The sink holes were formed underneath the right hand side of the concrete porch.
One of the "Cave's"
Last week I wrote a post about surprises and in reality I should have waited a few days because the biggest surprise of them all was found last Wednesday night. We had torn down the addition off of the kitchen (due to termite damage) and Justin and Christian were breaking up the footers when the dirt underneath part of the concrete porch just collapsed. Large sink holes had formed around the original (100 year old) hand dug well, which was conveniently placed underneath right next to the house. The one hole was 9 ft deep and 6 ft wide, the other hole was about 15 ft deep and 1 ft wide. We back filled both holes and will need to monitor how the dirt settles over the next few months, therefore we will be changing the entire first floor plan. I'm a firm believe in the phrase everything happens for a reason and I'm actually more excited for the new floor plans then I was the old :)
Front of the House
Trying to Survive the Heat!
Past Memorial Day weekends have been made up of hefty bar tabs at Seacrets, dance parties at Fagers Island, and lazy days of laying on the beach. This MDW was spent tearing down siding, replacing an entire roof with new shingles, and lots and lots of SWEAT! We got so much accomplished this weekend and a big thank you to everyone who was there to help!
We have found some pretty interesting items while demoing the house; wedding album, an old style WAWA coffee cup, rain boots, and so on. This past weekend we worked on demoing the kitchen and we found another mystery, what appeared to be scorched beams. We are thinking that at some point in time there was a very localized fire caused or the chimney liner was bad causing the brick to get way too hot and ultimately scorching the floor boards and wood beams. The picture to the right shows the blackness of the wood. Also, the cast iron pipe in the middle was the drainage to their old bathroom (toilet). Instead of correctly cutting the pipe off, the previous owner just placed a plastic bag on the top. Not the best handy-man decision considering methane gas and fire is a recipe for disaster. We also found what appears to be a drilled well, which was uncovered after we destroyed an old chicken coop. We could save some serious dough if we are able to use this as our well instead of having to drill a new one. I'm sure we will find out more information once Harford County officials come and take a look. I will be sure to keep you posted!
During settlement the previous homeowner had asked if I would like for her to send pictures of the house when her husband purchased the home back in the 50's. Of course I though it was awesome idea and I plan on framing them as well as pictures from when we bought the house and photos of when all of the renovations are done. I can't wait to do a comparison of all 3 photographs to see how much the house has changed from owner to owner. A big thank you to Mr. & Mrs. Newton for sharing these lovely photos with us.
Last weekend was tremendous...we got the entire house demoed, the barn completely cleaned up, and removed around 10 trees. WOW! What an accomplishment but boy did that weekend kick my butt. To say I was exhausted would be an understatement...my body ached and my feet throbbed. By the time we were wrapping up Sunday night, I was more then ready for a long shower, good dinner, TV and my big comfy bed.
Monday morning was rough..between the lack of sleep and body aches, I didn't want to even think about having to get up and get ready to go to work when my alarm clock started going off. Around 11am I received a phone call from Christian and the first words out of his mouth "now don't panic but...". He left me hanging there for way too long, a thousand things started going through my head "the house burnt done", "we got robbed", "you need to find a new contractor" (hehe). The one thing I was not expecting him to say was "I accidently drove a nail through my toe with the nail gun". Safe, Responsible, and Cautious Christian drove a nail through his foot and boarded himself to the deck! This would ONLY happen to us when we were under a serious time crunch!! I rushed to the ER and watched the entire process of the doctor using actual tools to rip the nail out of his toe. Poor guy! Doc said he is going to be pretty sore for a week or so and shouldn't really think about going back to work until the hole is completely closed (to limit the chance of infection). It has been 2 days and he's already out of the house...typical guy I guess!
Let's see what kind of progress we can make this weekend :)
Well it is finally official! Christian and I settled on our house Monday April 30th, 2012. Tons of emotions run through your body while sitting at that big round table literally signing your life away! I could not wait to get back to the house and just sit out on our porch and process the fact that we had just bought a home. Of course when I got there my Mom, Step-father, and brother surprised Christian and I with champagne, shrimp, and strawberries! Christian had other plans as he immediately started to take down a very large cedar tree that had grown right up against the house.
Every day that week I couldn't wait to get off work and head straight to the house. We started the demoing process Wednesday night and worked till about 11:00pm. We had a ton of help from friends and family and we got the place completely ripped apart in a matter of days! We were hoping to find hidden treasures but unfortunately we were not lucky enough. We did unveil two large bees nests (see below), an old WAWA coffee cup that had been buried behind some drywall, and a very old Union Memorial Hospital glass canister. We worked our BUTTS off the first weekend and got a tremendous amount of work done. A big THANK YOU to everyone who gave up their Saturday and Sunday to be at the house helping Christian and I tear everything down!