And the Wall Comes Tumbling Down!

Before Demo of Rock Wall

Removing the first rocks.

Surprise!....there's another wall!

Stuccoed cinder block wall exposed.

The rock and cinder block walls are gone!

Post Demo Ruble!

Well, it finally happen.  We took down the Rock Wall! The ugliest feature of this old house house was an enclosed front porch. Somewhere along the way a previous owner decided to add more living space by closing off the front porch with a rock wall. We decided it was time to tear down that ugly rock wall when the foundation guys noticed that cracks had developed along the mortar seams when the house being lifted during the foundation repair, making the rock wall a little unstable and unsafe.  After a very brief high level discussion we came to the conclusion that it was time for that rock wall to come tumbling down! Bringing down the rock wall was easy but behind the rock was another wall made of cinder block and behind that wall was a framed out wall! This little enclosure was built like a bunker!

Foundation Repair

 December was a busy month! Besides all the holiday activities and some holiday travel, we actually got quite a bit accomplished on the old house. The major project was repairing the foundation.  If you're going to do anything first on an old house project, tackle the foundation first! It will save you some headaches later on in the project and and will ensure to a major degree that the house is plumb and level.  In our case we decided to replace all the cedar posts or piers with concrete pillars.  We also discovered some major rot on several on the supporting beams on the edge of the house....those had to go!  The majority of the piers were the original wooded posts so there were close to 100 years old!   We hired a local foundation contractor who had done some previous work for us on another project and they did a good job. It took them about a 2 weeks only because of weather delayed their progress. As with all contractors make sure to check references and always stay close to the work being done.