With a little over 5 weeks until my brother arrives, I decided it was time to expand the house to make room for him. I have spent about 4 months preparing, planning, meeting with contractors, and put in some good old fashion elbow grease. In the last few months, I have removed a tree in our front yard that was blocking our future front door, upgraded our electric system with a larger box and service, re-routed the electric to the other side of the house away from the construction, dug a trench in the front yard and down the side to re-route the gas line away from the construction, trenched through the back yard to run a water line to the back of the garage and a cable line to daddys garage tv, built a new closet in momma's and dadda's room, stripped out the wall between momma's old closet and dadda's closet (this will now be a new door way that will turn dadda's closet into my new laundry room), and run all over the city selecting doors and windows, moved landscaping to new homes in the back yard, ETC ETC ETC.
The builder who is building our shell started the job on Monday. We started off slow as he was doing carefull planning. We only want to dig the foundation once. It is very important that we get it in the right place!!!!! But as of today (wed) we have really got into it! We now have a trench for a footer dug and ready for concrete in the morning!!! WHOO HOOOOO!!!!!!!!
This is not my new soccer field.. . . . . . .
Here are 2 new flower beds that I built along the back yard fence. These started as a temporary area to store the landscaping from the front and side of the house. However, after I started moving them, I loved what they added to the back yard and decded to make them a permanent addition!
This is not my new soccer field.. . . . . . .
Where is my shovel?
We did run into a interesting surprise. When the house was built 100 years ago, there were no codes. Modern techniques were not necesarily used. Usually, houses like this were built with no footers under the foundation. They literally dug a trench and started building. In this particular house, they did not even have a level trench to start building in. So when we removed the dirt from the front corner, we actually dug under it completely! It was certainly not what we expected! In the end its not a terrible problem. The new foundation will actually be poured under the old house and will add strength where it had none. In the middle of the house it was as expected and was at least 12 inches or more lower than the corner! We were able to use a traditional attachment at this joint.
We did run into a interesting surprise. When the house was built 100 years ago, there were no codes. Modern techniques were not necesarily used. Usually, houses like this were built with no footers under the foundation. They literally dug a trench and started building. In this particular house, they did not even have a level trench to start building in. So when we removed the dirt from the front corner, we actually dug under it completely! It was certainly not what we expected! In the end its not a terrible problem. The new foundation will actually be poured under the old house and will add strength where it had none. In the middle of the house it was as expected and was at least 12 inches or more lower than the corner! We were able to use a traditional attachment at this joint.
What is really remarkable is that when we measured for level on the existing floor joists, after 100+ years, we were still exactly level!
MORE TO COME!!!!!!!
MORE TO COME!!!!!!!
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