Back that thing up!

Yesterday the movers hooked up the two dollies to the steel under my house. This morning they came out and hooked up their truck. Once everything was tight, they "backed" the house up, to position it to be pulled out into the field.

I am hopeful that they will be able to travel the first 100 yards tomorrow, but we'll see how that goes. I took down some more fence today, and a tree will have to come down tomorrow to allow for the initial movement away from the current site. After that, everything should be in line for Saturday.

It looks like the weather is supposed to be sunny and hot on Saturday, so we shouldn't have any snow or hurricanes to delay the move another week.

Here are the two pics I got from today. More to come soon.

From House Moving ...

On the long neglected music front, I strongly suggest the song "Librarian" by My Morning Jacket. The first time I heard this song, I thought of a beautiful friend of mine who was horrible offended when a man told her that her glasses made her look like a librarian. I thought it was quite a compliment, but I don't think she ever saw it that way! Here is a live video of the song.



BBK

It finally moves!

So it looks like my house is actually going to get moved this weekend. The phone company, power company, and, most importantly, the mover have all indicated that it is a go. I removed the necessary fences today with the help of Jeremiah and John, so the path is pretty much clear.




From its current location, the house will initial be backed up (with the truck hooked up at the back of the house), and then turned toward its actual route. It will have to pass between two big oaks, and then beside a big hickory. I am hopeful that none of those three trees will have to be cut down, but that we will just have to trim them. The house will then be moved about 100 yards to a knoll across from the office of the rock quarry it will have to pass. This should be done on Thursday or Friday, and will save a lot of time on Saturday if can be done ahead of the big move.

On Saturday, the house will travel down the road and around a curve, about a quarter mile, before crossing into my parents' fields. This will require the assistance of the power and phone companies as the width of the house would cause it to hit the lines where they are now.

Once in the fields, it will climb a small hill to the crest of the most treacherous part of the journey. There is a large hill with a couple options for the descent, but none of them are pretty. Some phone lines will have to be dropped, and power lines raised over the house. Prior the the descent, the rock quarry manager will use the bulldozer to cut smooth paths for the house to descend down the hill. The dozer will then hook on the uphill side of the house, and lower the house down the hill. This should prevent the house from pushing the truck down the hill, or from jack-knifing.

Once the major descent is done, there is another small hill to traverse, a road to cross, another short climb, and then the only other potentially treacherous descent. After traveling along the side of the stream for a short time, the house will then climb the ramp to the foundation.

The truck pulling the house will cross the foundation and then detach from the house. The house will then be rotated on the four dollies supporting it, so that it is centered over the foundation. Once centered, it will be jacked up to about 10 feet in the air, so that I can build the basement walls under it.

That's the plan at least!

I'll keep you posted on the progress over the next few days.

BBK

Frustration

I thought that things were going to get moving in May, and the house did get picked up a little bit more, but I am still waiting for several things to fall into place before I can actually move the house.

Right now I am waiting on further information from the phone company about what they will have to do before I can move the house. The electric company has been super cooperative, and is willing to work with me pretty much whenever I need it. The phone company, on the other hand, is talking about having to bury several hundred feet of wire before I can move the house since the house is too tall to pass under the current lines.

On a brighter note, My Morning Jacket has released their new album, available at many fine music outlets including my favorite online music retailer emusic.com. Check them out at this page featuring their new album "Evil Urges." Check out this video for information about the album and title track.


More information about the house will be forthcoming shortly. But for now I'll go back to waiting for something to happen.

Back at it

What a long semester! Although I have mixed feelings after every semester, I am definitely glad to be done with school this semester. The house has sat nearly untouched since December, but I am hopeful that it will be moved in the next couple weeks.

The first priority is getting the hay up from the fields where the house will cross. This year the hay is in the best shape I have ever seen it, and we have already cut about half of all the hay we will cut this year. The baling will start today and will continue tomorrow.

I have a little more work to do to get the slab ready for the house to be placed on it. The ramp has to be smoothed out, and a couple poplars have to come down. I'll get some pictures up soon to illustrate the changes since I last posted.

I'll try to avoid these long absences in the future - as more gets done, I'll be excited to share, rather than depressed about having nothing to share and frustrated by the lack of progress!

-BBK

The BIG pour

After weeks of work and a couple of setbacks, the footers and the slab have been poured. The finished product is amazing, and I have no doubt that it will hold up when the house eventually comes rolling across it and is jacked up in the air.



As I've mentioned before, I had to pour my footers above ground due to the amount of rock that would have had to be dug out otherwise. I opted to pour the slab at the same time to strengthen the pour since my house will be jacked up on the site once it is moved.

The pictures tell most of the story.

Big thanks to my dad for all his help, Uncle Tom for taking so much time to help, John Abbott for mucking so much mud and shoveling so much gravel and Ed Murphy for tying steel and forming up.

Jinks' Concrete finished the pour with Lambcon supplying the concrete.

Hopefully we will get a hard freeze in a few weeks and can move the house. Right now I am looking forward to taking a break for a couple days and regrouping.

The semester has started well, and I have 5 great classes. I am looking forward to trying out a few new ideas and learning more about being an effective teacher.

Listening to: The Streets - A Grand Don't Come for Free

Good Aches

Quick post here. I worked almost nonstop today from 7 am until 12 am (midnight, that is) getting ready for the pour. Shoveled a lot of gravel, had great help from Dad, Uncle Tom and Samuel (who braved the temperatures on this 70 degree January day even though he is horribly sick). The inspector is coming out tomorrow, hopefully in the afternoon, and as long as everything is kosher we'll pour Friday morning.

Tommy and Mike were back out again today to finish the ramp and make it ready for concrete trucks.

Once again I did not get any pics up, mainly because it is so late now and tomorrow is my first day back to school for the semester. They will be coming soon, hopefully some before the pour so you can see how much gravel we have shoveled.

Somehow amidst all this work I found time to relax for a little bit to have dinner with the family and watch a movie with a friend, so instead of music you get a movie recommendation.

Movie recommendation: Air Guitar Nation - A documentary of the first annual U.S. Air Guitar Championships. C-Diddy Rocks! Rent it NOW on DVD or VHS from your local Blockbuster store.

Still, BBK.

(Not) Digging the footers

After a month of relative inactivity on the house, and a very unproductive Christmas break, digging finally started on the footers yesterday. Tommy very carefully laid out the outline of the house and found the level for the bottom of the footers. After a little discussion about the depth of the footers and how the concrete would be poured Tommy pulled his backhoe into place and began removing dirt for the footers. After a couple scoops Mike checked the level of rocks that Tommy had hit in the bottom of the ditch and unfortunately they were not deep enough to allow the footers to be poured underground.

After a little deliberation I decided to forego burying the footer and form up on top of the ground instead. As long as the inspector will approve it I will be pouring the footer and slab all at the same time. I began forming up today and will seek the inspector's approval tomorrow. I expect to have everything formed up by the end of the day Monday and have a crew come out and do the pour later in the week.

I'll try to post some more pictures tomorrow of what I'm doing with this.

Right now I'm listening to: "Five Years Time" by Noah and the Whale

Exit 5652

The ramp for my house to travel up the hill is finally complete. Tommy and Mike Lequire spent many days packing in the base for the ramp making the grade perfect. Now that it is done, it looks like an interstate exit ramp up the side of the hill. Fortunately, the ramp doesn't have to be as wide as we had originally expected and only wound up about thirty feet wide in most places.

In addition to building the ramp up the hill, Tommy and Mike also moved my driveway to make the entrance safer and the grade less steep. The result is a beautiful curving drive with a gentle grade.

Right now I'm listening to The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter by Josh Ritter. Josh Ritter is an amazing folk artist with unique lyrical and rythmic talents that will remind many of Dylan. His song "Right Moves" caused my recent fender bender which cracked the bumper on my car. Give it a listen on his Myspace Page. "...the crickets all leapt up and met the moon with a standing ovation."

Here's the video to "To the dogs or whoever"

Excuses

Okay, so it has been almost a month since I have posted and I could give a multitude of reasons for why it has taken so long. Instead, I will only give two.

Firstly, the end of the semester is a busy time for teachers. As a student I never really thought about how much teachers have to do at the end of the semester. I realized that they must have a lot of work to do, but I was always more concerned with how much studying I was having to do. I don't mean to complain, I know that my life as a teacher is a good one, I'm just making an excuse for why I haven't made any posts recently.

Secondly, and more importantly, I have had a horrible time uploading pictures on my internet connection recently. This was such a big problem that I considered entitling this post "A picture is worth a thousand words." Clearly I didn't name it that, and so partially avoided the cliche. I have never been the best at organizing my thoughts, and so just writing words here is not the easiest thing to do. Instead, I rely on pictures as crutches for my posts.

What am I listening to right now? Paper Planes by M.I.A.
This is a fantastic song (I'm sure many of you wouldn't agree) which samples the song Straight to Hell by The Clash and has a beautiful play on Rump Shaker by Wreckx-n-Effect. M.I.A. is one of my favorite artists of the year, highlighting the plight of citizens of Third World countries as well as legal and illegal immigrants to developed countries through intelligent and catch hip-hop rhythms. This song in particular challenges two common conceptions about immigrants.

Excavation

This post should have come up a couple days ago, but here it is!

So, the excavation is nearly done, all that remains is to widen the ramp that the house will travel up the hill. Tommy and Mike Lequire are meticulous in their excavation. As you can see in this slideshow, the hill has undergone some serious changes.



After the septic and drain fields passed inspection, Tommy began work on digging the basement. His biggest fear was that he would hit significant amounts of rock and would have to hammer them out with a hydraulic hammer. As I type this I can hear him hammering away on some rocks, but fortunately, there was nowhere near the amount of rock that he had expected.

Since I repositioned the house to angle and face down the driveway that comes up the hill, the dirt wall at the back corner is much higher than I had originally anticipated. That is where Tommy ran into the most rock, but it is all dug out now and ready for the house to be pulled in. The ground is nearly level now and the once the house is set over its final location, I can form up for the footers above the ground.

The biggest concern about digging the footers out was that due to time constraints, we might not be able to get the concrete poured prior to the rain that is expected tomorrow. I had no desire to scoop buckets of mud out of the footers if it decided to rain on us.

Listening to: Iron and Wine "The Boy with a Coin" found at fingertipsmusic.com

Baby Steps

Well, the house is finally about ready to be jacked up. I hope to get some more pictures posted in the next few days, but since I have been really busy that has been put on the back burner.

The big news is that, if all goes well, the drain fields and septic tank will pass inspection tomorrow. After that, digging should begin on the footers. I am still torn about what to use for the foundation, blocks, concrete, ICFs, etc. There are so many choices and so many pros and cons. I will probably wind up going with blocks for ease of use and quickness, but it is hard to decide. First things first, though. The footers will hopefully be poured next week, and then the house can be moved.

The house is actually "off" the foundation right now, although it is not completely up in the air. One thing the movers have run into is that the house has settled a lot around the edges over the past 117 years. The chimneys have done a good job of holding up the middle of the house, but there is a nearly six inch crown across the front of the house, and I don't know how much along the length. What this means is that I will have to make the foundation curved rather than square, something that will be interesting to work out.

They will probably get the house up in the air later this week, and hopefully can move it over the footer next week. I will be sure to post pictures once it is up in the air - chimneys and all!

What I am listening to right now:
Band of Horses, Cease to Begin
The National, Boxer

Things keep moving...

So I've been in Minneapolis since Wednesday, and more has gotten done since I've been here than has been done since things started. That may be a slight exaggeration, but here's a brief synopsis of the week.

Tommy Lequire of Lequire Excavating came out and cleared the site of all the trees on Monday and Tuesday. It was amazing to see how everything changed once all the undergrowth was gone. Once I saw how different it looked, I realized that the initial position I had envisioned for the house was not what I would want at all. Now I'm going to turn the house so it faces the final approach up the drive, that way I can have a garage under the master bedroom and a nice parking area at the top of the drive as well.

So I left Wednesday morning to come to MN, and as soon as I got here I got a call from Jeremiah telling me that Tommy was ready to put the septic tank in. Wow! Talk about getting things done. So Tommy has gotten most of the work on drain fields and septic tank done so far, and, to my knowledge has not had any problem with rocks, one of his biggest concerns on the side of that hill.

The movers have come and brought the steel to put under the house, but I have yet to see it so I don't have too much to say, except that I can't wait to get back to town tomorrow and see everything that's been done.

I'll soon have some more to blog about the house move and my trip, but for now I am off to the last formal function of my trip up here. One of the coolest things about my trip so far would have to be my conversations with a colleague from Washington (the state) whose dad moves houses. Talking with her was wonderfully encouraging as I sit here not able to see what is happening with my house.

til next time.

BBK

Permits and lumber

Not too much progress to report on the house, physically speaking, at least. The biggest progress on the house was that I got my drain field and septic permit. Valarie at the Tennessee Department of Groundwater protection is absolutely amazing! She, by some miracle, was able to inspect my site the day I turned in the application, so I can go pick up the permit today! Thank you, Valarie, and I hope I spelled your name right!

I hope to get the rest of the necessary permits today, that way the excavation can start this week hopefully. I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures of that, since the hill will look a little different when they are done. One big change will happen since they will have to cut a path wide enough for the house to come up the hill.

The big story of the week was the lumber, though! Jeremiah and I had cut down a bunch of dead trees and gotten all the logs together. (I'll do another post on that in a couple days - we had some big logs!) We had Mark Hinds from East Tennessee Sawmill Company come out and cut them up. This is back breaking work for anyone who has never done this before. I don't have time for a whole synopsis right now, but I'll tell more about this in a later post.

'Til next time.

BBK

A bit more history

Now that the painting is done (hopefully, we'll see how it looks in the morning), I'd like to go into the history of the house a little bit. This information is as told to me by Mr. H. C. Greenway. I hope to sit down and record him talking about the house soon since my memory isn't always the best.

The house was built by Mr. Greenway's paternal grandfather in 1890. As he puts it, it was made of the finest materials available. Apparently, the Carter family had one built in 1889 by the same carpenters and then another one around the corner was built in 1891 by some of the same workers. The Carter house burned down many years ago (note to self, research this) but the other one was purchased and renovated in the 1980's and is a beautiful house.

The Greenway family had corn farms in this area, well before the rock quarry ever became the dominant industry. Back in those days, there was a marble quarry up over the hill, but they hadn't started quarrying limestone.

When the house was built it had poplar siding and poplar roofing. The roofing was replaced after soot in the chimney caught fire and nearly caught the roof on fire. The Carter house had burned down the prior year under similar circumstances. Mr. Greenway's father started replacing the roof the next day and it has had a metal roof since. The poplar siding is still there under the vinyl siding, and from what I have seen appears to be in pretty good shape.

The side porch was originally open air and the laundry room was not there. The bathroom off the side porch was actually a pantry that had to be accessed by going out onto the porch. There was a cistern just off the porch that held the rainwater, and when it was dry they had to go down to a nearby cave to get water. They also kept their milk and other perishables in the cave. Under the master bedroom there was a root cellar where they kept apples, potatoes and carrots year round.

Mr. Greenway described how, when he was a boy (1920-30's), they were just starting to quarry limestone using wheelbarrows and sledgehammers, a Works Progress Administration program. There was a railroad that ran through the area, but this quarry wasn't big enough to need that. They used the railroad to haul cattle, marble and, for a period of time, acid-wood as well. What, you may ask, is acid-wood? At that time, the most dominant tree in the area was the American Chestnut. The blight had hit, and they were all dying off. Loggers would cut any affected trees down, chop them up, load them on wagons, and haul them to the railroad so they could be shipped to mills to have the tanic acid extracted to tan leather!

Another week flies by - Painting

For the past 9 days I have spent many hours in a cherry picker (a JLG technically) painting the roof of my house. Today I bring that all to a close when I apply the second top coat to the last two sections of roof.



Before start talking about the painting, let me say that one of my biggest fears has always been heights. As with most of my fears I don't mind confronting it, so spending probably 50 hours of the past week above 20 ft up in the air has been an adrenaline rush (or maybe that was just the solvents in the paint!).

I have never liked painting a whole lot, so just imagine painting 3000 square feet of roof with three coats of paint (1 primer + 2 top coats)!

Painting a metal roof didn't seem like a big hassle at first, I mean, its flat, right? I bought plenty of paint (I thought) lots of rollers and brushes. The front of the house wasn't too bad, the primer went on with relative ease and the rollers worked well. Then I moved around to the side and realized that the rest of the roof was going to be a completely different story. The reason this was the case is that the front of the house has metal shingles (wonderful stamped metal) which was relatively flat. The rest of the house is what they call "5V" metal, a term you may not have heard before but hopefully this illustration helps: ^-^---^---^-^ , that is the basic profile when viewed end on.

Anyway, the 5v roofing was a lot harder to paint, those double v's and even the single v's were difficult to paint, and brushing in the cracks was a real pain. So my faithful and capable helper, John Abbott, and I began discussing how much nicer it would be if we could spray on the paint, and leaving out the next several hours wasted on getting together a working contraption for painting eventually wound up with a compressor driven spray can with a one quart capacity. (Remember that I had about 7,000 square feet left to paint, all one quart at a time!) With some tweaking and a few other purchases the painting started moving along rather quickly. There were no more difficulties with V's either double or single!

Let me digress for a minute. I misspoke when I said that John Abbott is my helper, and to say that he is my Dad's helper would be to misspeak as well. John Abbott is a good family friend who can do almost any task twice as fast as I can, and normally with much better results! He has been a huge help to me this past week in getting things done, and will hopefully continue to be over the next few months as the house moves right along. He has this uncanny ability to work in almost any circumstance and never get frustrated. He merely chuckles and keeps working. I did find this week that he hates painting more than I do (unless it is with a sprayer).

John Abbott helping me take a couple courses off a chimney.

Jeremiah, my dad and Uncle Tom were also a big help in getting the painting done this week.

Back to the painting, though. 10 Gallons of green paint have been applied to the roof, on top of 8 gallons of primer. Hopefully it will hold up for several years before I have to do it again. I've heard that Rustoleum paint is great stuff. I'll let you know in 5-10 years!

What day is it?

So I have spent the past week painting the roof on my house.

Wait, let me back up a little bit. I recently(on September 24 to be exact) acquired a house , the old Greenway Farmhouse in Centerville, Tennessee. That's between Greenback and Friendsville, for those of you not familiar with this part of the country.

From House Moving ...

The house was built in 1890, so it has a lot of history, something I learn more about each day. I have been posting pictures of the house for the past few weeks, but since I seem to be losing my mind, I figured I'd write down tidbits of information for anyone interested and so that once I regain my sanity I'll have some clarity (hopefully) of what actually happened during this moving process.

Oh, that reminds me, not only did I acquire this house, I will be moving it sometime in the near future. And just in case you were wondering, no, it doesn't have to be cut into pieces to move it! As you can see if you look at this slideshow, there has already been a lot done to get the house ready for moving.



Well, that's all for now! I have a job to keep, so I'd better do some work to get ready for my last day of school before fall break! Four days of vacation (in other words, four days of hard labor!)