It’s been two days since Steven last visited the house. The advances are dramatic.
Before — the house is still clad with the original cedar siding that dates back to 1968, when the house was built. And the brick wing wall to the left of the front door is also original.The siding on the second story and the brick wing wall are gone. Ron and the framing crew replaced the cedar with OSB sheathing. Equally significant, the large opening for the new master bedroom windows is also framed at the upper right.Also outside, at the front left of house, brick is removed to enlarge the front window of bedroom 1.And the brick wing wall to the left of the front door is dismantled.
Around the right side, the cedar siding on the second floor exterior is removed and replaced with OSB sheathing.Around back, replacement of the cedar siding continues.
Ron from Ranserve stands on the newly-exposed slab that is the original front porch, after the stone cap has been chiseled off.
This is the rotted wood at the base of one of the original porch posts, exposed to water and infestations, with the end grain probably never sealed — because that was not building practice back in 1968.
Before — the stone cap that is now removed from the porch slab.Ranserve is storing the removed brick and stone in the boneyard at the back of the driveway. The brick will be re-used as we remodel the exterior. The fate of the stone is not yet decided.At mid-day, the concrete team builds forms and drills rebar reinforcing rods into the existing slab as they prepare to pour the new concrete needed to bring the slab up 2+ inches to level the floor where we are extending the front entry forward — all because the stairs are not to code and we need additional “run” length for the math and material to work correctly.The first bags of concrete are mixed and shoveled into place. When the concrete team is done we will be able to walk on this in the morning.
