New Guy, Mailbox, and Foundation

I am very proud of my first mailbox. It's not exactly the one I would choose, had I not been on a renovating budget, but it was gray (grey? how do you spell it? Wikipedia didn't know, either), which I found quite pleasing, and it fit my immediate budget perfectly. Only, I didn't know you actually had to put it together... the flag, the closing mechanism, the handle... Of course, I championed through it and even applied my house numbers. Here's my dorky, 'I did it all by myself', proud, first mailbox-having, look at my handiwork, picture:

And here is the mailbox in place in front of the house, about two weeks ago, before this last round of work began. I utterly failed when attempting to put up the mailbox by myself, so a special thanks to my Dad for helping me get postal. Note the state of things, the big pile of wood and general abandoned sadness.

And here the house is tonight, after I got off work and the guys had cleaned up after themselves from the foundation extravaganza. They hauled off the wood to use as firewood for the oncoming winter months, which was perfect to me. I didn't have to pay to dump it, it's being used for some purpose, and they cleaned up the yard for free.

Back up a little bit, and here's the New Guy's first day of work, digging and pouring the footers for the new piers all around the house, about thirty of them.

And here's roughly the same spot, but with the complete piers in place. I know they're not beautiful, but they are functional. And the old piers were left in place, too. Some can be knocked down, but most will remain to server as fill-in for when I get around to completely closing in under the house. This will all be stuccoed or painted, eventually, except for the front brick columns and around the porch. I love the brick too much to cover it up.

After they piers were in, they back filled around them, too. The rainwater here had washed away a lot of the dirt here over the years, which probably aided in some of the piers failing over the years.

This is the only section where the evidence of the old pier is completely gone. This is the corner of the kitchen, where the original pier failed many years ago, dropping the floor here about 9 inches. The rebuilt piers on this corner in three places, where before they had only one.

This is the back closet/extra/ maybe-one-day-second-bath/ room off of the master bedroom. I took this picture because it was the easiest one to show that New Guy and his crew also poured footers and built piers to hold additional braces that run down the length of EVERY room, perpendicular to the floor joists, adding stability to the floor system.

And that's where the Foundation Project ends. What's exciting is what comes next in the process. I've waited a long time to get the demolition done (check), and get a new roof on the house (check), and now get the foundation fixed (check). Next are sub-floors, plumbing, and wiring. And air conditioning duct work.

I really like New Guy and his crew. We are going to meet at the house tomorrow and talk about the next steps. He's going to give me estimates of repairing the original windows and getting storm windows against buying and installing new vinyl windows. Also on the list is closing up the house again (there. is. no. back. wall.), putting in a back door, getting a game plan for the back porch area, and making the house wind/water/wasp tight.

Also, I have small wall projects to tackle, one of which is the back porch wall, and the other involves the bathroom. Where I wanted to put the toilet lives a massive, immovable sill, and so I shall have to rethink bathroom plumbing and fixture placement.

Things are happening again and I can't wait!