The big gaping hole

The majority of the demolition is done. They took off the old balcony and opened up the wall to the kitchen. 2nd story starts getting framed up tomorrow

the only thing keeping the bad guys out -- yikes! good thing our neighbor is on SWAT and has a couple of fierce K9s!

Progress!

This is much more exciting to watch than the basement process!

tomorrow or the day after, that window and surrounding wall to the left of the boarded up opening will be opened up - that's when things inside will get messy!

Starting the addition - demolition (and a bit of framing)

A "before" for perspective...

A clean and dry basement!!

from this...

to this...

to THIS!!!!

Almost "done"

The basement guys should be out of here in a day or two! So, the basement isn't "done" but it's clean, dry and most importantly, deep enough for Jon (and other tall people) to stand comfortably! We will not finish the basement now, but sometime after all of the upstairs work gets done....the framing is starting on Monday!

the builder will close this in and build the steps down to the basement

The floor is in!

such a huge milestone to have this done! now they are prepping all of the walls for "rough-casting" and then we will have a clean, dry basement!

in addition, the mason came and laid the block-work for the foundation of the addition. The frame should start to go up next week!

A week of progress!

creating the stairwell

Jon's used to have to duck to stand under this beam!

the mason delivered these to start laying the footer for the addition on Monday!

Digging is complete

next step - pouring footers and laying blockwork and putting in new steps.

this rock is from that hole above!

Excavating!

So, the second phase of the project has now begun...while the basement renovators continue to toil away, the builder has now started to come on site to start the excavating. I will post a bunch of pictures from the last 2 days in sequential order.

holy trashed yard!

A peek into the craziness

A LOT has happened this week!

they installed the forms to pour the new concrete footers

the plumber was here and removed the old sewer pipe and installed new ones (along wall instead of along floor)

they installed some water drainage system and started pouring concrete

just a few shots of around the property (including a lovely shot of the toilet that is still in our yard!) - you can click on pics to see them bigger

the removal of the walls around the entry and the steps down to the basement (they will dig farther back so the steps are not steep and then build new interior steps - this part of the house will be closed in soon)

Jon removed the balcony railing since the builders are arriving next week

and last and certainly my least favorite, is that we had to rip open the dining room wall yet again (3rd time better be a charm) to replace the sewer pipes up to the bathroom. This wall has to stay open until we are ready to demo the bathroom upstairs as the pipes have to be replaced up there and connected here. It's going to be a long couple of months!