5 March 2017
Things have been busy here at Riverbend Farm over the past couple weeks. A minor thing, but yes, I've decided to call our property here Riverbend Farm. Amy's not quite 100% on board with this yet. We both agreed we couldn't keep calling it "Old Doc Phillips Place". But I'm the one writing the blog, so...
Ironically we moved here from a house on Riverbend Court, in the Riverbend subdivision near Jamestown. Two of the 17 properties in the subdivision actually touched Deep River. Ours was not one of them. This property sits along about 650 feet of the Little Uwharrie River that includes several bends. So I think it fits very well, and has a nice ring to it.
I talked to Fred at Bowers Lumber in Thomasville. He put me in touch with Brad Meredith who does, among other things, concrete footers. Together we arranged for a cement truck delivery and poured the footers for the new piers under the kitchen and dining room.
We ended up a little short on the concrete, so after Brad left, I hand mixed another 29 bags of concrete to finish them.
While the footers were setting up, Amy and worked on gutting the original bathrooms, starting with the two on the second floor.
There used to be a medicine cabinet in this wall. It was typical back in the day for men to drop their used razor blades in to the wall. Many old medicine cabinets were made with slots in the bottom just for this purpose. I remodeled an old house in Greensboro a few years ago and after removing the old medicine cabinet found hundreds of rusty razor blades piled up in the stud cavity. There may have been more here, but these bathrooms have been remodeled at least once before already.
We still have the old lead and cast iron drain pipe to remove, but we've got a clean slate to start from.
I took all the demo debris to the dump and was unloading the trailer when I found... this. Squirrel, rat, other? I don't know. But I think it's dead.
And then it was time to start building the new piers. First, Otis and I went to get the block we will need, plus a little extra. Over 3,000 lbs of block! No sweat.
A neighbor, and friend, Leslie at Zimmerman Vineyards (www.zimmermanvineyards.net/), loaned us a mixer and we got to work. The footing holes were all at different depths, generally going along with grade to be at least 12" deep. I'm just starting with a couple courses. Then I'll use a laser level to figure out how much more to add to each pier to bring it to the correct height.
Things have been busy here at Riverbend Farm over the past couple weeks. A minor thing, but yes, I've decided to call our property here Riverbend Farm. Amy's not quite 100% on board with this yet. We both agreed we couldn't keep calling it "Old Doc Phillips Place". But I'm the one writing the blog, so...
Ironically we moved here from a house on Riverbend Court, in the Riverbend subdivision near Jamestown. Two of the 17 properties in the subdivision actually touched Deep River. Ours was not one of them. This property sits along about 650 feet of the Little Uwharrie River that includes several bends. So I think it fits very well, and has a nice ring to it.
I talked to Fred at Bowers Lumber in Thomasville. He put me in touch with Brad Meredith who does, among other things, concrete footers. Together we arranged for a cement truck delivery and poured the footers for the new piers under the kitchen and dining room.
While the footers were setting up, Amy and worked on gutting the original bathrooms, starting with the two on the second floor.
The insulation was spotty in some places. Clearly something had made nests in it as well. I'm thinking squirrels. One thing I've noticed is that everywhere insulation has been added, its only been in the walls, I have not found any insulation in the ceilings or floors. So given that there are no dampers in the chimney flues, and how loose the house is/was, I doubt that all this insulation ever made the house much more comfortable because of the stack effect.
We still have the old lead and cast iron drain pipe to remove, but we've got a clean slate to start from.
I took all the demo debris to the dump and was unloading the trailer when I found... this. Squirrel, rat, other? I don't know. But I think it's dead.
And then it was time to start building the new piers. First, Otis and I went to get the block we will need, plus a little extra. Over 3,000 lbs of block! No sweat.
A neighbor, and friend, Leslie at Zimmerman Vineyards (www.zimmermanvineyards.net/), loaned us a mixer and we got to work. The footing holes were all at different depths, generally going along with grade to be at least 12" deep. I'm just starting with a couple courses. Then I'll use a laser level to figure out how much more to add to each pier to bring it to the correct height.
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