Up at Nor’East, I got a little distracted by football fields of claw-foot bathtubs, beautiful stained glass windows, and the fully intact bar from The Kells (unfortunately, my memories from said watering hole nearly 10 years ago are a tad spotty, so I cannot confirm if I ever saw it in situ)… but we also found a wealth of salvaged wood and in particular, a piece from a church in Salem. Gosh, I do just love when things like that come together.
So fast-forward two weeks, and first on our list of to dos this weekend was to replace that joist. Before Fall Fest, Ryan had already cut the lumber down to the right size to be standard with the other beams, and drilled holes to accommodate some hardware that we found to attach the joist between the existing beams.
While Ryan had fun with the sawzall and removed the incomplete joist, I had a little fun with spray paint outside.
What do you do when you can’t afford forged iron hardware? Hit it with some black Rustoleum for a pretty convincing alternative. We opted for galvanized steel hardware instead of stainless steel. Besides being stronger (perhaps a more important consideration), it also had a little more texture to it that looks nice with the black on it.
While the “iron” hardware dried, we kicked up the pace (what with one ceiling joist down) and Ryan knocked in the oh-so cleverly notched end of the replacement joist and after a very slight length adjustment, knocked the other side in place.
We had two sets of hardware – the ones I painted and the ones that will be covered up by the sheetrock we’ve decided to put between the beams in the front. We attached the first set of hardware and after the ones I painted dried, also attached those. We are really happy with the treated hardware and how the salvaged wood matches so well with the rest of the beams in the front. By Sunday morning, the joist and floor had come together nice and tight.
Onto (or back to?) the kitchen… Ryan finished off a bit of strapping in the kitchen, we installed a special electrical box for the fan, and we turned our attention (back) to insulation in the kitchen. We applied the same reflective barrier that we used in the breakfast nook onto the whole vault of the ceiling. Very spaceship, if you ask me.
After joking together before our final piece of foil if we should read the provided directions, we were forced to recalibrate a bit and ran out to Home Depot to purchase some attic insulation to stuff above the foil (lesson here: Read The Damn Directions).
Before calling it a day and after Home Depot, Ryan HAD to get one piece of sheetrock up on the ceiling. After much thought, Ryan had devised a plan which involved a full sheet of sheetrock, super-human strength on his part, and me on a ladder using a 2x4 to help hold some of the (substantial) weight of the drywall. Well, it worked. And no, it wasn’t easy or very elegant.
We closed Saturday with one piece of sheetrock up on the ceiling, a POA to add some additional insulation above the foil, and intentions to hang more drywall.
Sunday morning, work went quick on the insulation (but then again, I was on the ground and Ryan was straddling joists in the crawl space above and stuffing said insulation). By lunchtime, we’d added insulation to the flat and on the pitched sides (thanks Dad for that leftover R11 from Vermont – it worked perfectly!), and hung another piece of sheetrock with the 2x4-slash-fingers crossed method.
After lunch and a visit to the Marini’s Farm Stand for pumpkins and fudge, we returned to the house for yard work (advantage of a small yard: mowing takes about 15 minutes for Ryan) and cleanup.
Moving mountains folks, moving mountains.
PS – While we do not yet have heat… we’ve made the big decision to switch over to Natural Gas and fear not, are on the books with our friend HVAC Mike. Good thing we both grew up in drafty, old New England houses… it’s going to be close, but we will have heat in time before fall really settles in.
