Sunday, November 29, 2009

The Basement

As many of you know we decided we need to finish and expand our basement. Early on in the process we tried to find any information we could possibly find on removing shelves in old basements and couldn't find a thing. So we went on our own. First we hired an engineer to come look at our basement and give us a plan on how we can at least reduce the size of it. Brandon's dad drew up some plans for how our whole basement would look and we then went to the city for a permit. The permit process was a pain in the you-know-what. In order to make the basement livable we had to expand one of the windows. Since we live in the historic district we had to get approval for the window change. That was going to take a couple of weeks! We were on a time crunch since Brandon's parents were flying out here for a week to help us out. So furiously for two weeks we got approval for the sewer, switched the window we were going to change to one not visible from the street called in a favor or two and wallah got the approval the day after his parents arrived.

But the work only began then. And it has a long way to go still.

But here is work we have done so far.


This is mid-way through the shelf removal process. Oh joy.

We had some amazingly thick concrete to pound through.


And we somehow generated TONS of dirt...seemingly more than we took out...strange how it grows.

We put together a contraption of conveyor belts to the dumpster on the street and started pushing out the dirt...it moved quickly which was MUCH better than buckets of dirt up the stairs.


And after days of hard labor we have no finished 1/2 the digging and 1/2 the wall....we still have the rest of the wall to tear out and half the wall to build. Then a floor and cap off the new smaller shelf...all for 2 1/2 feet of extra space :-), but it is crucial space, I am told.


Our wall handiwork


Thanks to Brandon's Parents for coming out to help us and provide their expertise. It was amazing!!! They both worked tremendously hard on our behalf and I can't thank them enough.

Now for those of you feeling guilt for not having helped so far... no worries. There is still lots to do! :-)
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5 comments:

  1. ishybeanieNovember 30, 2009 at 11:50 AM

    i am so excited to see that it is finally started. some of those pictures look like you are in a mine. i can't wait to see it finished

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  2. KristyNovember 30, 2009 at 2:15 PM

    I wish you already had a baby so that my job could be babysitting so you could still work : ) Just kidding I'm great with a sledge hammer. The new wall looks great and straight.

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  3. AmyDecember 14, 2009 at 9:10 PM

    What fun! Remember to call us in a couple weeks for help!

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  4. Our FamilyDecember 29, 2009 at 12:57 PM

    Hey Weston! I am so excited for you getting a chunk of that shelf basement out of the way will be so nice! We had a house on 7th east that had a shelf basement, but the ceiling was just about touching my head! I hope it goes well for you! Jill (ourfamilyof6.blogspot.com) It has been a while - hope you still remember me!

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  5. Our FamilyJanuary 4, 2010 at 7:07 PM

    Hey Weston! Great to hear back from you. Gotta love that old knob and tube! That was also the electrical in the house that we lived in on 7th East! Yeah, if you are still wanting a bid on electrical that would be great! I will get your number from Amy and I or Kelly will call you back! I would love to come see your house too! I hope you get this message I don't know how to navigate that well on the blog-pretty pathetic huh! I just started updating it and was looking on everybody's blog to catch up. And I will talk to you soon! Thanks, Jill

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