Rehab of a 1957 ranch house

[ben2go]

Great finds.

[poppy]

Latest update on pink cook top/oven and more deconstruction.



This is the control wiring for the cook top.



The wiring under the cook top. Sorry for the dark pic.



The oven wiring.  All of the wiring looks to be about 14 ga., so I guess that means it all runs on 115 volts.  I was hoping for 220.



When I moved the cook top around, I could hear something sliding around inside.  These aluminum pans were all loose.  They must have been glued in originally.



The staging area for materials in my liveable room.



I put the help on the expandable walk board (auction find) to pull nails.



Got another wall stripped and layed out the proposed master bath and closet.



Took out the 3 shorten ceiling joists in the old flue and furnace area and discovered that the roof rafters are on 24" cts.  Didn't know they were doing that in '57.



Headed out to the farm to peel a log for a timber.  The new spud bar (auction find) worked great.  I know what you're thinking; Poppy is working on the cabin build again.  But no, actually I'm strongly considering making this red oak log into the beam that will replace the load bearing wall for the Chateau great room.



For those not familiar with my cabin build and chain saw milling operation;  Here's how I get a log onto the horses by myself with a swing frame (free off craigslist) and ratchet cable hoist (auction find).



It was really hot today so didn't get much work done.  Managed to tear into the floor of the new master bath and closet.  It turns out that the floor is 2" out of level across the 12' width, so some of it will have to come out.     They used particle/press board over 1x12 pine subflooring and it just breaks apart when trying to take it up.  They also had a layer of poly under the press board.

[poppy]

Another quick update.

This pic. attempts to visualize the sloping floor in the new M BR.  The 2x6 is level and sitting on the subfloor at the outside wall; the other end is sitting on a 2x4 with a little shim making the floor out of level by more than 1 1/2".


I decided to take out a 4' strip of the particle board and that should provide enough room for a new 3/4" plywood subfloor and 3/4" finish floor which will be even with the great room floor.  Now the trick is to figure out a good way to level the new subfloor. 

The next image is a repeat from a previous post showing the M BR ceiling joists that need to be raised about 14".  After noticing that the main house rafters were on 2' cts. +/-, I took another look at the rafter spacing on the old porch and of course they are spaced greater than 16" also.


I originally thought it would be pretty easy to cut out a joist, taper the end to match the roof pitch, and nail it to a rafter, but they don't match up, so I need another plan. 

Any suggestions would be welcomed on the floor leveling or the joist raising. 

[dug]

Your place reminds me a lot of one that a friend of mine is rehabilitating near me. He had similar problems with floors being out of level, interior doors that wouldn't close, etc.

They found found areas under the floor joists that were either way under supported or not supported at all, underneath load bearing walls. They used bottle jacks and raised the joists where necessary. When they got it right they installed supporting beams.

Some of their floors looked about as bad as the one you have and I was amazed at how much better they got it. I was around for awhile when they were working on it and heard a few scary noises when they were really cranking on those jacks though!   

[poppy]

So here's the update and current plan for the old porch/FR new MBR suite.  The original plan was to raise the ceiling about 14", but since the rafters and joists don't match up I'm thinking a different direction.



Here's another example of indiscriminate cutting of structual members.  I think they planned to put a wood stove under this hole since the floor has some extra support there, but it looks like it was never done.



There's a couple of places like this on the perimeter foundation, but what do you expect for a 50 yr. old house?



So now I'm thinking that I will put 5 1/2" batt insulation on the old hip roof and sheetrock it for a 7' to 10' sloping ceiling.  Furthermore, I'm thinking of putting 1 1/2" insulation board over the old siding above the 8' level and sheetrock over it and leaving the old sheathing exposed below that.



I also tore into the old porch header at the laundry room wall and found not 2 but 3 roof systems over the old cistern.    I can now get a full 8' ceiling in the new master bath.


Now on to the kitchen.  I got tired of looking at the lousy job they did on the original outside wall so I tore it out.



First, I put in a temporary support stud.



Now I can put in a proper divider wall.

And speaking of kitchens, here is my latest craigslist find.


Yes it's Formica in a labador granite pattern.  I got two 10' slabs that a couple didn't use on a remodel.

Then I made the mistake of taking my design guru granddaughter to IKEA.  Yea, I know, probably not what the average countryplans person would do, but....



She talked me into buying this 2' x 4' roller front brushed aluminum wall cabinet.  It was $100 off because the newer model has wider slats.




Now I'm considering buying these frosted glass/brushed aluminum wall cabinets to match the roller front.



And trying to stay somewhat with the retro theme, these glosy red base cabinets are under consideration.  I'm thinking black appliances, so the pink cook top and oven may have to go in the cabin. 

[poppy]

Latest destruction update and craigslist finds.



Continuing the deconstruction of the old FR for new MBR suite.  We've ripped out all of the old subflooring and now the old siding and sheathing as well.  The 32" door leaning on the wall is about where I'm moving the door to.  The old door was only 28" wide and not in the right location anyway.

The ceiling will slope up from about 7' to about 10'.

Most of the 1x12 subflooring is good enough to use on my cabin build. 

As mentioned in my latest post, I'm going with black appliances and plenty are available on craigslist because the sheeple (including my daughter) are all going with stainless.



The Whirlpool dish washer is no older than 5 yrs. and I don't know how old the Jenn-Air Grill-Range Oven is but it is in nearly perfect condition.  $55 for the DW and $150 for the range.

When we remodeled a kitchen back in 1984 I talked my wife into getting a Jenn-Air Grill-Range Oven which I loved because I could grill all year long.  She hated it because she didn't like cleaning it.  I seem to recall that it cost in the $1000 range; my memory could be wrong but I know they are expensive.



The oven is a convection type and includes the broiler pan.



It came with these accessories; second set of burners, optional backsplash, and of course the exhaust fan.



For those of you unfamiliar with the Jenn-Air, here's the closeup.  There's a grease collection slide out container there on the left.  The '84 model used a mason jar.  The grill unit simply unplugs and the second set of burners can be plugged in.  I may replace the stainless vent cover with a black one.

[Texas Tornado]

Cool the stove is a self cleaning one as well 

[poppy]

Another update.  My 18 yr. old helper has now gone off to college, so I need to find another local hand who works cheap. 



I mentioned before that the salvaged 1x12 subflooring will be saved for the cabin build.  Here it is stacked in the barn along with 2 mowers that I got by listening to "Trash &Treasure" on the local radio station.  Craftsman 16HP auto trans. 42" cut like new $750 and John Deere 22" cut 2 speed self propelled $60.



Pretty close to beginning reconstruction on the new MBR suite.



I've pretty much decided to do all new flooring in the GR so did a trial run on removing the old red oak flooring.  It came up easier than I expected so I will be able to salvage most of it.  The plan is to use #3 common unfinished white oak flooring for the GR and MBR.  I can get it for 88 cents a sf if I buy an 800 sf pallet.  That should give me enough to do both rooms allowing for about 15% scrap. 

Current planning is to use all hardwood or tile in the whole house, no carpet anywhere.



Finally went to the new local Harbor Freight store and picked up this tool.  It works great for flush trimming. 



The weather has been so nice lately that I hated to work inside so went over to the farm to make the first cut on the timber that will support the GR ceiling.





I've been trying to pick up bathroom stuff off craigslist so that I can show a plumber where to run lines.

Also been trying to find a good wood stove.  The goal is to have heat, a working kitchen, and at least one working bathroom by Thanksgiving.

[poppy]

Not much work on the house, but I have been hitting craigslist pretty hard.



I picked up some replacement windows and fiberglass board insulation at one stop and 4 interior doors at another location on my way to a dinner meeting, then it was out to the house to unload.



The windows are slightly used, but in good shape and are the exact correct size for the ones needing replacement.  Now I just need 3 more.



This is the 18" door for the pantry that is the same style as the existing doors.  I also got two 28" and one 30" slabs for the new room arrangement.  They all came with hinges and knobs at $10 per.



A family in my neighborhood didn't like the basement bath in their new house, so they tore it out and sold it to me.  It's nice to have 10' doors on the barn.



The cherry vanity with cultured marble top and single handle fixture is better than I would have purchased new.  The wife said she paid $300 for the light fixture alone.  I got about $1500 worth of stuff for $350. 



The 4' Kohler shower had only been used a couple of times.



It came complete with a frosted swinging door with magnetic closer.  It's too big to fit thru any of the house doors, but I'm removing the patio doors anyway so will have a nice big hole to move it in.

[Sassy]

Looks like you got some nice buys!  Always very satisfying when you can find good deals like that.   

[ben2go]

I gotta say it.

SCORE!

   

[TexstarJim]

Poppy, I had no idea you had lost your wife until I opened up this thread.  I see many have given their condolences and I too would like to say that I grieve for your loss.  I noticed someone said that time is needed and it does indeed take time my friend.  My best to you and I wish you luck on your newest project.

[poppy]

Thanks for all the kind words.  I try to visit this site every day and enjoy keeping up with all your projects, but don't have the energy right now to actively respond to what you all are doing.

Anyway, my activity lately has been mostly finding things on craigslist.



Picked up this Hearthstone wood stove.  It has a little age on it and a couple broken parts, but appears to be sound.  Hearthstone is sending me information to help identify what I have.  They think it's a model II but the nameplate says IH.



Rather than put it in the barn, I decided to unload it into the living room.



You see here the broken door handle and a better view of the stone inserts.  Not sure if they are soapstone or granite.



The guy also threw in some wrap insulation and tape on the stove deal, which was $125.



Also had two lots of ceramic tile on this load.  32sf of the quarry tile and about 70 sf of the white onix stuff.  There's enough for both bathroom floors and for under the wood stove.



And on the same load a couple more windows.



Plus on the same load were 5 baseboard heaters to be used as backup heat to the wood stove.  In the foreground of this pic. is an impulse buy at a big barn sale where I picked up another load of stuff.  More on that later.

[poppy]

So if I haven't mentioned it before, I really like craigslist.  Here's some more finds.




I picked up a retro 50's pantry at this location.  I complimented the lady on her house and she told me what it was.




A Sears house.


Went to a big barn sale and made an offer on some more retro stuff.


[

He wanted $100 for the set of pink fixtures; I offered $50 and he took it at the end of the week end sale.




They need some cleaning up, but are not in too bad a shape.  I will have to touch up the chrome stuff or replace it.




A better pic. of the pantry.




This load includes a stained pine corner bench/table kitchen set as well as a free toilet.




This was more of a challenge for a small pick up.  A side by side refrigerator and a couple more doors and a window shade picked out of the trash.




It is a Kitchen Aid counter depth model with changeable front panels.

[poppy]

I have actually begun some reconstruction or better put, I am correcting some of the dumb things that the original builder did. 

In the mean time, I happened to notice something strange.




This is the upper corner of an opening that I cut out for a new door location from the great room to the master BR.  This is an outside wall on the original house, even so, I didn't expect a crack to show up after only about a month of pretty unchangeable weather.




The first order of business after removing some funky bracing in the attic was to put in collar ties every 4'.




The next thing was to replace the ceiling joists that they chopped off and left dangling.  Not very exciting pics., but it felt good to actually do some construction.




I have lost patience with the chain saw mill for making timbers for the great room and kitchen, so I began stagging logs back on the farm in preparation for taking them to the Amish bandsaw mill.




While I was at it, I decided to include the maple log that has spalting, but when I got it to the stagging area something didn't look right.




An 8' section of the log stayed home.    I guess it's more rotten than I thought.

[poppy]

Got some more craigslist stuff.




This may be my best find so far.  6 Shaker style hickory kitchen cabinets, a full truck load plus a side trip to pick up a microwave for $24.   





Like I said, a full truck load.





This will be the arrangement in the kitchen except the corner wall cabinet will go on the right side.  About $1500 worth of cabinets for $75.     This design has full overlay fronts which provides a more expensive look.





These are Diamond brand still sold by Lowes.  Mine have 3/8" plywood walls (an upgrade), 1/2" back walls and dovetail drawer construction with roller slides under the smalle drawers for maximum useable width.





Oh, and I picked up another window from the cabinet seller.  They also threw in the counter tops, which I probably can't use except maybe in the laundry room.





Also picked up a couple more baseboard units making a total of 28' or 7000 watts of heat.  This may be enough to satisfy the insurance company and provide backup for the wood stove.





And a 36" pre-hung steel door for 30 bucks to replace the patio door in the new MBR.





And for good measure, here's a pic. of the freon line that was cut so that the copper tubing could be removed.  They also took all of the copper water pipe.     Ah, the joys of buying a repo.   

[poppy]

After waiting out a day of rain which we really, really needed, I got back to the log rolling.





Taking some advice from Don_P, I used the roll-on method to load the logs.  It was easier than I thought it would be.  I just had to encourage the logs a little with the peavy.





A full load ready for the ride to the Amish bandsaw mill.





Here they are working on the log that I tried to do with the chainsaw mill.





One advantage of using the mill is that I could get some 1" boards along with the timbers.  So with the 5 good timbers, we also got 8 boards of various widths and lengths.  They sawed for about 80 minutes and only charged me for 1 hour at $65.   

As luck would have it, this mill location is also the new local supplier of wood stoves so they are getting parts to repair my HeathStone stove. 





Getting ready to unload for more drying time.





Sometimes when one travels in Amish country one can only go at a trotter's pace.   

[drainl]

Wow - great deal on those cabinets!

[ben2go]

AWESOME!You are my frugal hero.Please mentor me.   

[Arizona Highlander]

Very impressed with the $65 at the mill. Great deal and nice work!

[poppy]

Ben, thanks for using the word "frugal" instead of "cheap" like my friends and family do.

I had an uncle many years ago who said that I "queaked when I walked, because I was so tight" (as in tight with money).

Anyway, I would be honored to mentor anyone on here, however you all must understand that I can be frugal because there are some unique circumstances under which I work.

1.  I live alone, so there is no one to please except me.

2.  There are no deadlines for getting things done. (did I mention that I live alone?)

3.  I have easy access to cash.

4.  I am willing to travel a pretty good distance to feed the habit. (about a 50 mile radius)

5.  I have a truck and trailer.

6.  I design and plan according to what materials I find.

7.  I check craigslist once or twice daily.

8.  I am semi-retired so I can go get something at the drop of a hat.

9.  I am willing to live a spartan life during construction, like no running water, meaning no toilet and no shower.

10.  I have several buildings in which to store materials.

So I realize that many of you have restrictions that prevent doing what I do; however, there are some tricks of the trade that anyone can benefit from.

[ben2go]

Ben, thanks for using the word "frugal" instead of "cheap" like my friends and family do.

You're welcome.

I had an uncle many years ago who said that I "queaked when I walked, because I was so tight" (as in tight with money).

Anyway, I would be honored to mentor anyone on here, however you all must understand that I can be frugal because there are some unique circumstances under which I work.

1.  I live alone, so there is no one to please except me.

I have a wife and child to consider. 

2.  There are no deadlines for getting things done. (did I mention that I live alone?)

I have no dead lines as long as life goes on.

3.  I have easy access to cash.

I can only dream of that.

4.  I am willing to travel a pretty good distance to feed the habit. (about a 50 mile radius)

I am willing but rarely have the time.

5.  I have a truck and trailer.

HAHA.I have the same truck as you,except mine is silver.I have access to an array of trailers.

6.  I design and plan according to what materials I find.

I can do that.

7.  I check craigslist once or twice daily.

On top of that already.Just ain't no deals in my area. 

8.  I am semi-retired so I can go get something at the drop of a hat.

I am disabled,so I have that one covered,when the wife and son give me the time..

9.  I am willing to live a spartan life during construction, like no running water, meaning no toilet and no shower.

I am capable,but the wife and son aren't.  Outhouse? 

10.  I have several buildings in which to store materials.

I got that covered,but I need to get onto cleaning them out.

So I realize that many of you have restrictions that prevent doing what I do; however, there are some tricks of the trade that anyone can benefit from.

I am learning. 

[poppy]

I've hit a dry spell on craigslist lately but have made a little progress on other things.

One thing that is kind of making me take my time on the rehab is that the condo has not sold and I need to save money.  Here's my latest trick to help sell the condo.



Old St. Joe is supposed to help sell a house.




I took some time off and went to a retreat/conference center in Montreat, NC.  I thought some of you might appreciate the retro pics from my suite at the center.  All GE appliances and plywood cabinets.  The counter tops looked newer.




I assume that the toilet had been replaced, since I'm pretty sure the original would have been blue.  One interesting thing is that the tub is only 4 1/2' long.     It made for a fairly compact bathroom.




This is the "medicine" cabinet in the entry way next to the kitchen instead of the bathroom.  I thought it was an ironing board until I opened the door. 




I continue to undo the bad work on this house.   




I plan to use the salvaged 2x8's from the old porch/new MBR to reinforce the floor where all of the holes were made without proper reinforcement. 



I don't think I mentioned in a previous post that one of the timbers from the first saw mill run was too rotten to use, so it was back to the farm for more logs.

I decided to include some logs slated for timbers for the cabin build.




This timber and boards are ready to be cut down so that I can take them back to the storage barn at the house.  Unfortunately, the timber that was supposed to replace the rotten one ended up having some bad spots also, so it's looking like another mill run.   


Since most of the logs were for the cabin build, I am posting more pics. on "Poppy's 16x16 timber framed cabin".

[ben2go]

That is my kind of luck.Go to the mill and find out the wood is no good.Sorry to hear about that.Hope the retreat re-energized you.

[poppy]

Third time is charm as they say.



These are the maple logs that I got out of the 8" tree that the loggers topped.  Two of these will yield 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" posts to replace the bad red oak timbers from the last two runs.



This just shows the log loading set up again.  My little digital camera does a pretty good job even without changing the setting for a bright background.


Now that I have enough timbers for the rehab, it was back to correcting the mistakes that the builders made.


This is after taking out 6 2x8 joists from the old porch.



This is the other side where you can see a little gap that needs to be taken care of.