This House Is Getting Old Part III: fixing mistakes and roofs

The concrete cured and when we were able to inspect it, we found a rough surface with a large number of flaws. The concrete was dyed and suppose to be the finished floor. I wanted a glass surface and after speaking with the concrete flat work contractor, I decided to apply an epoxy to give us a smooth surface.




The floor was cleaned with muriatic acid and rinsed with water and baking soda to neutralize the acid. After the floor dried we applied two coats of the epoxy with a paint roller. The end result is a glossy floor that accented the flaws in the concrete. It is not what I pictured but we will call it "character."




Before the rains got too serious here in the northwest, we rebuilt the front porch and re-roofed the front half of the house.




I will re roof the back side when I remove the deteriorating brick chimney and add vents for the water heater, plumbing and exhaust fans. That will have to be next summer when the rains quit.

Gladiolus

We both like flowers so Anna and I decided to put gladiolus in the garden last spring. We pulled the plants this fall and should have twice as many flowers next summer. Each gladiolus corm shriveled up and produced a couple new corms and a ton of cormels (the little bulb looking growths). The cormels will not flower next year but we could put them in a "nursery" and allow them to get large enough to flower in a few years.

Last Farmer's Market

We finally made it back to the Mukilteo Farmer's Market last week for the last market day of the year. It was beautiful weather and we were able to spread out in the sun without the canopy. (Should we admit we forgot it?) Theresa is our display expert and came armed with African fabric and piles of baskets. We were not sure what the customer numbers would be without the summer beach-goers, but it turned out that there were many people excited about fall produce and we sold plenty of carrots, parsnips, pumpkins, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, beets, garlic and bell peppers. It was a good way to end the market season.

Work Party

Winter is fast approaching and neither the garden nor the house are prepared. So we called in the reinforcements and they came, gloves and boots on, ready to work. What a work party! It was so helpful and really neat to look out over the farm and see activity all over. It certainly made working so hard much more fun! Here is a photo-journal of just some of what was accomplished. Photo credits go to Sarah and Vesta, who took their photo job very seriously.

Alan and Chris disassembling the tall chicken coopSusan freeing the asparagus from weeds

Jesse appeared in dress clothes to supervise and give Susan and Theresa a break from weeding. Theresa is our master-weeder. The garden would be lost without her.

Mom took babysitting duty seriously and sat for hours on the front porch cleaning potatoes for storage.

Bill getting a lesson on rototilling with the tractor.

Bob rototilling

Christopher and Vesta bringing up melons from the field

Shu-ha's parents didn't have bean-picking on their list of things to do on their visit from Taiwan, but they sure picked a lot of beans

Vesta picking strawberries

Joanie weeding the beets

Sara cleaning up the flower beds

Karen and Tim the pumpkin tossers. Leave it to them to come up with a creative way to get the pumpkins out of the field quickly and have fun at the same time.

We want to thank everyone who came to work. We appreciate it!

Pumpkin Pickin'

Perhaps our biggest enterprise this year has taken us by surprise. We harvested an abundance of pumpkins, expecting them to go to waste rotting on the ground. On a chance, we loaded some of them into the trailer during our work party and parked it on the side of the road. Vince fashioned our old mailbox into a pay-station and we painted make-shift signs. Every day this week the pumpkins are disappearing faster than we could have imagined and money is making it's way into the mailbox. It looks like all of those beautiful pumpkins won't go to waste at all. And we joke-now maybe Pieter can go to college after all!

Meadow Mice

There is a children's story about the meadow mice who had to scurry around in the fall to prepare for winter because they played all summer. It is beginning to feel like that around here,except that we didn't play all summer instead of gathering food and supplies; we're just running out of summertime. In addition to the garden and baby, This Old House proves to have hidden challenges lurking in every corner that won't settle and every electrical box (or lack thereof). We have had lots of help from our families. Luckily Anna's dad spent all spring cutting his firewood so he is ready for winter at his house and can help us scurry around ours. And Vince's dad retired recently, making it possible to fly all the way out here twice in one summer to work without stopping, it seems.
We have been re-roofing, preserving vegetables, and preparing for insulation, among other wintertime necessities. Late summer is the time for preserving and we have been learning new recipes and strategies for stretching our summer produce into the winter months.
Vince and Drew making hot sauce and tomato sauce in the "outdoor cooking area."


We learned our lesson last year and this year will store onions and potatoes in a cool, dark place with no chance of freezing.

This Old House Part II: lowering a home and hydronic heating

The house lifters came back on August 3rd to lower the house. They lifted the house just enough to remove a couple blocks of wood and lowered the I-beam back onto the cribbing and repeated until the house sat onto the new foundation. In the process the owner pulled a muscle in his back and was unable to move all of the heavy wood and jacks. Wade and Dad helped move all of the material out from under the house.

We put plywood, roofing felt and stucco mesh on the lower level so that we can dress up the foundation in the future. The corners of the house do not rest on the foundation at this point. The wood has memory of when it sat on the posts and the middle of each wall must have sunk in a little. The house lifter warned us of this common occurrence and that most of our windows and doors will not close properly. I am going to give the house a chance to settle before straightening out door jambs and windows.

In the future the lower floor will be heated with radiant heat. We put down 4 inches of sand as a base, then a layer of plastic as a vapor barrier. Over the plastic we installed 2 inch rigid foam for insulation and welded wire mesh to tie the tubing to. The tubing will carry hot water to heat the floor that will be poured the next day.

The concrete showed up on time and by the end of the day we had a floor and dry space to store all of our stuff that doesn't fit in a small house. Now we have to make the house weather tight and insulated.