Gutteral

Another big-ish project for this summer was that we installed gutters. Well, gutter. I don't have a lot of pictures of this one because it was the kind of project where you're busy getting everything laid out and measured and dry fit and then actually fit, and then you have to try to figure out how to hold the stupid gutter with one person on a ladder and one person in the bucket van, and then you finally get it attached and then it leaks anyhow and you have to take it apart and reseal things.

You can barely see the gutter, but the downspout is kind of visible?

But eventually, we think we got the gutter sorted out... just in time for the bucket van to start making a kind of terrible noise that eventually required me to scramble out of the bucket onto the porch and the rest of the day's projects to revolve around Chris trying to fix the van so that we could retract the bucket and get the van out of the lawn. If he wants to eventually add in what was actually wrong and how he fixed it, I'm going to let him do that because honestly, I don't really remember what all was involved. It was broken, but he fixed it. Then he was able to figure out what parts it needed and fix it more permanently the next weekend.

We're still hoping to run a gutter along the north side of the house (in the picture above, you're seeing the corner where the south and east sides meet). The hope is that this will help get water away from the foundation and a) keep the foundation sturdy and b) maybe help keep water out of the basement.

Bonus Roofing Project

Once we were in the groove and had figured out the slate ripper, Chris and I got up on the roof one more time after the Huge Chimney Deconstruction to replace some other tiles that had long been cracked.

Out with the old

One of the things I've enjoyed about this farm project is that we're having to figure out and learn skills -- like repairing your own tile roof -- that most people, even sometimes the people in the modern version of that trade, no longer have. And as a bonus, we're on our way to a pretty sweet looking roof!

Look how nice it can be!

Chim-Chiminey, Chim-Chiminey, Chim-Chim-Cheree

One of the very first projects we anticipated when we bought the farmhouse was taking down the extra chimney. From what we could tell, it maybe wasn't in great shape, and more importantly, it served absolutely no purpose.

The chimney on the left is purely decorative

At one point, the chimney may have served a cookstove in the kitchen, and we know that it once served the wood burner that's still in the house. But prior to our ownership, the wood burner got moved to the dining room and got a new chimney (which featured in its own blog post last fall). To keep the chimney from collapsing into the house, the previous owner decided to just put in a small closet, which is clearly to code.

We almost did this project last summer, but the threat of rain coupled with some indecision about exactly HOW we were going to get up there and remove the chimney when the roof is fairly steep and also you can't step on it because you'll crack the tiles. That meant that by THIS summer, we'd had a full year to prepare our game plan and gather supplies.

And it turns out... that actually paid off.

First, we got ladder hooks, which are pretty much what they sound like -- they attach to the ladder and allow it to slide up the roof and hook over the ridge, distributing the weight of the ladder. Like so.

Testing the ladder hooks

Then my father brought up ladder jacks, which look like they should be used as bear traps or something, but actually attach to the ladder and allow you to set boards across the two ladders to make a flat, stable platform. For added safety, we had harnesses tied off to the bucket van. So from there, dad and I were able to spend a morning up on the roof, trying to gently take out the chimney without dropping bricks or loose mortar onto the roof tiles. Chris took the hard job of trudging up and down ladders all day to haul down the bricks and mortar we removed.

The actual taking down of the chimney was not significantly harder than playing Jenga. A fairly light tap with a hammer was enough to loosen up most of the chimney, and bricks came out with basically no effort.

By the time we were reaching through the roof into the attic, however, the whole chimney was swaying significantly every time you touched it. That didn't seem great, since we didn't really want to knock down ten feet of chimney into the attic. When we regrouped inside for further demo, Chris and Dad rigged up a couple boards to brace the chimney a bit... and then the rest of the chimney was also super loose and in about the same amount of time it took to measure, find boards, and screw in the braces, they'd taken down the chimney past the point where the braces were helpful.

Good-bye, chimney.

Soon enough, we were finding the tools that had been dropped down the chimney earlier, shockingly well-preserved bird skeletons, and a lot of years of soot and dust and dirt and general nastiness that had to get scooped out. But eventually, we reached the kitchen!

Yes, this is the "closet" that was supporting the chimney.

I'm standing in the kitchen, looking up to the hole in my roof.

So then the chimney was gone, and we were left with a hole in the roof, which is the downside to removing a chimney. Fortunately, this was easily remedied.

No more skylight!

This was the point where we decided to be smart and let this be a two-day project. The next day, we were sore, but back at it. After a little aerial YouTubing, we figured out how to use a slate ripper, which is a tool that looks like it's not going to do anything, but somehow manages to slip up between roof tiles and rip out the nails so you can remove a tile without having to remove every single tile that overlaps it. Then we set about taking out the partial tiles, installing new tiles... and fixing the tiles we accidentally broke with the ladder. Oops.

New tiles!

Finally, it was time to splice in some new metal over the ridge, re-attach the lightening rod assembly, and ta-da! -- a totally fixed up roof!

Roof, now with less chimney!

From up close, it's pretty obvious which tiles are the new ones, but from the ground, it's like the whole chimney never even happened.

No chimney!

All in all, this was one of the more rewarding projects. Once we took the chimney down in the attic, for instance, we were able to get in and finish up the insulation project from the last post. Having the chimney out is also going to let us (hopefully yet this fall/winter??) move ahead with putting a wall back in between the kitchen and dining room. So I guess the "reward" here is more projects, but it still felt really good to get this big one done.

Thanksgiving 2018

We've owned the farm for (very slightly over) two years now, and while we still have a lot of projects to work on, we've continued to be pleasantly surprised by how smoothly most projects have gone. It has really been a fun project overall, and we have a lot to be thankful for. In no particular order, here's our farmhouse top 10 list for Thanksgiving.

1. Heat
Seriously, heat is great. We've been lucky to have the wood burner since the beginning that really kicks out a lot of heat, and how we're going to be extra toasty with central heat that we can schedule to turn on before we come up. 

2.  Good neighbors
We've been so lucky with our farmhouse neighbors. They're often stopping by in the summer with garden produce for us, and last winter, one of the neighbors plowed a path up our driveway all season so we could get in when we came up. They've shared what they know about the place, and the guy across the street even took us on a tour around the area. 

3. The front porch was saved
You may remember that I was prepared to cry if we had to lose that nice stone porch, so I'm definitely thankful that not only were we able to support and save it, but improve the steps so that the whole thing is a charming place for some quality front-porch-sitting... in those few moments we have for just sitting around.

4. Doors that open
It seems weird to be thankful for doors that basically just do their job, but in a house where we didn't get any keys at closing, everything's not-quite-straight, and most of the doors are at least a little sticky, we're definitely glad to be at a point where all available doors can be opened, closed, and (where applicable) locked. 

5. People pitching in
From the first moment that Tony Bucket hurried back from his dinner so we could write up an offer on the farmhouse before heading home, people have been lovely about helping to make this happen. My father, of course, has been basically a rock star. He's been ready to help with any project, and always does a careful and beautiful job. My mom has stripped wallpaper and painted. My sister has come from out of town to strip wallpaper and refinish windows. I think just about everyone in Chris's family has been part of the ongoing project to move the leftover rocks away from the front porch.

 

6. History lessons
One of the most fun parts of the farmhouse is that people seem to enjoy telling us about what the place was like before we owned it. We've had a former resident come for a tour and to share her stories. The neighbors are always a good source of information about what's been done and when. One of my coworkers is even the nephew of the man we bought it from. We have a lot of fun walking people through the place and listening to them share what they remember about how it used to be.

7. A roof over our head
The farmhouse roof is steep and can't be stepped on, making it one of the more terrifying parts of the house. Despite that, we've been able to get up to make the necessary repairs to keep the water (and sometimes the bats) out.

    

8. Hyacinth Bucket (van)
We would definitely not have made the progress we have without the bucket van. We've done roof repairs. We've scraped and painted. We've removed and replaced storm windows. We've moved in a boxspring. We've picked apples. We've repaired a chimney. And through all of that, we haven't had to worry about falling off ladders. Seriously, that van is great. 10/10, would buy again.

9. We can actually vacation at the farm
We have a functional kitchen, a television, and two complete bedrooms. We have a working bathroom and a window a/c unit. We're finally at the point where we don't have to necessarily hustle every single second of every single visit to the farmhouse, and that's a very good feeling, indeed.

10. The water's still flowing
Even when we winterize, we have a steady outflow of water. We've cleared the ditch a bit, and we may have successfully found the outflow for the basement floor drain (which may mean less basement flooding in the future?). In a world where even pretty nearby, access to clean water isn't a guarantee, the fact that we have water that literally is constantly flowing through our house at all times is pretty great.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Then The Chimney Fell Over

Just to stay honest about the timeline here, the following incident occurred almost exactly a year ago, in September of 2017. We had gone up to the farm, but didn't have much time to work on things... and we discovered this:

Santa's not getting down THAT chimney...

This was especially not good because of all the chimneys you see here, the one that fell over is the only one that actually gets USED. The one to its right isn't even attached to anything; the one to its left is still kind of an unknown quantity. But this chimney belongs to the wood stove that keeps us from fully turning into icicles when we're working at the farm during the winter.

Unfortunately, we really didn't have time to deal with the chimney, so we stuffed rags down the hole to keep out critters and went home to make a plan and gather supplies.

The good news with this project was that nothing substantial was actually broken. The chimney had a number of guy-wires stabilizing it, and those wires were not even remotely an appropriate strength. After many years of service, they'd just given out, and without the extra stability, the chimney blew over. While a few tiles got a bit cracked, there wasn't even much damage to the roof.

The bad news with this project is that chimneys are heavy and tall, and there was absolutely no way that puny humans standing on the lean-to roof were going to have the strength or leverage to lift the chimney back into position. Fortunately, these puny humans have a bucket van, and we were able to get a strap around the upper part of the chimney, attach the strap to the bucket, and then maneuver the bucket to lift and position the chimney. A bit hair raising? Yes. Ultimately successful? Also yes.

Standing tall

With the help of some new -- much more substantial -- guy-wires, the chimney got secured back in its place, where it will hopefully stay for years to come.

Raising the Roof

We live in Michigan, so winter is a thing. Usually, it's a thing we enjoy (Chris because he gets to go skiing, me because I get to curl up with the cat and drink hot cocoa), but it turns out that winter can be fairly inconvenient when you buy a house and really need to get some repairs made on the roof.

The good news is that some of the roof repairs were actually an indoor job. Some of the rafters had cracked over the years, and while the roof wasn't sagging yet, we didn't really want to give it a chance to start. Our inspector had suggested that the roof shouldn't get loaded up with snow without undergoing some repairs... so naturally, the day after we closed on the house, it started snowing.

Since the indoor part of the roof repair was the most structural part... and because it was windy and snowy and gross outside... we started in the attic. Remember that attic bonus room? That's where our work began, pretty much as soon as we took possession of the house.

Chris was able to screw the rafters together, and most of them drew together pretty nicely with just a little encouragement. It was still a lot of work (and a lot of standing on a ladder), but we were able to rest a bit easier about our roof situation.

Was that it? Of course not. Some of the rafters were really pretty sad, so there was some sistering up to be done. This may have been the hardest part, since the first time through, we failed a bit with the ratio of number of times you're supposed to measure versus cut.

Sisters!

We also added in some cross beams. There were a few in place, but they were just next to the chimney, so Chris added more throughout the attic.

See out the window at the back of the picture? It's snowing. Of course.

So that was a lot of roof work without actually going on the roof, but we (and by "we," I mean "Chris") weren't going to get off that easily. There was one small-ish hole in the corner of the roof that needed to be patched up, and some roof tiles were missing. I think we had at least two or three days when we planned to go up and work on it, but were grounded by snow/rain/wind.

Last weekend, we finally got a few clear hours. Since the hole was right near the corner, Chris was able to get at it with a ladder. I was fairly freaked out about that part ahead of time, but in the end, it wasn't as bad as it looked like it might be.

Patched!

The problem with this roof is that it's covered in asbestos tile. It's actually not the asbestos part that's the problem in this case -- it's the fact that, like any other kind of tile roof, you can't just get up there and start walking around on it because you'll crack the tiles. Fortunately, the tile issues were on the other part of the roof, where there are a porch (in the front) and a lean-to (in the back) that both have metal roofs. Those are ok to walk on, but get really slippery when wet, so the incoming snow was starting to be a concern. It wasn't coming down yet, though, so Chris bravely plowed ahead.

Our first chicken ladder!

This is how you get up on a roof you can't walk on... you build a ladder that hooks over the roof to distribute your weight and keep you from directly stepping on the tiles. And thus, the tiles got patched, just as the wind started picking up.

By the time we left for the day, the snow was coming down steadily and the ground was turning white, and by this time next week, there may be a few inches of snow up at the farm. At least we can rest easier knowing the roof has been shored up against it.