Old House My House

Photo by Kenny Braun

Here's how things went on week 2:

Construction is proceeding strikingly rapidly...

The roof is breached, and the new upstairs gables have made their appearance. The stairway leads to the new second floor! The LVLs and structural members have all been installed, and the subfloor as well (made from a green composite board material). The old kitchen has been dismantled, and the closet removed, and we can see for the first time how spacious the new kitchen area will be—it's wonderful. We have uncovered more history mysteries of the house—where previous walls existed, or may have existed. We have interesting discussions about the original layouts of the house, reflecting on how folks lived earlier in the century. 

The leveling of the house on top of the piers is proceeding along with the construction. The house needs time to settle into a new position, and it IS taking its time. We'll have to keep watching it and hoping it settles well. It's like reshaping a parallelogram, or trying to get a box with 4 corners to sit flat—sometimes the sides have to be coaxed to settle, and it just takes time. Bill Moore, our contractor, is a patient man, and he understands the house. I'm confident.

We visited Discovery in Gonzales, Texas, and met Brad, the owner. He buys and collects building materials, architectural details, and components from old houses, and refurbishes and resells them for renovations and additions. He has plenty of reclaimed long-leaf pine flooring that we could use for the new upstairs floor, as well as doors, doorknobs, even siding. A good resource for this job!

—Michael