Surprise!

We're back.

I have not been in blogging mode at all and 

that's pretty sad considering I've got 4 blogs to tend.

We've had quite a bit going on around here,

but not a lot of the goings on have had much to do with the Bungalow renovation.

But there are a few things to report on, 

so here we go...

First off, we got approved by North Ogden City to hook up to their water.

That's a BIG deal.

We were concerned that they'd require us to annex into the city and we are adamant about not annexing for various reasons. The approval went so smoothly that we were a little in shock. He hasn't said so, but we think a friend of ours that has some pull with the city counsel, plead our case before the meeting.

Hooking up is expensive, but we think it'll be our best option.

I don't recall mentioning this previously, but we are not actually in 

North Ogden City, although that's our address.

Our land is in unincorporated Weber County.

The culinary water for this house has come from an artisan well since it was built

 back in the 50s.

It's a long story that I'll spare ya'all for now,

but I'll tell you this...

I've never cursed so much as I've cursed since we moved into the Bungalow!

You see...

our line to the well is old.

Our pump is old.

There is a lot of air in the water lines.

SO...

most of the time when I turn on the kitchen sink I have to wait for water to come and when it does come it 

BLASTS

outta the faucet and soaks me from head to hip.

!*#&@%$!

Yeah.

Mr Mossi told me to be careful or I'd become known as the

swearing grandma.

(he actually hyphenated that with another one of my tendencies, but I'll save myself the humiliation)

I did learn to turn the water on and quickly step back though.

But every once in a while, like early in the morning or when I'm in a hurry,

 I forget and it catches me off guard.

The widow above the sink always has dried splatter and drip marks

and I've always got a towel ready for a quick mop up on the floor.

I'm learning to be more patient, I guess.

Moving on...

here are a few captioned photos.

We've been drawing up the floor plans. It's a lot of fun coming up with ideas. We try to analyse and work on it together a little every evening. It's really evolved and we are very excited. When we finalize our plans, they will go to an engineer and then we'll apply for our permits. We are thinking that'll all happen by mid May.

Dean cut open the interior wall to investigate and ty to see what we're up against stucture-wise.
He found that the walls, as we assumed, are not sheetrock, but they aren't
plaster and lath either;
they are plaster and button board, which came between the aforementioned.
The insulation is some old-school stuff called black-rock wool.

This was the corner flagstone wall and hearth with wood burning stove  in the basement.

We tore it out with some help from Joe and Lars. Wish you coulda seen Joe swingin' that sledge hammer, grinnin' like a little boy and sayin' several times..."This is SO MUCH FUN!"
We loaded all the rubble into the truck and drove it to the  transfer station.
 Mr Mossi estimated the weight of the load at 1400 pounds. He was way off.
It was 2600 pounds!
We discovered that behind the flagstone wall there was an original brick fireplace.  Fun.

We started dismantling the deck. 

Dean pulls lumber off and I pull the nails out cuz this is redwood and still in great condition so we plan on reusing it.

One of my tidy stacks of lumber from the deck. I do what I can.

Dean took some brick off the decorative window pillars on the garage. They came off fairly easily and the mortar wasn't too hard to remove. We are going to tear the garage off and rebuild it because right now it's interior walls are cinder-block. When it's rebuilt, it'll be a side entry, three car garage.
We 're planning on salvaging and reusing as much brick as possible.

Upon further investigation, Dean found that the brick that is common with the cinder-block walls is actually mortared to the cinder-block. This is not good news. We'll lose a lot of brick trying to get it free from the cinder block. Just the first of many surprises that await us, I'm sure.

We've been clearing all the overgrowth in the back. It's bad. Really bad. Dean cuts...

and I haul it up and stack it in it's temporary location. We're gonna have to haul it up to the top of the property, get a burn permit and have a huge 3 day bonfire.

We ordered another 30 yard dumpster because we are cutting down a huge Ailanthus  tree that is pretty much the worst tree on the planet; it's so bad that the wood won't even burn. The evening before cutting the tree, though, Dean got to work cutting and clearing much of the huge, old, overgrown pfitzers in the front on the south side. I dragged and loaded them all into the dumpster, filling it almost full! Hope we have enough room for the cut tree!

Taylor came yesterday to start cutting the tree. This guy is kind of a Jack-of-all-trades. He is an  EKG tech in the ER at McKay Hospital, works ski patrol at Snow Basin and, like his dad, is a tree cutter. Oh...and...he's also Aubrey's beau. Hopefully next Saturday we'll get the rest of this beast slain.

That's all for now. 

I'll try post once a week on our progress.

I'll try.
And maybe it won't be so thrown together next time.
Maybe.