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This morning the forms for the footings were inspected. After approval the footings were poured.
There remains one support column and there is some two by four framing that supports the basement ceiling until the load-bearing wall and a new support column will be installed.
This should happen early next week at which time the last original support column and footing can be removed. The crew told me that the original footings that lay under the old support columns were three foot cement cubes. After these are removed, the rest of the slab can be torn up and removed. The egress window will be installed and the sand will be excavated from the basement via this new egress window. This will be a fairly large task since enough soil will need to be removed to lower the entire basement floor by about 18 inches. With luck the new slab could be poured by the end of next week.
Today forms for the footings were set up in the dug out ditches. Another support column was removed and a form for the footing there was also created. There is now just one support column remaining and it stands in the center of the basement. We’ll see if the footings are poured tomorrow.
Work continued to create the footings for the load-bearing wall that will run down the center of the basement. The ditch that was begun yesterday was extended and two of the support columns were removed.
In addition, the slab was broken up and ditches dug along the two sides of the basement stairs. Since the basement floor will be lowered by 18 inches and a couple of steps added to the stairs, new footings will needed to be poured under the existing stairs and the stairway walls extended down.
The partition walls and doors that enclosed the two storage areas in the corner of the basement were also knocked down.
Currently in the basement there are three columns that support a beam running down the center of the house.
These beams will be removed and replaced with a load-bearing wall. To pour the footings for this wall, the slab was broken up and the sand underneath excavated.
New footings will be poured and presumably the new load-bearing wall will be constructed before the support columns are removed. Some temporary framing was also constructed for temporary support.
This framing will need to be removed when the rest of the slab is broken up.
This past weekend we were busy taking Hua Mei out to see some events. It was nice to give her a little treat. She’s been a great big sister but there are times I’m sure she feels neglected. Saturday morning we took her to the Ordway to see a group called Tales & Scales perform with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra telling the story of the Arabian Nights. Grace got free tickets to the show and she brought Karen, Hua Mei and me. Candace came over to babysit Xia Mei. It was very entertaining although at four years of age, Hua Mei was a bit young to keep attentive to the whole show. The show lasted an hour which was just about right. We went to have lunch at the St. Paul Grill. We discovered it’s a great place for lunch and will definitely return.
On Sunday, I took Grace to see Stars on Ice as a very early birthday present. Last year I brought her to see Champions on Ice and the US Nationals for her birthday and Christmas presents. I brought Hua Mei along with us this year. Grace is a big figure skating fan so it has been fun to take her to these events. Watching skating in person really is much better than watching on TV. I didn’t really have a feel for the speed of the skating and spins or the height of the jumps until I watched the skaters perform live. Skating joins the list of sports that need to be seen live, along with tennis, ice hockey and volleyball. We got to see Sasha Cohen, Evan Lysacek, Todd Eldridge, Yuka Sato, Michael Weiss and Ilya Kulik, which was pretty cool. I also learned a valuable lesson: don’t give a four year old a 16 oz bottle of Sprite if you don’t want to take her to the bathroom a couple of times during the show. It was a two and a half hour show and towards the end Hua Mei was getting antsy and ready to leave. But she did great and we all had a good time.
Not much to report on the 1st day of the remodel. Basically they dropped off some lumber and concrete. They will need to seal off the basement to limit the dust before the demolition of the slab and excavation can begin. This could take a bit of time.
Earlier this week Karen had talked to Todd about some things regarding the layout of the bedroom and today Todd sent us a couple of ideas for a revised layout of the bedroom and the living area. The bedroom is a little bigger now and the space we lose in the living area really wasn’t that usable anyway. We like the design shown below. I think that we might even be able to fit a couple of twin beds in there too. They will be arriving Monday to begin the work.
Work should begin on Monday for our basement remodel. They have gotten the building permit. One issue dealt with extending the stairs. It was first thought that we would have to have a landing created at the bottom of the stairs after the floor was dropped 18.” This is no longer the case, which is good. However, because the headroom going down the stairs is not 6′8″, the bedroom in the basement will not be considered as such in the building assessment and can not be listed as a bedroom when the house is sold. This is not an issue for us.
An engineering report also had to be done. There are two load bearing columns in the middle of the basement that will be replaced by a load bearing wall and a beam. Removing the columns opens up the space in the main area. Also, it was found that the footings under those columns were not in the best of shape and with the floro being lowered, they would have had to be replaced anyway.
Now with all that out of the way, work can proceed. They expect to arrive on Monday to begin the demolition work.
Karen met with Todd on Friday and they discussed the final design plans for the basement. She realized that there really wasn’t a need for a walk-in closet for the bedroom so Todd modified the design. It gives us more room now in the bedroom although we will place one bed in there, rather than the two we were planning to do. Here are the revised 3-D views of the latest layout.
No word though on when the work will begin but we are getting pretty excited about the added space.
This weekend we were able to everything out of the basement.
Saturday morning we had the help of a couple of younger guys to help us move the larger pieces. We finished almost everything in about 3-4 hours. Today Karen took care of the utility room and tools and she and I moved the last pieces out. We are storing the stuff in a PODS and the garage.
We got an 8X16 PODS and had more than enough room. Despite feeling a little sore from all the lifting and carrying, it ended up going much better than we expected. Work might begin later this week or the start of next week. We expect the remodel to take about three months.
