Remodeling Our Hut Part 8: Moving Garages, Trees and Junk

 The sunset in the picture above has pretty well summed up this entire summer, storms on the horizon and rain almost every other day.  As of October 2, 2019, we are inches over the all-time record since records have been kept.

So, here we are, June 26, 2019, one last look at our living room the way it was.  Red oak hardwood floor, stained glass everywhere, curtains, railings, yes, that's the way it was.
 

  
 Below is the way it looks right now, October 2, 2019.  We had the front door moved, removed a closet, added bay windows to the living room and lost a good portion of the hardwood floor to rain running through the ceiling.  (More about that later.) 

Below: the way my kitchen looked back in June.  Ann is busy helping me pack for the move in this picture. 

  
For comparison, here's the kitchen in September, below.  As of yesterday, even the orange vinyl floor is for the most part gone, so now it looks even worse.

 

To be completely honest, moving out of our house was a huge nightmare.  We have far too much junk acquired in the last 41 years, plain and simple.  

Even though I'd gotten a headstart on the downsizing process over the winter, with the garden tour June 15, I had dropped packing and sorting to weed the garden.  

Carl's parent's house, which we nicknamed the Hobbit House due to it being an underground home, still contained their possessions too, so we are currently living with our stuff piled in with their stuff.  Yessirree, it's a colossal mess.

Every trip we made from our house to the Hobbit, we heaped the boxes and doodads in an increasingly unruly pile out of lack of time and space.  I consoled myself by thinking I'd have the time to organize things at night after we got back to the Hobbit House but such has not been the case.  Carl has to go to work every day and I'm over at our house trying to do what I can with the remodel. Typically, in the morning I work there until noon, come home for lunch and to throw something in the crockpot for supper, and then go back to work at our house until dark.  By the time we both come back to the Hobbit, eat our evening meal and get the dishes done at night, I have no energy left to sort through anything.

   Even though we are crammed in here like sardines, we are blessed to have a house to live in.  We were also blessed to have Ann and Brenda's help with cleaning at the Hobbit House and for their help in moving us out.

While I was dealing with the monumental task of packing, Carl was dealing with a monumental task of his own.  He had to figure out how to pick up the garage and move it off the foundation so we could attach the garage to our house.  The garage would have to have a frost wall, as in our cold climate, frost moves buildings that are on floating slabs.  In order to have the new wall excavated and poured, the garage had to move completely off the foundation.  

Our friend Jerry lent us a hay wagon running gear and Carl welded up a support system to hold the weight of the entire building.  We bought two huge laminated beams which spanned the entire length of the garage and with Joel's help, Carl raised them to the rafters to carry the load.

 

Carl welded up some steel straps so he could use high-lift jacks to raise the beams.  

 

 

Hard to see in this light, but there's a hay wagon running gear now holding up the beams and the entire weight of the garage.

On July 3, 2019, we decided to strip two layers of shingles off the garage to reduce the weight of the building.  Joel and Cody came over after work and helped Carl and I tear off the roof. 

 

Luckily, it was one of only a few days that it wasn't raining this summer.  We all worked until 10PM removing shingles.

 
 Cody decided to take the shingles off the overhang on the back door, too, and then we called it a night.

Cody removing shingles from back porch roof

Joel working on tar paper

 Carl and I bought some tar paper to protect the garage roof which Cody and Joel applied.  The next day, July 4, Joel brought us a big tarp to wrap over the entire garage.
 
 Carl still had junk to get out of the garage before we could move it, but by Saturday, July 6, we were ready to move the garage, junk or no junk.  It had to go because the excavator was arriving on Monday morning, July 8.

We hooked up the 574 to the hay wagon running gear and ever so slowly, eased the garage off the foundation with Joel driving.

In less than an a half hour, the garage was off the slab and all that remained was the junk we still had to deal with.

Carl let the jacks down one at a time, put blocks under the walls and tied the garage down with ground stakes.   We all breathed a sigh of relief; so far, so good.  (Our contractor had quoted us $3600 to have the garage moved professionally, but Carl felt we were up to the task, so we saved some money there.  However, it would be more of a trick to move it back onto the new foundation, stay tuned......)

Our next task was to remove the retaining wall of tufa we had between the shop and the garage.  Carl and I loaded up over twenty pallets of tufa and I hauled them out back.  

 As it turned out, the power company wasn't available to turn the power off until July 10, so had an extra two days to move more stuff out of our house and also to deal with the beech tree.

I was very glad that the tree spade owner was able to come on short notice to remove the tree for us.  One last look at the tree before it left....

Blue Beech in front of our house

Tree spade arrives

Shovels are in position

Digging begins

Tree out

Going, going...

Gone.

Leaving our yard, headed to Joel and Abby's new house.

Backing in to their backyard

Lowering it into the already dug hole.

Blue beech in its new home.  (So far, it's flourishing.)  :-)

 I spent the rest of the day moving more of our belongings to the Hobbit House.  After work, Joel and Cody came over and removed our back porch overhang.

Our equipment is antique, but I don't know what we'd do without the Super H.  (Or Joel and Cody.)

 The porch roof had to be removed because it is where the new mudroom was to be built.  Ironically, the little roof was something we had added on to our house right after it was built in 1978, because when it was raining and you had to fiddle around with your keys, it was nice to have a roof overhead.  Back then, it cost over $2000 to add the tiny roof which I thought was nuts, but it surely did come in handy since we did not have an attached garage.

 The little overhang put up a valiant fight, but in the end, it came free.

 Our house is looking sadder day by day.  Ah, demolition is one way to keep life exciting.

 Adios, old roof.  You served us well.

In the meantime, Joel helped us move the stained glass emporium to safekeeping at his house. 

 

Above Joel and Carl are spinning the Peony lamp off of the ceiling.

And above, I'm sitting in Joel's truck with the Laburnum in my lap, headed for Joel and Abby's basement.

Next Up: Excavation Excitement