Day 39.75

Just when you thought demo was over....it continues. I am in awe at how much of the house is really gone. You are looking at the picture which used to be the kitchen & laundry room, left side and part of dining room... or the future kitchen & new basement wall! I heard framing is starting tomorrow (Friday) & on Sunday! We get to listen to more Euro Trash Disco ! We are living behind the temporary walls on the right. It is not very airtight but I put up some plastic to keep the dust out. Also, not sound proof either. I hear all the construction guys' jokes when they think I am not around. So hilarious! Much talk about vibrators, caulk, etc. LL

Day 39 - Final Demo

Final concrete poured yesterday, incl. filling basement walls, basement floor, and all the retrofitted footings and piers to hold up the 2nd story (about 8 of seperate locations). Will add pix later.

Today the demo crew is finishing up what they started last week. Neighbors just sent over this picture. If you look through the back door and windows you can see there is nothing behind them, just a facade at this point.

Also since we dont have enough destruction going one, I have also asked the demo crew to tear off the garage roofing. It has shake roof that is probably 40 years old or more, so I will replace this with shake torn off the house, which was only 4 years old and in good condition.

Day 34 & 36-37

Day 34 I arrived back from Singapore to a completely demolished house. Kitchen, roof, etc. I still can't believe we are actually doing this. Actually I think the driver who dropped me off was more in awe than me!

Day 36-37: On Memorial Day we listened to "Euro Trash Disco" all day. We somewhat helped out by BBQ'ing for the guys. Nearby the back steps were being demo'd right next to the gas meter, it only got hit once from what I saw... (as I nervously flipped burgers next to an open flame). Meanwhile John was waiting to come out of the hole for lunch. I finally got him in there!

The forms for all the footings were completed, giant holes under the entire existing foundation. Today the forms passed inspection. Pouring tomorrow!

Day 33 - Roofless

Roof was removed Friday. Although Sacramento is experiencing the driest spring since records have been kept, Murphy Law of course dictates that we would receive some unforecasted rain within hours of the demo crew fisishing.

Had to add more tarps Saturday when we had about 1.5 hours of light rain. Great unsolicited help - Jorge the roofer came by at 630am to help me tarp part of the roof I didnt cover Friday night. At 700am Sasha and Chuck the framers came by redo our work. And by 730am Rueben the demo king and several of his guys came by and laughed at us. No significatnt water in the good part of the house so that was good news.

Day 32 - Demo Continues

Basement is progressing well. Drain tile around the perimeter is installed and surrounded by gravel and soil cloth. Dirt is being backfilled on top of this and its about 2/3 done. We can now see our backyard again with piles of dirt gone. The basement floor has been filled with gravel, drain pipes connected to sump, and covered with plastic and then sand and wire mesh. But basement will not be poured until later next week after subfloor is installed over the top.

Demo crew arrived today and gutted the kitchen. Not much left of the walls as seen above. With 30mph gust today, combined with the guys clearing celluouse insulation with a leaf blower, their is a lot of dust in the neighborhood today. I stopped in for lunch and they had already thrown away the glass panel laundry door, since I had forgot to mark "save" on windows and doors that I want to keep. Luckily one of the guys Antonio was able to rummage throw the huge pile in the truck and find the door. Amazingly the glass wasn't broken but the door was pretty beat up, but salvageable. My temporary walls are not quite airtight, so our living area is covered in a pretty thick layer of plaster dust. By end of day tomorrow the entire roof structure should be gone, down to the sill plate, and they will finish gutting the laundry room also.

Day 30 - Moving Inside

I spent the weekend finishing up gutting the kitchen, in preparation for demolition later in the week. Ripped out the enormously heavy 1930's porcelain sink (Thanks Jeff Brown) and the equally heavy concrete laundry sink. Found out yesterday that contractor wanted to start digging out footing under the house immediately, since they had some downtime outside while basement is being hot mopped. So I was up late getting the last of the cabinets, appliances and fixtures out of the kitchen. The guys came in today, cut open the kitchen floor in 2 spots, and hand dug holes for piers and a 10 ft long footing. We are trying to concentrate all the destruction in the kitchen and laundry and salvage the hardwood floors in other rooms.

Also put up 2nd temporary wall in the dining area. Now 1/2 of dining room & living room are walled off, and this along with 1 bedroom and bathroom will be living space for a couple months. Below is our cozy living room / temp kitchen!

Day 30 -Hot Mop Basement

Crew applied 6 layers of membrane to the exterior of the basement wall. Guys had to spend a lot of time in the narrow slot (less than 2 feet) between basement wall and dirt. 20 yards of gravel arriving tomorrow for the perimeter drain tile. Then backfill will start in the next day or two.

Day 26 - Basement Block

Concrete Blocking was completed late Friday night.

Day 29 for me

I am in Singapore trying to monitor the progress of the project but hubby is not posting..... What is going on in Wally World John???? It is day 29 for me here but day 28 in the states. Hope all is well there in Sac-o-tomato. John is so busy I am doing the update from Singapore (love technology). He worked on moving the rest of the kitchen and laundry room items out for demo. Also, is working on building the temporary wall for the Dining room. Demo on the roof starts Thurs/Fri of this week. Basement walls are nearly done, 1 batch of concrete poured down them that I know of. Signing off from Singapore. I do not remember it being this HOT here! LL :)))

Day 25: Wally world

Today the walls for the basement started going up. Next they will pour concrete down the holes in the block. We are shooting for a Saturday last pour of the walls.

Day 22 - Kitchen

I started tearing out the original 1937 kitchen cabinets over the weekend. Some have been relocated to our temporary kitchen at front of house, and hopefully will be able to reuse many of them elsewhere in the house after remodel is done. I will pull out the remaining basin sink, concrete laundry sink and stove at the last minute before structural demo happens in the kitchen in a couple weeks.

Had to slap up some plywood to cover up holes, lots of daylight coming in. The framing crew has been stealing the old redwood plank sheathing off the outside of the house whenever they need a board since it will all be demo'd anyway. When I pulled cabinets out it took the interior lathe & plaster with it, so suddenly we were looking through the kitchen wall into an 8 foot hole.

Found original 1930's linoleum under one of the cabinets. Pretty trendy looking, eh?

Day 20 - Footings are done

Here is completed footings from Friday night. Lisa was in the pit again, waiting to be let out for dinner.

Footings alone took 19 yards of concrete (2 trucks). By the time basement floor, walls, and other reinforcement on the house is done, should have a formidable tornado shelter, minus the tornados.

We requested Xypex mixed in concrete which makes concrete nearly waterproof. Receipt from Folsom Ready Mix only showed Xypex on the first batch, but today they were able to confirm that Xypex was manually added to both batches, just not recorded on the 2nd batch. Actually saved $350 woohoo.

Day 19 - Pouring Concrete

Concrete footing being poured. Concrete is pumped 150 feet from a truck on the street. Using a special waterproof concrete admix also. At last minute decided to add plastic piping through footing that will later connect to drain tile system around perimeter of footing. You can see the white piping in picture above on the right side. Not really sure if this area has a water table problem since it has been a dry spring, but this is cheap insurance to have a dry basement. Neighbors that have basements don't have moisture problems, but you only have one chance to design it right. Concrete block basemeent walls will start being built Monday.

Day 17 - Forms

Form work still in progress since last update. Concrete pouring hopefully this week!

Day 12 - Got our permit!

I know, your supposed to get the permit before starting the job.

Guys made good progress framing up the footings and installing rebar. Will probably finish up on Monday.


This will put us in the amusing situation of requesting inspection on the rebar 1 working day after receiving our building permit. Will just need to explain to the inspector that all the work was done over the weekend!

Day 11 - Setting up footings