New 6x6 pressure treated columns with new concrete reinforced footings. The old post is still in the middle waiting for the concrete to cure.

Cracked Beam w/ new plywood support and upper column w/ plate connecting it to the old beam.

Visually this is not the most exciting post, but I thought I would show you my new columns. It is a big relief to have these two 6″x6″ columns installed with their new footings. The kitchen floor officially has less bounce and I can feel better about the structural stability of the house. This will also allow for the 2 “rooms” in the basement to be open to each other, which I didn’t think would be possible before my structural engineer came out. I would like to add that I had the sizing and the spaces of the columns and footings designed by a structural engineer. For this type of work it is ESSENTIAL to call the big guns in!  It is well worth the relatively little cost. Below is my mark up of this are before. Even though the basement still looks like a disaster, look at how much has been cleared out! We also had some of crazy electric taken out and our drainage contractor finally came out to take measurements for a quote. It doesn’t look like this will be done by the end of the year, but if all goes well at least by the end of winter.

Beam and wall at the beginning of demolition

I hope everyone has a great weekend! We will be busy between continuing to work on the basement and Halloween!

The Bagster: All filled!

It may not look like much progress was made over the last few days, but we have actually done quite a bit. Our contractor was over on Friday to put in the footings for our 2 new columns to support one of the main beams in the house. Now the concrete needs to cure for a while before the final posts can go in. He also added a second temporary column for the time being. We also demoed the bathroom and picked up a Bagster. 

What is the Bagster you ask? It is a giant bag that acts like a mini-dumpster (imagine a super giant Ikea bag). It is less expensive than a dumpster and best of all you can pick it up at your local hardware or big box store. We picked ours up on Saturday morning and laid it out on the driveway and by Saturday afternoon it was full of all the big and awkward stuff we hadn’t put out in the garbage: paneling, studs, the shower stall (broken down thanks to the sawsall), the toilet and sink. I also filled in with some of the clay and concrete that the contractor dug up for the footings. It is just over 8′ long and 4′ wide (to fit a standard sheet of plywood or drywall). And the cost? The bag itself will run you about $30. The pick up cost varies by zipcode. For us it is $139. This is less than a dumpster (which normally start in the $300-400 range) but obviously doesn’t hold as much. It also takes some work to organize your junk since the sides are soft. It won’t stand up until it is about half full. We also tied the handles together, since it is a requirement that the handles have to be able to touch for the crane/truck to pick it up. Now I just need to schedule a pick up. Yeah!

The Gutted Bathroom w/ exposed stack vent/ waste pipe.

The gross unused bathroom (well except for cleaning paint brushes) before demolition

The bathroom demolition went pretty well. Thanks to the sawsall we took the shower out without much difficulty. And fortunately the walls were quite willing to fall down. It was really nice to see this corner emptied out (well except for the big hole under the shower. When the previous owner aka “Tony the cheap”, put in the shower drain he didn’t bother to pour concrete around the drain. No wonder we had some ground water from this area during the hurricane! It was also interesting to see the main wastepipe/stack vent. It was unfortunate to see that the washer drain was so poorly connected to it!

New footings w/ temporary columns. I know it is really hard to see with all of the mess!

New Footing w/ pressure treated columns drying out.

The new reinforced concrete footings are all in! One of the oddities of digging up the floor was that on one side we found clay (as expected) but on the other side we found ash, so they had to dig deeper on that side to find undisturbed earth. Can’t wait until they can get the new columns in!

Basement stairs now that the weird enclosure is gone! On the right is the parging that was never covered up.

Because we had the bagster, we also decided to remove the strange “vestibule” at the bottom of the stairs. Before you would go down the stairs and then open a door to get into the basement. I am not sure what the logic on that one was, I think maybe to keep the cold air from coming up the stairs. I hope to remedy this in other ways.

The largest Basement "room" under the Kitchen (walls to be demolished)

I wish I had more exciting images to show today but we spent a good part of the weekend working on the basement (and emptying out what we could to the garage storage loft). Basements in old houses are a funny thing, they were never meant to serve a purpose except house the boiler/furnace. They usually only had dirt floors and very low ceilings. The walls are typically stone rubble with a parge coat on it to keep the water out. Our basement has unusually high ceilings for a house of our vintage (that may be because it was built up on a mound). The previous owner (aka Tony that Cheap SOB) “finished our basement” back in the 1970s. That meant that he covered the exterior foundation walls with a stud wall, filled it with insulation, put up a plastic vapor barrier and covered with paneling. Unfortunately before he did this, he did not find a way to remove the inevitable moisture build up from the walls. Instead that moisture has been stuck behind these walls for 30+ years, creating a nasty mess! We have known of the potential issues for a while, but with the summer rain (20+ inches in August alone) we have had to make the basement a priority. So for the time being the plans for the Master Bedroom are on hold while we do some demolition and come up with a game plan for the basement.

Foundation after stud wall was removed. You can see the parging is still partially there.

What to do with an old basement?

Ideally in a basement like ours, which gets damp in the summer and wet in extreme weather (when the water table rises to a high level) you would parge the walls, install a french drain around the inside perimeter, connect this to a sump pump, seal the slab with a water barrier and call it a day.

In our case we need to use the basement, not for every day living but for:

-laundry (oh, how I wish we had space for an upstairs laundry)
-storage and use of our various tools
-extra pantry storage
-bathroom (there is one down there now, I don’t think I would have added one otherwise)
-My dream of an extra space for possibly an elliptical machine or for working on larger projects
-or Mr. S’s dream of a space to play drums and rock out with the kids

Inspiration Image from Martha Stewart Living

The Game Plan

Create a rustic but usable basement! Kind of like the image above from Martha Stewart Living (image from Designer Tricia Foley‘s basement. Photographed by Eric Piasecki). I first saw this basement on doorsixteen.

October:

-Finish Demolishing the stud walls in front of all of the foundation walls (we always wear special replaceable cartridge masks that are recommended for both mold, lead and asbestos and clothes that immediately go into the wash after working).
-Salvage beadboard where possible for re-installation
-Demolish the old shower and prep the connections for a future bath
-Demolish the couple of interior walls
-Remove all of the old electric, including lights and outlets
-Install 2 new columns and footings (per my structural engineer’s recommendations)
-Install new angle per structural engineer’s recommendation
-Have Drainage contractor out (it took over a month to get an appointment to have him even look at it!)

November (somehow I have a feeling this may be later then this):
-Clean up and parge foundation walls
-Cut out foundation at exterior walls and install french drain system (this will have a special lip to collect water from the walls and send it to the sump pump)
-Install new sump pump system w/ battery backup (drain out front of house)
-Install new skim coat to concrete floor w/ waterproofing layer

December:
-Have my general contractor install new walls in front of foundation walls using an air gap, pressure-treated sill plates, mineral wool insulation (which isn’t affected by moisture) and cladding walls with horizontal beadboard, using a plastic baseboard product that will have exposed screws, such that we can check the condition of the wall behind
-Install new electrical outlets and lights (I am thinking LED downlights)
-Install new interior partitions to create a bath w/ shower, laundry nook, workroom and large double room space for storage and multifunction use.
-Install new plumbing fixtures
-Install a new ceiling using a beadboard system that would allow access above in certain areas (i.e. where the electric and plumbing come into the building and where there are water connections)
-Whitewash all of the beadboard
-Install a yet to be determined floor (Mr. S. likes cork, I’m still investigating whether it will be suitable for a basement application installed over a plastic and plywood sub-floor product).

Phew, I’m tired just thinking about it!