Before and After: Electrical Panel (and an 80 gallon surprise in the wall)

We've been making big progress on our remodel, although I've been struggling to keep up with recording it while my belly grows and my energy wanes with my third trimester of pregnancy. The basement electrical rough in is complete, as well as a much-needed overhaul of our electrical panel. I present to you the "before" horror which awaited us behind the wall:

Basement remodel- plumbing groundwork and framing

In the past two months, we've made quite a bit of progress on the basement.  We dug a channel for the plumbing ground work for the new bathroom, which involved demolishing the concrete and digging out the dirt underneath. 

Installing Doors and Windows

One of the more interesting discoveries inside our walls was this old door. Some prior owner no longer wanted a door to the back yard, so they sided and framed right over the door, as well as an old window next to the door. Although it was a cool find, it had to go.  The wood was rotting and the paint, almost surely lead-based, was bubbling and chipping off in a disturbing manner. I did take some time to salvage the cool hardware, however- an old door knob and a very cool latch that still works great.  We'll find another use for them soon, I'm sure. 

Chimney Demolition

With our foundation work nearly complete, it was time to move on to the chimney demoliton, one of the bigger tasks of the remodel. In the photo below, you can see how large the chimney base was (the structure on the left side of the photo). It was also smack dab in the middle of the new bedroom, so it had to come out.

We chose a dry day to pull down the exterior section of the chimney.  Chad borrowed a fall protection kit, strapped in, and got to work chipping the chimney apart, brick by brick. 

Basement remodel- structural surprises in the north wall

With our new footings dug and our beams replaced/ reinforced/ strapped down on our home's south and west walls, It was time to open up the easier walls to the north and east (easier because they're the "daylight" sides of our daylight basement, and not holding up a ton of earth uphill).  Chad demolished the drywall and framing, which was 12" in from the exterior wall of the house, presumably to cover up the plumbing main.  Once the wall was gone, though, we quickly discovered that the plumbing was not the only thing hiding.  There was also a gigantic hole in the slab, underneath which was standing groundwater.  

In addition to the standing water, Chad noticed a half-inch gap between the edge of the slab floor in the basement, which meant that this groundwater issue had caused some erosion, making the wall of the house move away from the slab.  Yikes. This was not, in fact, going to be the easy wall.

Basement remodel- reinforcing the foundation on our south and west walls

Once we got all of our drywall demolished, we found some alarming conditions in our foundation.  In the crawl space behind the pony wall, on the uphill sides of the house (the south and west walls), we found a number of wooden posts with no footings holding up the rim of our house. 

You can see that the post in the photo on the left has partially collapsed, which was making our kitchen floor sag towards the edge of the house. The post in the right photo is at least straight, but it is holding up a joint in the exterior rim of the house (neither of these conditions are exactly ideal in the case of an earthquake... luckily there haven't been any of those since we've moved in!).

Basement demolition

Behold our very plain, very poorly finished basement.  A few months ago (well nearly a year ago, if I'm honest), we decided it was time to tear down the walls.  We were working through plans with the architect and our structural engineer, and we wanted to get a sense of foundation conditions, plus it was just time.  Chad struck the first blow, and just like that, we were in demolition mode. 

Digging in to our home remodel

After four plus years of living in our little house in Rainier Beach, we've finally dug in to our long-planned remodel.  Although there have been downsides to living in our fixer as-is, we've had plenty of time to figure out what we like about the place and what we'd like to change. 

Family portrait on our first day as home owners back in 2008