LEVELING THE FOUNDATION - PART 2

Ok, I'm back for Part 2. The first thing the crew leader did was to review what the other guy had proposed. Then I showed him all the cracks and gaps and doors. He took lots of measurements with a neat little gadget that shows how much difference there is in elevation for the different areas of the house. After much looking and measuring, a decision was made to put three piers on the kitchen through 2 holes, the same in my bedroom with one in the hall. They also needed an outside pier, just past the front door. Three piers under the wall between the garage and house needed to be shimmed up, too. One of the "big guys" with the company also came by and agreed with the proposed work. He also kept saying that the house was in bad shape. I wanted to tell him to can it, but I also wanted a good job done, so I kept my mouth shut.

The first thing they have to do to dig the holes is to jackhammer away the concrete. That was the most fun (not) of the whole deal. Luckily the workers knew what they were doing and got the job done pretty quickly. And there wasn't nearly as much dust generated as I had expected. I had put a new filter in the A/C and had to change it again the next day when they were finished. Wow!

After opening up the concrete, they have to dig the holes by hand. Yes, by hand!!! And once they got past the top layer, the soil was very hard and it took them a long, long time to get it all dug out. Of course on a couple of the holes they had to go in two directions for the two piers. They did get a couple of other crews out there late in the day, but it was too crowded for them to help out much.

So the day ended with deep holes in the kitchen, bedroom and hall that they covered with big pieces of plywood so I wouldn't fall into one and break my leg as I was told another customer had done.

This is in the kitchen where they are breaking up the concrete.

This is looking down the hall into the bedroom .

This is in the kitchen where they've started digging the dirt out.

This is in the bedroom showing one of the plywood sheets they use to cover the holes.

You can see in the pictures that they covered the walls and cabinets with brown paper to protect them. It seemed to work as the only mishap was a bit of mud on the dryer where they were coming in and out of the door from the kitchen to the garage. No holes in the wall, no dings on the doors. And it was tight with those wheelbarrows!! And they covered the kitchen floor with heavy plastic sheets and only cut out where they needed to dig.

Tomorrow - the real work. I'll post pictures of the workers down in those holes driving the piers. Really cool!

LEVELING THE FOUNDATION - PART 1

Ok, I took 30 some odd pictures of the process of leveling my foundation so I guess I'd better get busy posting them and explaining the process to those of you who are not familiar with it. Believe me, I certainly learned a lot over the two days it took to get my house back on the level.

First I have to explain that the soil in the Houston area moves around a lot. If we were on rock, we would have earthquakes. We also have soil that swells when it gets wet and shrinks when it's hot and dry. The last is what happened to my house. Oh, and almost everyone here has a slab foundation. A few years ago, piers were placed around the front 3/4 of my house as the foundation was beginning to tilt forward. Because of the extreme dry and hot weather we've had this summer, the soil under the middle of the house began to shrink and the middle of my house began to sink. There was as much as a 4" difference in elevation between the highest and lowest part of my house. Yeah! The caused cracks in the sheetrock. doors that wouldn't close all the way or wouldn't stay closed. The worst part was the gap between the bottom of the wall and the floor in some places and the same gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling in others.

Today I'm posting some pictures of some of the problem areas.

Bedroom closet door - you could see the light from the closet through the crack which was on both sides of the wall! And that was as closed as the door would get.

Door from dining room into kitchen - on the other side there was a gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling.

Wall between kitchen and garage - notice gap at top of wall and cracks around door.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the beginning of the process. Please let me know if you have any questions.

THE CALM AFTER THE STORM

Today is Day 2 of "after the work." Things are beginning to get back to normal, whatever that is. I walked to the grocery store yesterday for some things to tide me over until I can drive again. Despite it being a bit warm, it was a nice walk. The frozen items in my handmade grocery tote that I carried over one shoulder kept me cool on the return trip.

I've done a once-over with the vacuum and replaced some of the flooring. The crew was able to get the hall flooring up in one big piece. The bedroom, however, will be like a jigsaw puzzle. I've done a few small repairs. One baseboard in the bedroom got popped off when some debris that was under the wall got pushed out. That's been fixed. I also got the folding door between the kitchen and dining room back on track. Also got one strike plate reset, but have a couple more to do. Still lots of stuff to do like caulking and patching, but that needs to wait about 60 days for everything to settle. No problem!!! Actually, once I get the flooring relaid in the bedroom, the only real evidence of the work will be the two concrete patches in the kitchen surrounded by neatly cut out linoleum. Maybe the look will catch on with the HGTV set?

I'll be working on pictures today and hope to start posting them by tomorrow with a full documentation of the process. Meanwhile, I want to thank all those who sent messages of support while I was enduring this process. It really means a lot to me to know that my cyberfriends are there for me.

LEVELING OF THE HOUSE

Well, we are on the second day of the adventure I call "The Leveling of the House". I'll do the full story in a few days, complete with pictures. Needless to say it's been a real experience for me and the kitties. Having a house filled with men, dust, dirt and flies hasn't been fun, but the crew has been gracious and very helpful and all my many questions have been answered to my satisfaction. At about 10:15 today the house was pronounced level. The vast majority of the cracks are now closed and all but one door closes properly. That one just needs to be lowered a bit because the frame itself is out of whack. The crew should be out of my hair and my house early this afternoon and then the clean-up begins. Since the cost of this repair has depleted my vacation funds, I'll spend my time patching cracks and getting the house back to normal.

To compound things, my refrigerator went out on Wednesday. I ran out to Sears and purchased a new one which will be delivered today. Hopefully they will be able to get in the kitchen to hook it up. I thought the foundation crew would be done yesterday, but . . .

I'll be back with lots of pictures as I wanted to document this process. It's interesting and lots of very hard, physical work for the crew.

TWITTY "LOST AND FOUND"

The other night I was checking to make sure all the kitties were accounted for, but could not find Twitty. I looked everywhere - behind the sofa and in the kitchen cabinets. I looked in the hall and under the table. I looked in the fireplace (!) and on the shelf high above the TV. Where was Twitty? No one would tell me where he was. Of course I called for him, but, of course, he didn't answer. I was 99.99% sure he didn't get outside. (Barring a hole in the wall somewhere that I didn't know about anyway.) I started moving the smallest things, just in case he pulled an "Alice in Wonderland" and got smaller somehow.

I moved the basket. And what did I see? A bit of black and white fur?

Yes, there was Twitty. These are new bookcases and the old ones didn't have space underneath so I'm not used to looking there. He looks at me like "yeah, I've been here all this time; it's really comfy under here."

He's lucky he's a smaller guy 'cause some of the others might have gotten stuck! So Twitty was extracted from under the bookcase and stowed with his brothers. Of course, as I write this we all know exactly where he is, don't we? At least now I know where he is. For the moment. Silly Twitty Cat!!

QUICK PUPPY UPDATE

I checked with my neighbor yesterday about the status of Midi (Midnight), the lab mix puppy he's trying to find a home for. She hasn't found her forever home yet. Neighbor is planning on having her and her kitty companion, Jessie, spayed soon. Here's a picture of Midi and Jessie playing. Aren't they just the cutest things?

MY LATEST PROJECT

I'm posting before and after pictures of my latest project. I have some kitty condos in my living room for the cats to eat in, sleep in, etc. They are mulitlevel cages. They also help when they need to be stowed away out of trouble. Like crating your dog. Anyway, the shelves all had carpet on them and no matter how much I vacuumed them, I just couldn't get them to look clean. In addition, some were rather worn from being uses as scratching posts. So I decided to recover them. I used some quilted fabric I had and made a sleeve for each shelf. That way they can be removed and laundered if necessary and they don't hold the cat hair and litter dust like the carpet. The kitties were a little cautious of the new coverings at first, but now I think they like them. And they are so easy to keep clean.

The covers were very easy to make. The hardest part of the project was removing the old carpeting. Ugh!!! They must have used a million staples! In the pictures you will see a bit of the hammocks that are in some of the condos. They were made by a friend who volunteers for a local animal adoption group. Very cute and the kitties just love them.

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