Reconstruction!

As most of you know, we have been very busy fixing our home lately. This has kept us very busy so I don't have any beautiful photographs to share with you at the moment. All I have is a bunch of construction pictures!

Here are some pictures of what we have done so far. We started in mid-November and will continue until we are finished. There is still a lot to do in the coming months and I will be glad when it is all done! There are so many pictures I chose to make them small. If you want to see the details in any of them just click on the image and the large version should display for you.

It all started with replacing the door in our bedroom. This first project was a quick one. Our old door was warped and would let bugs and water in the house. Hopefully, we won't have any problems with it anymore!

The old door:


The new door:


We have known there was something going on in the house over the past 3 years. We called a few foundation people 2 years ago and both said everything was fine. They obviously didn't know what they were talking about! As time went on we developed more cracks and bowing in the drywall all over the house. We also developed a ton of nail pops and finally a major water leak which lead to the discovery of the cracked foundation and leaning foundation wall. If we would have only known as much about foundations and drainage then as we know now all of this could have been prevented!

Some signs of foundation issues indoors. These "cosmetic" defects have continued to get worse even since we have fixed the wall. We are told this will continue for the next 6 months or so. That means we can't do any drywall work until mid-summer! My basement and upstairs walls won't be back to normal for quite a while!
Sagging ceiling and cracked drywall.

Here is what the yard and outside looked like right before the destruction (umm...I mean construction) started.

Here comes the dirt!


More outside pictures. Bobby had to dig all the way to the footer.

Covered and heated to protect the waterproofing from freezing and getting wet while drying.


Burning the midnight oil! Bobby took off quite a bit of time from work to get this project done so he had to use every moment he possibly could. My brother came around for a couple of days to help - I don't think they enjoyed freezing or working late into the night.


The wall anchors that we had put in to hold the basement wall. Apparently, once it starts to fall in it will never stop unless you stop it!


The driveway needed drainage added to it to stop the water from washing away our garage and also to stop the hydrostatic pressure from building up and sitting around the basement wall.

The backyard. This is where we put all of the excess clay dirt from the excavation in the front yard. It needed more fill dirt because it is very uneven and eroded from our water problems. Bobby also has to build a retaining wall with drainage on the back side of the house so the backyard is getting a makeover too!
Unfortunately, it is bare and muddy now!


This is where the retaining wall will go.

Penny :)


The big hole is finally filled back in. I can quit worrying that Kyler is going to fall to his death in our own front yard!

The inside basement wall was obviously wavy and leaning. Here is the before and during pictures. We won't be able to post after pictures until we get it put back together!

Drilling to put the anchors in.


I am sure there will be more construction pictures to come so stay tuned!