{"id":30654,"date":"2017-05-01T12:56:01","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T19:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/?p=30654"},"modified":"2017-05-01T12:57:52","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T19:57:52","slug":"yes-its-a-foundation-project-but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/01\/yes-its-a-foundation-project-but\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, it’s a foundation project, but …"},"content":{"rendered":"

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… it begins with tearing out the ceilings. Because once this monster project is done, I want only building, creating<\/em> type work to remain in the bedroom. No more giant trash heaps.<\/p>\n

So the Monk has been tearing out the old, water-damaged fiber ceiling.<\/p>\n

First, down came the 12×12″ tiles. He pried. I scurried at the bottom of the ladder, bagging up the remains. Then he went back for a second pass, prying off the larger sheets of fiber that were behind the tiles. These sheets were covered with paper that had become brittle and fragile over the decades. Messy job. More bags of rubble. Good thing I buy trash bags by the eleventy-dozen.<\/p>\n

The Monk said the photo below should be titled “Moment of Triumph” because it was the first time he managed to get the old material down in one solid sheet.<\/p>\n

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Otherwise it’s been a scrap here, a scrap there.<\/p>\n

In the process we’ve confirmed the truth of something long suspected. Although this house was obviously built by incompetent drunks (or perhaps they were very competent at drinking, just lousy at construction), they obviously did have one cardinal rule guiding them. And that rule is: “If something’s completely non-structural and unimportant, fasten it down with hundreds and hundreds of nails, some only two inches apart. If something’s structural and absolutely crucial to make sturdy, solid, and stable … a handful of 8d nails will do.”<\/p>\n

I’m absolutely serious about this. Where major wings of the house were attached … eight penny nails. Always. And only a few of them. But apply some 1\/4-inch siding or ceiling material or trim? Then it’s invariably hundreds — thousands — of nails only a few inches apart. Usually those nails are fairly small, but the Monk and I have both also pulled giant 16d nails out of trim boards and other non-structural bits we’ve torn out.<\/p>\n

The Monk — who says he’s on the verge of cussing even though I’ve never heard him utter a strong word — has taken to calling the original builders Jim Beam and Jack Daniels.<\/p>\n

Although the ceiling teardown is the first stage of the actual labor, before that we spent an hour inspecting the foundation beams.<\/p>\n

I had a pretty good idea of their condition already, having had an earlier handyman take photos under the house. But my oh my. It’s worse than I knew. I do believe that even the Monk might break his anti-cussing vows long before this Big, Scary Project is ever done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… it begins with tearing out the ceilings. Because once this monster project is done, I want only building, creating type work to remain in the bedroom. No more giant trash heaps. So the Monk has been tearing out the old, water-damaged fiber ceiling. First, down came the 12×12″ tiles. He pried. I scurried at the bottom of the ladder, bagging up the remains. Then he went back for a second pass, prying off the larger sheets of fiber that were behind the tiles. These sheets were covered with paper that had become brittle and fragile over the decades. Messy…<\/p>\n

Continue readingYes, it’s a foundation project, but …<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-improvement","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30654"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30660,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30654\/revisions\/30660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}