Back in Business

God willing and the creeks don't rise, we're going to be moving the house next weekend.

We have finally worked out all the details with the City of Berkeley, and although we don't have all the permits yet in hand, we will have them early next week. So the plan is to move the top of the Cheney Cottage on the 20th, and the bottom on the 27th. By early March, the house should be reassembled and sitting on its new foundation.

So the work has already started. Hilary brought his bobcat over to 62nd Street yesterday, and began grading the site so the house can easily roll in from the street. He also pulled up the rest of the roots from the two redwood trees we removed (seems like years ago.....) The site is level and ready for a new house.

Today and tomorrow, we're doing some final prep work. Hilary is back, finishing taking out all the piles of brush and debris, and loading them into his dump truck for recycling. We have to move some logs back to the back of the lot, out of the way of the Cheney Cottage. We also have to take down a section of the hedge, as the cribbing has to go there when we raise up the second floor. We'll also sort through the pile of pieces of the Cheney Cottage we took off, finding all the pieces of the old front porch and the eaves that we had to remove from the second floor.

Then the plan is:

• Move the second floor to 62nd Street and position it in the house's new location
• Put the eaves back on, and strip the roof down to the skip sheathing
• Lift the second floor into the air
• Move the first floor to the site, and position it under the second floor
• Gently lower the second floor down onto the first floor
• Reattach the first and second floors
• Dig out and pour the new foundation
• Reroof the house
• Rebuild the front porch
• Reattach all the exterior trim that had to be removed

Then the fun begins: getting electrical service and rewiring the house; running the water pipes to the house and the drain pipes out to the street; redoing the bathroom and kitchen; refinishing floors, patching plaster, and fixing all the damage caused by the house's 10-month unnecessary stay out in a field in Albany.

Once the Cheney Cottage is done and habitable, we will turn our attention back to the Delaney House: raising it up in the air, building a new foundation for it; building the first floor.

So after 10 months of inactivity, we see a lot of work in the next couple months. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy year.