So here I am in early September, still working on the foundation. There have been a few other setbacks... mostly helping someone look for work and dealing with some small things that came up around the house but now I'm back at it when ever I can. At this point, to put up the second beam I need to pour the last footing, build one pier and then put the beam together. Not bad. But for the 3rd beam, all I've done is measure and mark where it should go. That's a nice way of saying, I still have a lot of work yet to go and it's hot outside (and under the house). I'll consider myself lucky if I'm finished with this stuff by the end of the month.
Once all that is done I'll enlist the help of a designer to help us figure out the kitchen layout, and bounce a couple of ideas off of them about the entry area and living room. Once I have a better idea of what the end result is supposed to be I'll be able to really get to work and move a lot faster. It'll also make this site loads more interesting.
To make up for the lack of updates, here's a bit of what I've been up to...
Your day is never going well when you look up and see this in a bedroom. I finally repaired the stained and low area where the ac drain leaked all over everything.
30 minutes later it looked like this. Not a bad way to end the evening, but only a couple of days before someone was coming over to visit and they needed to stay in that room.
This is the texture I had to match. I think it was added around 1970... it's present in some rooms and not in others, and sometimes on the ceiling. Everything came out ok.
And of course a few days later the other air conditioner decided to leak all over the place. This time I knew what was happening and took care of everything before there was permanent damage to the ceiling in the living room.
Back to the foundation... this is what it looks like heading in. Bug killer is a must... just in case.
I like seeing these. This is a completed hole for a footing, ready for concrete and rebar. Each hole is 2 feet wide/long and a little over a foot deep.
This is where the next beam is going - under the main bedroom. There really isn't anything interesting in this area aside from a couple of pipes that will need to move a bit to allow for the beam. For some reason there was 30 cents down there, and a piece of the original bathroom tile from the old main bedroom. Whatever.
This is looking into the nothingness below the original part of the house. I can really see over there what the insulation did to the subfloor over the years. Hanging fiberglass insulation below the floor might have been good for energy savings, but it was terrible for the wood the house is made of.. In a humid area like it is here it really should be banned in favor of a conditioned crawl, no insulation down there at all or an extreme amount of ventilation to keep the area dry. Every new house, and older one in the area where insulation was retrofit like this will run into the same problem. In the older areas I can see where moisture caused the plywood to delaminate. Good thing I was already planning on replacing the subfloor throughout the house, I guess.
