YIPPEE! The House is on the Lot!

This is what I saw when I turned the corner, all I thought was, "Oh my Gosh"!

Closer......to the house in the middle of the road!

Yes....here it is....close up!  I spoke with Don at this point and he reassured me everything was going well and that they just needed to back the house in....."just"-WOW.....it's old hat for these guys!

Here the house is on the lot.....next step:  slide it over the foundation!  Too bad it is suppose to rain tonight-that means probably no work on it tomorrow.

Front view of house....the house will slide forward on those beams; just opposite of how they slid it off!

Well....what we have all been waiting for......the big move!   The house began it's journey last night at 3:00 a.m. and was on the lot before 8:00 this morning.  This morning, I ventured over to see the progress; at about 7:15 a.m..  I decided to drive from the east and enter Ninth Street south of our lot.  As I turned the corner.....there it was.....my house in the middle of the street; just a bit south of the intersection of 9th and Pine!  Everything went well.  One tree was damaged during the route; however this was a tree that apparently needed trimming.  One of our neighbors caught about three hours of the move on video camera-so I am looking forward to seeing that!  It was neat to see so many people out watching....and of course had their coffee cups in their hands!  We had some well wishers stop by this evening to chat....what a nice neighborhood :-)!

If you are interested in seeing the route of the house move, check out the link to my map to see the path.

No more roof!

Alan and Tom enjoy a well deserved beer after a long day!

It was crunch time this week and Alan and Tom successfully completed the removal of the roof on Thursday!  Yippee!!  Skippy!!  Troy the Dominator brought his crane out and Tom Madson brought out a trailer for the debris.  Take a look at the pictures....they speak for themselves!!!

The Roof is Coming Off!

Future Guest Room

Future Entry to the Laundry Room....no toilet :-)!

Future Master Bedroom-Alan needed to add this temporary wall so the roof wouldn't fall down!

Future Guest room-there won't be a door here anymore; instead a window-Alan is placing a pitched roof here-no more flat roofs-too much of a chance of leaking.  To the right will be a walk in closet.

Current bathroom.....Future bathroom!

Steps to second floor....

One pile of moulding completed....all moulding will need to be stripped and painted.

Second Pile of Moulding....

Future Master Bedroom-this window will face the north...

Not a bed of nails....a drawer of nails-my accomplishments!

Boards safely set on top of the roof with nails sticking out....

Roof of dormer is removed....I believe this is the scaffolding that someone climbed to talk with Tom.

Taking the front part of the roof off....scary looking!

Look at what will be the south end of the house-brick will remain as is and we will add shaker style siding to top portion.

Another view of what will be the south side of the house.

It was a gorgeous day on Sunday!

Alan and has brother Tom have spent the last week and a half tearing off the roof.  I've spent the last few days removing nails from some more moulding from the second floor.  I have almost all of it finished-I spent all day on Sunday working on the project and I did a little "cleaning" inside.  I'm getting super excited to start the fun part of the project-putting it all together and deciding on exact room placement, paint colors, appliances and possibly a surprise in the basement!!!  We have had some very interesting people stop by lately!  One gentleman decided to climb up the scaffolding to ask Tom some questions.  Another person told us that we would have been better off building a new house.  Someone else reminded us that we won't have any yard (yippee....I am so excited about that)!  We met one of our new neighbors-he is really nice and told us what a great neighborhood we are moving into-he has lived in the neighborhood for several years and is a retired teacher (he also mentioned bonfires and beverages in the backyard-YAY)!   We are super excited about all of the neighbors we have met-everyone is so nice!  Also, some old family friends-friends of Alan's parents stopped by and we had a nice chat....Oliver and Ruth.  Lastly, a man from Australia stopped by to ask some building questions of Al.  He has been in Milwaukee/Harley Davidson training-and wanted to get out of the city; so he drove up and saw the house and wanted to know what we were doing,  about the type of windows we are going to use, roofing materials, insulation, etc. as he has plans to do some work on his own home.  It was really nice to talk to him!  We are recycling the copper, aluminum and any other metal from the house; it will be interesting to find out if we make a little bit of money!  The move is going to be very soon!  It will happen during the night....

Cleaning more brick and raising the house off of the foundation-320 Bricks!

Alan busy banding the brick that we worked on!

Dave works hard on adding extra support-this was after the house was moved off of the foundation!

Paul works hard adding wooden supports under the beams....Paul also wants the ladies to know that he is single :-)!

Here is the house after it cleared the foundation!

Saturday....getting ready to move the house....

The last few days have been very busy.  Alan and I chiseled away at more brick for a total of 320 bricks!  This should be enough for the front of the future garage.  We are going to save some more brick in case we decide to do any more projects or need additional brick for any other projects/replacements of broken brick.  Dave and Paul worked diligently on jacking the house off of the foundation and placing additional support/beams underneath.  They also placed sets of small wheels on the top of the beams and gently slid the house off of the foundation area.  Later tonight we went back and noticed that the tires have been put in place....we are getting close!

Preview of Moving the House....

Here is a little preview of the house moving off of the foundation.....

We made our goal of 160 bricks!

Today was very productive....we wanted to have 160 brick cleaned by the end of the day....we have 162!  It isn't hard-just time consuming.  I basically used the hammer to chip off the large pieces and then used the more powerful chisel/air compressor of the two we have to clean off most of the mortar....I then passed it on to Alan who completed the final touches with the smaller chisel.  I found it actually kind of fun and a stress reliever!  We plan on cleaning some more brick this Saturday.  The movers were out today and they added some more support to the house in preparation for the move.  Judy, Todd and Noah stopped out and Judy rummaged through the rubble to collect broken brick to use for a base for her compost bin-she plans on making a mosaic pattern of some sort-I'm glad that she can use it-as much recycling/reuse of materials-the better!  We got home about 7:30 tonight-a shower never felt so good!

Checking for the laterals to "original house"

This afternoon Madson used a mini backhoe to dig on the north side of the lot....they are looking for the connection to the city water and sewer-as Kevin found out that there may have been a house on the lot we have several years ago....