CMR Update July 18

Things keep moving forward at the old homestead and Sunday's field trip to the CMR illustrated that progress. I was there on Wednesday to meet with the GC and talk about all things "porch" related as well as to listen to some jackhammering. On Wednesday the porch and the door were intact ... on Sunday the door was there - but it's not goinable. That last step's a whopper.

We joked that luckily the boys were not there for this visit since Henry would have all kinds of notions that geeze! wouldn't it be better if we just had a giant chute that we could slide down instead of a front door anyway???

The excavation is nearly finished and the existing foundation is now almost completely gone from the front of the house. See where the A-pour in Henry's corner is now filled with the landscaping debris from along the front of the house? Now look left, shablamo! We got no wall!!

Where the dirt seems to slope off in the bottom left of the picture is where the lower level floor changes elevation. There will be about 3-4 stairs transitioning the higher elevation living spaces (Media Room - which I have now decided to call the rumpus room - since hey? why did anyone stop using that word - it's GREAT!, Henry's bedroom, the big bathroom and my lusted-for-laundry room) with the lower space (Pool room, open space room and George the Younger's Room). For those of you who have been in the house before it was nestled atop large steel beams, the lower floor will mimic the bi-level configuration of the upper floor. For those of you who have NOT been in the house - - well, you're just going to have to use your imagination. Sorry.

It's hard to get any perspective about space until you see someone standing in it. So, I make George the Elder be the perspective. This is the view from Henry's corner to George the Younger's corner. The Elder is probably standing in the open space room (what ever that means??) It just is a space where the pool room opens up to the front wall of the house and creates a semi room-ish kind of thing...think open floor plan. Never mind. It will all become clearer later....

And finally, a close up of our newest steel beam addition which was inserted perpendicular to the other steel beams that were holding up the house. This one is specifically design to hold up the front of the house. This beam can also be seen in the first picture looking down from the used-to-be front porch to George the Elder. It's amazing.

I didn't sleep much last night after this visit. I don't know why this particular part of the excavation got my panties in a bunch. Perhaps it's because when you are standing on our front sidewalk you can see directly under the house from all directions and it is more than obvious that this is a BIG project and what the HELL were we thinking and haven't we perhaps bitten off more than we could CHEW??? Shouldn't we, LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE, just have started by dipping our toes in the water and say remodel a BATHROOM or REFINISH the hard wood floors? But, no, the first time we decide to do something, anything at all, to a house - we put the damn thing up on stilts and dig a pit. A potentially very large money pit.

George the Elder slept like a baby. It's clear he feels fairly confident that "all will be well." I will feel better about it once the house rests nicely on a foundation again and at least part of the imagined cash sucking crater is filled with concrete. For there's that old adage... "Man's reach should exceed his wallet - or what's a general contractor for?"