Meet Me at the Top

MEET ME AT THE TOP

Initially the engineering plan called for four 2 x 10’s, but Chuck, our master framer, suggested that Paul look into finding a single ridge beam. On Wednesday Shepley’s delivered a 52 foot  engineered  lumber board. The truck driver raised the flatbed and the beam slid onto the ground in front of the house. By the end of the day it was in place connecting the east and west gable ends.  Now all the rafters will be secured to this critical piece of construction that will form the roof.

Chris’ brother suggested that we observe the pagan tradition of putting a small tree on top of the house. This practice stems from the Norse belief that this would garner favor with the tree spirits and bring good luck to all who dwell within.   So Chris ventured into the woods with his pruning shears and came out with a little cedar. He gave it to Paul, who handed it up to Chuck who nailed it to the top of the east gable. I asked everyone to wait for me to climb up the ladder to the second floor so Chris and I could say a Blessing and listen to Chris sing a rendition of the Sussex Mummer’s Carol. “God Bless your house, your children too, your cattle and your store, the lord increase you day by day and send you more and more and send you more and more. “

THE DAY THE RAIN CAME

It was becoming dusty and dirty at 19 Ladd Rd.  We needed rain. For years my mother has been saying that Cape Cod is pretty dry in the summer.  Most of the storms go out to sea in Plymouth about 30 miles from here. Sometimes we will be listening to the Red Sox waiting out a rain delay in Boston and we will never see a drop on the Cape.

Before the house was raised and the new foundation excavated, the yard’s topsoil was scraped up and deposited in a huge pile on the other side of the garage. That left only sand around the house.  When the mighty CAT is lumbering  across the yard clouds of dust trail in its wake settling on everything.

 Besides working on the house, Chris and I had been transplanting bushes along the paths in the woods and we needed water. Our water supply had been cut off at the beginning of the construction project and we were depending on the generosity of a neighbor and multiple bottles of water transported from the lake house to water the plants. And then a violent thunderstorm rolled over the Cape and we were thankful for the precipitation. That was until we arrived at the construction site and saw the crew baling out the house. With only half the roof sheathed and the openings for the windows uncovered, the storm rushed right in. Water had seeped under the tarps and most of the floors were wet. We mopped, shop-vacked, and swished viscous cloth around for most of the day before we could remove the tarps and dry them in the back yard.  Eventually the floor air-dried and we put the tarps back down again. Exhausted we dragged ourselves home for dinner and then to bed. But it wasn’t long before we heard the sound of rain pelting the window. It would be hard to get to sleep knowing that we were going to face  the same ordeal all over again tomorrow. 

Hard work stripping shingles!

Green Gables

I have been rereading the blog written last year by an architect who built a house near us. He researched a lot of building material in order to qualify for LEED status. One of the more interesting things he used was the Huber Zip System and I wanted to give it a try.   This is a relatively new wall and roof sheathing that is water impervious because it has a vapor barrier built in. That means the house doesn’t have to be wrapped in tarpaper or Tyvek before the shingles are put on. I also like it that the Zip System is rated by the FSC, Forest Stewardship Council and is therefore greener than conventional plywood.  Paul has never used the Zip System, but was willing to give it a try because of a $900 rebate for first-time users.

In their first week on site, the Lacey crew opened up the east wall and built out the new addition.  These walls and decking gave them the working surface needed to build the new gables.  Floor joists and carrying beams were removed and replaced with super-strong engineered wood, while Paul and Chuck frequently stopped to review the engineering plans. 

Chris and I had to make a quick trip to N. J. for a memorial service. It was hard for us to tear ourselves away from the construction site. And sure enough when we returned we found the roof had been cut off in sections and was sitting in slices on the ground. Paul had his crew remove any useable lumber for repurposing and it is currently stored in a dry place under the house.

On Friday the excitement built as the crew framed the east gable. In just a couple of hours it was ready to be hoisted into place. Chris had the video camera running and I popped snapshots on the digital camera. Six men tried to raise it with muscle and brawn but it proved to be too heavy. So they called on the tremendous power of the hydraulic lifting arm of the CAT. With Paul at the controls, a heavy-duty construction strap looped through a hole in the peak of the wall, it was pulled with precision into place. I jumped up and down clapping madly and Chris whistled while a rapid-fire reverberation rang out as 3 nail guns simultaneously fastened the wall into place. We were stunned as we looked upon this white trimmed piece of new construction. After all those winter months of designing there it stood. We loved it. We loved it. WE LOVED IT. And as everyone stood around admiring its proportion and balance they said, “Now it really looks like a house.”  

As Chuck Lacey and his crew built the new decking and walls, Quatro began demolishing the interior of the old cottage. What a nasty job! Sheetrock walls smashed, gypsum dust filling the air as loose insulation tumbled to the floor stained with mouse pee. I shudder to think of all the mice running around while I have been sleeping. Hair, skin, clothing covered with this disgusting detritus mingled with sweat from the day’s heat and exertion, I couldn’t wait to go home for a shower. 

When the guys quit at 3:30 Chris and I climbed into the house protected by hats or shower cap, facemasks and gloves to sweep, shovel and bag this awful mess. Pieces of wall and lumber get placed in garbage cans and Chris hoists them into the dumpster. We are guessing that we will need another 2 before the job is done. Before we leave for the day I perform my favorite job, wheeling the magnetic sweeper around the grounds to pick up any loose nails.  Before we climb out of the house, we cover the old oak floors with tarps in case of an unexpected shower. Initially, we had planned to install new birch floors but when we heard that the existing floor probably was worth about $7,000 we have been doing everything we can to preserve it. Finally, Chris wraps his caution tape back and forth across the front door a couple of times and then strings it along the front of the yard. Another day done, tired and dirty but with smiles on our faces as we think about the view from our new bedroom window.  

Touchdown

Touchdown

I am sitting in my Adirondack chair in the shade staring at the gable end of the house in disbelief. I have sat here and watched the wall be demolished one sledgehammer blow at a time. The whole end of the house is wide open and I can see the interior walls and the staircase. What a strange sight I thought  to myself,  “Well that’s quite an airing out”. However before the crew leaves tonight it will have to be buttoned up with tarps in the off chance of bad weather. The demolition has begun in earnest and will continue until all the wallboard, windows, some partitions, shingles and eventually the roof are removed. Doesn’t seem like there will be much left of the old cottage.

We welcomed Chuck Lacey and his framing crew fresh from a vacation in Myrtle Beach to the construction site on Monday. They brought their own style and swagger to an already energized project. Their large trailer outfitted with precision tools and a refrigerator for quick refreshment is parked out front.  They attacked the problem of sistering new joists to sagging old ones and soon had the building leveled out for the first time in 50 years. By Monday evening they had figured out how to connect the 73 steel hurricane bolts to the new sills. Using a laser to line everything up, Chuck remarked, “Sweet it’s all perfect”. This would allow Kevin and Sylvester’s crew to lower the house without a hitch. 

On Tuesday 1200 feet of 10mil polypropylene vapor barrier was stretched out on the foundation floor and up the walls a few inches. Caulking adhesive and a 22 caliber concrete nailing gun made sure that it was going nowhere.   When the shooting was over Chris and I jumped in with our shovels and metal rakes to help spread out 40 tons of native stone that Paul lifted into the foundation with his CAT.  Eyeing the small pile in the driveway I had sensed that this wouldn’t take long.  So I flew into the pile working furiously to fill the 2 wheelbarrows trying to prove that I could be part of the team effort. However it didn’t take long for me to realize that this was hard work. 

Kevin and 2 assistants from Sylvester’s were already lowering the cottage by the time we arrived at the construction site on Wednesday.  Chris had to scramble quickly out of the car to capture the action. Coming down was a lot faster and less dramatic than going up. Chris and I had actually gotten used to seeing the house 10 feet in the air. We had even propped up a ladder and climbed into it last Saturday to take a peak at our new views. When the cottage finally landed onto the new sills it creaked and then settled looking so solid and connected. It was time to celebrate with Paul. 

Messing About in Bobcats and Boats

Gary Sylvester backfills foundation

The concrete has cured and the foundation backfilled by Sylvester’s men racing around in their speedy bobcats. Tools and gear have taken over the garage. And lumber, 34 foot engineered joists and a bundle of 2x6 for the sills, was delivered yesterday morning by Shepley, along with some pink sill sealant. 

It has been a quiet 2 weeks on the construction site. Time for Chris and me to sit in our Adirondack chairs and try to envision what our new house will look like. Jerry, the architect, has assured us that we won’t even recognize it after the addition and the second floor is built. This is hard for Chris to imagine after summering in the same cottage for 50 years.

At last the weather has turned and we have had glorious spring days. Our minds have turned to the river and our kayaks.  Out of storage came the life preservers, paddles and the cushion I like to put at my back.  We paddled upstream to Craigville Village and  paddled downstream to East Bay. We looked at osprey nests built on the tallest chimneys then scanned the sky for these diving fishhawks. We recognized familiar boats once again tied to their docks for another season. We heard the cry of the little kingfisher as he forged ahead of us to the terminus of the Skunknet River. The barrier beach is covered with pink Rosa Rugosa.  I can never walk by without burying my face in the blossoms and inhaling deeply.

"There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
Kenneth Grahame,  Wind in the Willows

 We have spent weeks looking at windows in showrooms and on the road driving up and down the Cape. Windows are a major budget line and we have been doing a lot of research. We found no agreement among vendors over whether aluminum or vinyl clad would perform better on the seacoast. We have considered Pella, Eagle, Woodwright even Green Mountain Windows. We have gone back and forth between the industry standard Anderson 400 series and the new Fibrex A series. Some days we  go with price and the next day with style.  Like concrete it’s a permanent part of the house that you can’t change so we are struggling with this decision. We really love the way the A series looks and handles but can we justify the additional expense?  Yesterday we sat down with Paul in our makeshift conference room in the garage and went over the final inventory of windows. We had learned to our dismay that the 400 series didn’t come in black. And now we discovered that the rough openings of the A series varied slightly from the 400’s for which the house design had been drawn. We will either have to love the 400’s in forest green or change the design.  Back to the Anderson catalogues to see if this can be worked out.

Paul Pacella, Post and Beam of Cape Cod and Team

While we are dealing with the esthetics Paul is dealing with the nuts and bolts.  He has been tangling with the next step of lowering the house back down on it’s new foundation. Currently there are 73 metal posts embedded in the concrete that must be bolted to the new sills, a tricky framing challenge because part of the structure is old and part of it will be new. Right now Sean and Quatro are “ sistering” engineered joists to each one of the old 2x10s. This is proving to be difficult because the old beams have sagged and the new ones are perfectly straight. We watch them stop and ponder how this could be resolved. 

Paul continues to bring us the best tradesmen on the Cape. The framers are arriving Monday. 

Orange Sticker Day

Yesterday  was an orange sticker day. Last Thursday our structural  engineering plans arrived in a long triangular box via overnight mail. These plans were the key to continuing  our project. The town building inspector requires 2 sets of plans signed and stamped by the architect in order to get a building permit.   We also had to turn in a foundation certification stamped by the civil engineers.  Ah,  that meant another trip to Yarmouthport and a stop at our new favorite spot, Captain Frosty's. We can't believe we have been driving past this Cape Cod restaurant for 38 years without ever stopping.   Now we can't go by the place without getting a Yoberry cone. Yum!

As required in a flood zone, the foundation guys were aiming for 11.5 ft. above mean high tide with the pouring of all that concrete.   The finished walls came in at 11.55.  How's that for perfection.

While we have been waiting for the foundation to completely harden, we've set up a card table and chairs in the cleaned out garage for an office.  On Monday we spread out the 20 pages and Paul reviewed them.  Then he asked if we could get 3 sets of these oversized 2 ft. x 3 ft. pages copied. No problem, off to the Cape Cod Business Center and $100.00 later we had accomplished the task. Two sets go to the inspector, one set to Paul, another to the framer and a set to be kept on location.   The plans are so detailed that they even included a nail schedule.  Sometime soon Chris and I plan to sit down and try to make some sense of it. But they seemed like "apple pie and vanilla ice cream" to Paul.

The next morning Paul turned all the required documents in at the building department.  The law requires an onsite inspection within 72 hours.  This would be a quick turn around compared to the 30 days we waited for the foundation plans to be approved.  Ahead of schedule Paul called  and asked if Chris could go over to Ladd Neck and check  to see if the building inspector had been there. Driving down the dirt road he could see a very small orange sticker  affixed to the garage window. He walked up and looked at it and was pleased to see it read APPROVED.  After all the challenges we have had to overcome, we had expected some sort of impressive official notification in very large letters blazing through the fog. But we aren't complaining! We're just grateful for all the help we have had getting us to this orange sticker day. 

The Great Wall of Centerville

The Great Wall of Centerville

Mark Sethares and his assistant Frank have been working on the foundation wall form setup since last week.  It actually only took them 2 days to lug those 100 pound boards around and put them into place.  It was done with a lot of muscle and precision with the aid of a laser level.

 Sunday was a day off for everyone including us. We snuck off to Provincetown and went out to the Race Point Light annual Open House. From the top of the lighthouse we could see nothing but sand dunes, beach grass and Rosa Ragosa. But later when we walked along the beach Chris spotted spouts of water that he thought might be a whale. But after watching for a minute we could see that the spray was being caused by gannets knifing into the water to catch some of the schools of fish that team in the water off Race Point.

 Monday the pumper truck reappeared with 5 concrete mixers in tow. Once again the concrete truck nosed up to the pumper so that the concrete could be spewed into the hopper and pumped up the tube. Surprisingly each truck carried 11 yards of concrete, which translates to 80,000 pounds or 40 tons. I keep questioning all this fuss for such a little cottage. But regardless of its size it is going to be sitting on one heck of a strong foundation.

Once all the cement was settled into the forms,  Chris fished through his pockets looking for a 2011 coin to mark the date.  No luck. Paul didn’t have one either. I searched the car but came up empty. Paul had a 2010 Jefferson nickel and Chris justified that as good enough because that was when this project really started. Then Chris stuck a ladder down next to the footing. With a screwdriver he wrote our initials and the date into the concrete. Then I climbed down and smacked my hand right into it. Chris followed suit. Next we wrote an acronym for the motto we have been using for this project. I’ll give you a clue. We took it from the movie Win/Win that we unexpectedly saw instead of Jane Eyre.

With a prediction of rain forecast for Tuesday Mark and Frank started to strip the boards off. The May weather hasn’t been great, but nobody’s complained. Frank kept saying that some vandals had written all over his concrete.  We thought that was pretty funny because we were all in on the joke.

 At my grandparents summerhouse, on the steps going down to the waterfront, there is a tiny baby footprint that I stop and look at every time I go down the stairs. .  When I arrived on Cape Cod for my first Summer I was only 6 weeks old. That was also the summer the concrete for those steps was poured. And that was over 50 years ago. So who knows who will look at our handprints in the concrete 50 years from now?

Once again Mark and Frank wrestled the form boards into the metal cages and then hoisted the cages onto the flatbed with the truck’s crane.   It seems to us that it all happened so fast.  But we know that it took a lot of energy and expertise to pull this off. 

We think ourselves lucky to have had this great construction team working on our behalf.  Tomorrow the civil engineers confirm the height and dimensions of the foundation. And then we hope that the building department will work as fast as everyone else has, and do their part by accepting the structural plans and issuing the next building permit.

The First Pour

The First Pour

For the last couple of days everyone has been preparing for the foundation footings to be poured. On the last day that Mr. Sylvester’s crew was on site they excavated all the trenches. Then on Tuesday afternoon Mark Sethares, Concrete Placement arrived and started putting the 2-x12 boards along the trenches.  Unexpectedly the next morning Mr. Sylvester’s foreman was summoned back with a bobcat to increase the size of the excavated space needed for the platform footings to accommodate the Lally columns. That done the footing form placement could be completed.

However, at the end of the day we got an emergency directive from the structural engineer in New Hampshire that an 8 foot shear wall needed to be added for support for the kitchen addition. That came out of left field!  The cement mixer and pumper truck were already ordered for 9 o’clock the next morning.  So something had to be done in a hurry.  A quick call was placed to Paul, our unflappable general contractor who handles every problem while multitasking with his cell phone. He rounded up the troops for a 7:00 am call on site with shovels and pick axes to dig an 8-foot trench through a 5-foot wall of dirt. With four men, including Chris, the task only took an hour. Chris lost more sleep than that the night before just thinking about the challenge. Even so the cement truck was backed off to10:00 am for insurance.

When I arrived at the cottage, the work was all done. The new forms were in place and the pumper had arrived from off Cape. Everyone was standing around gabbing waiting for the cement truck. This gave me time to check out this piece of machinery that would get the job done. It looked so monstrous that I imagined it could reach the tallest buildings in Chicago with no sweat. Now for the facts, the pumper truck weighs 30 tons and is equipped with a telescoping crane that will extend over the cottage to reach the forms in the inaccessible rear corner of the building site. The partner in this job is the concrete truck that does a front pour straight into the pumper’s intake funnel and the aggregate mixture flows through the arm and out the end of the hose. 

 Right on time the cement truck showed up and all was ready to go. The pumper operator, Jeff walked around the site using a remote radio control unit to maneuver the telescoping arm. He also controlled the placement and flow of the concrete when Mark called for it.  And he smiled when he told me he also controlled the horn that signals the operator of the cement mixer to stop pouring.  As each form was filled Mark Sethares and his assistant Frank wrestled the cement pouring tube into place. Then they tamped the cement to disperse the air bubbles and slid rebar across it for reinforcement. Next they dragged T shaped pieces of wood across the top to smooth the surface of the footing. Finally gooseneck rebar pieces were inserted to provide vertical support for the foundation walls. The cement will cure 50 % in 24 hours and after that 50% each day for the next 28 days. But we were told that it will be hard enough to walk on tomorrow and the work will continue. 

We decided not to leave impressions of our hands or feet in the wet cement with the date, knowing that it would be buried under the walls that will be poured next week.  But we will do something in some unexpected place that will give us a laugh whenever we think of it.

Frank and Mark Set Rebar