Not So Weird Load and Unforeseen Circumstances

Over at MKStover.com (in this post) I mentioned weird loads, or, more properly, 'Weird Load.'

Well, this load wasn't so weird, but it's worth mentioning again -not because of the weird factor, but because of the pain-in-the-you-know-what factor- even though you already know what the cargo was used to build.

It's poplar wood, freshly cut to order, loaded up and ready to go:



Only PC's truck decided it wasn't going anywhere (this is the pain-in-the-you-know-what factor I was talking about):


The radiator blew up - cracked beyond repair.

PC is a mechanical genius -among other types of genius. If something has to go wrong, PC is the guy you want to have around because he can fix it (or build it or whatever needs to be done).



I'm throwing this picture in here, too, because of the trailer sitting next to PC's.
See it?


'Eager Beaver' automatically qualifies anything that's hauled on that trailer as a candidate for the 'Weird Load' label.

Miscellaneous Front Door Pictures

A couple more pictures with that evening sun:


Same evening light, but I'm standing up on the hillside where we plan to build a deck for outdoor seating:



On Monday during the Memorial Day Parade:

Entryway Construction

The trees from the caboose park (I'll come back and add a link for the caboose park here* edited to add link) cast long shadows that climb up the western side of The 123 in the early evening calm. From this distance, if you're looking, you can see the timber framed skeleton of the new entryway's gable:


The sky is a beautiful, brilliant blue against the emerald green of the hills (yep, those are the real, vivid colors - I didn't photo-shop anything).

Here's the close-up with the temporary bracing:




After the main timbers were set, PC drills into the fresh, clean poplar wood in preparation for tightening everything down with lag bolts:




This is a wider view that shows just the two main timbers. The other fellow in the picture is Curtis, who has been helping with the entire exterior construction process (Thank you, Curtis!):




The timbers are supported not only by the columns, but will also become a permanent extension of the old building's brick construction. The first layer of brick was pulled away to allow the butt-end of the timber into the wall:


The older-than-a-century brick and mortar is tenacious; it is painstaking work to chip out a small hole like this, a tribute to the construction techniques of stone masons of the past (last year, September, probably, I did a post on the three-bricks-thick interlocking building method of the 1800s).

Color - Part 6

This picture is a close-up crop looking up toward the ceiling that shows the two darker colors:



This is in about the same spot, but with a slightly wider view:



These dark colors require multiple coats even after painting everything with two coats of primer.


There's an exterior update coming soon....

Interior - Starting to Look Like Something

My camera battery died, so these are the only pictures you get right now.
And true to my picture taking style, they're not very good ones.

I'd already turned off my working lights, so this is a flash picture that's overwhelmed by the light from the soon-to-be-replaced street side window:



My computer's monitor doesn't show color well, but it should show the light color on the wall as a light sage green (PC calls it 'frog').

This close-up shows how I painted each face of this odd corner a different color:



My battery is charged and I will take more pictures today.

Interior Update - All of Almost Nothing

I'm finished priming the entire interior.
Phwew.

Today I will paint the ceiling.
Color tomorrow.

I'll post pictures later this week.

Interior Update - Half of Almost Nothing

I promised you an interior update this week and all of a sudden it's Friday. So, here goes:

This first picture looks like nothing, which, let me tell you, is better than looking like brick or 2x4s or insulation or bare drywall.
Why?
Because this nothing is actually progress:





This view is a little wider - it actually looks like a little more than nothing:




What is all this nothing?
Primer. The pre-coat coat of paint. So, in a puzzling sort of way, even though I'm not really painting, I'm actually going through all the motions of painting; I'm priming.

It almost looks like something in this view:




See all these angles and corners? This is why it's taken me so long to mud and sand everything. Well, okay, that's one (good) reason.






I'm tempted to stop here. It actually looks as if I've accomplished something, doesn't it? I suppose I have, but it seems so slow (and messy).
If I back up and take a picture -looking up towards the ceiling- you can see that I'm not finished.
This picture is a little dizzying:




But this one is more clear:



Really, I'm about half way. Actually, I'm a lot further than that, because I'm almost ready to prime this other half, too. I just finished sanding it yesterday and later today I will patch a few rough spots. After it dries, I'll sand it again with a finer sandpaper and it's ready to prime.

Why did I do it in halves? Because I just couldn't wrap my head around the whole thing at once. Knowing I was done with half, and only had half more to go, was a strategy to preserve my sanity.
Did it work?
Hmmmm.....

Freaking Out with Formatting Part2

If you've been visiting regularly, you'll have noticed the growing pains of the blog format.
My main objective was to make the change from a 2-column to a 3-column format. Blogger (google) does not provide a basic 3-column template, so the change involves editing the HTML. I know absolutely nothing about writing code and the thought of changing the code makes me break out into a cold sweat. However, you'll notice that I am now the proud author of a 3-column blog! Go me!
Okay - I really can't take all the credit. I searched for -and finally found- a set of brainless directions that allowed me to continue to happily know nothing about writing code and still change the HTML code to get what I wanted.
I started this experiment with the Taylor County Blog. That transition was very easy. It was so easy, in fact, that it made me brave enough to try switching things around over here. This one -the Rounders3 template- was a bit more challenging, but, with a bit of personal help, I finally figured it out.
How did I do it?
IDS over at the Blogger Guide Blog walked me though the entire process. His instructions are the only ones that worked without hair-pulling and tongue-lashing. He even answered my comment-questions promptly and sent me personal emails to coach me along! How great is that?
Here's the link that takes you to the main page of all the 3-column template guides he has available.
If you've been trying to figure out how to go 3-column, then this is definitely the guide to use.

Four Columns

Here are the pictures with all four columns:



My trusty old mini-van sits quietly in the parking lot.
I haven't been driving it a whole lot because it only gets about 18 miles (20 highway) to the gallon. At $4/gallon, that doesn't get me very far.
I'm fortunate to have a little-bitty car that gets almost 35miles/gallon, so my van only gets used when I need a truck because, although it only get 18mpg, PC's truck gets even less.








I can't wait to get the roof on this!

Front Door - Overhang Support Columns

Here's where I get to show you how those squares of concrete with anchor bolts are put to use.

PC stood these columns Saturday morning in the rain. He was happy to get them out of our garage and we are both excited about more visible progress (my interior progress is much slower, though not quite invisible - I'll tell you more about inside later this week).

Here's the first one standing:



He had the base plates of each column lined up perfectly on the trailer so that he could pull them over the edge and line them up exactly where they needed to be to get the anchor bolts in place before standing them.



Perfect fit!
PC did a great job planning everything out (I'm not surprised; he's very good at this type of thing).








Yep, they all four went up, but these are all the pictures for today. May is a very busy month and I have a million other things I have to get done today - including a couple of hours of sanding at The 123.

Check out the TaylorCountyWestVirginia.blogspot.com to see a sampling of the international attention Grafton has been getting and why May is so busy - and there's lots more to come!

Granny Sue & The 123

I posted this same picture last fall, only the trees were bright red. I thought I'd capture the same scene this spring. The white blooms are just beginning to be replaced by young leaves.

I see this everyday when I'm down there working, but imagine my surprise when I saw this caboose over at Granny Sue's blog! And not only the caboose, but Granny Sue stopped by and took pictures of The 123! (Go to Granny Sue's post "Tale of a Tired Storyteller: Grafton")

I wasn't even there to meet her. She was on her way to Rowlesburg and it looks like, from the ladders against the side of the building in her picture, that PC had run off to the hardware store for something. I was at the high school for a baseball game. I hope to catch her in June when she visits again for a telling at Tygart Lake State Park.

The ladders were there for this:

Our temporary sign, just to let people know they can surf over here and see what all the activity is about; with all the outside work, it's obvious that something is going on.

Outside - Pouring Concrete Part 3

This new concrete is a huge step toward getting the front door open.

Here's a shot of one of the square columns with the wooden forms removed:






The anchor bolts are lined up exactly where they need to be:






Here's another:






The duct tape worked well to keep the threads, washer, and nut clean:






Here's a wider view that shows one of these squares and the wall, too:






Here's an even wider view; the jumble of wood there in the middle are pieces of the forms:





See the notch in the back wall? That's where we poured the rest of the concrete. Wheelbarrow loads of soil were removed from up against the building and the concrete went in, sloping away from the building, to keep rain water flowing away.
For right now, this will be a good spot for potted plants, but as we continue to develop our ideas for hillside seating, this will work into the overall design.






You'll notice there is still rebar sticking out from the top of the wall. That's because another pour needs to go on top of this new wall to finish reinforcing this old rock. However, the upper part is not nearly as bad as the bottom was, so it can wait a little while.

Next up will be the support columns for the front door.

Outside - Pouring Concrete Part 2

After the boxes for the column supports were filled, they moved on to the wall.








The view switched around in this next picture because I climbed up on the back wall. That's where the last of the concrete will go.






Here's PC signaling Jim to keep backing up. This back wall is so high that the concrete wouldn't slide down the chute, so Paul had to get in the chute and push it down to me. I raked it away from the edge and made a little pond back against the building where more of the rock was exposed. I sloped it away from the brick and rock to keep the water from pooling there like it had been. PC went back down there late last night -24 hours later- and pulled the forms off the wall. It was too dark to get decent pictures, so when I take more I'll be sure to take them of the upper wall, too.






Here's a nice smooth, wet top:

Outside - Pouring Concrete Part 1

We poured in the early evening. It was the best time according to our schedules, but probably not the best time according to the sun. In the afternoon the sun hits full onto this side of the building and, between the bricks and the asphalt, it can get pretty hot. Add a layer of sunblock and it feels great, but the concrete sets up faster that way. It gets thick and goopy coming down the chute; the driver kept hosing it down to keep it moving easily.


This picture shows the wooden forms PC built against the building:






Remember those asphalt squares that were removed from the parking lot? PC was able to dig them out about 18 inches. The soil beneath the parking lot was packed very tightly and made for some hard digging. He found a few glass shards and some old bones. (Bones!? Yep. There's a story there, don't you think?)
Next, he built wooden forms around the boxes to bring them all up to the same elevation because the parking lot slopes slightly toward the street (I didn't get pictures of the tool he uses to do that - I was busy holding the measuring stick).






This isn't the greatest picture, but it'll give you an idea of what he did. The wood around the outside, obviously, is to form the concrete into shape and to bring it to the proper elevation. The 2x4 across the top is there to hold the 'J' bolts in place. (They're really shaped like the letter 'L' with a long vertical leg, but they're called 'J' bolts. I don't know why, I'm just telling it.) On top you can see those two little knobs - those are the threaded ends with washers and bolts and covered in duct tape to protect them from the concrete (it gets messy). The long ends are floating down in the hole so they're anchored good and tight once everything sets up. You can see the pencil marks on that 2x4, too. He's got it set up perfectly to bolt down the columns that will support the entryway overhang. (Right now the columns are sitting in the garage here at home waiting for me to wire-brush them, sand them and paint them. Instead, I'm sitting here drinking coffee and writing blog entries.)






Here's PC doing some last minute reinforcing. I'm sure that there's some formula for figuring out the amount of pressure that gets exerted against concrete forms, but I don't know what it is. It's enough for me to know that it's a LOT. TONS. Or more.
I've never seen forms blow out, probably because I've always helped pour into forms that PC builds and anything that PC builds will not be going anywhere anytime soon. Anytime soon meaning in the next hundred years or more (way more). (I'll have to show you pictures of the log cabin that he built -but that's way off topic....)
Apparently, though, blowing forms is not all that uncommon. PC has says when it happens they explode. Yikes.






Here it comes, pouring the boxes first, PC ready with the shovel:




A quick thank you to Curtis for helping out with this pour and also to Jim Mayle, the driver from Builder's Service & Supply. This isn't the first time that Jim has brought us concrete. He's delivered to our house at least a couple of times - once core filling the block walls for the garage and once for half of the floor in the garage (one of these days we'll do the other half). Jim is soft-spoken and patient and he knows what he's doing. Thank you, Jim.

Blogger wouldn't let me upload more than these 5 pictures so, instead of fighting to move them around I'll just start another post. I have time, I think; the kids were worn out last night....

Freaking Out with Formatting

If you come over here and see weird things happening to the format of this blog, let me assure you that it will -eventually- be okay.
I'm hoping for better than okay, so it may take me awhile.

If you check in often enough, you may see some pretty interesting colors, layouts, and designs.
I don't know how to make these changes without publishing every one of them....

Wish me luck; I may need it.

Cross Posting from MKStover.com

I've been blogging, but in other places...

• If you have a mother, go check this out: The Home of Mother's Day
• If you have an interest in (or a picture of) The West Virginia Industrial School for Boys (officially named The West Virginia Reform School prior to 1914), check this out: Industrial School for Boys - Call for Pictures
• Check out Grafton's streetscaping project: The New Sidewalks in Grafton
• And, of course, The Grafton 123 - I have avoided posting about the boredom of the drywall mudding marathon, but the mess in the parking lot has gotten some attention. There's more activity happening out there, too, so keep checking in.

And me? What am I doing?

Go here and scroll to the bottom of the post to find out.

***cross-posted at MKStover.com blog