Tackling the living room structure

This is Mike posting.

Now that the crawlspace is dug out to 24-28 inches, it is actually a pleasure to work down there. The encapsulation is scheduled for the 22nd of November, so I don't have much time to finish the structural work before they come back. My main focus right now is stiffening and levelling the living room floor. The floor joists are older 2x6s (actually 2 in by 5 3/4 in), 24 in on center, and in one area spanning almost 11 feet ...... too small by today's standards. My intent is to cut this span in half, literally, by cutting a gap in the joists wide enough to accept a girder made up from 3 - 2x8s laminated together. One one end the girder will be attached to a new column installed by the crawspace contractor, and at the other end it will rest on top of the steel i-beam that runs roughly down the middle, front to back, of the original cottage.

I spent a number of hours on Friday screwing down the plank subflooring to the floor joists to help matters for that short period of time when the joists are cut. I got as far as I can get towards the fireplace. Now the L-shaped base cabinets flanking the fireplace are in the way. They need to come out, or at least the 300+ lb aquarium needs to be relocated to take as much load off the floor as possible. Tracey told me the other day that she has no attachment to them. The frames were built out of construction lumber and they were covered with tongue and groove boards. The best part?......... They were built on top of carpet! The level of laziness and short cuts taken in this place never ceases to amaze me.

Anyways, removing them will make the living room feel larger, allow me to properly stiffen and level the entire living room floor, and what's more I think we've solved where to put the tree at Christmas .

Saturday I picked up the material to build the girder, and finished the rebuild of the sill plate and rim joint at the front of the house..... all built out of pressure treated wood this time. I'll reinstall the siding when the windows and door at the front of the house are replaced or when I decide that the weather has degraded to the point where the windows and doors will have to be installed next year.

Today being my 45th birthday, I took it easy....... installed new drawer pulls on the upstairs bathroom cabinet following Tracey's painting job, and moved the aquarium off of one of living room base cabinets scheduled for removal up to Ran and Maia's bedroom. That took hours; emptying most of the water to allow Tracey and I to carry it upstairs, refilling and reconnecting everything. Finally done. By the way I solved the mystery of what happened to the missing goldfish. Gabriella wasn't eaten by her tank mates. She managed to find her way into the skull at the bottom of the tank, and passed away there. She's in the Kincardine Sewage Treatment Plant now.

I'm tired. I need to go back to work for a rest. Tomorrow it's back to work for a week of days. No lottery win yet.

remember I mentioned something about a hole ...

This is what the work crew discovered as they excavated our crawl space.

This is the side of our house now.

The mason has poured the footing for the new foundation wall, but the work has been delayed. A plumber had to come in to move a crazy tangled mess of pipes. And for some odd reason all of the drain lines run on the outside of the house (though nothing surprises us anymore). The plumber will be moving some of them in the morning.

And before you worry about the safety of our kids and pets there is a temporary beam that is jacked up and supporting the house until the new foundation blocks can be installed. We can sleep easy tonight ... except of course for the worry that some wildlife might find the gaping hole in the side of our foundation an irresistible invitation to come on in and make themselves at home (I'm thinking the plumber wouldn't be appreciative of a skunk shower first thing in the morning).

The Big Dig ...

I knew it had been a while since I posted. I just didn't realize it had been a month! It's probably because there hasn't been a lot going on.

We had a crew here a few weeks ago, but then they got called to another job and work came to a screeching halt. However, I am happy to say the boys are back and they brought friends and things are now humming along nicely.

So what's up? Well, for the last two days we have had five brave souls (six yesterday) worming around under our house in the crawl space. I should clarify I am using the term loosely. I'm not sure if it can really be defined as a crawl space if you can't actually crawl around.

As mentioned previously the crooked cottage sits on a block foundation with a dirt floor underneath. Unfortunately whoever did the foundation decided just to back fill it with whatever they had excavated in the first place. Very lazy. Not very smart. This made it almost impossible for anyone to get under the building to do any repair work (which is very necessary).

Enter our boys. Or rather I should say Advanced Basement System's boys. So far they have been great. They have been digging out our crawl space literally bucket by bucket in order to create a workable area. They have been building forms and pouring foundations and later in the week will be installing jack posts to lift back up those areas of our house that are lacking in support.

Perhaps most importantly they are preparing a footing so a mason can come and install a six foot length of the foundation wall that appears to be missing. That's right, when they starting their dig a few weeks ago they discovered that there is actually an appreciable length of foundation that just doesn't exist. Coincidentally this is in the area of the cottage with the biggest sag.

Needless to say this is very exciting. By the end of the week our cottage will not only be structurally sound, but with the floors and walls being made less crooked we can start all the fun, aesthetic parts of the reno like new windows, new floors ...

While digging the crew also found a few other things of interest, though not quite as disturbing as the lack of foundation (unless you're like my sister and insist that there is a body under here somewhere to go with the shoes ...)

What lies beneath ...

That's four shoes, one teeny tiny doll shoe, three pieces of pottery (all from the same, very old tea cup) and a bottle.

Amongst the TONS of beach rock (which we are reclaiming for landscaping) there have also been some funky fossils. This rock, though hard to tell in the picture, looks like it might be the remains of some birds. There are what appear to be dozens of small bones and a skull (in the upper right corner).