We last left off with the discovery that two of the back walls of the house had slipped off their foundation at some point in it's history since 1892, and had been well camouflaged by a previous owner.
The Husbear and I found a way to correct this problem! And it's relatively simple. Relatively.
We will simply increase the footprint of the house by adding an entirely new Master bathroom, and remove the existing back walls. (Which also means we will be moving the Master bedroom downstairs in the near future.) I think the Husbear must employ some mind-control device on me to get me to agree to such things.
I said "simply". We know how that goes....
Unfortunately, we had a 60+ foot tall problem sitting right in the middle of the proposed area for the new Master bathroom.
A great big tree.
This picture was taken in 2005. I thought I had taken a more recent picture of it, but alas. The tree had grown a wee bit since 2005. So much that it towered over the roof of the two story house by at least 30 feet. At least.
Just like Earl, the tree had to die.
I hate being up on a ladder. And I hate chainsaws. Put them both together, and it's worse than my dislike of clowns and politicians! But after some creative cutting of the larger branches, and some narrow misses on bringing said limbs down on the house, we were left with the trunk and the stump.
Ugh. The stump.
The Husbear and the stump.
First we axed it for a while. Then dug and cut around the roots with trowels, hammers, and a sawzall.
Then we bought a pressure washer and blasted out the dirt so we could see the roots. After that, it was a "simple" matter of cutting the remaining roots and pulling on the stump with a cumalong. "Cumalong". Heh heh.
Yea! The stump is removed!
Now that the stump is out of the way, I can string out the area for the new foundation so the form for the raised concrete foundation could be built.
The form is almost ready. Hopefully we'll be able to start pouring the concrete this coming weekend for the walls of the foundation. If it doesn't rain. Again.
Can you tell we're wore out?
Until next time...
Jennifer commented on April 28, 2010 at 10:01 am:
Man alive that looks like a crazy amount of work. Seems like it would be totally worth it in the end, though. Wishing you good weekend weather! : )
Cb commented on April 28, 2010 at 10:19 am:
Wow! Such handy gays!!
Kevin-Andrew commented on April 28, 2010 at 12:51 pm:
You two are amazing.
BearToast Joe commented on April 28, 2010 at 7:09 pm:
You two are industrious and creative -- or just nuts! or both.
But sooo butch.
Amazement! Cheers
the replicant commented on April 28, 2010 at 9:39 pm:
Dang. I'd have probably spent the day arguing about why a tree is a perfectly fine thing to have in the bathroom.
Erik Rubright replied to the replicant on May 2, 2010 at 10:55 pm:
The Husbear tried to do that. I told him he was more than welcome to poop outside under a tree during the winter or a rainstorm.
Urspo commented on April 29, 2010 at 12:23 am:
that last photo is the most cheery and lovely thing I have seen all week; thank you for it.
RG commented on April 29, 2010 at 4:16 am:
Aren't you two just This Old House personified. And more pics of your husbear without his shirt please. And, you too!
Erik Rubright replied to RG on May 2, 2010 at 10:58 pm:
The Husbear was a little mad that I posted that picture of him. He thought he didn't look good in it for some reason....
Mark Alexander commented on April 29, 2010 at 4:45 pm:
You *do* have a building permit, right?
Erik Rubright replied to Mark Alexander on May 2, 2010 at 10:57 pm:
"We don't need no stinking badges...". Let's just say there might be a few benefits of actually living out in the country and in a county and not a city.