When we arrived, the pile had already begun. Actually, the pile had grown quite substantial by the time we got there. The excavator was busy crushing the roof and wall sections into manageable pieces. Originally, the plan had been to dig a giant pit in the northeast corner of our acreage.

However, the weather pattern of multiple rain days changed that plan. With it being so wet, we opted to have it hauled away. I’m sure there will be some give and take to the budget. That decision will “take” from our budget.  The nice thing is that we don’t have to try and manage another enormous bonfire (although, that would have been a fun blog post).

After the wood was hauled away, all the brick that was taken off earlier was gathered up. When the brick first came off the house, we thought we’d be picking it all up ourselves. After talking to Gehrke’s crew, they said it would take less than an hour to load up all the brick. A couple of trips with the side dump semi truck was all it took. Um, that was a no brainer!

Wow! Look at that! Eventually that small hill will be dug out for daylight egress windows in the basement. We sometimes stand on that hill and tell the boys that their rooms will be right there.

Finally, they began prepping the dirt on the west side of the house for the garage and removal of the bump out. The giant stump below was right where our driveway will be going. It’s fun to watch how quickly heavy machinery can make work of something this big!

I am always amazed at how much the acreage has changed since the beginning. So, I had to include this collage! The top picture is from late 2018. We had just taken down the machine shed. The next picture is from early 2019 when we took down the trees in the new front yard. The next picture is from last week. The crane had just removed the roof. The last picture is the current house (except for the tree stump, it came out the next day). I love coming across a scene that I have photographed periodically through clean-up and deconstruction!

Before & After

Till next time…

The post Let the Clean-up Begin appeared first on a walk in the weeds.

My nerves were pretty shot after day 1. With the second section being so difficult to remove, I was hoping for an easy breezy day 2.  (If you didn’t read about day 1, check out this post. It’s pretty wild!)

Day 2

The crane got to work bright and early. Being that we are not a “bright & early” family, by the time we rolled in to take a look at things, they had already removed the front entryway. As it sat in our driveway, it looked kind of like a fun kid’s playhouse.

The overall goal for day 2 was to remove the front porch, the entire west bump out, and the second story floor trusses.  They were in the process of removing the bump out roof when we arrived.

We couldn’t stay long. When we returned, the bump out was entirely gone!

It was fun (but dangerous) to go up to the second floor and look out at the countryside. Soon this floor would be gone! What a beautiful view!

They began to cut away the floor joists. The plan was to lift them out in four big chunks. Matt, our contractor, had to chainsaw around the outside and down the middle. The crane had it’s straps rigged underneath just in case the floor were to give way as Matt was cutting. Needless to say, Matt got a great arm workout!

Once it was cut loose, the crane prepared to lift it up and away!

There was so much creaking! Sorry for the bad camera work in the middle of the video. The crane guy was lifting the joists up and moved right over the top of Chris! Yikes! So he had to dash away from under it.

The very last thing to go were the stairs. 

Wow! That really opened things up! 

Can you see it? Look real close. I see it. It’s the vision we’ve had for this house all along. It’s getting easier to see as the days go by. It’s not just in our head or on paper anymore. The transformation will be unrecognizable. But right now all we see is a mangled mess that seems to get worse by the day. But we’ve about reached that point. That point when things start to come together. Things start to get built rather than torn down. Stick with us. If you don’t see the vision, in time it will come.

Till next time…

The post Raise the Roof! Part 2! appeared first on a walk in the weeds.

For the past two years, we’ve discussed plans for this house with people hundreds of times. Here’s how part of the conversation usually goes:

Me: Yeah, the house has almost 10,000 square feet. We don’t need that much space so we’re going to take off the entire second floor.

Them: Really? How?

Me: Well, we’re kind of thinking about bringing in a crane, cutting off the roof, and lifting it off.

Them: Oh… (These people are nuts!)

Even though I said it over and over to people, I still had my doubts how this was going to work.  We had explored other options, but we kept coming back to the crane option.  Thankfully, we live 15 minutes from the state’s best crane company, Dave’s Crane, in Union, IA.

Originally, the plan was for the crane to be set up on the west side of the house.  Recent rain had made that impossible without heavier equipment to move the crane through the mud.  Thankfully it found a nice (tight) fit on the driveway east of the house.

The plan was to remove the roof in three chunks. They decided to start on the north side.  Our contractor used a chainsaw to cut the walls free about a foot down from the ceiling.  It had been our hope to be able to save the second story 2×6 walls to re-purpose for a different part of the project.  The $/hour cost of the crane made it an easy choice to get things done as quick as possible.

Then the straps from the crane were wrapped around the trusses.

1, 2, 3…PULL!!! The first section was cleanly lifted up and away!

That was easy…almost too easy.

The next section to take off was the south side.  They followed the same plan by sawing around the outside and through the trusses. That part takes time, so we had left for awhile. We returned around lunch time to check on the progress.

Unfortunately, the second section had not gone as planned.  We found the crew doing more cutting on the walls. They had already tried multiple times to lift off the section but something was still hooked to the house on the southeast corner.  The straps ended up ripping through the roof and they had to try again. The roof was in sad shape.

They got it all strapped up again.  As the crane began to lift, we held our breath.  This was a moment that you start to think “If this goes wrong, how much damage will it do the house…how much will it cost to fix?!”

Well, it got up in the air! But that darn outside corner wouldn’t give. The roof suddenly collapsed and crashed down the side of the house!

OH (Expletive!)

It could have been a total disaster. Luckily the roof fell apart just right. A part of the second story wall was pushed out but that was the only damage!  It didn’t even break the first floor window below it!

With the struggle of the second section over, it was time to take the final part.  All that was left was the roof over the middle. Again, they followed the same plan to cut around the outside and lift it off. Thankfully that section came off nicely.

After all of that we now had two huge sections of roof sitting in our driveway!  And one section hanging off the south side of the house.

Once the roof was off, our contractor knocked down most of the second floor walls.

Here’s where we were after the first day of demo.

Click on the triangle below to watch the time lapse video of the whole day.

We still had more demo work to do!  Even though the roof and second story walls were gone, we needed to remove all of the floor trusses as well as the front porch and west bump out.  The crane camped out overnight.

Stay tuned for Day 2!

Till next time…

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The post Raise the Roof! appeared first on a walk in the weeds.

• Remove brick from front of house
• Take out second story windows
• Remove interior walls

Removing Brick

We tore down most of the brick in this post. The only brick left to tear off was on the south side of the house that faces the road. Up until now, this project was pretty deceiving. Even after the other brick was off, it was hard to see the progress we’ve made when you drive by on the road. Now with the front brick off, the progress can be seen!

Click on the triangle to watch the time-lapse video of the brick removal.

Taking Out Windows

With the second floor coming off soon, all the windows needed to come out. Being that our contractor was the only one who could maneuver the tele-handler, that left one person to be raised up in the cage to take out windows…Chris!

Let’s just say Chris + Heights =

Luckily there were only 7 windows upstairs!

Taking out the windows gave us the assurance that taking off the brick was the right choice. Almost all the windows had rotting issues in their framing.

Removing Walls

Last thing on the list! All walls needed to be removed, except for the load bearing wall running down the middle. Chris would pry or sawz-all each 2×4, hand it off to me or the boys, and we would pry out the nails and unscrew the screws.

I just had to throw this picture in here! Notice the small rectangular window on that back wall? This is the same shot from almost the same spot!

The boys got a lesson in removing nails and screws from a board. Catching a dad giving life lessons to his boys is priceless. Hopefully it’s a skill they can use in the future.

Here’s the downstairs with the walls out.

Here’s the upstairs with the walls out.

Look! I can see my car through a hole in the house!

We’re getting things lined up to take off the roof and second floor. Let’s do this!!

Till next time…

The post Removing brick, windows, and interior walls appeared first on a walk in the weeds.

YES! THE. BRICK. IS. COMING. OFF!!

Our contractor, Matt, had angle iron hooks bolted onto the ends of his forks. He was able to slide the hooks between the brick and the wall. The brick came off in huge chunks! Working a tele-handler is no small task but Matt made it look so easy. Sure, there were a few holes punched in the walls. That was mainly due to the hooks getting bent forward from all the pulling.

What we thought would take days (or weeks) took about 2 hours! We had time left in the day so we decided to get the breezeway off too! Taking off the breezeway reduces our square footage by ~1,000. Yay!

Even I got in on the action!

Now that’s gone too! 

The reality of this job is not lost on us though. The previous owner spent weeks laying all this brick. We get that. Why didn’t we keep the brick? With only two windows in a 65 foot span, the work to cut in new windows to give adequate light to the space would have begun to rival the cost to tear down and put up siding. Plus, with the salmon colored mortar, we would have wanted to paint or schmear it. The modern farmhouse look that we are working towards would have been much harder to accomplish. So we are taking off the brick and getting this demo started!

We purchased a time-lapse construction camera and decided this would be the perfect time to give it a try. Check out the entire brick removal in 18 seconds!

We didn’t know how much space the video would take up on our SD card. We got most of the demo recorded. As you can see, we ran out of space as the breezeway was being taken off.

It’s clean-up time for us. We have trusses on-site. The crane company and demo crew are coming soon! Then the fun will really begin! 

Till next time…

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The post Removing brick from the house appeared first on a walk in the weeds.

After the architects presented us with three revised designs, it was our job to decide which design we wanted to move forward on. We can’t say that there was a definite winner. There were elements of each design that we liked. Before I get into that, let me remind you of the three designs I told you about in this post:

Design #1

Design #2

Design #3

Here are a few thoughts as we figured out the final design:

• The roof is too big in design #1. The dormer poses too many problems for the interior floor plan and does not look proportional to the house.
• The roof line along the fireplace in design #2 is too low. It gives the house a bit of a 70’s feel.
• The styling of the fireplace dormer in design #3 does not match the modern farmhouse styling we are going for.

With that being said, we’d like to share the final revised design with you!

(Drumroll!)

• We changed the gable on the garage to face the driveway. The architects presented us with the third stall and we liked it. It gives us the option to remove it if the budget gets too large.
• There needed to be continuity of design and concept. In order to achieve that, the garage got an eyebrow roof to match the eyebrow roof over the front door.
• One of our concerns about the side of the house with the fireplace was how low the roof seemed to be over the patio doors. That challenge was solved by raising the heel of the rafters to give more space above the doors.
• We love the feel of this design as well. The house is large and we know that we can’t get away from that because of the large footprint. The part of the house with the front door and the part with the garage work well to hide the third part of the house in the back. As you drive up, it makes the house look less grand and more in proportion to a normal house.

Now we’ll be meeting with our contractor to estimate pricing. After that, it will be time to go to the bank and get financing lined up. As we get those things taken care of, we’ll be sharing some of our interior plans along with the steps we’re taking to get the house ready for the demo phase.

Till next time…

The post We’ve Received Final House Plans! appeared first on a walk in the weeds.

1. More square footage needed to be taken away
2. The middle vaulting with all the windows would probably need to go
3. The window package needed to be reduced
4. Limit new concrete and footings to be poured

Here’s a picture of the first design that came in over budget:

So where do we reduce square footage? The answer stuck out to us, like it sticks out from the house…the bump out had to go!

Was that possible? After a call to our contractor, we found out that it would be relatively easy to take off the bump out. With 650 square feet plus another 650 square feet of basement, that is 1,300 square feet gone! Woo-hoo! Not only did that take away square footage, it also took away the extra wide trusses needed to cover that expanse.

We also wanted to take away any unnecessary concrete and footings to pour. New footings were going to be poured for the entryway plus space was going to be added between the entryway and garage. The space was going to be Chris’ shop, which would have been even more extra concrete. Sorry, Chris, we’ll have to figure out another place to put your shop.

When we met with the architects, we explained all the changes we wanted. Minus the garage, the house would now be just one big rectangle. How could we keep it from being just a big square with a roof? We liked the idea of a long dormer across the roof. It breaks up that space and doesn’t make the roof seem so big. The architects took our ideas and combined them with theirs. We were so excited when they presented us with three initial designs. Of course, all of them are basic conceptual designs. Details and changes will be made to whichever design we want to move forward on.

Here they are!!

Design #1

This design is the one I thought I’d like the most. It is the idea we gave to the architects. It has the dormers we had asked for. The dormers don’t quite fill the space like we had imagined. There is still so much roof! It might look better with bigger dormers but then we are cutting into the trusses so much that we might as well keep the original middle vaulting. That would probably put us over budget again!

We like how the dormer looks on the garage and also how the fireplace stands on a gabled side of the roof. (For novices like me, a gable is a point :))

Design #2

This design gives the house a more modern farmhouse feel. The gables look great. We like how the front door sits nicely in one of the gables. The fireplace does not sit on a gabled roof though. Do you like that? This design comes close but something still feels off about it. The garage dormer still looks nice but without another dormer, does it tie into the house well enough?

Design #3

This design is very similar to design #2. The only difference is that they designed a dormer on the fireplace side to give it more of a gabled appearance. We do like the gable, but is it cohesive with the rest of the house? Is the fireplace gable cohesive with the garage dormer?

Along with each design came a slightly different floor plan based on where windows and gables fell. As we think of which exterior we want, we also need to keep in mind how that would affect the interior floor plan. (We’ll be sharing more about the interior floor plan soon!)

The second time through doesn’t make it any easier. So many decisions to make! We like elements from each design. We’ll need to pick our favorite design and add/delete things to really make it the home we’re working so hard to get started on. Which one do you like best?

Till next time…

The post House Design…Take Two! appeared first on a walk in the weeds.

1. The house was broken into.

What a total bummer! We went out to the house a few Fridays ago. As we were enjoying the solitude along with some huge snow drifts, we got to the door to find it ripped open via crowbar. They’d dumped things out and made a mess. We don’t even think anything was missing!

Then we walked outside to the barn. They’d looted around the barn and took whatever scrap metal they could find. With freshly fallen snow, we could see their tracks all over. What a violated feeling!

They had left a tub of wire in the snow behind a tree. There were sleds hidden in the bushes. We think they used sleds to haul things out to the road.

We made a call to the Sheriff and filed a report. We also put two new & improved locks on the door.

This made us so mad! It made us want to get all Home Alone on them!

Via Giphy

So, needless to say, if it happens again, they will be caught! (But not Home Alone style!)

On to the next problem…

2. Our initial estimates are over budget

After we received the plans, we gathered estimates from each of our sub-contractors. Our main contractor also gathered estimates for the other things like drywall, doors, trim, etc. The estimated amount to finish the house was 40-50% over our budget and growing!

Chris and I spent close to 12 hours a couple weekends ago reworking the design.

Our boys even worked on their own floor plan!

We’ll meet with the architects to digitize our changes and work through a whole new exterior plan.  We’re bummed that the first design will never come to fruition but excited for the new plan that is materializing!

After we meet with the architects and get final plans worked out, we’ll be sure to share the new design!

Till next time…

The post Budgets and Break-ins appeared first on a walk in the weeds.

Here’s a little rundown on liquidations….

First off, 25 to 30% of online purchases are returned. They get returned for many different reasons, including getting the wrong size, item isn’t like the picture showed, item doesn’t work, etc. So if there is anything wrong with the item or even if it is not properly repackaged, it likely gets tossed into a bin that gets sold to a liquidation site.

After I saw this, the wheels started turning in my head! Could we save money on our house remodel by buying liquidations? Looking on a liquidation website, I saw vanities, lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, and lots of other items we’ll be needing.

Of course, many questions came to mind…

• Would all the items be damaged?
• How much could I get a “box” for?
• Was it all going to be crap?
• Could we fix the items and use them for the house remodel?

We decided to give it a try. Chris and I scoured the liquidation auctions. They came from companies like Build.com, Amazon, Home Depot, and Wayfair. There were auctions ranging from 1 box all the way up to 8 pallets with bathroom vanities, shower doors, and toilets. Although those are things  we’ll be needing, we wanted to try something on the smaller end that would help to answer all our questions and figure out if it was truly a budget-saver.

Here’s the “box” we bid on:

Yes, those are the pictures! They definitely don’t give anything away. We were truly bidding on a product we couldn’t see. A manifest is listed that vaguely describes the items in the box along with a handful of “general merchandise” items. (Those are the ones that really had me excited!) But it truly was a blind buy.

The bid started at $100 with an estimated MSRP of $2,527. The top item in the box was a Fein Dust Extractor. Chris could use it in his shop. It attaches to a table saw or other woodworking tool to collect the sawdust. (You’re welcome honey!)

So we bid on it and we WON!! But not for $100. Some person came and outbid us several times until we finally won it for $210. We thought that was still a pretty good deal. Our thought was to resell some of the items so that we could break even on the box but still keep the things we wanted to keep.

After calculating shipping, the total for our box was $403.51. Yes, we knew shipping costs would be added! Now we just had to wait for it to be delivered.

10 days later…

We finally got the call that our box would be delivered that day! It was so exciting! What would we get? Would this be worth it? What were the “general merchandise” items?

We brought everything into our basement because the garage was so cold. In hindsight, getting a truck delivery just as the polar vortex was arriving was not the best timing.

Here’s the loot!! I circled the items because, remember, half of our life is in boxes right now. Our basement is lined with boxes.

Here we go!

The first box we opened was supposed to be a Braun iron.

Instead we got a $9 Black & Decker iron. Not off to a good start.

Next was a Black & Decker Lithium Hand Vac. The box had the charger and main motor part in it but was missing the nose part. Instead, we found a lovely chip clip wrapped in a dirty paper towel. Really? Who does that?

Next was a Shark iron.

It looked to be untouched.

Woo-Hoo! It’s a keeper!

Next was a CHI iron. I was not aware that CHI made irons so when I saw this item on the manifest, I thought for sure it would be a flat iron (you know, for hair).

It’s a keeper!

(Little known fact: Chris irons his clothes every day!)

We weren’t quite sure what this was. After a bit of messing with it, we realized that it’s a window washer. One of the plastic pieces has a crack in it. It could possibly be duct taped up and be usable.

This iRobot battery looks unopened. We’ll need to check if it works on someone else’s iRobot since we don’t own one.

Here’s another Black & Decker Lithium Hand Vac. The first one was a 16V and this one was a 20V.

It looked like someone used it, put it back in the box, and the dust spilled all over the box.

It had all the pieces. Miles was excited because he likes to vacuum. Remember when he helped vacuum the whole basement! This vacuum may be a keeper after we give it a total disinfecting.

Here was one of the “general merchandise” items. As the polar vortex was just arriving, I was hoping it would be a keeper.

It was! It works great!

Next up was another “general merchandise” item. We laughed because we had no idea what it was. After a little research, we learned that it’s an air purifier. Cool! I’ve always wanted an air purifier! The sticky part of the bag had stuck to the top of it and left a bit of residue. Other than that, it’s perfect!

Oh man! Here’s another hand vac.

Dirty…again!

But all the pieces were there! So maybe with another good disinfecting this could be a keeper too.

This one is a hand vac for pets. There’s a nice hairball inside. Can it be saved? (the vacuum…not the hairball!) I’m not so sure about this one.

All the pieces were there. But yuck!

We started to get sick of looking through dirty hand vacuums. This one was all there. Just a little dusty. It could definitely be a keeper.

This was an iRobot docking station. Again, we’ll have to test it on someone else’s iRobot.

And another hand vacuum! This one is a Black & Decker Pivot.

All the vacuums were starting to blur together. This was a stick vac. Never opened. Never used. We decided to assemble it later.

This one was in new condition. We think the only reason it went to liquidations was because it was missing the box.

Another hand vac! Never opened!

This is NOT a vacuum! It’s a tankless water heater. It looked to be in pretty good shape.

This was a fireplace blower. Like new, never opened!

Next was a Frigidaire window air conditioner. It looks new. Although it was freezing outside, we did plug it in. It works great!

Here’s another “general merchandise” item. They’re porch trees. One looks great but the second one was broken.

Here’s what the next item was supposed to be. It’s a cart that holds a popcorn maker.

When we started to assemble it, we found out that it was missing a leg piece. We can order the missing piece, but then what would we do with it?

And here’s the flagship item…a FEIN Turbo 2.

Judging from the dirty, dusty hose, it’s been used.

We turned it on and it worked! FEIN is a good, solid brand. We have their multi-master tool. But we did notice that the motor was running kind of loud. So we may be replacing the motor in it. I’m hoping it’s a keeper!

So what did we learn?

• Like items are packaged together. In our case, vacuums!
• People really do use items and then send them back, even if there’s nothing wrong with them.
• Each box is a gamble. You won’t know all of the items in it or what shape they’re in.
• We will never need another hand vacuum…EVER!

We’d have to say that the jury is still out on whether or not this option would be a budget-saver. I guess we’ll continue to keep an eye on the liquidation sites. If just the right one comes along, we may have to jump on it!

Till next time…

The post Liquidations…Deal or No Deal? appeared first on a walk in the weeds.

After getting many of the trees cut down and cleaned up, we still had lots of piles of branches all over the yard. So when the upcoming forecast was 50 degrees on Saturday, we were biting at the bit to rent a chipper. I called over to Blackhawk Rentals in Waterloo.

They had a 6″ chipper available for the weekend. We’d pick it up on Friday evening and return it on Saturday evening. Perfect!!

On Friday, I brought our Honda Pilot over to Waterloo to pick up the chipper. It wasn’t too big so the Pilot would have no trouble hauling it. When I got there to pick it up, they told me that their 6″ chipper wasn’t working so they were giving me the 10″ chipper for the 6″ price. Yes!! Upgrade!!

It seemed like a blessing. Who wouldn’t want a bigger chipper than what they’d ordered!?! After getting a quick tutorial, I was hooked up and ready to go. As the Pilot groaned on it’s way out of the parking lot, I realized the upgrade was not quite as sweet as I’d thought.

Luckily my aunt lives in Waterloo so I made it there and parked the Pilot. Chris was working at his office in Eldora. He agreed that I shouldn’t drive the Pilot home (45 minutes away). So he drove over with his dad’s truck to bring home the chipper. In the dark, we got the chipper hooked up to the truck. We had to get creative to get the chipper off the Pilot because it was sitting so low. But after about an hour, we were headed home.

The Next Morning

We were up early and ready to get to work. Here’s the 10″ chipper as we got to work! Since we didn’t want our boys near the working chipper, Chris manned it most of the day.

We started with the first two piles…

And soon the first one was gone! (And the 2nd soon followed!)

On to the next pile!

Lunchtime!  ***Selfie Alert***

After lunch, we were losing steam. We had one more big pile left. The weather was beautiful!!! But with the warm weather brought lots of mud. After considering quitting, we literally plodded forward to get it done!

We had a good system going. I pulled a few branches from the pile and the boys dragged them to Chris at the chipper.

But the mud!! It sure made things more difficult.

Just when we hit a wall and didn’t think we’d be able to finish, Grandpa Wieting showed up to help. Thanks Grandpa!

We got it done!

We’re all smiles now. The job is done. But the real question is…How sore were we the following day?

Till next time…

The post We Love Working Outside So “Mulch” appeared first on a walk in the weeds.