Wing

Sue packs up the wing here. It's just a bit dusty and dirty. Capt. Dodds cataloged all the books in the library here. They are now safely stored away in the barn for the duration.
Next, of course, came demolition, more of which is to follow. The wing has major structural problems that will have to be corrected, and the interior will be entirely gutted.
Early April A temporary support wall is erected to hold up the second floor joists, all of which are actually floating in mid-air. The outer wall suffered major water damage and sagged outwards several inches over the years. The window on the right will become a door and the brickwork will be repaired. The old door to the kitchen is starting to shape up now. A new lintel is in place and nailers for the new stair treads are now installed.
April Most of the old floor is torn up here. I made the decision to knock down the cinder block casing around the old hearth. You can see the original shape -- it tapered as it went up. We'll remortar that smooth and then plaster it. The stairs -- well, I don't know if we can save them. Besides, they have over 8" risers.
With the new lintel in place, we are approaching being able to put in new floor joists and then running duct work and other mechanicals. Much later, a floor will appear.
Here's the old back door -- the one used every day. The old damp crawl space has been excavated. No treasure was found, sadly. We see now that the area over the crawl space was originally higher than the cement floor in the foreground. There was a wall separating the raised part from what must have been the primary kitchen area. Probably the floor was brick and then cement hand-poured over it (as in the basement).
More demolition and clean up in preparation for the floor joists.
April 4 Surprise! The concrete floor underneath is pretty old. Perhaps late 1800s? This was certainly the kitchen area. We still guess it used to be brick. Yep. Stairs had to go due to old termite damage. Underneath was the footprint of what must have been an older, much smaller staircase that had been in place when the cement was poured. I may poke under there before we close it up and see what's there.
Here's a funny one. To the left of the hearth is a drain and the whole cement part of the wing floor is slanted down towards it. They must have washed down the floor and let it flow outside (but Lord knows where it goes). One wonders what food was "prepared" there and how freshly it had come from the barn...
The entire second floor needed to be jacked up. Here Jon (Circle R crew), sets one of several 20 ton jacks as we lift the floor off the outer wall.
The brick work above the windows is loose and, shall we say, "very dicey." We lift with care.
We had to cut away the second floor false wall and sub-floor. The whole floor is now floating -- as is my heart...
Next, I rebuilt the brick wall. In the wing the wall was two bricks deep, but due to water damage and overloading, the wall bulged out, and the inner and outer brick layers sheared, breaking the tie bricks entirely. So, I had to re-tie the inner and outer brick layers and work upwards to establish a new solid bearing wall -- this time only for the roof. The second floor will be held up with a false interior wall to keep it from bearing on the fragile outer wall. This particular window will become an outside door -- possibly a Dutch door with glass above.
As we worked through the process, the interior layer of brick simply collapsed. It was very, very scary! What you see here is only the outer layer of brick, which is held together with what mortar is left over the window. The object here was to get a new lintel up and tie the outer work to it. Gently. Very, very gently.
This was done with some considerable worry. Then, new courses of bricks were laid above where the new false wall is to be installed. After it's in place, the repair of the brick will be continued upward.
The second window was like the first. All the wood was shot (rot), and roots from old ivy had to be dug out (note: never, never let ivy grow on an old building!!!), and new mortar was added to tie the inner and outer brick courses together. Tedious.
The outside, which was repointed about 14 years ago, is, on balance, in good shape -- except over this window. An old steel retaining plate that held the wing together was removed, exposing areas that didn't get the repointing treatment. Not a happy scene. We will be adding metal "stars" and bolts through the wing soon.
Meanwhile, on the second floor we still have our work cut out for us.
April 15, 2000 With the brickwork stabilized -- at least up above the floor rafters -- in goes the new false wall to support the second floor joists. And, it's actually level on the top! This is the window that will become a door.
With the new wall in place, we now have a top plate on which we can rest sister LVL beams to take the "smile" out of the floor joists. It will take 12 20-foot beams, each of which will be fitted next to the old joists. Then we will jack them up and nail and bolt them. We need to take out nearly two inches of sag across the room!
Here, near the back door to the main house where the old "little kitchen" used to be, you can see the new floor joists. Next comes the HVAC ductwork. It will be brought through the joist "sleepers" on the floor for the first floor, and up on either side of the waste pipe in this picture for the second floor. Then we will close in that area as a chase. Note the laser leveler clamped to the pipe. That's what we used to set both the floor and the ceiling. A rotating laser leveler is a sine qua non for a project like this.
Now the ducting has been run and the joists above are stable. Next, we need electrical and plumbing.
Here our plumber Chuck from Heidler has installed water and a drain to the back porch -- with drains for the winter, of course.
We are almost ready for insulation.
6 mil plastic in the crawl space hopefully will reduce the moisture problem in the future.
Meanwhile, the stars to be mounted outside the walls -- to keep the wall from moving any more -- are being painted prior to installation. 24' all-thread bolts (3/4") are at the ready to run under the second floor between the joists. First, however, the outside wall must be repaired.
May 27 2000 Bill Forsythe returns to repair the arch over the window, as well as the interior brick on the second floor. He noted that the arch had "relaxed" a bit. A bit of an understatement. It was hanging by a hair!!
Out comes the arch. You can see the interior lintel I installed a few weeks earlier. He tied the interior brick back to the exterior with ties. Notice how he carefully laid out the arch bricks on the scaffold. Then he cleaned it all out and set a string line. We moved the temporary bracing of 2 X 4s out so he had something to hold the bricks during installation. Then he fit them one at a time, one on each side. He measured the distances of the arch brick on the scaffold and adjusted the amount of mortar along the way.

When it was done, the arch was perfectly in place and once again in line, awaiting the new window casing being built by Jack Abeel. Click "Next" below to see the next phase of the wing construction.

Pleasant Plains Farm Restoration