Crawl Space Calamity

  After the wall collapse, we had to move everything to the other side of the basement and it's been a slow process cleaning everything up. We had to prep the water pipes to make sure they don't freeze this year. In order to get to the crawl space things had to be cleaned up. Kevin did a lot of grunt work on this one.

This is the furnace intake. It also shows the waterline of what had flooded into the basement.

Three buckets of dirt dumped from the basement.

standing water still in the weight case

 CLEAN! The pink insulation is going into the crawl space.

 Crawl Space entrance. It's a tight fit!

Ready to work

Step 1: Spray Foam

Step 2: Pink Insulation

Not the easiest to maneuver with the insulation in the hole 

Step 3: Wrap the pipes with heat tape and insulation

Out of the Hole

Step On Up

After changing the door we had a big hole under it and that didn't help keep water from seeping to the basement.

 These are the old steps. They were falling apart and easily thrown around, which probably didn't help them stay together.

 Some left over plywood was a great source for filling the underside.

 Base one

 Step one done

 Base two

 Step Two Done

 These new steps are MUCH heavier than the old ones so they aren't going to be tossed around at all.

 It's going to take some getting used to not having to step up into the house. The gap used to be about six inches and now it's less than half an inch.

 LOOK! GUTTER! YAY!

Kevin worked really hard and managed to level out and clear the other side of the house.

 Bird feeders in front of the windows so the cats can watch the birds.

 Made use of that round cistern cover that we had found in the yard and made it a base for the birdbath. Covered it with the remaining rocks, but it's there.

Our house hates us...

In another round of: What Surprises Lie Ahead... It was finally time to tackle the front door. Kevin was hard at work taking out the old one early this morning before I got outside. A note about the old front door: the bottom fell out of it while we were moving in 2 years ago. It let a lot of water in because of that.

Another case of layering...

gaps and insulation

 Some may remember we bought this gorgeous door in one of our first shopping binges. We had been sitting in the aisle discussing door swings and figured out what was needed. We bought a right swing door and they were to pull it and have it in the lumber yard for us to pick up with a ton of other stuff. We put it on the porch and left it. We should have paid closer attention because they pulled a left swing door. *sigh* that just wouldn't do. So an unexpected trip to Menard's this morning put this project off by an hour or so.

Random Cardinal because I'm easily distracted.

Not the same door as the one we had bought, but a pretty one nonetheless

Extra Storage

To combat the crappy basement for means of storage we decided to put up a 10x12 shed.

start of base

extra support beams

our new dance floor

So there is a big gap in the construction photos from base to finish because I wasn't present for the afternoon that the sides and roof went up.

Interior

Exterior

Landscaping

So we had an oops. The sandstone foundation that was nicely disguised by a wall got a hole in it and water built up behind it and pushed the wall until it caved.

Boom!

Behind the wall was more plaster and lath then sandstone

We also got rid of ALL the concrete from the patio out of the yard and made the city haul it away. (This took about 3 piles of the size pictured below, missed the first one)

 

Back to the basement solution. After digging down, filling the hole with concrete, the side of the house was leveled out with an embankment to get water away. With the help of a plate compactor the side of the house was evened out and an Alliant Energy guy even told us how high we could go without having to have the meter moved.

 Then comes the layering! First the black plastic:

 Then the white.

And finally lots and lots of rocks. We bought these rocks almost a year ago and finally get to use them!

Our lilac bush FINALLY has a home outside its pot ^_^