Flooring

Christian came to help. So Chris and Christian got to work with re-flooring. Getting the remaining floor up was a process- it seemed the previous owner had relaid flooring everytime the previous flooring had worn or started to rot. Unfortunately he didn't pull up the rotten stuff, he just placed the new stuff on top - so there were 4 plus layers of wood in spots. This made it heavy work.

Before the floor came up

Starting to pull up the floor to uncover the joists

Chris and Christian starting to lay the new plywood floor

Helen using the 'nail gun'!

Clambering over the joists to get some of the waste wood out! You'll be pleased to know no-one fell through!

New flooring - view from below

This will be part of the grand room and second bedroom

Nice solid floor - great work boys

Walls falling down!

We arrived at the house Sunday morning and to our slight suprise and then increased worry - we found the back right hand wall - where the new fire wall will be - had fallen down into the foundation. Not too much of a problem - because it was coming down anyway - and probably saved the guys a little hard work. But - falling into the foundation, and taking out some of the supports on the way down - was a slight worry. We feared the soil holding the house next door up would start crumbling away - risking their house, or the back room flooring of our house would collapse. We called Eduardo - he came and checked - and seemed to think it was fine. Fine! So we got on with our day and tried not to think about it!

Said wall - before it fell down

Looking down - supports holding soil back - and foundation

Looks like its hanging in space - but there are supports holding the wall up!

What we found on sunday morning. Wall down, in Foundation.

Corncerned about our neighbours 'foundation' - hoping soil doesn't keep crumbling away now the supports were squashed.

View from below - of the wall which fell through into the foundation!

Knocking walls down

We spent last weekend (October 16th-17th) knocking down the remaining walls at the front of the house. This was so we could have full access to all the floorboards that needed removing, and also so we could start planning out where the new walls needed to be placed. Another heavy labour task. We will be pleased once all the demo work is finished and the rebuilding phase begins!

Wall between Kitchen and old living room.

Wall between bedroom, old furnace room and bathroom are now down.

The Great Room uncovered

For the past three days we have chopped, sawed, crow barred and hammered away all the secondary floors and all the walls that will now make up the 'great room' - we are tired, but we are on schedule for putting the new plywood floors down next weekend. Excited to get back to work tomorrow - so we can have have a break from manual labour!!

Secondary floor waiting to be pulled out. The two of four walls that are also waiting to be torn down!

Chris busy working

You can't do manual labour without your crack hanging out!! Builders bum.

Floor up!

Bathroom floor up. Shower unit down. Cast iron bath remains - until we get a stable floor joist, it will stay there - plus way too heavy for Chris and I - need some more muscle to move this little gem!

Hole for the loo - floor completely rotten!

Chris wearing his posh face mask !

Wall seperating small front room and living room is gone! Albeit with a smashed window!!

New view from front room - The walls you see are now gone too!

Dry wall gone - just the frame left!

Surprise !!

Having admired the alpine lake/mountain mural for some time, we felt it was time to move on and get rid! Furthermore the wall was about to be torn down and replaced with a brand spanking new fire wall! So we started pulling the paper off the wall - and to our surprise and slight delight - we stumbled across another unique piece of art - a soaring bald eagle!!!!!! So random. Chris was extremely happy! I was flabbergasted by American style!

Alpine lake/Mountain mural

Bald Eagle and a happy Chris

Getting there....

The unfinished basement is coming along nicely. The construction team are about 3/4 of the way back with the cement walls. The joists are looking great - strong and stable! The fire wall along the right side of the house is started (required by the Town of Minturn, because we are too close to the house next to us!). So we are on track and hopeful we will be able to move into a somewhat liveable space November 1st!

The walls were a little rotten - so they cut out a section, reframed it and boarded it up. Once it is stuccoed it will look fine!

 

The start of the fire wall - the whole right side of the house needs to be replaced.

Strong, solid, new joists. Looks awesome!

3/4 of the way back with new cement. Mud removed and joists completed. Now all that is left is to get rid of the mud wall which the back end of the house is sat on, and make a foundation! 

Productive Saturday

If we thought October 2nd would be a cool, autumnal day - we would be very wrong. It was mid 70's, super sunny, and I got a sun burn! We were therefore very fortunate to have Sue and Hans in town to help us with some heavy labour, without them I think we would have had heat exhaustion. Lifting tonnes of wood, construction debris and rubbish into a 8 foot high dumpster was no easy task. But after a solid 5 hours of work - we had filled the 40 foot roll off dumpster - and had the garden and house looking pretty respectable.

The two spectators - Url and Kira

Disembling the metal shed

Hans and Chris getting the job done!

Sue and Chris filling the dumpster

Dumpster was full to the brim at the end of the day!