A new wall

This past week we have been very, very productive!

I asked Kory if we could, please, please, please get my washer and dryer set back up. I haven't had a washer and dryer since the day after Christmas about 6 weeks now. I have also started work, as it is the tax season and so my only day off is Tues, Sat/Sun. Saturday we work on the house, and Sunday is the day of rest so that leaves Tuesday. Thankfully my mom lives just down the street so I don't have to go to far but it is such an inconvenience. Washing and drying clothes for 7 people one day a week takes up my whole day! On top of that Tuesdays are the day the kids have piano lesson, scouts, activity days and at 6:45 I get to go hang out with the youth of our ward. Its my busiest day of the week!

Monday night I got home from work and to my surprise my washing machine was on and working. It was so nice the next day not having to set a timer and not running back and forth between our houses every hour.  

Tuesday morning we got word that we would have access to concrete on Thursday. Kory really wanted to be able to fix the north wall on the house so that we could start to frame the house. So Tuesday afternoon, while doing the laundry we cleaned out the girls room and my closet. Uck!

We moved the girls to the front room to join the boys. 5 kids in our front room now. 

Kory and Hunter screwed hanging rods into the beams running through the house to hold up everyone's clothes. This rod is holding the 3 girls plus our coat closet. 

This rod is in our room and its holding Korys and mine clothes along with more coats and jackets.  

By Tuesday night the rooms were cleaned out and ready to go. 

Wednesday night Kory took the skid steer and started knocking out the exterior walls. He took out both girls rooms, their closet and ours.

During one of the many remodels of this house someone glued 2 x4's to the exterior brick wall from the inside to make the master closet. Lucky for us when Kory pulled the brick it left their crappy, not insulated closet wall in place. This was so nice! One less exposed wall for us.  

So weird to see what use to be the girls bedrooms.  

Thursday morning Kory framed up where we would be getting concrete. The concrete came while I was at work so no pictures. Bummer! By the time I got home everything was finished.

Saturday morning came and our goal was to get that whole North side of the house sealed again. My brother Jonathan was in town and spent his morning helping us set the first framed wall. When Jonathan left Ben Sorensen and Cody Goodfellow came by to help us out.

It seriously took all day long. 

That morning the guys were wearing shorts and short sleeve shirts, it was warm outside. Even I had worked up a sweat. About lunch time we started to get some wind, it just got worse and worse and oh so cold. The men in shorts grabbed their camo/hunting gear from there trucks. They ended up finishing the wall wearing overalls, coats and hats. It really became quite cold outside. CRAZY!!

There were a few mistakes made, a few "lets frame that again" but eventually it was done! By 7pm the whole north side was framed and sheeted. We didn't bother routing out the windows. Figured it was less wind into the house. 

Not ready to stop for the night Ben and Kory hung the front door and 2 little windows.  

Then they hung one of the bedroom windows. 

I love it!

So many Saturdays we work from sun up to sun down and it's hard to see just how much we accomplished. But Saturday we got a lot done and I can see it! Yippee!

So very happy my house is slowly coming back together. We still have a ways to go but it's coming!

Lifting the House Again

Saturday February 3 was once again a busy day for our family. 

I had to work in Kanab for a few hours that morning, Madelyn was babysitting and Brayden had a birthday party to go to. Our goal for the day was to lift the roof but Kory couldn't get help till the afternoon. So that morning Kory, Hunter and Madelyn with the help from the skid steer was able to lift and set the beam that will help hold up our covered front porch. 

They also framed in the pillar at the end of the porch. 

Kory started to sheet the pillar but then stopped when we realized we need to run power out there for a porch light. 

While waiting for our helpers to arrive Hunter and I put these little brackets (no idea what they are called) onto every single truss. Each piece took 10 screws, it took us a little bit to get it all done.  

Finally nearing late afternoon we learned none of our helpers were going to make it and we decided to lift the roof ourselves. Not so sure that was the best idea!

Basically we put our jacks onto blocks to help us with the height we need. Then we put a beam standing up on that jack. The top of this smaller beam is then sitting right under neath the huge beams running though the house. Together Hunter (in the master closet) Kory( in the kitchen) and I (in the office) all make our jacks lift together, inch by inch. 

When the jack can't go any higher we put cut 2x6's uner the wall support that was holding that huge beam running through the house. This keeps the roof at the new height. Then we'd put more wood under our jacks so that the jack could raise the roof more. 

It was going pretty smoothly.....

We were only lifting the house about 2-3 inches at a time. This was so if we had an "accident" the beam wouldn't fall with a big bang several inches, it would only fall 2-3 inches. 

Being I was helping "lift" I had a hard time taking pictures of the whole process. 

We were so close to being done when there was a crash!

Kory yelled out to Hunter asking if he was o.k. I left my jack and went running. Hunter was just fine, not a scratch on him, just a little shaken. His jack had gotten a little crooked sitting on so many pieces of wood and had fallen over (more like jumped out at him) while he was jacking it up. We were lifting the house roof. I can't even imagine the pressure our 3 jacks were carrying.  The small beam literally flew into the air and hit my bathroom cabinet with a bang! Needless to say I no longer have a door. 

After fixing his pile of wood, sending a prayer of gratitude that no one got hurt we went back to work. Kory noticed that some of our electrical wiring was getting really tight so he went up into the attic to see if he could loosen the wires or if we would need to extend them a little more. 

That's when we had our 2nd crash of the night! Kory missed the truss and stepped onto the sheet rock. Thank goodness Hunter was no longer in the bathroom or anyone else! Kory was able to catch himself but the ceiling came down.

 Oops!

I now have a sky light in my bathroom.

The light you see in the below picture is the great outdoors. This is where Kory cut the roof so it could separate and lift.  

Kory was able to pull the wires free while Hunter and I cleaned up the "new" bathroom mess.

We still had about 2 inches to lift before we were at our 9ft 1 inch that we needed to be at.

We all re-stacked our jacks and started lifting again.

That is when we had our 3rd and thankfully last "crash" of the night. This time Kory's beam that we were using to lift the roof with literally snapped in half. It hit my kitchen cabinet and broke it. At first it didn't look too bad but the first time we opened the door the whole thing came off the hinges.  

After saying a little prayer, we stacked again, and so so slowly and carefully we lifted those dang jacks to the height we needed. We finally made it! 

Kory then built 2 "temporary" walls to help hold the beam in place at 9ft 1 inch. 

We did it! 

Instead of having walls 6 - 7 ft 6 inches tall we will now have 9 foot ceilings!

Woo Hoo! 

With the lift of the roof we now had a 1-2 foot gap running around the top of our house. Our winter has been incredibly mild so far but it does get cold at night. Not wanting all of our warmth from the fire at night to escape Kory took his left over, usually throw away MDF board, from the shop and brought them home. Together we screwed them all around the house to cover up the gaping hole we now had.   

We had so many oops's that it really was surprising that no one had even a scrape on them. 

I think we had some guardian angels looking after us.

Thank you Heavenly Father, thank you!

 Kory, Hunter and I all slept good that night! 

More Beams

Everyone has been praying for rain and moisture in the mountains. Heavenly Father heard our prayers. It rained off and on for about 2 weeks which really slowed the progress on the house down. But we know we need the rain too!

On Saturday January 27th we worked hard.....again. The hope was to lift the roof. 

Once again holes were made in all the walls that the beams would be slide through. This was the outside wall in our front room/office.

The next wall separates the kitchen from the bathroom.  Kory put a piece of plywood on top of our stove so if one of the bricks fell it wouldn't shatter my cook top. 

The other side of the above wall.

I put a dirty hot pink shirt in the sink so that our drain wouldn't get full of debry. I was also hoping it would soften the blow of a falling brick. Someone kept pulling the shirt out. I put that dang thing in probably 3 times in the 30 min prep time we had. In the end the shirt wasn't there when it was needed. A brick fell and broke my sink. A few days of having a plugged drain Kory finally cleaned out the pea trap and we have a somewhat working sink again. If the water level reaches the crack we're in trouble. the water runs through the crack, under the cabinet and onto my clean towels. 

They joys of remodeling!

The last wall is an exterior wall. 

Kory built a brace to help support the beam as we pushed it through.

Finally the beams were in. Next Kory wanted to go back up into the attic and make sure the electrical wires had plenty of room to stretch. When we lifted the first side we ended up pulling some wires out and so have been without working plugs in Maddie's and our room. Our closet light also no longer worked. 

After several hours, way longer than anyone thought it would take, the wiring had been extended. And the live, open wires just sitting on the attic floor surrounded by insulation that sparked when someone stepped over them was removed! I seriously don't know how this house hasn't caught on fire. Those helping us could not believe what they saw up there. Pretty sketchy!!

While working on the wiring in the attic they were also removing the J-bolts so the roof could lift. It was then that it was discovered that the "old roof" and the "older roof" were meshed together and would need to be cut to allow the roofs to separate. Kory and the other men were a little worried about the ceiling on the side of the house that we weren't lifting. They didn't know how well the ceiling would stay with out the support from the "older roofs". So they decided to add another beam to hold up the ceiling.  

More cutting through walls, more beams. 

By the end of the night it was too late to try lifting it and I had two sets of beams running through my house. But we are ready to lift the roof next week.