My Chairs are Getting a Much Needed Facelift!

So back in December, before Christmas, Cathy and a took a trip out to Joanne's in New Hartford and had no trouble picking out the perfect fabric to recover my 10 dining room chairs in anticipation of their new home.  I have been wanting to do this re-upholstery project for years, but the house renovation is the catalyst to really get me moving on it.  Who am I kidding, though.  I am clearly out of my element here.  Thankfully Cathy, my wonderful friend, is a talented seamstress!  We dug into the project this week at her house.  Over the weekend Joel helped me remove the old fabric which was a tedious and difficult task because

whoever affixed the original cloth really went to town with the staple gun.  Cathy is sewing little pillows and stuffing them with down to add extra cushiness to the old foam pads.  Can't wait to see the finished products:)

Meanwhile, Steve is continuing to re-support our bedroom ceiling.  Below are pictures of the 2 by 8 boards that connect from the new ridge beam in the peak to the new horizontal beams on the walls.  Once he gets some of these rafters installed on both sides of the beam he will remove the chains and cables, releasing the tension that has been drawing the walls together.

Tension? What tension??

Late last week Steve showed me something interesting he had discovered while doing all the work upstairs in our bedroom.  The outside walls are just over 2 inches out of plumb...they bow out significantly.   He showed me how the collar ties are old and tired and no longer doing their job.  His solution to fix the problem was to screw two large brackets into supporting beams on both the east and west wall and pull them together with cables and chains.  He then began re-supporting the walls with new horizontal boards and will install new rafters next week.  He left the tension wires in place over the weekend even though the walls should be set in their new positions.  I just checked to make sure they didn't snap and that the house is still standing!!  It is:)  A pretty neat way to solve a challenge, I think.

bowed out wall

bracket installed

cable and new board

chain and new board

#he did all by himself!!

My nieces and nephew have been trying to explain what a hashtag means, and I think I kind of get it, sort of...anyway, big news at the house yesterday.  Of course it was the one day I have not made it up there this week so I missed the whole thing BUT, Steve was able to install a very large, heavy ridge beam in the peak of our bedroom ceiling.  He had to work around the existing collar beams, while lifting it over his head, while standing on a ladder.  Bravo!  He spent the early part of the week prepping for this moment by installing a header over the yoga room entrance and framing out a wall around the support beam he placed right next to the back side of the upstairs chimney.  These two rock-solid end points are the supports for new beam.  Perhaps the pictures below will help put it all in perspective.

                                                                      new beam

header and support beam over yoga room entrance

support beam and framed wall on back of chimney

Steve explained to me this morning that this successful ridge beam support installation may change our most recent yoga room idea (raising the west side roof in the spring to install new rafters) and bring us back to our original thought of a ridge beam there also.  We shall see! 

Meanwhile, Carlene was able to get the first draft of the kitchen and pantry designs to me, and Steve says all of our ideas should work in the space that we have to work with.  Yippee!!

                                                                                                                                                                                   

Hard Work Continues

Joel and Steve and I are still plugging away up at the house, and I am happy to report that the progress is heartening.  It is proving to be a good thing that we are now forced to work inside.  We are truly getting a feel for the house and how it responds to the elements.  For instance, a huge avalanche of snow fell off the upper side roof  onto the lower roof over the entrance door the other day causing the dining room ceiling to bounce a bit.  Steve was there to witness it.  Later, when he measured the ceiling height it was down significantly.  He spent the next day or so re-supporting each joist.  It feels good to know that each room will be solid and strong in both the floors and the ceilings.

Joel hasn't been able to get up to the house nearly as much as he could in the summer and fall due to multiple illness outbreaks at the nursing homes and lots of snow removal duties.  However, whenever he can, he works on a project that stays one or two steps ahead of Steve so that they coordinate efforts and maximize time.  Earlier this week he spent time upstairs pulling nails out of all the old wall boards.  Soon Mark will be up there running the electrical wires and then Steve and Joel can begin insulating the walls.

I had a great meeting with the kitchen designer at Lowes the other day.  She will be getting me a computer rendering of the space later today.  We played around with the placement of all the appliances, cupboards, and countertops and came up with a very functional and pleasant design.  Pretty exciting stuff!

Over the weekend as I was wandering through all the rooms, I stumbled upon what Steve calls his warming space.  He built an insulated room heated by a salamander in the front parlor to keep our paints and various other items cozy so that they don't freeze.  Ingenious!

As Promised...

So Steve tells me that Lenny, the mason, will begin work on this fireplace, the chimney and the hearth soon; perhaps next week. I am glad I was able to get up to the house yesterday to visit with the fireplace, as is, before it gets all cleaned up.  This really is the heart of the house, and we are considering ways to leave some areas exposed to showcase it's past and present beauty.  The back and bread oven sides will be fully enclosed again as I need those walls for kitchen counters and cupboards.  We will recreate the hiding space in the back behind the new wall, and will probably leave the right side open to make use of the interesting brick  shelf.  This way we combine function with historical preservation and end up with a pleasing design!

front, obviously!

right side

back, where the hidden space was...

left side, bread oven

Setbacks. And I don't mean "from the road" kind...

I don't have any pictures to accompany this post because a lot of what is going on at the house this week deals with interior structural support and more electrical wiring.  We did experience another "challenge" late last week, though.  After Steve met with the new codes enforcement officer and learned that we needed to change/add to some of our load bearing beams, he brought in an engineer to get recommendations on how to properly support the yoga room roof and the spanse from the kitchen to the dining room.  While we await the formal report we have been considering all of our options.  The best fit for upstairs seems to be removing the entire roof and changing the pitch on the west side to bring it flush with the bedroom roof line.  (unfortunately, this work cannot be done until the spring)  This will allow Steve to install new trusses, vault the ceiling, and prep for the upstairs deck.  In a way, I see this major structural change as a blessing in disguise because it will increase the height of our closet wall making it more usable.  It will also allow us to move the upstairs sliding glass door more to the center of the space situating it above (or very close to above!) the slider below.  The current off-kilter placement is really messing with my feng shui!! Actually, I will share a picture of what I am talking about...

see what I mean??

The downside to the impending raising of the roof is that we lose a whole bank of windows in our bedroom:(  Our plan was to place 4 non-venting, square windows up both sides of the peak.  We can still do this on the east side, but no longer on the west because we will be losing our view due to the change in pitch.  Perhaps we can find a new home for these windows on the back or side of the house. 

Steve has some cool ideas on how to reinforce the kitchen/dining room ceiling.  The magnificent fireplace in the center of both rooms will play an important supporting role once we figure out how much we want to wall it back up after Lenny comes in and cleans up the brickwork.  Joel completely opened up the space surrounding the fireplace in preparation for the masonry touch-up.  Check back tomorrow for some photographs of this neat bit of history!