Foundation!

WFI- Waiting for Inspectors

We are back to waiting-for-inspector mode. In order to move ahead with the foundation and then the framing, the city has to sign off that the foundation is not going to come crumbling down around us in the future. Our previous foundation managed to last 120+ years (sort of) before producing a very noticeable slant where our fridge used to be. On the fridge note we need to make a final visit to Caplan's to pick out our appliances. What a wonderful store!

And the foundation is going in. Concrete blocks are not exactly exciting photos, I will be more enthused when the framing starts, well and when the kitchen is DONE.

Footings

The large pile of sand that appeared yesterday is currently being put to good use as our footings are being laid today.

Waiting for Inspection

Not much happening these days- an inspector had to drop by to okay how the foundation will proceed. These things get interesting when you are dealing with 100 year old "foundations" if they can be called that. Given that the house is still standing they must have done something right once upon a time, I wonder if the same could be said of todays foundations and whether they will last 100+ years.
Things should start up again tomorrow as long as the weather holds as the inspector gave the go ahead.

Excavation

Day 4... revealing what lies beneath

This is the interesting portion of the demo- the scariness that lies beneath the walls/gaping holes of the common wall. This neatly explains why we could hear the neighbours so easily. Insulation would appear to have been optional in the various renos. Well unless you count newspaper...the chimney might be a problem, we were hoping to remove it completely. But I rely on our very able contractors advice on that one!

Day 3 May 7 2008

It has begun.... No going back.

All of a sudden I am feeling nervous. Did you take a look a the pictures posted earlier. It looks pretty 'old'. The side boards look like the original boards used when the house was built in the 1880's. They are a full 12 X 2 inches. They don't make boards like that anymore.

Also, it looked like there was blown-in insulation in the walls. One good thing, there didn't seem to be any water damage, although it looked like the roof had leaked at one point.

Not bad for a day's worth of work.

F1fan

Day 1 May 5 2008 Photos

House all packed up

T-3 Days and counting...

The house is almost packed… we’re about 80% done. I really thought that the packing was going to go much faster. I spent all day packing the yard, kitchen and dining room stuff in the basement. Luckily the boxes were packed for me.

What I have left is to move the fridge into the living room (don’t know where I am going to put it…)

I will post some more before-reno pictures this weekend.

Oh. By the way, did I mention that we will be moving out for 4 - 6 weeks. We found a really nice (read expensive) condo right down town.

F1Fan