My Grandfather died in 1951 before I was born as the result of injuries sustained by an accident at work.?ÿ He was a Union man through and through, he belonged to a Union called the N-M-U (not really, that's from the Woodie Guthrie song); he was an Iron Worker and member of Blacksmith's Drop Forger and Helper's Union, Local 168 of San Francisco.?ÿ He worked for Kortick Manufacturing Company (still exists, now in Hayward) making Forest Service fire fighting tools (Pulaski and McCleod).
This picture fascinates me, My Grandfather at the table saw, a 1940s vintage Wards Powercraft 8-1/4" table saw which I have in my shed (just the saw, not the wooden working frame), they had raised the house up (literally) and were building two garage bays and an apartment behind underneath the existing house:
Here is the house on cribbing (I think the boy is my Dad's younger adopted brother):
The house is on the market (it is located in the picturesque town of Mill Valley, Marin County, California) for a cool $1.85 million.?ÿ I think my Dad may have built the redwood bookcase in the downstairs apartment.?ÿ The town is highly gentrified now, it is infested with Techie Millionaires jogging here and jogging there, young hipster millionaires like to jog places, the listing:
My sister and I met there for the open house on Sunday, amazing how memories are inaccurate.
For some reason, for 15 years or more, I have had a persistent voice in my head that urges me to lift a house. I sometimes daydream of different pneumatic mechanisms to get there. That family picture is some cool stuff. On the other hand, I'm not sure there is anything cool about $1.85 mil for a single-family house. No matter how it got to be 2-story. ?????ÿ
My Grandfather improved the attic into two bedrooms in the 1930s.?ÿ Then they lifted it up one story in 1949 and put the garage and apartment under it.?ÿ It has 2 dwelling units.?ÿ So it has 3 stories but still almost 2 mil? on a small lot, no thanks.
The main house is 1700sf one full bathroom and one powder room type bathroom (no bath), master bedroom on the main floor plus two in the attic (no bathroom up there).?ÿ The only mechanical is a wall furnace in the dining room (no need for A/C, summers are beautiful, Marin County probably has the best climate on the planet).?ÿ The apartment has two bedrooms, one bath, living room and a kitchen.?ÿ One bay garage (they've converted one of the garage bays into the apartment second bedroom).
It was originally a 1 bedroom house, not sure if the attic was an unimproved walk-up or if my Grandfather added the stairs.
For some reason, for 15 years or more, I have had a persistent voice in my head that urges me to lift a house. I sometimes daydream of different pneumatic mechanisms to get there. That family picture is some cool stuff. On the other hand, I'm not sure there is anything cool about $1.85 mil for a single-family house. No matter how it got to be 2-story. ?ÿ
Had a project a few years back where a property owner here in town?ÿraised an older?ÿhouse 5.5' to get it up out of the city's flood prone area.?ÿ The only thing the contractor used was timbers and a couple of 20 ton 'Armstrong style' hydraulic bottle jacks.?ÿ It was a fascinating project to watch.
When my wife wanted to buy the sinking Victorian money pit barn (I call it that due to size, not because it is an actual barn, big house) up the road 40 minutes in Auburn I looked at 20 ton jacks to jack it back up.?ÿ Fortunately someone else offered 100k more than I thought was a sane offer so we didn't get it.
Here in Cedar Rapids, the National Czech and Slovak Museum of the US (established by 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants) was damaged by the record-breaking 2008 flood.?ÿ They jacked up and moved the building, one of the larger ones ever moved.
Quote:
The museum was moved 480 feet (150?ÿm) from the original site and was placed on an elevated foundation. ... On June 8??9, 2011, the Museum and Library, weighing around 1,500 tons (1,400 metric tons) and constructed of a wood frame with brick veneer, was moved to the new site. The building new site is 11 feet (3.4?ÿm) higher than the previous site and 3 feet (0.91?ÿm) above the 2008 flood level.[15] The museum dubbed the event "A Monumental Move" and set up a webcam for viewers to watch the move; the City of Cedar Rapids also shut down 16th Avenue SW, including the Bridge of Lions, so local residents could watch. The museum's contractor for the job, Jeremy Patterson Structural Moving, stated that "it's apparently the largest museum ever relocated for flood hazard mitigation, and probably the only museum ever elevated.
I can't find the photo right now but my father moved a building (he called it the buggy house) about a mile from its original location to his home.?ÿ My great grandfather built the building some time about a hundred years ago.?ÿ My father used a combination of hydraulic jacks and a railroad jack to lift it and backed a homemade trailer underneath it and pulled that with his John Deere to where it sits.?ÿ Sometimes you use what you have to do what you have to do.
Andy
My grandfather built his house on his portion of the family grant when he returned from WWI.
My father inherited the home and acreage and kept the house and moved the house in 1969 across 1/4mi of pasture to where it rests today on an old church site he purchased when he returned from WWII for a sow and piglets.
I inherited the property in 2008 and while in need of some upgrades, it is still in the dry and solid.
He came back from the war for a sow and piglets? ?ÿReally? ?ÿThat's no way to refer to a woman and her children. ?????ÿ ?????ÿ ?????ÿ
On June 8??9, 2011, the Museum and Library, weighing around 1,500 tons (1,400 metric tons) and constructed of a wood frame with brick veneer, was moved to the new site.
I can understand moving a wood-frame building, but I don't understand how you can move one with brick veneer without the joints getting hopelessly cracked.?ÿ There's just no give to a mortar joint, and it amazes me that they can support the building solidly enough to withstand the uneven stresses of moving it down the road.
@holy cow
After writing property descriptions since the 70s, my spelling and sentence structure totally sucks and I know it.
A sow and piglets is what he paid for 3 acres of land with a spring creek passing thru with a 28ft well.................lol
I know a dude that moved a 2400sf brick home from Mt Pleasant to Douglassville, approximately 45mi or so and passed thru 3 towns. The house was practically free and most of the expense was labor plus towing.
I know of a stone church that was raised about 1909. ?ÿApproximately 175 x 70. ?ÿPlus a very large bell tower. ?ÿBuilt a basement then lowered the main structure onto it. ?ÿScrew jacks were used. ?ÿMany of them. They turned every one a certain fraction of a turn simultaneously by using a bass drum being struck at standard intervals. ?ÿIngenuous.
I was reminded of a buddy who spent his youth on an Iowa farm. ?ÿHe told of a certain group of neighbors who used similar phrasing in their speech. ?ÿHis favorite example was, " Throw the pigs over the fence some corn."
Had a survey job about 25 years ago to create a new tract for a home to a moved structure. ?ÿIt was onsite but still up on wheels. ?ÿIt was the largest log cabin I have ever seen. ?ÿIt had moved several miles from its original home that was about to fall near the center of the median of a divided four lane highway.
" Throw the pigs over the fence some corn."
That would be phrasing from their heritage language, probably German.
In English the rule is to put the descriptive words/phrase nearest the thing being described.?ÿ In the example that started this sidetrack, the price should follow immediately after "purchased".
" Throw the pigs over the fence some corn."
That would be phrasing from their heritage language, probably German..
Many old and current world languages fall into the VOS or VOA (verb-object-subject or verb-object-agent) style.?ÿ English (of course) doesn't follow those rules.?ÿ Our phrase "I went home" would sound something like "went home I did" in that style.?ÿ We're more of a SVO type of tongue.
I had no idea the folks responsible for scripting Yoda's dialogue in Star Wars did so much research...?ÿ "Win we must".
My Grandfather improved the attic into two bedrooms in the 1930s.?ÿ Then they lifted it up one story in 1949 and put the garage and apartment under it.?ÿ It has 2 dwelling units.?ÿ So it has 3 stories but still almost 2 mil? on a small lot, no thanks.
The main house is 1700sf one full bathroom and one powder room type bathroom (no bath), master bedroom on the main floor plus two in the attic (no bathroom up there).?ÿ The only mechanical is a wall furnace in the dining room (no need for A/C, summers are beautiful, Marin County probably has the best climate on the planet).?ÿ The apartment has two bedrooms, one bath, living room and a kitchen.?ÿ One bay garage (they've converted one of the garage bays into the apartment second bedroom).
It was originally a 1 bedroom house, not sure if the attic was an unimproved walk-up or if my Grandfather added the stairs.
I surveyed in Marin County half-time for a year.?ÿ The weather was beautiful and great scenery....?ÿ $20k budget for a lot survey and Record of Survey was typical.?ÿ Research component is usually at least a day.?ÿ Projects were never dull!
They apparently have always had decent financial resources there (bedroom/vacation community for SF) so super nice homes oftentimes built on sketchy hillsides but for some reason they are short on pipe monuments across the board.?ÿ Also filed maps are uncommon prior to 1965 or so
Although I could never afford to live there I wouldn't mind setting up shop
My Grandfather improved the attic into two bedrooms in the 1930s.?ÿ Then they lifted it up one story in 1949 and put the garage and apartment under it.?ÿ It has 2 dwelling units.?ÿ So it has 3 stories but still almost 2 mil? on a small lot, no thanks.
The main house is 1700sf one full bathroom and one powder room type bathroom (no bath), master bedroom on the main floor plus two in the attic (no bathroom up there).?ÿ The only mechanical is a wall furnace in the dining room (no need for A/C, summers are beautiful, Marin County probably has the best climate on the planet).?ÿ The apartment has two bedrooms, one bath, living room and a kitchen.?ÿ One bay garage (they've converted one of the garage bays into the apartment second bedroom).
It was originally a 1 bedroom house, not sure if the attic was an unimproved walk-up or if my Grandfather added the stairs.
I surveyed in Marin County half-time for a year.?ÿ The weather was beautiful and great scenery....?ÿ $20k budget for a lot survey and Record of Survey was typical.?ÿ Research component is usually at least a day.?ÿ Projects were never dull!
They apparently have always had decent financial resources there (bedroom/vacation community for SF) so super nice homes oftentimes built on sketchy hillsides but for some reason they are short on pipe monuments across the board.?ÿ Also filed maps are uncommon prior to 1965 or so
Although I could never afford to live there I wouldn't mind setting up shop
They have a lot of private records. Some may be in the public library now. It's a lot like the east coast. Mill Valley is in a little wedge of two sections between two Ranchos (Sausalito and Corte Madera), a lot of the newer part is in the Ranchos. Imagine rows of 50x100 lots shoehorned onto steep hillsides in the 1940s.
I did a boundary survey in Marin County for a guy whose beach house we rent now and then.?ÿ My first advice was to have one of the locals do it, but one didn't respond and the other wanted an outrageous fee.?ÿ I agreed to do it at my customary rates, but only after consulting with a local colleague regarding the adequacy of the public records, as I didn't want to have to deal with the private records problem that Dave mentioned.?ÿ I thus got paid to spend a gorgeous day on the coast and make my client happy at the same time.
The one boundary I did in Marin was a parcel map Lot. One of the corners was a redwood hub the parcel map surveyor found in the early 60s. So we get down there in the brush, stake it out and I'm sweeping the leaf litter away when my hand hits this weird root sticking up, clean some more OH that's the hub, still there. Those old growth hubs last longer than a rebar.
