Two Silos Farm

Once hubby got up, he was ready to get right to work (ok, after eggs, toast and coffee – and some time on his favorite message board). First item was to remove the floor back far enough so we could start working on rebuilding the wall section and installing the header. Hubby cut the floor into sections for easier removal.

Insulation had been put in the floor, but for the most part it had fallen and was laying in the dirt. Don’t know if it made a difference because right now having the floor open to the dirt, it is not significantly colder in the room than before. And it’s about -11F outside right now. Hubby disconnected the heater in the room about a week ago.

This pic shows the board that is supporting the exterior wall (and consequently the roof). It’s pretty rotted along the bottom where it is in contact with the cement.

Hubby is putting in green treated under the wall to help give it more support. This spring we’ll be doing more landscaping to make sure all water runs away from the house.

Once that much of the floor was removed, we started working on plans for the wall and header. Spent time figuring out measures, and where the jack studs had to go. Ran into a problem, the support for the header ended up needing to go where there was no support under the sill board . . . time for plan B.

This picture from the cellar shows the problem. The previous owners had removed some of the support rock so they could install a toilet in that corner. We’ll be running the shower drain through the opening (toilet is now on the cellar side of that wall).

Since we didn’t have a “plan B” at this point, decided it was time for lunch and a trip to Menards. Chicken buffet at KFC and then about 2 hours selecting and loading lumber. My hubby is quite particular, and there are times he goes through a whole stack of lumber to find boards acceptable to him. We didn’t need a lot – that was good. If we did I think Hubby would go to one of the other lumber yards. May pay more, but at least we’d get usable materials. My Hubby about cried when he went to Vancouver (Canada) and walked into a lumber yard while he was there – can’t find wood like that around here!

It was about 5 pm by the time we got back from Menards, and then it was time for chores. I was ready to call it quits for the night, but hubby was motivated to keep working. Plan B resulted in putting up two braces so we could remove the rest of the studs holding the roof/ceiling up. We’ll rebuild the floor and put the new support wall on top. So the sill plate on this end of the wall will end up not supporting anything.

Since we weren’t going to be installing the header any time soon, hubby got motivated to remove more of the floor. Had to get more stuff out of the way.

Stuff included the washer and dryer. They are now in the hallway . . .

Good thing hubby and I are not large people – otherwise we would not be able to get through. Had to make sure to leave enough room to get the plywood into the laundry room.

Hubby got the floor cut back as far as he could before more stuff needs to be moved. Next will be moving the shower down into the dirt and removing the laundry tub. The floor needs to be cut back another 3 feet. Here is what it looks like this morning.

Tikka has been having fun exploring

When she’s not busy trying to figure out how to get at the fish . . .we got the fish last weekend and she isn’t bored with them yet.