Work continues. We’re now halfway through the initial exterior work on the house.
Our contractors have also started on the basement. After an initial cleaning of thyey, scraped off loose mortar from the foundation stonework in the basement and put down a new layer of concrete and I believe some kind of vapor barrier as well. One side of the basement was low and damp and our contractor said water was probably coming up from below the floor, so we went ahead and had them jackhammer through the floor there and dig better drainage under the house, then fill it with gravel and lay a new concrete floor on that side.
In photos the basement doesn’t look like much right now. But before all this work it was like a mildew-smelling horror movie set and now it looks like the sort of place where you would not be terrified to go searching for spare lightbulbs.
Still to do in the basement: Adjust/repair basement windows, replace any insulation that’s compressed or missing, shore up a couple under-supported beams, level out a section of the floor that’s a trip hazard, replace HVAC and water heater, replace waste outlet pipe, replace utility sink…. probably some other stuff.
Secretly Ironic 