A lot of progress this weekend although pictures probably wouldn't show it. The foundation forms are pretty much ready (or at least they appear to be). The second (and last) round of digging for the underpinnings is also done. I give the laborers so much credit because they had to hand dig in rock hard, compacted clay soil. The forms are being built and the inspection is scheduled for tomorrow for the underpinnings and the foundation footers. If all goes well, the next concrete pour will be on Wednesday. The foundation footers may be poured on Wednesday or Friday (I'm not sure of the schedule on that). Of course the weather forecast for Wednesday is horrible right now (snow/rain) so hopefully the forecasters are so wrong. Other than that day, the weather is clear for the week of course.
At this point the block is still scheduled to start being laid next Monday (one week from today). The height of the block is critical to ensure that the floors in the old and new house are level. The floors in our existing house are pretty level (thanks to a huge original steel beam in our basement), so we won't have to do any leveling there. It is really important though that the new floors are perfectly even with the existing. This process is made a lot easier using a laser level which shoots a beam from the foundation to the existing floor. The existing back door of our kitchen will help with this because the whole back will not have to be opened up to check the level.
Interior demolition will continue this week. The kitchen still needs to be torn out but will happen at some point this week. Interior demo is probably ahead of schedule right now since only the kitchen remains relatively in tact. The upstairs demo appears to be completely done for now except for removing the back windows which will be reused in the garage.
Several people have asked whether we are on schedule. To be honest, we don't have a complete schedule although I would say we are ahead of schedule because we made a big push to start in January instead of February. Hopefully we'll still be moving back in some time in July. Nothing has delayed us severely... yet. Even the permits only held us up by 3 or 4 days at most. So, we'll see how the next few weeks go because that is where the major delays will most likely come. Once we are framed and sealed then we'll be less subject to weather issues and they can work inside and outside simultaneously or focus on one or the other depending on the weather on a particular day.
More pictures later in the week when the kitchen is demolished and the underpinnings and footers are completed. Next week - lots of cement block!
