Playing catch up

We have been at the new house just less than three months. Around eleven or twelve weeks.

We have had visitors for ten of those weeks.

Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed and appreciated every one of those visitors and they each are invited back to spend as long as they want starting as soon as they arrive. Heck, come live here.

But it has kept the blog post total down a bit.  There are only so many hours.

So, let's play catch up with some pictures and see if I can get a routine started. 

Ha! Routine.  I crack myself up.

When last we left, the front of the house looked like this:

Torn apart and mid rebuild.

 Fast forward a day or so and it looked like this:

Ninja house. You only see it when it's too late.

The two windows under all that tar paper were broken. We went to our normal supplier to get replacements and they were out of that size. The next shipment was two weeks out.

Two weeks.  Yikes. 

We are at that time of year here in western Washington where it could start raining one day and not stop for a few months. Two weeks is risky.  Oh well, can't be helped.

As previously noted in this space, Sarah and I had been sleeping in the house, lovingly named Big Stinky, since her parents came up to visit. Well, her Dad had a birthday and it was decided we needed to hook up our new Craigslist oven to bake the cake. And, since we had an oven, we should buy a table and have a meal or two. 

It was kind of cramped in the RV.  So, this happened.

Just don't look down. Or at the wall. 

Did I mention rain?

I did.  Well, we had a sudden rainstorm. The forecast read sunny for days until it changed to rain tomorrow. We expected a casual shower, but no, it rained all day. It rained pretty hard too.

Now worries, the house is pretty water resistant. Of course, that night, during the heaviest rains so far, we found a leak. In the RV.

Yeah.

Water was pouring in from the back corner in the bedroom. I climbed up to the roof with a headlamp and found the problem. I tried flashing tape and putty tape and anything else I could think of, but I couldn't get anything to stay in the quarter inch of running water going right across the broken seam.  Luckily, we have the blue tarps. So I tarped the roof and it stopped the leak for the night.

The next day, I got up topside to see how bad it was.

It was pretty bad.

Right where the roof meets the end-cap on the back of the RV.

I knew I needed to redo the sealant, but I didn't know it was that bad.

There were other places too.

I had been planning to fix those spots when the moment came, but I got busy and didn't get to it.

I guess the moment came and got me.

I already had the stuff, so I spent the next morning on the roof of the RV repairing the leaky areas.  Had to be done.

With the threat of rain, and honestly, just to see some of it done, we decided to hang some siding.

Yeah, we need more practice. 

With the siding up, Sarah went to the paint store and bought some paint to test. They kept telling her the color she like would fade. Of course, they told her all the colors she liked would fade.

I think the only color they had that wouldn't fade was one that started out as the color of faded paint. 

We decided to go with the color she liked and just let it get to that faded color naturally.

Our spider problem just keeps chugging along no matter how many we get rid of. I just imagine a huge spider arising from one of the many holes in the floor to find this huge area where other spiders should be. Finding none, he declares himself King Spider of this new...hey, is that a ShopVac?

Michael, the animal lover, doesn't like us killing anything we don't have to. So, he rescues the poor little guys when he can. 

Better him than me.

Several generations of my family shuddered seeing this picture.

Michael, "Awww, he's just a cute little guy." 

Yeah, no.

Whatever suits you kid. I'll use the ShopVac.

Sarah and I kept working.

Don't laugh, the trim will hide most of the irregularities.

The trim may have to be a foot wide or so.

It's going to look good, I think.

Eventually.

Of course, it rained again. So, we had to leave it at that for the day. Luckily, there were other projects.

Sarah wanted the sink moved to directly under the window. Now is the time for that stuff.  So, I moved the drain and feed lines. 

To mark this occasion, I have composed a poem.

Ode to Blue Hawk Push to Connect Fittings

By Eric Gaden

Blue Hawk Push to Connect Fittings

You are awesome.

I freaking love you.

The End.

Moving the drain line meant glue and cure times and mess.

Push to connect turns this...

To this in minutes allowing me to look like I know what I'm doing.

Awesome.

So, Sarah's parents left. Sarah and I were going to move back into the RV until we had one of the kids bedrooms ready and maybe their bathroom too.  But, the kids had other ideas. They wanted to move into the house with us.  So, we cleared out the study I had been using for lumber storage and had this.

Stephen King story time.

It is weird having the RV and not sleeping in it. So much of our lives is still in there. So much always will be. 

Until next time.

Not a how-to, a how did.

To put up a how-to video, you have to have a baseline of expertise. 

I don't have that. So, this isn't really a how-to post so much as a how-did. This is what I did. Should you find yourself in a similar situation, you may want to hire an expert.

I am not that smart.

Here we go.

When last we left, we looked like this.

Rotten.  Yeah, there's a rant coming.

 I have to get that rot out and replace it with good wood.  The problem is that the outer and marriage line walls in a double wide, are load bearing. It isn't a good idea to take out large sections of load-bearing walls.  So, I went out to the yard and got my old friend from the sliding glass door framing project.

Hello timber my old friend.

This is what it looked like from the inside.

I had to put on my construction Crocs. That explains the socks.

We ripped out the drywall. It was nailed to the studs we needed to remove.

Time for the big stud.

Banged it into place and nailed it down.

Things didn't look any better from the inside.

Sometimes you just have to grab the sawsall and hope for the best.

The rot goes all the way down.

Oh yeah, flooring. Hard to rebuild a wall if you don't have a floor.

The rot goes all the way up too.  Sigh

At least I had a helper. Max was learning and helping.

Michael was out mowing. He was working too.  I just didn't get a picture of it.

We had to put in some bracing to keep the squeaks down and provide stability to the edges. I'm getting better at making holes in the floor that it is easy to cut out of a plywood sheet. Either that or I'm getting better at cutting weird shapes out of plywood sheets. Maybe both.

Screwed it down, forgot to glue it down.

Removed all of the rotten structural material up top.

I've ripped out boards, cut out floors, sawed through nails and generally demolished a huge amount of this house. The two screws holding the upper wall frame to the roof were the toughest part of the house.

The sawsall didn't phase them. Papa joked that it wasn't cutting them so much as polishing them. I ended up having to rip it out by hand.  

Stinking screws.

 About this point I realized the day was getting away from me. I didn't stop for a whole lot more pictures. I used the nail gun and framing nails to get the pieces lined up and held together until I could use wood screws to hold them fast.  The actual framing went up pretty fast.

New board up top.

Cut to a new window frame. I added back some more bracing after this.

Believe it or not, I'm tired. Back to work tomorrow. Both here and the hospital.

Here we go again.

A quick update of progress and then on to today's rant. (Edit: the rant had to wait.  It needs it's own post.)

We have a sliding glass door! 

Papa was on hand for supervisory purposes.

Yep, it's a door opening.

Flashing tape, caulk, house wrap integrated into the opening.

That is a happy face.

Tada!  With the ubiquitous ladder.

All the windows are in. Time to put up furring strips.

Work in progress.

Our house has stripes.

There is still the one section of blue siding left, but only one.

Then it was time to pull off the last section of siding. This was the only part of the whole house where OSB sheathing was used. Still no house wrap or flashing, but sheathing. It must be in better condition than the rest, right?

Yeah, no.

So far, no good.

This picture encapsulates my rant. Note where the worst of the rot is.  Notice the gutter above it?

It wasn't any better under the OSB.

Got most of the OSB of

Yeah, I'll be replacing some studs.

I had to remove the porch to get at the rot under the door.

Strapped for time today. Lots more work is done. I just wanted to update a little while I had the chance.