Amenia Bobsled Team

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That's the name for our tub removal crew, a big thanks to Dustin Barzell, and Oren Petranker for helping to haul the old castiron beast out of the upstairs hallway. It actually was in the pink bathroom, but the spot it graced for near on 100 years will become a hallway and thus improve the flow immeasurably.  Now, we don't know the exact weight on the tub, but Oren and Graham have hauled ovens, coal stoves, butcher blocks etc.. with nary a grunt, but this thing damn near killed the team. Not only was it heavy, it also had to come down a curved staircase without damaging the plaster or railing, not an easy task.

Behold....
 

It got much easier to move once we realized that the slip nuts on the plumbing had not released, so out came the sawzall and it cut just like buttah'. A special thanks to Julie for documenting the process and doing some solid pre tub removal demolition. Go to our instagram page for a fun video of the final push @brokenchimneyfarm
 

Artist in Residence Program

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OK, perhaps it is too soon to call it a program, but due to our abundance of artistically gifted friends we are hoping to create a space where friends can come visit, stay a while, and create. This last weekend we had our first taste of it when Dustin and Hannah came upstate and set up the rickety home made pottery wheel Graham got off Ebay (turned out to be a good buy). We don't know anything about pottery, we picked up a kiln and some basic equipment in the hopes of making tile, but figured you cant have a kiln without a wheel... So lucky us, Dustin is an awesome potter, follow him on Instagram @ceramicism - he gave us tutorials and made some great pieces. We can't wait for more creative weekends like this.
 

Meanwhile, Hannah did some serious damage upstairs tearing out plaster and lathe in the old "pink bathroom".
 

See that smudge??? That's a sign of hard work!
 

A great weekend!
 

Turning a Window into a Door

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The space formerly known as "Ugly Wallpaper Bath" is being reconfigured to allow direct access to the downstairs bedroom, to do this we had to cut a door. Fortunately for us, when they added the new room the previous owner covered over a window that used to be in that external wall. All of this is very exciting because it means we get to use the sawzall! 

First step: get the electricity turned off to that outlet in the middle, easier said than done considering the mess of wiring in this old place. After 20 minutes of flipping breakers and yelling back and forth we managed to get the power turned off. 

With the power off we removed the outlet, capped the wires and got ready to turn the saw on.

Woohoo! This is one of those moments where hours of prep allows for a few brief moments of obvious progress. Cherish these moments, they are what keep you going. 

The door starts to take shape, revealing a beautiful view of our old powder blue toilet...a true classic, perhaps collectors item?? 

This is where the versatility of the Dewalt reciprocal saw really comes into play. Notice how the handle is facing up? The blade can be inserted four different ways to allow for all kinds of different cutting positions; in this one we needed to cut down and end flush with the floor. At this point we are cutting below the window sill of the old window so the original exterior wood siding is partially exposed, you can see the many layers of siding and drywall that were built on top of each other.

Notice the not covered floor vent? That is not due to negligence, the vent is getting replaced with a wood one and the useless flex vent supplying it will also come out and be replaced with a nice efficient oval sheet metal duct. The flex ducts tend to kink and not actually supply much air, a big drawback which outweighs their ease of installation benefit. 

Once the door was open we looked at it for a while and realized it was suitable for a skinny hobbit, so back out with the saw to do some more cutting back. Originally we were going to use the inside of the window frame dimensions, but after walking though it a couple times opted to cut back to the outside of the window frame instead. 

Ermela turned out to be the best with this piece of equipment, Graham cut like he drives, a little random and Mama C was very unpredictable. Well, now the opening is cut, width is 31" and height is 6'6", perfectly comfortable for our purposes. Next step will be to frame the actual door and see if we have any old doors that might fit the pace. Because we stayed within the original window framing we didn't to deal with new headers or king posts, all in all a very easy modification, and one that did not require any kind of structural considerations. 

Cellulose Insulation - Round #1

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This looked like it was going to be a daunting task. The machine is big and heavy, comments online are all about the hose being difficult and unwieldy, and that at minimum you need three people (an issue because Ermela had to be away the day we rented the equipment from Home Depot so there were only two of us). In reality, it was easy, took a few minutes to get the hang of it, and you definitely need a couple strong guys to load and unload the truck, but the process it's self is painless if a little messy.

For about half a second we flirted with the idea of skipping this whole step. The area in question is a 10' wide area of a North wall, hardly worth the trouble, but one look at the split copper pipes from the old shower reminded us of how important proper insulation is.

After we removed all the old plywood and nails from the wall we drilled 1.5" holes towards the top of each stud bay. We were drilling blind so we aimed for the centers of the bays, but did not always get it right.

That little lower hole is from when we were checking to see if any insulation existed a couple weeks back. Once we had the holes drilled we drove the truck around to the north side of the house and Graham pulled the insulation blower out. The blower is provided with two 50' hoses, the idea being that people never have to bring the machine inside, in this case we got pretty close so we only had to hook up one hose length, and pull it through the bathroom window. 

 Once the hose was in we set about preparing the work area. Moving obstructions inside and pre-slicing bags of insulation open outside and putting them within easy reach. This was a step that is not really necessary when doing cavity filling, but probably very necessary when doing open attic filling, otherwise time would be wasted, but with our short 16" stud bays there was really no urgency, each bag lasted a couple bays.  

With the work area prepared we hit the on switch....and nothing happened. If you look at the picture above there is an orange sheet of metal above the house, turns out you have to pull that out in order for the cellulose to get to the hose. SO, we pulled that out, flipped the switch and we were off to the races. Graham loading and unclogging the blower and Carol handling the hose. We had one clog while trying to overstuff a bay, but other than that it went easy. There is a lot of yelling back and forth to turn on, then off, then back on for one second etc.. but all things considered that machine is a huge time saver. We only used a third of the bags of Green Fiber insulation but opted to keep the extra and re-rent the machine when we are ready to put a layer in the attic eaves and knee wall areas.  

You should be prepared to be covered in cellulose insulation at the end and it's best to close off the area you are working in (she says she is smiling behind the mask in this picture). Once we we packed the machine up we stuck the wooden plugs back in and taped over them to hold them in place. They will be covered with cement board and drywall so no need to get fancy in re-installing the plugs.  

The final touch for this wall is a little expanding foam insulation at the top and we are ready to go to the next project. 

Ugly Wallpaper Bath No More

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So the ugly wallpaper bath was named for what originally appeared to be just that. Once we started demolishing it though we learned that it was actually decorated using shelf liner/contact paper (ingenious). Under the contact paper we found a rather nice old floral wallpaper and a green plaid wallpaper. 

Under the floral wallpaper we found odd thin strips of wood that were nailed to the wall vertically. Under that was a layer of generic building paper and under that was Kraft paper, the all purpose building wrap of the early 1900's. From there we expected plaster or raw studs…..

but that would make entirely too much sense. Instead we found horizontally laid wainscot over empty stud bays (hence the frozen pipes). We will continue tearing down to the wainscot level and see what surprises we come across. 

We also need to see about renting an insulation blower for the north exterior wall. Given that it took us two days to remove the loose fill fiberglass from the ceiling cavity above this bathroom we are a little hesitant to subject future generations to that form of insulation.

The goal for this bathroom is a claw foot tub, big shower, higher ceilings and plenty of storage… all pretty reasonable given it's 13'8" x 8'2" dimensions.