August 22, 2007
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The Work Continues
We are busy working on our remodel. We are still in the "tearing down" stage which began the middle of June. The boys have been excavating under the dining room, kitchen, and their bedroom, getting it all ready to build forms for a foundation and stem wall. There never was a foundation under that part of the house and the stem wall was uneven (six inches in places, three in others). Last night, they were showing a friend what they have been doing and he was all excited about the project and is coming over today to help them. I guess it's a good teenage boy project. We are just about ready to begin the "putting it back together" stage which will be fun to experience!
It is necessary to dig a two-foot-wide trench around the dining room, kitchen, and the boys' bedroom so that we can put up forms to pour the footing and the stem wall.
Seth and Isaac are still smiling after days of digging! Titus has been working hard on the house too, but unfortunately I have no pictures of him at the moment. He is also still smiling!
Our cat, Tom, thinks it's a new adventure. He has been spending a lot of time under the house watching the boys dig and exploring all the nooks and crannies that a cat loves to explore under an old house.
This is what the boys have to crawl around in while digging out a three-foot-deep crawl space under the house so that we can get the forms built. It looks like a nasty job to me, but they seem to rather enjoy it.
This is all the dirt they have removed thus far from under and around the house! Just to give you an idea of how much dirt that is, the pickleball court is 32'x16' and the dirt is piled 3'deep. One of you out there can figure out how many yards of dirt that is, I'm sure!
The old stem wall wasn't sufficient or even well-poured to begin with, so the boys have had to knock it all off the house with sledge hammers and then put it into Jim's truck so that we can haul it to the construction dump. Man! Am I glad we have three hardworking boys!
The goal is to start building the forms tomorrow and to have the foundation and the stem wall completely poured and the forms removed by the end of next week. Then we can begin work on the roof! That will be a relief!
Comments (21)
Good post Mom!
Good pictures of the boys and of what us boys have done.
It is kind of fun doing this.
~Titus
WOW!! I had been wondering how it was going. That looks like some seriously hard work!
I've said it before: it makes my back hurt just looking at pictures of it! Good job, guys!
RYC: Color film - even color *movie* film - goes back further than a lot of people seem to think. Part of Lon Chaney's Silent classic, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", released in 1925, was filmed in Technicolor!
That photo was taken by my Great Aunt, just a few hours (according to Mom) before I was conceived.
I can't wait till the digging is done. Then the roof will probably go too fast.
I can't wait for it ALL to be done! I'm getting a little bit stressed about the whole project ... like maybe we should have started on it in April. But I know that when the foundation is done, it will be a huge load off of my mind, and I can get to the framing, which I love to do more than the concrete portion of it.
That's a lot of hard work. Good thing you have a bunch of boys there to help out. Make sure you don't close Thomas cat up in there. We have some cats who would love to cause any type of trouble they could during an operation like that!
Wow! That is a LOT of digging!
Wow! Pretty incredible! I think the picture that was taken under the house is pretty cool...
Miss you guys!
I thought you said I could comment without being a member?? Well, I couldn't and I had a nice comment all written, too
But now I'm out of time so I'll write more later. ( i had to set up a blog to comment this )
Do you have any pictures of your house with the shingles off? I asked Mom how it looks and she said, "well....................................pretty bad" lol That's like the house in S.W. after Tim, Sarie and Dad worked so hard on it ripping off sheet rock, tearing out cabinets, cutting out carpet, etc. and I walk in and say to three beaming, expectant faces ," WOW!!!!!!!!........ this place is a mess!" they didn't like that.
Gary could never do the under the house part. Good thing none of the guys are claustrophobic. working under there. Did you find any under wear under there? ha (old joke) I better go............
lol so mom was right?? I'll get a profile pic soon...
I kind of already had the babysitting job but I love to babysit. I love being around young kids. I hope that if I get married then I will have at least 5 children.
There's a lady at our church who was seven kids. My mom's friend used to say that she wanted 20 kids and then when she got married she stopped at three. Her kids are super sweet and really tall.
you know it is probably a good thing you have had a cooler than usual summer. That would be a winter job here even though as the joke goes...we only get one day of winter a year.
re: Aunt Mom / Garden: Thanks for your comments. I have to admit, though, that it did not originate with me. I just took a friends words and shaped them into something that would work for Aunt Mom.
Glad that you enjoyed it.
About your house - The picture of the underside of your house reminds me of the house that I grew up in. It was built on blocks, too. However, there was one wooden brace that went all the way to the ground. My parents couldn't figure out why they couldn't get rid of the termites, until Dad crawled under there and discovered this. Once he shortened the brace and put it in place on the block, the termite problem ceased.
What a blessing that your family is all working together on this project. I am afraid to say that if it were my crew, there would be more arguing than working. Well, when they were all still living at home. It would go better today, I think.
Wooow! It looks like it's coming along very nicely!!
Woops, this is Ashley. I'm on my sister's screen name.
HA!!! I'm looking forward to hearing how Seth does making those monkey rolls!
What a big project!
Yuppers
I wrote every word. =J Thx. 
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