One month down!!

I can't believe we have been working on our house for a full month already.  Time is flying by and we have made so much progress!  Over the past week the block layers finished laying block for the foundation walls for the new addition and garage.  Additionally, even though we thought we were pretty much done with demolition, we ended up taking all the walls out of the first floor bathroom, pulling up the hardwood floor in the first bedroom (we're keeping all the other existing hardwood) and created a hole in the back of the existing basement that will be the entrance into the basement of the new addition.

We also got a nice visit from some little helpers who loved all the bulldozers, or as they called them - diggers.

The Woltjen family came to visit and had so much fun on the digger.  Max said he would bring his hammer next time he visits to help us out on the construction!  We welcome volunteers of all ages.

Alex and Lindsay took up the existing hardwood in the first bedroom on the first floor.  Apparently they put these down when they built the house, but never exposed them.  They look practically brand new!  We salvaged as many of the planks as we could in this bedroom and are going to try to reuse them.  We will be keeping the rest of the existing hardwood floors.

All the hardwood they pulled up, the left pile is damaged pieces and the right is stuff we will try and use again, potentially for the first floor bathroom

When you come to visit you have a place to do your business

The truck delivering the concrete blocks, don't be fooled though, we still lugged plenty of those blocks into, out of, and around the hole

A good way to see the progression of the foundation walls for the addition and garage being built

The black posts are used to hold the house up, taking the weight off the concrete block wall so that we can punch a hole through it

Michael used a concrete saw to cut a line in the block wall on either end of the soon to be opening, you can just barely see the light coming through at the bottom

Michael and Ryan first breaking through the wall, the sledgehammer and power chisel were key tools in this effort

A shot from the outside, the slot on the top of the concrete block to the right of the vertical cut is where a beam will slide into to support the house

Ryan and Alex posing in the new hole between the existing basement and new addition

A shot of the hole with the first and second floors in view, the opening is about 8 feet wide

The first floor bathroom before and after we took out all the walls, not to mention the toilet, sink and everything else.  We were originally going to keep these walls, but we need to insulate the whole exterior of the house and this was the only place where we didn't have access to the walls.  Just another thing to rebuild...

Stay tuned for another update in a couple days with pictures of us installing a new beam above the hole we created in the basement wall and some pictures of Michael hauling a 34 foot beam on his truck!  We'll be in Seattle this weekend for our buddy John's wedding, so we'll probably get the blog updated Tuesday of next week.  Have a great weekend!

Plumbing - Trials and Tribulations

Our sewage line has had a difficult week to say the least.  After the plumbers came on Tuesday to install the PVC, it looked beautiful.  Ryan laid gravel on either side of the pipe the whole way to the street.  The plumbing inspector came on Wednesday and thought we had done a great job and gave us the OK to keep moving forward.  I never thought our sewage line would excite me, but after seeing it lie so nicely in our trench we hand dug ourselves, I became very attached to my new line.  Unfortunately, that changed very quickly.  Thursday morning we planned to back fill the trench with dirt, but our plans changed when we arrived at the house to see our beautiful PVC pipe floating on top of water.  The rain from the night before had filled up the hole in the back yard, flowed under the house into the basement trench, and then filled up in the lowest point, which happened to be the 10ft trench outside.  The pipe was capped, which caused it to act like a balloon and rise to the top.  This was the beginning of a very long day!

Steve brought his mini bulldozer to dig the 10ft trench to the street, we had to hide the keys from Michael!!

The sewage pipe was laid through the basement, along the old garage (shown here) and to the street

The pipe topped with gravel in the basement

Ryan and Lindsay admiring their hard work!

 our beautiful sewage line at the end of Tuesday!

Thursday morning at 8am....

It's too painful to write commentary, the pictures say it all

 

 

 

Once Steve, our builder, arrived it took about 4 hours to repair the damage.  Ryan shoveled out the mud and gravel (that was a pretty terrible job), we made sure the pipe once again had the correct slope, added new gravel, and topped it off with dirt.  It was a very painful process, but it wasn't the end of the world (I can say that now).  After the trench was back filled with gravel and dirt, we worked on getting the footers ready for the concrete to be poured on Friday.

Ryan's new buddy, a 5ft black snake!

The gravel shooter truck came and shot gravel in the back hole to prepare for the concrete to be poured

We went through two concrete trucks to complete the job

Ryan's working on leveling out the concrete in the footer for the addition

The concrete pump tubing was able to stretch the length of the house!

Steve, our builder, pumping concrete into the footer for the new garage

These are the controls the concrete pump operator used from his belt to control the whole operation!

Michael came home early from work to get in on the action

Ryan working on leveling the concrete for the footers in the 90 degree heat

The Never Ending Sewage Drain

We finished out last week by removing a closet in the attic and spending a lot of time digging out the main sewage drain in the garage and basement.  At first we thought the sewage drain wouldn't be that big of a deal, but we should have known better.  Ryan spent the better part of Wednesday through Friday breaking up concrete with the jack hammer and digging through 2-3 feet of gravel and clay to get down to the pipe, while Lindsay, Alex and Sherry pitched in on Friday to help Ryan finish off the hole. 

Michael, Ryan's dad, also put in a bunch of work this weekend (thanks Dad!) to get everything ready for the plumber to replace the sewage drain on Tuesday/Wednesday.  Hopefully everything goes smoothly!

 Lindsay using her third favorite tool the sawzall, look at that concentration!

They've grown so close so quickly

Lindsay hammering out a board while Alex supervises from above

Do you think there are enough nails in this board?  Another example of Ryan's grandpa Chuck taking that extra step to make sure the house would withstand a hurricane.

The hole for the sewage pipe in the basement.  Sherry and Alex are working hard!

The sewage drain going outside - through the old garage and driveway and into the street.  Luckily the backhoe will be taking care of the trench through the driveway and into the street.

The ladies working hard on the ditch

The pile of dirt in our basement gives you an idea of how much we've been digging, let's hope that disappears soon

Week 2 & 3 - Excavation and continued demolition....

These past couple weeks have been a little crazy!  The excavator, Sean, has been at the house with his giant bulldozer digging up our new property.  It has been an exciting, yet overwhelming second week.  Sean dug a 13ft by 30ft hole that goes about 12ft down in to our back yard for our basement and addition.  After a couple days of rain, it is now a swimming pool.  He also ripped the roof off the side porch, the concrete slab on top of the garage and the driveway because we are putting in a new sewage line and regrading the driveway.   Sean is also working on removing the 3 tree stumps in the front yard.

As for the three of us, we have been working hard on the demolition inside the house.  We tore down all of the plaster on the walls and the ceilings.  I thought the plaster would never go away!  I have been having nightmares that more plaster appears the next day.  We also tore up the plywood subfloor in what was the kitchen.  This task was by far the most difficult task so far.  The plywood was held in with screw-nails, or as we called them "Scrails."  It took all three of us 7 hours to completely remove the floor.  It was a long day of scrail removal!!   So, as you can tell by the pictures, the first floor of our house is completely gutted.

Lastly, Ryan, Michael, and our brother-in-law, Mike, started tearing up the concrete in the basement and old garage because we are replacing the old terracotta sewage pipe.   

Ryan hanging from the kitchen ceiling

Throwing plaster and old trim away

All those trash cans are full of heavy plaster, plus there is a pile of plaster on the ground behind the cans you can't really see...and it's 95 degrees outside...not fun.  One dump truck full was more than 5 tons of plaster; and we filled at least 4 dump trucks...

Ryan's dad Michael using his favorite tool, the grinder

Ryan's mom Sherry helping us take down plaster, it got so hot we put ice into hankerchiefs and put them around our necks...worked pretty well actually!

The start of the hole for the addition

More digging

The new view from the back door, a 12 foot drop

 

Where our new addition will be

A collage of the porch roof being taken off, literally took about 30 seconds

A little brick damage on the front, which we'll fix up later

Sean the excavator made quick work of what used to be a dog pen in the back yard

 

Ryan and Alex ripping out the last of the insulation between the first and second floor; thank the lord.  Ripping out insulation is by far Ryan's least favorite job so far.  Happy to be done with 3 straight days of cold showers to keep the fiber glass out of my pores.

 

We need 2 dump trucks to haul away all the dirt and concrete!!

We took the weekend off to travel to Mobile, AL to attend the wedding of our friends Travis and Kate.  The wedding was a great time and we are really happy for the newly married couple, who are currently honeymooning in Jamaica!

 Back to work first thing Monday morning, here's Sean taking out one of the huge stumps in the front yard

After weekend rains, the hole in the backyard turned into a swimming pool

Our brother in law Mike helped out over the weekend while we were gone and also hung around to help out on Monday.  Thanks Mike!

The concrete slab that was the porch floor being torn off

The bulldozer made easy work of it

After removing all the plaster from inside, we cleaned the place up to cut down on dust.  Here I am using my grandma Helen's old vacuum cleaner.  It worked surprising well considering I was vacuuming up chunks of plaster and nails.

 

 Looks a little different without any plaster

Ryan operating the concrete saw and Michael and Mike in the background with the jack hammer

Michael using the jackhammer. As mentioned above, we're tearing out the old terra cotta sewer drain and replacing it with PVC pipes

Ryan and Alex removing about 56,000 scrails from the kitchen sub floor.  If that wasn't enough, there were also screws hidden about an 1/8 of an inch below the surface which we had to find, dig out, and unscrew before we could take up the plywood.

Lindsay and Alex took down the wall between two bedrooms on the first floor

Michael playing around with his backhoe attachment for his tractor.  He was having way to much fun to call this work!

Stump #2 coming out

We arrived Wednesday morning at about 8:30 to find out that Sean the excavator had made quick work of the driveway.  He also commented that it was the thickest driveway he's every seen; just another piece of evidence proving that my grandpa Chuck didn't do things half assed!  (I plan on dedicating an entire future post to the various things we've found in the house that support this already well known fact)

Our house as of Wednesday, July 14th.  Major accomplishments so far:  1) Plaster removed from entire house, 2) Insulation removed from floor between first and second floor, 3) Porch removed, 4) Hole for addition dug, 5) Footers for new garage dug, 6) Trees removed from front yard (1 stump still remaing), 7) Sewer pipe exposed (ongoing), 8) Driveway concrete removed