Well, At Least it's Better Than it Was

In all likelihood, I'm going to be putting way more photos in this post than will be interesting to look at. But how can I communicate the magnitude of what it's been like to pour footings and foundations under these walls? The process took us weeks. I mean, once we had the entire floor dug down to where we wanted it, we then had to take one unsupported wall at a time, dig a trench under the wall deep enough and wide enough to pour first a footing and then a foundation. And those things took so many steps - the building of the forms, cutting and placing rebar, mixing and pouring the concrete - a new adventure for me that I'm not sure I need to repeat ever again. Ok I take that back. It was kind of thrilling to see the work we did. I know it isn't perfect - there are many things Troy feels could have been done better, but when you look at where we started, it's such a vast improvement that we are just happy. And actually, we've decided that the theme of this construction project is "Well, at least it's better than it was."

To prove it, here's a photo of part of the "foundation" that we removed:

So comforting to know that those crumbling toothpicks were what the back of our house was resting on. 

We, once again, put our good old minivan Jarvis to the test, and he did not disappoint. We have made several trips for lumber that had to slide in all the way up to the windshield. 

 

We renamed the corner of the room behind the door "Rachel's Corner of Tears." Getting that all dug out and trenched as well as the other areas was about 50 times as hard, and if you look carefully at the photos you'll see how I came to feel about this special corner. 

So getting that horrid area fitted with all the concrete it needed was especially happy.

 

Troy and I got a lot of laughs as we stood UNDERNEATH the window that is normally about waist-high.

I'm so happy to report that our footings and foundations are all in, the old studs are supported with bottom plates, shims, with screws and epoxy connecting the plates to the concrete. It's so satisfying to look at, if you can see anything around our massive collection of tools and spare bits of wood and piles of screws.