The Mud Room

It is Tuesday, May third, in China as I write this blog entry. This afternoon I will teach the third lesson in my series in the book of Ruth. That will leave three more lessons and then a big cultural change comes for me. I am living in the Chinese culture and teaching from the ancient Jewish culture and will soon travel back to the western culture. Culture is important in many ways, but that is not the topic of this blog entry; a Mud Room is.

When I got up this morning I checked my iPhone to see if my home church had posted Sunday’s sermon yet and found that they hadn’t. I am anxious to listen to it because it was delivered by the person the church is calling to be our next pastor. I was a bit disappointed in their slowness so I turned to my emails for the latest information from who know who and found a note and four pictures from my brother-in-law, which is what this blog entry is about.

This has been a very busy and a very special time for me in China, but on the side I have been trying to stay on top of a project I am involved in back in Western New York. I need to have site preparations completed by the first of June so that I can start construction when I arrive. So far trees have been cut down, a sand box and a deck removed as reported in past blog entries. They have also removed old sidewalks, pavers and a fireplace. One more thing to get rid of was the back entry or Mud Room.

The first picture, shown below, is the last picture taken of it attached to the old house.

The new addition I designed for my nephew, Jon, is to be attached to the house where the mud room is. Currently you enter from the mud room into their kitchen, which will become a new dining room when the new addition is complete.

Jon removed the drywall and insulation from the inside. The north door is gone and the windows will be next. I find it interesting to sit back and see how a homeowner approaches things. I first saw this when the trees were cut down before moving the sand box they would fall on. But what caused me to sit back and say, “Now that was a different approach.” was the next picture.

A note from my brother-in-law explains:

On Saturday afternoon, April 30, I went over to Jon's house

to help him remove the Mud Room from the back of the house.

He took out the windows, disconnected the wiring, then made

a cut over the roof and down the sides about 16" out from the

back of the house, so as to leave a small overhang.

Then we pushed it over. As it went, Jon turned to his dad and

said, "I sure hope nothing happens to Uncle Steve before this

summer. We are committed now."

My approach would have been to reverse the original building process and take it down piece by piece, but Jon’s approach was direct and fast. The first step was to get it off the house as fast as possible, smash it up and haul it away. The second step is to remove the 16 inch projection left behind. With a door on one end and a window on the other, there wasn’t much left to cut to make the separation. Good plan don’t you think?

The last picture shows that one last tree was cut down after the sandbox was removed and the car and truck eagerly waiting for the garage to be built for them. The next step is to finish removing the mud room, remove the siding from the back of the house from the set of windows to the right and expose the framing at a certain spot and report to me how it was constructed. The old house has the old barn style framing using a timber frame. I need to know how a certain point comes together so I can finish a pier design to hold up a section of the house while we remove a large section of old basement wall. A later blog entry will show the construction of this pier. I am asking Jon and my brother to build this so it will be cured before I get there to have the basement dug.