Beam me up Scotty! / "No, not "leveled" it as in "tore it down" as in "made it parallel to the earth""

Real construction begins.

Residential structures around the world very in construction techniques. They also vary in time.

Post-mid evil house construction in Europe centered around a method known as "Post & Beam" construction. Basically the structure is a series of large posts for vertical (walls) elements and beams for horizontal elements (floors, ceilings). The large posts carry the weight of successive floors, roofs and ceilings. The spaces in between these large elements were filled in with "curtain walls" that are non-load bearing.

North America and Australia have historically used a framing convention known as "Light framing". In light framing, instead of using large posts to carry loads, smaller, lighter "shear walls" are used to carry them. A shear wall normally is a light frame of studs that is then sheathed in a thin plywood or OSB. This sheathing gives it rigidity from coming out of square and able to support vertical loads.

Anyhow my house is a combination of these methods. While most of the house is "light framed" the crawlspace is beam construction. And because some hoser let their plumbing leak for many many years, a 6 1/2" square beam rotted out. This beam carries a wall that carries the second floor that carries a wall that carries the roof. It might be the most load bearing beam in the house.

Okay to the updates.

-My awesome friend Tim helped me dismantle the 2nd chimney without incident.


-My awesome friends Andrew and Jessica helped me build a temporary wall and remove before-mentioned wall and beam.


-My awesome friend Bob helped my level the structure with a laser over the course of 2 days. The whole structure is now within 3/8ths of an inch level. (note the porch is tearing itself away from the house because of how much we raised it!)

-My awesome friends Bob and Tom helped me re-frame before mentioned beam and wall

...cleaned out the crawl space (found a dead dog), started demo on the rear of the house, got my bank loan all in line, got temporary water on and did a little dusting...

Digging in the dirt

I dig in the dirt for my house often. Normally it's in the crawl space, or on the stump of a tree I'm taking out. This week I did a different kind of digging. I went to the library...

Now most of you have never heard me utter those words. I've often proclaimed that I'd break out in some kind of rash if I got near it....I run cavalierly off the idea that most of the generic historic or modern information that I need is available on the internet. If I need specific I go to the source, such as a person. But in this case I ended up at the Detroit Public Library.

With my shiny new library card in hand (last time I got a library card I was in the 2nd grade) I headed off to the renowned Burton Collection. The Burton is a collection of history started by Clarence Monroe Burton in the mid 1800's. He personally collected for 40 years and then donated it all to the DPL in the early 1900's, including the building he kept it in. It is very extensive including books, directories, papers, pamphlets, photographs, maps and just about anything you'd want to get your paws on.

You can feel it's eminence as you walk into the room.

I only had a couple hours to search as I was going to meet a friend later that day. I thought that was all I would need to find out about a dinky house deep in a neighborhood. Boy was I wrong. This is what I found.

Year	Owner	Address	Description
1850	x	Woodbridge Farm?	This is the last available directory before the 1865 directory where the house first appears. So the build date for the house is 1851-1865
1865	Joseph Kingston	104 Baker	first time the house appears in Detroit directories. Joseph is listed as a "dray man". Which is one who drives a "dray" or a flatbed cart for moving heavy items.
1867	Joseph Kingston	132 Baker	Address changes from 104 to 132
1899	Eliza Kingston	132 Baker	Owner changes to Eliza, this leads me to discover Josephs death entry in Michigan records. Eliza is a "housekeeper".
1904	Charles E. Rhodes	132 Baker	Charles is a carpenter. In earlier directories he lives in Delray, which is a place I have a lot of interest in. In Delray he is only a "Laborer"
1922	Charles E. Rhodes	xxxx* Baker	The entire city is renumbered and the address changes to it's current 4-digit address
1920's	Charles E. Rhodes	xxxx* Bagley	The street is renamed "Bagley" after Governor John Judson Bagley, who served Michigan from 1873 to 1877
Late 1900's	James T. Slater	xxxx* Bagley	No information

*omission of the current address is only to protect the quietness of my project. Anybody who has been near Corktown knows what house it is.

Sadly my research ended there as I had to dash out the door. But it's obvious at this point there is a lot of information and a lot to learn. I would like to know more about Joseph Kingston and if he built/had the house built. I'd like to know if Charles Rhodes built the addition to the house himself...and I have a few choice words for his family about the plumbing placement...hahahaha. I plan on making it through all the directories to make a complete list of residents, even the insurance fraud in the early 2000's that I've been told of.

I really want to know about the fire, when/why. What did the building originally look like perhaps? There are additional footings behind the house. It could of been even longer then it currently stands today.

The original paperwork I got said the house was 1895 which is now busted. It's at minimum 1865, making it AT LEAST 142 years old, and possibly up to 156 years old. There are a lot more resources to hack through though. Including the rest of the directories, death records, obituaries in the Detroit Freepress & News, the Sanborn fire insurance maps, building permits, photographs etc....

There is a little part of me that hopes some person decades from now is looking through the Burton and sees my name in a long list of Detroiters.....

My other house....

It's been two and a half weeks since I've been at the homestead. I'm feeling a little uneasy about that.

Two weeks ago I had to go on a work trip to Palm Springs and Arizona for hot weather testing, which turned out to be a total waste of time. Not something for this blog.

Last week Habitat for Humanity Detroit, an organization I'm pretty involved with, had a "blitz" of twelve houses. I was responsible for one of the houses. It turned out pretty not bad...

I've led many of these houses in past builds, but this one was was better then most. I had a close group of my personal friends for crew leaders, a fantastic sponsor, amazing volunteers, and most of all an awesome family partner.

By far it is the best house i've ever built with habitat. The quality of the work is top notch, and in the extra time I had I was able to experiment with a cross gable and a sunburst on the facade.

Low income housing in the city of Detroit has been a passion of mine for a long time. See the thing is that all humans are born equal in dignity. Unfortunately they aren't all born with the same social status, or economic resources, or biases against them, or opportunities for growth.

And because of that I use the few skills and talents that i've been blessed with to try and level the playing field through Habitat for Humanity Detroit

Seriously, if we all help build each others houses, we'd all live in mansions.

Another great blitz and twelve brand spanking new houses in the great city of Detroit.

Now back to the dirty hole that is my lovely Corktown house.