Without a doubt this has been the busiest summer of my life. Between the new home, planning for the wedding, and well, everything else, I have very little time for much else. Our house was in move in condition with very little needed done to it (or so I thought), and the project plans began to roll out. We would start with remodeling the downstairs. We started that in April, made great progress, but then once our first hard spring rain occured, we noticed an unusual amount of water coming into the workshop downstairs. So, we put a level on the outside patio, and we had 2" of drop TOWARD the basement entrance in the first 8ft So, I decided if I'm going to fix it, I'm going all out. All projects were put on hold, and the work began here back during the second week of June. This is a documentation of all that I've done up to this point. Warning: There are a lot of pictures.:d To give you and idea of what it looked like in the beginning. Here is a picture of the patio/workshop entrance on the day we closed (Feb.29). Here's what I was working with back in June when I started. Yes the deck was built OVER the entrance to the workshop. It looked terrible (as you can tell), and was done very poorly. Starting to gut. Front of the entrance with siding/J-channel removed. Upper sheeting knocked out. That dirt pile is where I was digging out on the side of the foundation back in May to put in a french drain/insulation/stone to correct water problems on that side. Sheeting all out, and just the block walls now standing. Another shot. You can see where we had a temporary drain line installed. The original was corrugated drain line that was cracked in multiple spots and leaking around the footer. Walls knocked out. The slab you see in front of the door was sloped almost 1.75" TOWARD the entry way. That needed to come up. Concrete slab removed (no stone was put under this slab, nor was the ground even LEVELED before pouring The pavers in the patio needed to come up so I could salvage the screening underneath, and then begin digging out there. The bucket made a nice carrier for these. Next, I needed to dig out about 6" down from the bottom edge of the old slab to accommodate stone fill, and eventually our new poured slab. The bucket on the tractor is too wide to fit under the deck, so everything in here had to be dug by hand. Fun. Another shot of my progress. Once I finished everything under the deck, it was time to bring in the reinforcements:evil: We used the bucket to scrape out a 1'/16' grade. Most of the soil was shale, so the 990 got a workout.:d Picture of the progress made by the tractor looking out of the workshop. My dad. He was a big help in the project, and he ran the tractor during the major excavating (it's his, and I don't want to brea
Matt i just got blisters looking at those pics, :d very well done..sometimes if you want something done right you have to do it yourself
Thanks, guys, it certainly has been quite a job. Jeff, the cleanouts aren't a bad idea. I still have most of the pipe/joints exposed, so I may consider that. Ben, you will still recognize it. Just look for the house with the torn up backyard:D Crick...oh there were blisters...plenty of them:D
Excellent work Matt, you and your pops put a good game plan together!! I did a few things similar to that a few years back on the west side of my basement (water was coming In). I know the feeling with the hard work that went Into It but It's part of owning a home I guess. Well done bud!!!
Thanks, guys. Taking a break from it for while now until finances build back up to build the retaining walls. Now, I'm on to mowing the food plots and fields at the parents house:D
