It’s started. The Big Scary project.
And I’m as nervous as the proverbial long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. With spikes on their rockers. Poisoned spikes. With blasting caps in them. And alien plague germs. Flesh-eating alien plague germs.
One good thing: worst comes first. The initial step (which I’m staying out of the way of) is to tear up part of the floor to gauge just how much rot, beetle damage, carpenter ant infestation, and other baddies might be under there. Once we see that, we know the baddest of the bad things that can happen on this project. I’ll be very, very glad to get that out of the way. Just knowing helps, even if the fixing turns out more complicated than hoped.
After that, it’s a picnic. Well, most likely a picnic with ants, wasps, yellow-jackets, particularly aggressive blue jays, thunderstorms threatening, and a party of teenagers next door blasting rap music and drinking ’til they puke. But by comparison, a picnic.
Wish us luck.
Hey, Claire, when the bathroom is finished, don’t pull a bathtub hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_hoax on us, and show a false picture.
Good luck. I hope the guys come through for you and do their work well and on time (not to mention Reasonably Cheaply).
LOL, Pat! I never heard of the bathtub hoax. And it was perpetrated by Mencken, too?
Reasonably Cheaply (caps noted) would indeed be a plus. But this is the worst corner of the house, and the most complicated, with plumbing & such running through it. So I’m already resolved that it will be what it will be. Handyman Mike is already been very careful about keeping me apprised at every step and has said he’ll give me alternatives (as best he can) to any costly-looking problems that turn up.
Thanks for the good luck wishes. I expect they’ll come in handy.
1:00 p.m. First BIG report from the underground. Handyman Mike tore up about 30 square feet of the floor over the foundation beam and found … ALMOST NO ROT. Something had been nibbling on the subflooring (which is okay because that’s getting replaced by plywood anyhow. But remarkably, the foundation beam is intact and not eaten, not decaying. The floor joists are all good except one. And that one will only need to be sistered, not replaced.
Now, there’s still much more tearing up to do and problems could still emerge. But given that we were all assuming the very worst, Mike says that this wonderful discovery cuts at least $500 and maybe $1,000 off everybody’s most cautious guesses. WHEW!
HLM said, “The success of this idle hoax, **done in time of war, when more serious writing was impossible,** vastly astonished me.” {My emphasis]
Maybe govt had put the kibosh on “more serious writing.”
Off to a good start with the first excavation! Hope it sets the pattern for the project.
“teenagers next door blasting rap music and drinking ’til they puke. ”
I thought you left those folks behind in the old neighborhood. What a pain that they followed you. 😉
Karen — Thank heaven the teenagers and the wasps and the alien plagues are all strictly imaginary these days. (But you have a good memory.)
And yep, would be nice if this excellent beginning set the pattern.
How wonderful to find it better than you feared! Love when that happens. 🙂
“How wonderful to find it better than you feared! Love when that happens. :)”
Me TOO. Especially since, as one of my neighbors just pointed out, the news usually goes in the other direction.
Oh, lord, what a relief. The first thing I thought of when I heard about the project was “The floor will be rotten. The subfloor will be rotten. The floor joists will be rotten. The very foundation will collapse under the vibration caused by pulling up the floor. And then something bad will happen.”
So happy to hear that fear was unfounded.
ROFLMAO, Joel! I feared very much the same thing, but I didn’t put it in such vivid terms. Once again, as so many times since I first “met” you on the old Claire Files forums, you think just like I do but write those thoughts better.
I’m even more relieved because this is supposed to be the most ugly-rotten corner of the house. There’s much more foundation work still to be done, but I now have hope that when (two or three years from now) the rest of the floor in the back of the house gets torn up, it won’t be as bad as I feared.
This was a good, good, GOOD day. And a nice beginning.
Old house should have good solid old-growth fir beams probably very nicely seasoned by now. Chaos willing you will have a very nice house.
mark — You are so right! This house was badly constructed and made worse over the years by ill-built (and ill-thought) additions. BUT OMG, the beautiful materials hidden in the walls and floors! It breaks my heart when they have to go.
Unfortunately, the bad construction + the local soggy climate + bad drainage on the property has led to a lot of damage, even to those most excellent materials.
I was hoping there would be pictures by now…..
Karen — Soon. Right now there’s just a hole in the ground where the addition’s being torn off. Today they’ve hit a snag and haven’t made much progress. (Turns out there was a bit of damage to the foundation beam that they didn’t see until they did some digging. The fix won’t be extensive, but they’ve done more thinking and explaining than actual, physical working.)
I’ll definitely take some pix — particularly when either dramatic or pretty things start happening.