August 2015 – nicole.groudasfamily.com

Jacking up the house

We had a very productive weekend. We got 2 beams (doubled LVLs) installed with jacks – the real posts are on order so we are waiting for those. In the mean time we were able to start jacking up the original beam and our 2 new beams. We can’t just jack up all the sag at once, just a little at a time so most nights this week we’ll go to the house and lift it a bit each time. We anticipate lots of cracks in the sheetrock and popped tiles but that’s a good sign and all repairable down the road!

A view of most of the beams – we have one more to install on the other side of the stairs but this is a great start.

The far beam was a ton of work – we couldn’t have done it without using dad’s sheetrock lift – that was his great idea!

We also got our couch out of storage and now have a place to rest in the livingroom!

A productive weekend for sure. Next weekend is camping!!! Can’t wait and hoping for continued good weather.

Footings done

Last weekend Ryan finished up the footings Friday night and Sunday morning.

They look great! We had trouble finding the right size adjustable posts and actually had to order them off of amazon of all places for building materials! We spent our day off (Monday) making some brackets to support the beams and starting to put the first one up. This is going to be a lot of work with Ryan doing it mostly by himself this weekend while I watch the kids. Hopefully we can get the beams up and start jacking them up (we need to raise the house quite a bit in some places so it can’t all be done at once.

Once this project is done we can start working upstairs … after labor day since we plan on camping again this year!

Footings

The first full project we have to do at the new house is some structural work – adding some new supports in the basement to take the wave out of the floors, there just isn’t enough support down there currently.

Ryan started digging (jack hammer) the holes for new footings for some new posts we’ll add in. This past weekend he got 4 holes done, 1 more to go then he’ll pour the footings.

Ryan is hoping to do the last hole some night this week. It sure is a hot and humid week! We have a 4 day weekend coming up – lots of house work planned!

Basement Project

Ryan took Friday off last week and we spent the day at the lake house. I had the girls so didn’t do much myself but he got the insulation all removed from the basement ceiling!

On Sunday I did the final basement cleanup (sweeping and bagging up the tiny things – mostly mouse poop) and vacuuming. The basement is ready for the next step next weekend!

On Saturday Alex went up to camp with her grandparents so we had just Bella which meant I had some time to help out a bit when she napped. I got the tack pieces and trim out of the back room downstairs and Ryan and I started taking up the particle board in that room – upstairs we plan to leave it but in this room it was gross and had to come up – it’s not an easy project! We got about 1/2 done.

Ryan also got some trim removed upstairs (no pictures due to lighting). On Sunday we went around and removed all the window trim that we needed to so we could take measurements and get windows ordered. We didn’t plan to order this early but we already picked out the kind we want (Anderson 400) and they are having a 10% off sale this week so we decided to put the order in and we’ll have them when we need them. Always good to save some money.

Renovations

Evenings and weekend work has continued at the new house, we have a dumpster now so it’s a bit easier to cart everything out. All the doors have been removed, all carpet except for a few stair treads has been removed. 2 walls have been removed in the bedrooms where the dormers will go.

Master bedroom – dormer and closets will go here.

Downstairs smaller room – carpet removed

Downstairs larger room carpet removed and evidently we’ll be removing this particle board stuff too!

Staircase – carpet removed from most of it.

Last weekend was busy as we had a family pig roast to attend out west and then we spent sunday with family and out buying a boat (lots of driving!). Next weekend we should have our new (to us) boat and we’ll also be spending the night at the new house, and a 3 day work weekend on the house. The basement work will get started next!