Street Side Foundation

On Wednesday I went up to the cabin to check on things and found that the jacks under the house had leaked and the house was sagging, a lot.  I jacked it back up and decided to put the blocks under it yesterday to keep that from happening again.  I still have 1 more block to place under the corner, but I have to cut it first.  Next up is the French drain.

Street Side Foundation

When we bought this cabin the inspector told us the most difficult part to repair would be the foundation under the street side wall.  I've spent the last year trying to figure out the best way to tackle it, which really means putting it off.  Yesterday I got some help and we got the footer pored!  All that is left now is to place a row of cinder blocks and set the house back down.  Thanks a ton Brian!

New Rim Joist

This afternoon, I ripped the old rotting siding and rim joist off and put a pressure treated rim joist in it's place.  When the original cabin was built they did not use a sill plate.  The addition that was put on in the 1960s did have one though.  The way they did it left room for me to add one under the original cabin and not have a step in the foundation.  I'm sure that was not done on purpose, but it was awfully nice of them.

Street Side Foundation

It took a good portion of the day today, but the foundation, stairs, walkway and concrete pad at the bottom of the stairs have all been removed.  Tomorrow I will level the cabin and start compacting the dirt where the footers will be pored.  I still have to replace the rim joist and sill plate.  If all goes well, I will have the footer in place by the end of the weekend.

Street Side Foundation

After getting the weight off the foundation wall, I dug a trench the entire length of the cabin.  This will allow me to access the foundation with a jack hammer.  After the new foundation is in place, this trench will become the French drain so we don't have this problem again.  We are going to use the old dry well to collect the water from the drain.

Street Side Foundation

Next up is to fix the foundation on the street side wall.  There was no water management done, so over the last 90 years the dirt under the foundation has eroded away.  Step one in fixing it was to jack the house up and get the weight off the foundation.  I used a couple pressure treated 6x6s that I had laying around and some bottle jacks that we bought just for the job.

New Appliances

We've had the stove and microwave in the cabin for a while now.  The microwave is plugged in so we can use it, but we don't have the gas line run for the stove yet.  Until today we were using the fridge that Amit gave us last year.  It has been moved into the utility room as the backup and we picked up a nice counter depth French door stainless KitchenAid off the Facebook Market Place.

Fresh Paint

Kelly spent the last 2 days scraping and painting the street side of the cabin.  She did below the 2 windows next to the door last year because the insurance company complained about the pealing paint.  After the work over the last 2 days, this whole side of the cabin is freshened up.  I didn't really have the heart to tell her we are tearing it all off in a year or two. :)

Lake Side Foundation

My concrete footers have cured for almost 2 weeks now, so I got most of the blocks stacked yesterday.  But of course, I ran out of mortar with only 2 blocks left.  You can see just how crooked the original piers are.  While I have been doing this, Kelly has been working on painting the street side of the cabin.  We'll get a picture of that up today if she finishes.