhere around. It would be like being awake when they cut you open. Who could watch that?


In the morning John will be in a scramble. He has to take down the living-room chimney to below the roof line and then cover the hole with plastic. He then has to put the furnace to bed (in cooperation with the furnace man who arrives around 8, we hope. Finally, he will cut the sewer line to the septic tank. And thus providing another excuse for me not to stick around. Women of my age have to be near a bathroom.

The house is almost naked tonight. The skirting has been removed from around the crawlspace, revealing the innards of the place. The furnace is sitting on concrete blocks, the sewer and water pipes are all exposed. The crumbling wooden shores are there for all to mock in their last moments of utility. Tomorrow they will mere firewood.

This afternoon I set out a row of onions. Kept some back for setting next week or the week after. Don't want a bunch of onions all coming mature at the same time. As it is we'll be eating a whole mess of onion soup towards the end of summer.

I also rescued some boulders that were dug up last fall when we trenched around the house. Rocks big enough to just get your arms around, some of them. Some not quite so big. All of them heavy as lead. I needed to make sure that they don't get covered with dirt or otherwise buried in the goings-on of the next week or two. I want them to put in the garden I'm going to build behind and to the side of the house when this is all over.

It's apparently 42 degrees on the humidex back home tonight. And here I was complaining about the cold breeze that's blowing up through the cold-air return duct from under the house now that it's open to all the ocean breezes.

So. Here's hoping the relation between my stress level and the house level is an inverse proportion: as it goes up, my stress level comes down.

Back at ya tomorrow night. I hope. Keep yer fingers crossed.

From our ASHES TO someone else's ASHES

Yesterday Bev and Ivan did us a big favour. They took away the wood stove that had been in the kitchen of this place longer than anyone we know can remember. While we had it, it was the backup stove, in case electricity failed. It was also a source of heat when we didn't want to turn on the furnace.

It was probably what excited us the first time we saw the house. Owing our very own old wood stove. Just like the one my parents had when I was a child. Like my grandmother had. It was solid, dependable and beautiful. It had served many people for a very long time.

But it had seen better days. The firebox was starting to cave in, not leaving much room for birch chunks. We couldn't leave the kitchen when it was going because it threw flankers out the side. Heaven knows what it was throwing out the chimney.

It was a very large presence in the kitchen. When we want to seat more than two people at the kitchen table, we pull the table to the middle of the room. But with the stove being as big and as far from the wall as it was, it didn't leave much room for chairs and table or walking around.

With energy prices being what they are and our pocketbooks being strained in every direction, we needed to find a stove that would give a lot more heat more efficiently. It was time to part with the showpiece and get on with being practical.

When we left here last fall, I polished it up to look like it was when we got it. People here polish their iron stove tops to prevent rusting. Vaseline was the polish of choice. Had to borrow a crock from a neighbour. I mean, who has Vaseline anymore. [Aside: My mother asked me on the night before my wedding if I had any. That was the extent of the marital advice. Oh, yes, and a box of tissues, she said.] While I had the crock, I also wiped some over the shovel and axe and spade and whatever other tools we had in the shed. They look like new this year.

Anyway, the stove is now gone. In its place we had a large rusty rectangle on the canvas floor. I spent a while with some Comet and a scrubber and most of it came away. The chimney behind the stove will soon be gone too. We worked on it today to remove the wooden cladding that hid the bricks. Tomorrow we (I mean John) will go up on the roof to knock over the part that protrudes through the shingles. Then we'll take a sledge hammer to the parts that are in the house. We meant to buy some plastic to cordon off the area where the chimney is, to minimize the amount of soot that goes where it shouldn't. But we forgot to buy the plastic today. We were too excited to get fresh broccoli and sardines and other foodies.

My good friend Joanne gave us a spritzer bottle. The man who used to live in this house conveyed the message to us (via his daughter, our across-the-street neighbour) that we should spray the inside of the chimney with water to keep the soot from flying too much. I don't think we'll need much spritzing. The weather has been mauzy since we got here. I don't think the soot will be flying much.

But I could be wrong.

Four days on the road

When we left home on Wednesday 28th a.m., the plan was to be in Newfoundland by Friday 30th, approx. 2 p.m.

Day 1 - drive through Montreal, past Quebec City and on to Grand Falls, N.B. for the night. This part of the trip went according to plan. We even got the same room at the Hill Top Inn as we had last year. Alas, the bottle of make-up I left in the bathroom last September was there no longer.

Day 2 - drive to North Sydney, N.S. in time for the 11p.m. ferry to Port-aux-Basques. Like clockwork. A bonus of a double rainbow in Cape Breton. Needless to say, I got all excited and snapped a load of pictures through a rainy windshield. A guaranteed way to fill up the trash bucket. ***** Alas, even a double rainbow didn't spare us the news we got at the ferry terminal. The MV Joseph and Clara Smallwood was out of commission and the replacement (MV Lief Eriksen) would not sail until the following morning. Once again, proof everything is random.

A night at a motel in North Sydney (which shall remain nameless because a place such as that doesn't deserve free publicity) on our own dime didn't make us any less grumpy about having to get up early to be at the ferry by 8am to get a good place in line. Marine Atlantic gave us meal vouchers, one each for a breakfast, dinner and supper. We used only the lunch voucher and have a year to use the others. Uh huh.

We landed in Port-aux-Basques at nearly 6pm, way too late (because of the danger of moose-car encounters) to be heading across the island. So I phoned my dear uncle Ben and aunt Mary in Corner Brook and begged their hospitality in putting us up for the night. Of course, they said, come on and we made record time over the road, driving up to their door by 8:20.

A grand night, by any standards. We sat around the kitchen table and caught up on all the family news. Aunt Mary had a meal of cod au gratin waiting for us and a real cup of tea - our first since leaving home on Wednesday. Uncle Ben was hoping we'd be staying for a few days but we had to break the news that we'd be off again in the morning, making tracks for Hillgrade.

And so, by 10 am on Saturday, we were off again, passing Deer Lake, the long drive to Springdale and Grand Falls and then off at Notre Dame Junction to Lewisporte and up the shore to New World Island and our Newfoundland home.

We saw a moose between Deer Lake and Hampton. A female, grazing at the side of the road. Never even looked up as we passed. Good thing she didn't decide to cross because we didn't see her until it would have been too late to avoid her.

A couple of Tim Horton's coffees later, we pulled up in Friday's Bay cove. Cora was planting carrots at the side of her squid-drying shed with her granddaughter Jenna. Big waves and hellos. Eileen and Gord came out of the lobster pool down by the wharf and waved wildly, called out Hello, Good to have you back. And it was good to be back.

John went under the house immediately to hook up the plumbing junctions. Inside an hour we had running hot water and electricity. Smooth operation. We were so pleased with ourselves that we had things under control so quickly that we decided to set up the computers. Bad idea. At 5:30, we realized that we had forgotten to go to the grocery store and so had absolutely no food in the house except what we had brought with us (organic honey, organic peanut butter and whole wheat pasta).

Our long-planned meal with Joanne and Simon, previously scheduled for Friday, took place on Saturday night. It was grand to see them again and we only scratched the surface as far as catching up goes. When we were leaving, Joanne handed me a bag containing the lasagna left over from supper. She pressed on us as well a bag of frozen fishcakes she had bought at a recent bake sale, as well as a loaf of bread. What a good friend she is. When we were unloading at home, we found also a large sack of homemade ginger snaps. Wow.

And so we're off to a good start. Food and friends. Don't need anything else.

Just a bit of snow

We got snowed on last night. Actually all day yesterday and last night, too. I haven't heard the latest tally but somewhere around 50cm has fallen on the city, adding to the 385+cm which we already had.

My husband said, "Now that was a wicked storm!" Pshaw. That wasn't even a storm, never mind wicked. It was just a rather large-sized snowfall. A storm howls and this one didn't even whimper. It just dumped, very slowly and very attractively, too, I might add.

Here are some pictures taken after we had shovelled ourselves out today. Daughter just came and asked to borrow the car. Teehee. She wouldn't have even contemplated going out if she'd been out shovelling this morning. Youth!




(Above) Our front walk is like a cavern. I have a pic somewhere of me showing just how high these banks are but I'm not posting that. Ha.

(Right) Taken in front of our house showing the unplowed road.

(Bottom) A neighbour shovelling his (or maybe it's her) walk from driveway to front door. You can just see their head above the snow bank.

The Blogger uploader is complaining. Won't upload. More later.

The Quilting Plan - more or less

I'm hoping to start quilting this week. I've been saying that for a while now. But this week is looking like it might be the time. I've got the stuff done that I had to get done for my MIL, it's not tax time yet and the weather is turning nasty again. All good reasons to get my wee stash out. I gave myself an early birthday present tonight and bought me a cutting mat. Wow. That's a few years worth of birthday presents right there. But, I had to have it if I'm going to get started so. . . . I got my rotary cutter as part of my Christmas gift from Secret Santa. Alas, I just noticed that it's not the Olfa one that I had my eye on, but here's hoping that it works as well.

So. What is my first quilt going to be? I borrowed some books from the library a while back and photographed anything that caught my eye. I did the same with some books my friend Jo loaned me last summer so I have lots to inspire me. The photo at left shows the one that I'm going to attempt, or some version of it.

My stash is still very small and was purchased with a completely different quilt in mind. I've decided that one is far too ambitious for a beginner and will postpone it. Meanwhile, I think I can use what I have in the new project. Will have to add to it, of course. And I think I'll have to do that soon because I will need to get a picture of the whole quilt before I can start any of it.

I have fat quarters (mostly) of four hues - oranges/reds, yellows, greens, blues/purples. I think I can make what I want with those colours. I'm thinking starting at top left with yellows, melding into oranges then into reds, then purples, then blues, then greens and finally, perhaps, ending up at the bottom right with yellows again. Not sure about that last bit. It might make it too balanced. But I like balance in most everything else so why not in a quilt. The individual blocks will be unbalanced with the various angles of the strips, so with the overall balance of the blocks themselves and the colour sweep, it might just work.

Once I have purchased all my fabrics, I have to figure out the most economical way - both in terms of time and materials - to proceed. I was thinking of sewing a bunch of fabrics (say the reds) into large (perhaps 12"x12") blocks, and then cutting the 12x12 into 4x4 or whatever size I've determined the individual blocks should be.

I want this to be a double bed-sized quilt, so what does that mean for quilt dimension? Double beds are 54 x 75. A quilt needs to hang down at least 1 foot per side so that would mean quilt has to be 75x85, at the very least. Will have to ask about this. The final dimensions will determine how large I make the individual blocks.

I'm getting excited about this and am looking forward to starting. Hmm. Wonder how much more fabric I will need. I definitely need more darker and warmer golds since my yellows are all rather monochrome right now. I love my greens and blues. Need more reds.

The quilt as it is shown in the pic seems to not use patterned fabrics, or if they are, the patterns are very subtle. Shall see.

Anyway, if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Make me one with everything

Heard this one today. Buddhist goes up to a hot dog vendor and says 'Make me one with everything.'

I'm betting that Buddhist didn't have my garage to come home to. Here are pictures to show you what I mean. And I haven't even mentioned the basement or John's office. No wonder I feel claustrophobic. And panicky at the thought of moving.

The last minute gang

I can't believe it. Here we are. Three days away from crossing over on the ferry and my husband is up to his neck in a trench that stretches all the way around the back of our house. It was put there this morning by a lovely young fellow from Lewisporte who owns a small bobcat -- a mini-backhoe, for those who are not up on their machinery -- whom my husband previously hired to dig the hole for our new septic tank.

Today's trench is an effort to ascertain as best we can whether the sill plate of the house, along with the studs and the wall boards are in any shape to undergo the process of 'jacking' which we had hoped to have done either this fall or early next spring.

I didn't bother going outside. I could hear everything that was going on through the walls which are now full of holes where hubby has been tearing off tar paper to look at the boards beneath. He's tapping and banging right now as I speak.

The back end of the house -- a kitchen extension, in local parlance -- is now sitting with its ass all exposed. This same ass, for want of a better metaphor, was previously buried by dirt and grass and goutweed, all of which did nothing at all for the well-being of the ass. All it did was hide the rot that was taking place below soil level, although, I suppose, it was keeping the wind from whistling around in the underparts.

A fellow is supposed to arrive this afternoon to survey the situation and give us his opinion on whether the house can be safely jacked. I suppose it would be more correct to say that he will say it can be safely jacked, but for a much higher price than he originally hinted at.

Neighbours came to watch the bobcat. Of course, neighbours are always interested when a hole appears in their cove. They bobbed their heads up and down, with their lips tightly pressed together, and then allowed as how it might be best to just tear the sucker off and start over. Build a new kitchen extension.

When I finally managed to get outside -- had to jump the trench no matter which door I used -- I was dismayed. There is a lot of rot. There was even a fly that was landing on the trench, on the house, in the trench, back on the house that sounded like a bee when it flew, but like a giant mosquito hen it was landed. For a few minutes it had us worried -- like there was air escaping from somewhere, not a good sign when you've just exposed the innards of your house, plumbing, water supply line, and the like.

So. We wait. Like we waited all this week for this day to come. Wait for the fellow from Twillingate to show up with his crew. Wait for him to pronounce whether we will have to pay a lot to 'jack 'er up', pay a lot more to replace 'er, or pay nothing and just abandon 'er.

And I've made plans to spend the afternoon in Twillingate with a friend -- ladies' day off -- and I may have to go before I find out anything.

I hate waiting. I've never been good at waiting. Really, I suppose, it's not the waiting that is tough. It's not having information that I need to make a decision. And I like to make decisions when I have to make them. That's it. I hate having to wait before I can make a decision.

And all this with only three days to go before we pack the car and leave. Hubby is talking about moving the boat reservation. That might mean I have to go get groceries because we have barely enough in the house to get us through until Sunday.

Sigh. If only we'd dealt with the sloping floors problem when we first arrived. But it was like the elephant in the room. We completely ignored it, hoping, I guess, it would go away. So now we're doing it all at the last minute.

Talk about getting hi-jacked. What's that? I hear a vehicle. Maybe the fellow has arrived.