Mostly broken

Cold and Dark, Like My Life

Crawl spaces. If you own a home, you better be down for some crawl space action. Initially, I was terrified of mine. So full of dirt, rabbits, issues so large I could have never fathomed, and spiders. SO MANY SPIDERS. By now, I'm a crawl space master. Need a new water line? Got some ducts leaking? I will totally jump in your crawl space. (yeah you can take that as you please)

Got bored, removed wall

Every bucket of dirt removed from the creepy void under my home got me closer to realizing how much work I had left. Miserable, awful work. 126 years of old cobbled bullshit lay ahead of me. And I'm the idiot that tried to fix it.


The entire foundation on the north side of my home is shimmed with wood and some handfuls of mortar. Some blocks were broken in half to allow the old ducts to go in. The north side wall was a total loss partially due to the kitchen sink drain that went to an old cistern in my front yard. And the middle foundation, that's a fucking masterpiece of bullshit.

This supports the main load bearing wall in the home. What. The. Hell.

Any normal person that had any love for themselves would have covered that disaster back up and left it for the next poor sucker. But not me. I hate myself. So lets gather a game plan.

Leveling/supporting the remaining floor

How to replace your foundation:
-tear out all of your flooring
-rip out the floor joists
-build a header as long as your house
-pour concrete footings in your crawl space
-support your remaining home with header
-build another header
-pour more footings
-support your ceiling
-rip out the load bearing wall
-tear out foundation
-replace foundation
-new joists
-new floor
-new wall
-remove headers

Should Have Built A New House

I will never see houses the same again. I have trust issues because of this endeavor. Perhaps it's the underlying issues, but I'll blame the house. Enough talking. Lets get some photos.

When your floor joists are made of 2X4s, they're gonna break

Dont have a foundation? Rotten 1X6 should hold it.

This is the result of home construction while blind

This was actually really cool. Total bullshit. But it looked cool. 

Like I mentioned, remove the floor joists

This part was terrifying. My home, obliterated.

Respect The Trades

Genuinely, I make this stuff up as I go. I have a respectable layer of base skill, a strong ability to read, and I'm pretty decent with google. Sometimes I go to menards and stare at things until they make sense. Sometimes I buy three of the same things because I know I'm going to do it wrong the first two times. Sometimes my work is marginally impressive. Sometimes I'm glad trim exists.

Proof I can provide a solid foundation

Laying block is stupid. It sucks. They're heavy, and dry, and rough, and mortar is dumb. I messed up, I did it over, I cussed a lot, and I gave up for a few months. People do this all day, every day. And they're good at it. Respect them. It sucks.

After too many delays and excuses, I finally get everything straight, square, flat, level, and pretty in its own right.

Time for floor joists. ahhh.

That's a lot of wood

I put the middle foundation in at the perfect height that the new joists could go in and sister to the remaining joists to level up the sagging the was going on. This worked very well. With a few small hangups, this step was done in an afternoon.

Floors

Yeah, I just left it like this for 4 months. I don't know why. The floor went down in two days. I do know why, actually. But let's keep it simple and say I don't.

My dog was not a fan of this setup

Next I added some plywood(no OSB, hate that stuff). I had to build around the supports that go to the ceiling for now. Once I had enough flooring in, I could build the new wall. After the wall is in to take the weight of the house, I could remove the support. So here it is, a month or so of work in one picture.

Look at that! Nice even floors, proper framed walls, and drywall. 

The only house in broadlands with cat6 in the walls

Really Good At Things

Except drywall and relationships.

Remember when I said to respect those trade? Yes. Remember when I said I just make this stuff up? Yes. When it's finally come to a place where even my best efforts are of no use. I tried. Genuine effort. Mess up a little, learn a lesson, get frustrated...I mean I really wanted a smooth wall. So now, I have a mostly smooth wall that fits tight in all the corners and is ready for some paint!