Above 1200 Sq/FT Cleaning Up My Shop

[oldironfarmer]

There's a five foot elevation change for some side wall joints. There will be cracking.



I put a bond beam at course six. That's a row of hollow blocks with rebar inside. When it's filled with concrete it helps strengthen the wall.



I'm filling the block cavities behind the mason. Vertical rebar welded in short lifts to limit the height he has to lift blocks to lay them.



We failed to cut the side of the corner block but drilled it to run rebar through to tie the corner.

A friend stopped by with her Jeep over the weekend.



Weekends after the mortar had cured a few days is when I applied mastic to the outside of the walls where they would be buried.



We've had more rain after the mastic was applied.

 

[oldironfarmer]

Next video, Andy shows us "youngsters" how to laid block . . .

Right. You lay block by hiring a competent mason. I can do it but about half speed.

 

[oldironfarmer]

Water drained from behind the wall nicely.



We took a break from block laying to pour the rest of the footings.



There are some real elevation changes.





The garage is the hill on the left. You can see the bond beam is being filled and rebar is ready for another level.

Making progress!

 

[oldironfarmer]

They made good progress on the basement walls.



I used thin insulation board to protect the mastic from the gravel backfill. I used gravel so the water would filter down through it.



The short wall coming toward you has the garage on the left and a crawl space on the right under the kitchen. You can see the grade comes up quickly.



There is a planned jog where the mortar board lies and the brick are used for a filler when the foundation has risen too fast.

I did take time to enjoy the view before the masons arrived and I had to hustle.



This is the crawl space under the kitchen, 8 feet high on the far end, 5 feet on the near end.

 

[oldironfarmer]

As the wall gets taller I started dumping gravel behind it after the mastic had cured.



Here's the jog in the garage wall.



Yu can see the garage wall starting to take shape on the far side of the basement.




An evil person four miles from my house set this out in his yard I had to drive past with For Sale written on the side. I was too busy to mess with buying it but somehow managed to get it home that evening.



It came with all the sheet metal.

Starting to look like a basement.

 

[oldironfarmer]

The garage wall is coming up. Left an opening to get the Bobcat in to dump fill and roll it.



The basement wall is almost topped out. It already has four feet of fill behind it.



Here the basement wall is topped out. I couldn't find the blocks I wanted so cut regular blocks to make a form and allow the slab to go over the top of the wall. After the slab is poured it will get one more course of blocks to match the basement wall.



Site cut blocks by the blockhead engineer.



Here's another four feet of gravel at the corner from the previous picture.

 

[PugetDude]

Great project documentation, Andy.
Along for the ride.
Scott

 

[oldironfarmer]

Garage fill placed.



This is the other crawl space on the other end of the house, bedroom above. Basement is to the right. The end is in sight for the block work.



This is the basement wall on the left, I'm waiting on the masons before I can finish filling near the camera.



Basement wall is topped out, anchor bolts in place, and the gap in the garage wall is completed on the right.

Garage door opening is on the far end.

Garage is formed for the slab. Bracing for the wood form is not complete. In fact it never got complete.



Drilled and epoxied rebar into the footing on the perimeter of the basement. They will get bent down and tied into the rebar mat for the floor.

 

[oldironfarmer]

Great project documentation, Andy.
Along for the ride.
Scott

Thanks, man! It's fun to sort through the pictures and keep it to a minimum...

 

[oldironfarmer]

Mat is in place for the garage. It was crazy trying to get the gravel leveled accurately.



The owner's son was supposed to do the plumbing. He's a busy guy but volunteered to do it. The day after I told him the basement was ready he showed up with a crew and made a real mess.



It got a downcomer from each wing and fittings for a bathroom. He had to go through the sleeve I placed earlier.

Plumber was working so fast it tired out the masons.



They're actually done except for the top blocks in the garage and a cross wall in the basement for a safe room. Those have to come after the slabs.

The dust didn't settle until the plumber hauled his junk out.



Done in one morning. Then we hustled on the formwork and mat.



You can see the jog wall between the garage and the crawl space in the background. Nice to have everything topped out. I kind of screwed up having the stemwalls stepped down to save money. It cost me a lot of time later.

 

[oldironfarmer]

Block layers finished November 17. November 19 the lady and I started wood.



She had never done any framing.

Note the excellent bracing on the 2x12 at the garage door opening.



Crawl space door framed in.



And the other crawl space door framed in.



And the bedroom sills in place. She and I were working alone on this.

 

[oldironfarmer]

Bedroom joists in place.



1-1/8" T&G decking in place. That stuff is heavy.



The Bobcat is sitting on 8 feet of fill, or more. The house footprint is complete.



Nice weather and it's December 3 so we can use lights. Gluing down the decking.



Got a start on the walls on December 4.

 

[tj675]

Thank you for taking your time to post this build!

 

[Finallygotit]

Now I am starting to realize the reason for your hiatus. All I can say is WOW and yet there is so much left to see.

And I concur with tj675, thank you!

 

[oldironfarmer]

Thank you for taking your time to post this build!

Thank you for encouraging me.

Now I am starting to realize the reason for your hiatus. All I can say is WOW and yet there is so much left to see.

And I concur with tj675, thank you!

Such kind words!

Thank you1

 

[jblnut]

I like being the dumbest guy on a crew.

Please let me know if I'm posting too much detail.

I knew I liked reading your stories but couldn’t exactly put my finger on what it was I missed most. You remind me so much of my dad it’s bonkers. Goofy sense of humor and can do anything you put your mind to. Thank you Andy and it really is good to have you back !!

You can never post too much detail for every one of us following along !!!

The owner's son was supposed to do the plumbing. He's a busy guy but volunteered to do it. The day after I told him the basement was ready he showed up with a crew and made a real mess.

The dust didn't settle until the plumber hauled his junk out.

The house isn’t even close to finished and the kids are making messes in the basement already

 

[oldironfarmer]

I knew I liked reading your stories but couldn’t exactly put my finger on what it was I missed most. You remind me so much of my dad it’s bonkers. Goofy sense of humor and can do anything you put your mind to. Thank you Andy and it really is good to have you back !!

You can never post too much detail for every one of us following along !!!


The house isn’t even close to finished and the kids are making messes in the basement already

Thanks, Bud! I'm embarrassed. You know how to build.

That's true, I had things cleaned up...

 

[rharman]

This is so cool. Some of the details blow my mind. Like the cut down blocks to tie in a slab. Good thinking by that blockhead engineer!

Thanks so very much for posting the details. It's a great read.

New avatar?

 

[oldironfarmer]

Anybody notice the drill rig in the background?



An old local driller came out of retirement to teach his grandson the business. He's picking it up, but the old man supervised.



An air drill with a 400 foot target.

Big bucks to go 400 feet.

Fortunately he hit good water at 380 feet, as he predicted. Experience counts. We're 180 feet above the river so he's 200 feet below the river.

Making progress on the bedroom wing.



Nice work area. We worked from here for several weeks.



Pumper truck!

 

[oldironfarmer]

This is so cool. Some of the details blow my mind. Like the cut down blocks to tie in a slab. Good thinking by that blockhead engineer!

New avatar?

I've had the old blue hot rod for too many years, and it was my wife's favorite. It's not an avatar, it's me. That picture is on the last switchback going to Independence Pass from Buena Vista, and she is in it.

Well, I wanted to split the blocks down the center to save blocks. They wouldn't stand up. The mason said to make L blocks. OK, it was his diamond saw. Pretty quick work. I did all the sawing on the job to keep them on the hard work.

Thanks for the nice words!

(My donkey was not very smart either)

 

[y'sguy]

I intended to come and visit you way back when and try and make a broom with you then time flew by and here we are again. My wife has just a lowly store-bought broom. She doesn't even realize what she is missing and it's my fault.
Your new home looks beautiful and you folks have done a perfect job.
Exactly as I would expect. And its location looks to be ideal.
I'm going to drive over someday.

 

[southalabama]

Here's the assembled model. The basement is separate.



This is up hill






Down hill





And the basement.

Eyes painted on the gable walls will be a nice eye opener

 

[jbmatth]

Such a huge undertaking with a large number of custom touches, certainly a house to be very proud of Andy. I'm really glad you decided to do one big set of wrap-up posts to show the build from start to finish.

JB

 

[oldironfarmer]

I intended to come and visit you way back when and try and make a broom with you then time flew by and here we are again. My wife has just a lowly store-bought broom. She doesn't even realize what she is missing and it's my fault.
Your new home looks beautiful and you folks have done a perfect job.
Exactly as I would expect. And its location looks to be ideal.
I'm going to drive over someday.

You're close. Bring your wife and get a free house tour and we'll make her a broom.

Eyes painted on the gable walls will be a nice eye opener

Why didn't I consider that? Hmmm...

Such a huge undertaking with a large number of custom touches, certainly a house to be very proud of Andy. I'm really glad you decided to do one big set of wrap-up posts to show the build from start to finish.

JB

Are you saying I should wait until it is finished?

I'm getting too old for that kind of nonsense.

 

[oldironfarmer]

Just no way to get the concrete to the basement so I broke down and hired a truck. (It didn't help matters that the only finisher I could find refused to do the job if we didn't have a pumper, and there were some kind of health issues going around in December, 2021)

We got the concrete placed in the basement and sent the truck to clean up.



Finished up the garage with chutes.



Laid down pretty quickly.



Just one small uh-oh.



The guy I had bracing the form didn't think it through and it lifted nicely and dumped a lot of mud out. I used a diesel-hydraulic form reinforcement tool. Not an uncommon activity, actually.



Got the form back in pretty tight and they were able to screed and trowel unimpeded.

A big plus, the driveway has a solid footing to add fill on.

 

[oldironfarmer]

Concrete was poured on December 16. It was chilly and turned cold overnight but only about freezing. They powered trowled well after dark because it didn't want to set. Things looked fine the next morning.



Ready for the last layer of block around the garage.



Ready for the cross wall at the back to create a safe room.

Started sheathing.



You can do a lot with ladder jacks, but this job is going to need scaffolding. I looked around, and used scaffold sells for the equivalent of ten months' rental. I'm cheap, and knew I'd go crazy tearing rental scaffold down and back to Tulsa only to go back in a few days. So I bought some. It was all in excellent shape.



5' and 3'. The mason has 4' he will loan me. In a few weeks I went back and bought another load, with eight casters and 12 screw jacks.



Don't forget to smell the roses.

 

[oldironfarmer]

I've been around scaffolding all my adult life, and have six bent rusty frames. This new stuff is lighter and easy to work with. You can see the elevation change here.



I took this picture on Christmas Day, 2021, we had a family picnic on the garage floor. Unfortunately my family includes a world wide known celebrity so we can't post pictures here.

I did most all the scaffolding on the house by myself because I wanted it all to be stable. On this end it stayed up for sheathing, windows, trusses, roofing, siding, soffits, and cleanup.

First set of trusses were dropped off

It seems they just flew up

I tried some new things on this house, not being an experienced builder. The truss level is a full two stories off the ground. I decided to dispense with trying to brace the first truss from the ground and instead built 22-1/2" wide rectangular boxes to tie the first two trusses to each other and hold them plumb.

Notice the OSB box between the first two trusses on the far side, one angle brace on the near side, and another box waiting on the scaffold. No external bracing for the first truss.



I also placed sheetrock nailers on top of the wall spaced 1-5/8" apart. You can see the gaps on top of the wall above. I measured and put them in place at my leisure to get them accurately placed. All the guys had to do to set a truss was slip the truss between the nailers, slide it to center on the wall then push it to the right (south) and nail it. Very quick and Andy proof.

Here's the box in place on the near side.



These are attic trusses, the doorway into the attic room is between the doubled trusses in the middle with the gap.

I set up a scaffold on the north end and used the rig to set the 1-1/8"decking for the attic room on the scaffold so we didn't have to lift it later. I thanked myself.

 

[Mr.zippy]

I was going to ask you Andy, is that skidsteer "Bob"? Or did you replace him?

 

[oldironfarmer]

Now we can deck the attic bedroom.



With decking in place I just had to climb up and see what the view would be like.



I couldn't get the lady up on the step ladder but she did climb to the attic room to hesitantly enjoy the view.



She wouldn't walk close to the edge, however. She was more comfortable after we got the end wall in place.



My great granddaughter's husband (they now have four kids) came and helped as he could. He's a pipeline welder and I'm a pipeline engineer but we get along. His rig was the first vehicle on the garage floor on the last day of 2021.

 

[oldironfarmer]

I was going to ask you Andy, is that skidsteer "Bob"? Or did you replace him?

She's Bob. I didn't remember you guys knew her name.

 

[Mr.zippy]

Never forget a pretty face Sir!

 

[oldironfarmer]

Wayne got started on the basement cross wall on December 31. He got the garage final block layer a few days earlier and I got started on floor joists.



Somehow the treated plate on top of the stub wall matched the top of the garage stemwall.

Big joist order arrived and we dumped it on the garage.



Joists go pretty quickly and the decking makes a floor.



The old man finished like he said he would.



It is gratifying when you dream something up then see it for real.



The gap on the right is for the stairwell to the basement. Layout is started on the basement exterior wall.

 

[oldironfarmer]

Extended scaffolding to sheath the side.



Framed up the basement walls



Put in floor joists



Glued down decking



And it's starting to look like a house.

 

[littlebean]

looks amazing

 

[oldironfarmer]

looks amazing

Thanks!

 

[oldironfarmer]

The plan calls for a second floor balcony with the balcony beam stopping short of the wall so the view is unimpeded as you walk down the stairway from the balcony to the first floor. I'm going to use steel beams to support the balcony and decided to use steel to a thickened portion of the basement slab to insure the balcony bounce is minimized.

In 1985 I moved from a house where I had constructed a bridge crane. The crane had 4" pipe legs with 3/4" plate feet 18" in diameter. The feet were cutouts from manways in the wall of the steam generating unit of Westinghouse PACE units we were building. I hauled them home in the trunk of my 1954 Chevy along with three cutoffs from heavy steel beam (WF12x152) in 1975.

I moved them to the farm in 1985 and now have a use for two of them.

I am NOT a hoarder...



I was concerned about corrosion but this looks good.



The welding, not so much. It was cold that day and getting it straight was more important than getting it pretty.



Bob was eager to help.



Looped chain around the forks and let the pipe rest under the boom. Stable enough to walk down the road.

The shop I'm using is just down the road from the new house. No 220 power but a good 30x50 building a widow let me use.



And away we go!

 

[oldironfarmer]

Down the steep hill at the house.

Around the corner and into the house.



I had stewed for weeks about how to get the pipe into the house. Thought about welding it in place, but the weather made that less desirable.

This is as far as Bob can go.



Set one end on a scaffold frame.



Then my helper Shane pulled it up as I pushed it up. It's not too heavy but heavy enough to hurt you, and 20 ft tall so we didn't try to stand it up without a rope.



I was relieved to get the last joist in place and box around the column so wind would not be an issue.

 

[oldironfarmer]

Getting the column in cleared the way to finish decking.





Stairwell to the basement starts down at the far end.



Kitchen wing is taking shape.



Starting to get an image of what the house will look like.

 

[oldironfarmer]

24 degrees F overnight. My water was not frozen. Until I shook it. That means it's clean water. Like the Grizz, it's Super Cool.

More walls.



I have to erect tall walls (20ft) and don't want to hurt anyone so instead of gathering a crew I bought an $80 HF remote control winch. Built a 20 ft high rolling scaffold to use as a crane. Nice view from the top!









A 2x12 on top at an angle gives enough headroom. The casters add 8".



The frames are strapped together to hold everything together.

 

[Grizz1963]

I keep clicking the Like button even though I have been in the castle a few times.

I continue to be amazed at what you and the team pulled off.