Over to the left in the first picture you can see where the laundry room and new pantry have been framed out already (courtesy of Bruce and Jason).
The main goal of the hired hands was to remove all the less than appealing cement brick from the exterior and remove a portion of the roof over the garage where we had to have the front corner of the foundation cut out and re-poured since it had cracked and was sitting lower than where it belonged. They also took out the back patio and sidewalk in the front as well as the portion of driveway where we were extending the garage. Here is the aftermath:
Getting rid of the mess was another ordeal. You'd be surprised how expensive it can be to have someone haul off trash! Combined with the demo we did ourselves, and the framing, roof and other material torn out later lets just say we were frequent visitors to the landfill! We did have some of it hauled off at one point and later on had a huge dumpster delivered to our house, which we filled at least twice!
After the initial demolition was complete, our next group of contractors came in to pour the foundation. We hired one contractor for this stage (different from the guy who did demo and framing). This gentleman, Lowell, actually engineered the foundation and drew up the plans. Apparently, when you have one person engineer a foundation and give the plans to someone else to build it, neither party will give you any sort of guarantee or warranty. The only way to cover yourself is to have the engineer build it, so that's what we did!
They had several crews come in. The first group did the dirt work, which seemed to take a long time. Lowell himself got out there with a skid steer and moved some of the dirt himself! While they did the dirt work they also prepped the section we had cut out so it would be ready to pour when the first cement trucks came out. Here are some pictures of the results:
This is the soon-to-be-repaired section
The dirt shows where the addition is going!
As you can probably tell from the second picture, the addition contributes significant square footage to the house! We actually put in two additions. The one in the back is a Master Suite, since the original master bedroom was tiny, and the master bath was converted to a Jack and Jill which is now shared with another bedroom. The second is a garage addition. We added nine feet to the front of the garage, since we borrowed the back portion to enlarge the kitchen, as well as a third bay.
Another issue we dealt with is that the house had a septic system at one point, and the tanks happened to be located where the addition would be going. In order to preserve the integrity of the new foundation, they had to be filled in with cement before the slab was poured over them.
Now, we knew there was one tank because Bruce had been dumping left over cement, mortar, dirt, and other such construction waste products as he had worked on the house. However, Lowell discovered the second tank while moving dirt around trying to figure out how big the first one was and if it needed anything added to it. Turns out Bruce did a pretty good job filling it to where it wasn't going to cause any issues, but the second tank had to be filled with cement. The first cement delivery was only one truckload, and it was enough to fill the tank and re-pour the section of garage in front.
Here is the second septic tank...
And here it is filled with cement!
New section of garage floor!
All this happened over a few very exciting days! Bruce was out of town for work, so it was my job to oversee all the workers and communicate to Bruce what was going on. He had a few stressful moments while trying to figure out something I was trying to explain to him or trying to figure out what the pictures I sent him were actually showing. I had to learn to take pictures at a distance and then close up, so he could get the big picture and the details. I finally had to start uploading them on photobucket because I couldn't text them fast enough! I would text him a picture, and he would call to ask something about it while I was in the process of texting him a second one! I learned how to take more descriptive pictures and he learned to wait until they ALL uploaded before getting stressed out!
But seriously, imagine having people at your house tearing it apart and doing very expensive, difficult-to-reverse work while you are in another state! He did very well with it all, and I like to think I made it easier on him with the incessant pictures! The funny thing is that while writing this entry, I found myself wishing I had taken even more!
I will post in another week or so with more of the foundation process. I found this stage very fun to watch, and so did my next door neighbors and their girls! Actually, that would be most of the neighborhood! Everyone was very interested in what was going on all summer and no one complained about the noise!
My next blog, however, will be a book review. I am reading an excellent book about a family's journey to serve God in Kenya. I'll try to save the recap for the actual review but I will say I have a hard time setting the book down! It is very cleverly written and makes we want to laugh out loud at one page and cry at the next! The author will be in Grapevine next Monday for a book signing and I really want to go! Hint hint - a book has to be pretty darn good if I want to meet the author!
Until then, enjoy your week everyone!
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