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Post 41: Windows on the World
As anyone who has built a house knows, the window install is a great milestone in the construction process. This milestone at the Red House was made more dramatic for having to be completed in…
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Post 40: Ducts in a Row
It’s mud season in Maine, time for ducks to start building their nests, and for Gagnon Geothermal to get their ducts in a row. Nick Gagnon started on Monday at the Red House, setting up…
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Post 39: Outside In
With the Equinox falling on Tuesday, it was a schizophrenic week weather wise in Sweden. Winter turned to Spring (aka mud season) and back to Winter. Thawing temperatures turned the dooryard into a quagmire. Spring…
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Post 38: Visible Progress
As we approach the mid-point on this renovation project, progress appears to be speeding up. Despite cold windy days and wet muddy ones that mired the Genie, Crowell’s crew has continued to wrap and strap…
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Post 37: Little Surprises
When we tell people we are renovating an old farmhouse, we are often asked if we have run into any surprises. There have been a few big surprises – the discovery of structural problems with…
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Post 36: It’s a Wrap
The Red House isn’t red anymore. It’s green! After removing the clapboard siding, Josh and Al are wrapping the old house and the new ell in rockwool, a type of stone wool insulation also known…
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Post 35: Old Posts & Beams
We missed two days on the worksite this week and came back to find all the flooring and interior walls missing from the back half of the farmhouse’s second floor. On Wednesday we saw the…
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Post 34: Powerful Connections
This week Walker Electric and Central Maine Power (CMP) connected the Red House to the grid so power can flow from the transformer on the new utility pole through a buried conduit along the driveway,…
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Post 33: Demolition Demon
The Indian goddess, Kali, is sometimes considered a demon because of her destructive power but she is also a symbol of divine creation. Destruction and creation go hand in hand. We saw Kali’s spirit at…
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Post 32: Brick, Siding & Granite
It’s been a busy week at the Red House. Teams of carpenters, masons and excavators have been working inside and out. The most noticeable progress is on the decorative brickwork Aron Libby is laying on…
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Post 31: Sistering
“Sistering” sounds like something I have done all my life – spend time talking to or hanging out with one of my sisters. The term has a different meaning in construction, but with the same…
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Post 30: From the Ground Up
On Thursday, one of the coldest days of the winter so far, Henry’s Concrete poured the slab for the new basement floor. Carpenters closed up all the openings and preheated the space so that the…
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Post 29: Mind the Gaps
Work on the house continued at pace after the holidays. Jeff Blake returned with his house lifting crew on January 2 to pull out the iron I-beams, and letting the full weight of the 100-ton…
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Post 28: Bittersweet Bonfire
It wasn’t our first fire but it was our biggest. After a season of pulling vines from the tops of apple trees, unwinding woody stems from struggling saplings and ripping out orange roots from the…
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Post 27: Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas from the Red House to Your House! On the night before ChristmasUnder the frosty moon lightNils and Becky envisionedA merry work site They dreamed of strong raftersSpanning over their headsStrengthened by collar tiesAll…