Heart of the Home

We drove to Maine this weekend to pick up a barely used (6 times) Jotul F400 "Castine" wood burning stove for Christian's new hearth, which will become the heart of his home soon. This stove has a large combustion chamber; taking 20" logs, producing 55000 BTU's and heating up to 1600 sq. ft. as long as 8 hrs. (overnight). It has a removable bottom ash pan and came with a fire viewing screen and fireplace tools!

It is now being stored in the greenhouse but when the hearth is ready and the weather turns cold, this stove will allow us to continue work on Christian's old farmhouse, inside. God bless Bill and Alex for getting this into our wagon, and the boys at home for getting it out (375 lbs.of cast iron).

Christian and Leif were the boys back home who finished the corner wall concrete pouring... 

Fortifying the Fireplace Foundation

Many loose rocks, two large floor beams and much clay dirt were removed from below and around the fireplace here in order to install framing for concrete reinforcement walls. The removed rocks are washed to be reused in some places and all loose clay dirt was vacuumed out with a large Shop Vac.

The wall forms are covered with heavy plastic before being positioned into place.

The walls were poured first and the next day a platform for the hearth was framed on top and poured.

The crew taking lunch...

Meanwhile... upstairs I am stripping the wood in what will be Leif's bedroom, which has original old plank closet doors in front of cedar-lined closets! These will remain unpainted, but the room colors will change!

Turning a Corner

The crawl space walls have now turned a corner under the dining room closet. In this space, a lower concrete wall was also poured to allow access into the kitchen sub-floor area. Next will be fortifying the chimney foundation.

The lower back wall is just visible here...

Excavating Elsewhere

While digging out and pouring more concrete crawl space walls under the original old house, the boys removed the front inset porch floor to excavate here before it gets closed in with a large steel casement window.

Over Labor Day Weekend, both sections of the front crawlspace walls were finished being dug out and poured. The corners will have custom forms built for the concrete.