skim coat on them. Done! Now we can put the house down and move back in, right?? Well, not exactly. First, interior load-bearing walls need to be put up under parts of the house, specifically every addition made to the original house, and there are a lot of them! Every line of bricks on the floor in the second photo marks an addition to the original 1870 house, which may have been moved from across the road by E.P. Ring himself. No, it isn't a log cabin. The original farmhouse appears to have been two rooms: the dining room and the front bedroom, along with the room upstairs (this explains why the house had an extra set of stairs off the dining room, and why they were so tiny!) The room that is now the kitchen looks like it was added as a porch, an
d later enclosed, which would explain why it's 8 feet wide and 30 feet long. The other wing of the house was also added later, although turned out to be the center of the house, 'cuz they just kept adding!If we use the second photo as a "map", the front porch is the first outline almost hidden by the front wall, followed by the main house, then the kitchen, and then the back porch. One more wall will run perpendicular to these, under the wall between the dining and living rooms. Of course, there's a large pile of dirt in the way, so that will have to wait. It looks like a mouse-maze of small rooms (wait, this basement is supposed to be Mouse Free!), but remember that the house is 45 feet by 30 feet, so there'll be plenty of room.
After the walls are installed, the house can come down. Then the cribbing and beams will come out.
Then all the dirt.
Then the last of the drain tile and gravel laid down.
Then the load-bearing interior wall.
Then all the "beam-holes" will need to be filled in.
Then the last wall will be put up.
Then the plumbing needs to be re-connected.
Oh, and the electricity.
Hmmm...I don't think we'll be back in the house for a while.
