The Blackberries "Strike Back"

As mentioned in the prior post, my husband has been attempting to 'remove' the blackberries from one corner of our yard. Initially my thoughts were to keep them alive so that I could make lovely blackberry preserves, pies, tarts and so forth.

Now that we've been messing with these wild blackberries, I too am ready to see them gone.

We've been putting off any work on the house and been focusing on the yard, as we don't need permits to at least clean and clear up what was left to us when we got the house. In addition we've also cut back how much we can work we can commit to the house, due to our own new addition.

She arrived on September 11th, and as a result we've pretty much come to a screeching halt. For those of you who didn't know I was pregnant and working on the house and yard until my 8th month, when it simply got to difficult to 'labor' in the sun and heat for more than 20 minute stretches.

(As a side note, I attribute my work on the house, and constant activity, to contributing to my easier than normal birth.)





Anyhow...the branch that launched the aerial assault, well it came back, with a vengeance.


Incidentally for scale, my husband is approximately 6'1" ft tall, 6' 3" in his work boots... so that makes this branch alone about 8' long.











Here is another scale photo... My hand is literally on top of the vine, and notice that it is the same thickness as my thumb.

Blackberry Invasion.

Since major work on the house is suspended due to permit issues, It leaves me some time to work on the other Herculean task … the yard. When we bought this house we where particularly wowed by the yard. The size of it excited all of my American Gothic fantasies. Well..ok maybe not that, but I do fantasize about many an outdoor Barbecue, grilling up a Porterhouse, and other assorted meats.

For the most part the yard is pretty unremarkable, a wide open lot with weeds in the middle. I think of it like a blank canvas. The prospect of which was very exiting for my wife. My only worry is the blackberry brambles that cluster in the rear of the yard against our fences.

For those of you that are not familiar with the plant the best description I can give you is persistent. The I am not certain of the species or genus but this plant is very common in California and the Pacific North West. I am more that sure that there are plenty of varieties but I am not a botanist but so I will just talk about what I have seen in my lifetime.

The blackberry plant is a fast growing spiny vine that bears a wonderful fruit. In the wild it can be a real pest. It grows extremely fast and I have seen it take over entire yards in a couple of months. Unfortunately for us, the Blackberries have taken up residence our neighbors yardson all sides and have made major incursions into mine.

So I got the idea of "Keeping blackberries under control"







This what the yard looked like when I bought the place. If you look close, that greenery is the entire back fence covered with blackberry vines.



My father and I got out the shears and made what I thought was good progress. I come back a week later and what did I find...

The vines mounted a counter offensive










I have since discovered that the Blackberry vines have a very extensive root system (which was total news to me.) I had only been concerned with the vines and never bothered with the roots. To be very honest I have NEVER given it much thought. I always thought that vines did not have roots but rather came from a central location. I am sure the whole world knew this but me. So I began my second attack.

Upon further digging I fond that the root system in my yard is rather extensive. I also seems that the roots form I kind of a stump and form there the vines grow and make others in different locations. A root strand may connect a bunch of separate "stumps" together. I have to admit I was rather impressed to witness the plant's hardiness, and it's persistence as preservation




An example of a root "stump."







The Vines grew up the neighbors tree and began their assault from above.
A most formidable foe.

Revealing the truth behind the lies...pt 2.

To add a little visual perspective to my wife's earlier post, I though it would be help full to add a few photos to illustrate our findings.

This all began with trying to repair the floor in the now infamous add-on section of the house. This proved to be a little more of a challenge than I thought.



If you look closely you may notice the the floor is listing to the left.




After removing the floor boards we discovered lots of nifty things. That were listed the earlier post.

1. The joists were of uneven sizes.
Yes, they where and I am not sure why but they were. I unfortunately removed them before I took a photo but you can get the idea.


2. The joists didn't overlap across the center beam.
This was particularly odd to me. Although not necessary as I have heard from some of the carpenters that I have spoken to. I think this is a think it is a good idea in this house due to the size of the center beam.





In this you should note that the joist barely sits on the beam and not nailed to the beam but rater it is nailed to the block of wood that makes it even with the other joists




All of the joists had this problem. It was a cause for some concern. I was thinking shear, a joist on top of a block of wood on top of a beam with 3/4" overhang does not seem safe if the ground starts to shake. (which tends to happen in the bay area.)

Chips and blocks where all over the place. I was as surprised on how much "board footage" was in the house. Why the floor board where different sizes deifies my comprehension. My guess is that the previous owner used what wood was available. Either it was not going for work for me.

Another nice find was the notches on the joists to make room for the water pipes. This I know for a fact this is BAD BAD BAD. There are rules and calculation about how you can but I go with DON'T.
Things like this may happen:











This split as my brother sat on it. If you can see the wood split right along the grain of the wood starting on the notch. If you want my advice, do not make notches in wood on the underside at all.

Here are some slick files that explain it:

Notching_&_Boring_Guide_A11.pdf
Fig 11 cut floor.pdf

After looking at these issues I admit I was a little muffed. I had some friends that are in the trades to take a look. Most of them said the same thing "This is some really shoddy carpentry I would not bother to try to fix it." I was rather sad to hear that because that is very much outside of my manpower and skill-level. It is hard to ignore the a carpenter and engineer and two stage hands.

Needless to day I had to look for a general contractor.
Lesson learned: It is surprising what can be hidden under Sheetrock.

Revealing the truth behind the lies....

As you know, from previous posts, the roof was in horrible condition, prior to the replacement. One of the side-effects of the status of the roof was that it leaked. No it more than leaked, at one point we had an indoor waterfall during a mild rain. As a result of the water damage that came with the leaky roof, some off the flooring needed to be pulled up so that it could be replaced.

Normally this would be an "easy" process requiring about a day's worth of work. Unfortunately, as things with this house are never normal that didn't work out that way. My Husband and brother-in-law got started on the project with a sawsall and began cutting out the 3/4 inch flooring. In the process of unearthing the flooring, we found an unfortunate problem. Here they are in no particular order:

1. The joists were of uneven sizes, and not just irregular by like a 1/2 or 1/4 of an inch between each. Some were 2x 10's, some 2x8's, and others were 2x6's. The problem was that where there were gaps the prior owners used other shims of different sizes to make the floor "level." What this means is that although the flooring was 'level' (and I use the term loosely here) when you walked on it, it was in fact completely irregular underneath with a patchwork of wood shoved in to make it "appear" level when you place a foot on the floor, or put a level down on it. Again a saftey issue, because one section of the floor was 'stronger' than another due to the width of the joist supporting the floor.

2. The joists didn't overlap across the center beam, some barely reached the center beam, and others were 'jimmied' to reach the beam. Unfortunately this is a severe saftey issue. When the joists (or the cross sections that form the platform of the flooring) don't overlap, it means that there is an uneven distribution of weight across the floor. Plus for those joists that were 'jimmied' (basically a 2x6 that didn't quite reach the beam so a 2x4 was placed on the center beam and then stretched across to meet the 2x6) could cause serious problems with the strength of the overall building basically making the entire add-on structurally uninhabitable.

3. The joists were also not shored up along the exterior walls. In non-contractor speak, when you build a "box" you want the structures that are going to support any weight to have an even distribution between them. In addition to make sure that the structure can support weight and shift, similar to Lincoln logs, you want to allow the internal framing to extend a little beyond where the actual weight will be placed. To get an image of what this is like, try and stack pens (or pencils) in a box by overlapping the edges. The more you overlap the edges, the sturdier the box, the less you overlap the edges the less sturdy... This is done for safety, but its' also done to make sure that the building or box won't shift too much under any pressure, say like an earthquake. The addition... well to put it mildly, didn't have this in place, so effectively a minor to major tremor would basically make the rear of the building twist off the frame like a clumsy belly dancer.

4. For those joists that were actually "big enough" (2x8's or larger) the previous owners did something that didn't make a whole bunch of sense... they notched from the bottom of the joists to allow for power and water to go through them. Now normally drilling a hole in the center of a joist is okay - so long as it is not in the edge of the joist. Why? Because if it is a circle, and in the 'center' of the joist (midway between the edges of the width) the weight or pressure is distributed around the hole similar to an arch and therefore the strength of the joist isn't compromised. Not it's not advisable that you do this repeatedly, as it will make the beam weaker. However the prior owners didn't do this, instead they cut square notches from the bottom of the joists, basically making the joists look like a Appalachian hillbilly. (All toothy, but mostly gaps) This means that the strongest point of the joist doesn't exist, and utlimately made the whole addition a sham.

After seeing all of this work. My husband stopped working on the addition.

We've got a new roof!!

And it couldn't have happened at a better time. Turns out that we're in for a deluge of rain which should dump an entire years worth of water in the span of a few days.
I gotta say I was so happy once the roof was completed, and in record time (2 days.) This is also an exquisite example of when to know your limitations, and when to hire a contractor.

I mention this because in previous posts, I enumerated about the prior state of the roof. The few rains that we had before we were able to get the contractors in, showed both me and my husband how shoddy of shape it was in. There were several indoor waterfalls that we discovered during those cloud bursts.

The reason we decided to go with a contractor rather than attempt to do it ourselves was:

1. My 70+ father in law and 75+ aunt were far to eager to do the work themselves.
2. My Brother-in-law insisted that he was a "mighty-mighty stage hand" (his words, not mine) once, and therefore heights and danger were in his second nature.
3. The 2 story height from the ground was just high enough to create broken limbs, or other possible broken bits.
4. No one in the extended group of family or friends who wanted to help knew the complete process for building a roof, as they had only done bits and pieces of the actual repair or construction.

...That and my mother-in-law, my mother and I were all in agreement. Too risky, too long to complete with novices, so get a contractor.

Contemplating the cost/benefit breakdown it was the smart decision. Here's our calculation:

1. Demolition of the existing roof:
a) We do it: Cost ~ $300- 2K. Time line for completion: 2 - 4 weeks
b) They do it: $2k - 6k. Time line for completion: half of a day.

2. Putting on new plywood
a) We do it: Cost $ 200- $400. Time line for completion: 1-2 weeks
b) They do it: (same as above, and included in the price) Time line for completion: the second half of that same day.

3. Completing the roof, including felt, shingles, flashing and tar.
a) we do it: cost $2k - 3K. Time line for completion: 4-6 weeks
b) they do it: cost $4k - 6k. Time line for completion: the 1 day.

The math is generalized, and you shouldn't use it for anything other than just guesses. But the numbers won me over:
a) We do it it would cost anywhere from 3- 6k. Approximately completed in 2-3 months
b) Contractor does it, could be anywhere from 12k - 22k. Approximately completed in 2 days.

Yep. Contractor, no doubt.

Lesson learned: Ten things our home renovation taught us.

So far..
Our home renovation has been an adventure. It being my first project of this scale and i am not a professional contractor, and I don't this kind of work every day, I have made several discoveries, (read mistakes.) Here are a few that will make your life easier and hopefully your project more successful:

1. Be realistic about what you are capable of doing. Hubris has always been my enemy in life. Most of my mistakes in life have begun with “Well… If he can do it…”

2. Plan, plan, plan! I cannot say this enough. You must fight the urge to just “get started.” I can build a Data center on the fly but that is because I do it all of the time. You cannot renovate a home as a game day decision. Everything always looks straight forward, at first. It is often not the case. Example: One mistake I made during demolition was that I missed a step and ended up needing 3 dumpsters instead of one.

A plan has several functions:
a. Keeping track of you work.
b. Managing your resources(time, material, labor)
c. Keeping you on target.

3. Calculate your real labor time. I calculated my time line like I was at work, (an 8 hour day.) I neglected to consider that I am only working approximately 16 hours per week, (weekends only.) As the project went on noticed I was getting further and further behind. I re-ran the arithmetic and found out why. Unless you are lucky enough to stop everything else and work solely on the renovation, the real labor time should be calculated based upon what your current schedule allows, not more.

4. Be flexible with your plan. Unforeseen things do come up. They will often adjust your time line or budget. I have always had the habit of tasking my plan and treating it like it was the word of God. This can also make life difficult for you. I had to accept that the sometimes my ideas are just wrong.

5. Manage your work force. I have had a problem with this. People that work for free or for Burger Meister and a beers, are a workforce that is giving you their spare time out of the kindness of their hearts. You must be ever cognizant of that fact. So you cannot work them like employees. You also cannot expect them to work with the same fervor as you do. (this leads back to that whole flexibility thing) Most importantly thank them often, and don't make empty promises. If you promise them food, deliver. If you promise them a BBQ once the house is done, you're gonna have to do that to.

6. Watch your contractors. This is not to imply that contractors are crooks or malevolent. In my experience the vast majority of them are honest. It does them no good to do shoddy work or overcharge you. A good portion of their business is referrals, so you are their best advertisement. Questions always come up, and you must be present to make sure that they are not only doing what you’ve asked, but that you understand why they are doing what they are doing. One blogger wrote. “Make sure to make explicit anything important to you” Cannot stress this enough, if you get a contractor you need to be there.

7. Manage your time. I am dreadful at this. I try to accomplish too much in one day and it always leads to disappointment. What I have learned to do is to pick one project to complete for that day. This allows you to see real progress and have that feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day.

8. Stop the project when you are done, not when you get bored . It is very easy to get overwhelmed and want to work on everything all at once. This tends to come from looking around and seeing a million projects that all need attention. Resist the temptation. All that it results in is a stack of projects that all need attention, and all of them are ½ done because did not finish them when you were there last time. You never want to go back things that you thought were done. I will be the most frustrated thing you will do to yourself. Finish the job then move on.

9. Do some research. I can not tell you how many times I could have saved time and my money if I would have just taken the time to look for a better way. The Library and the web are great places to start.

10. Ask for help! You don’t know it all, you can’t. There is no shame or harm in asking a professional for advice or information. In many cases they are pleased to have been asked and are more than willing to answer. Don’t worry about getting a sales pitch, most of the time if you are earnest and up front with them, they’re willing to send you in the right direction.