House Projects :: Removing the wall, paint prep

We've known for a while that the exterior basement step retaining wall was pushing in and needed to be replaced.  This past winter and extended cold weather seemed to do a number on the wall and moved the project to the top of our list. No longer could we pretend that it wasn't that big of a deal; the wall was moving in!

In June we had an excavator remove the existing block and had a mason lined up to lay new block as soon as possible.

 The wall was noticeably bowing as there wasn't as much room to carry a laundry basket up the stairs.

 Pre-excavation.

 It's amazing how quickly that little bucket can destroy a wall! Brian, the excavator, told me that the yellow glazed blocks break like coffee cups. (Probably not the best thing to use for a retaining wall!) It doesn't take much to remove them. And, it really didn't! He loaded the wall into his dump truck and was done in a day.

 Crumbled!

 So happy to see the wall go!

 We watched for a while...Micah was enthralled and Mason enjoyed watching too! We took a break and went to swim lessons, and when we came home most of the main section of the wall was gone.

 We ate lunch at the picnic table so we could have a prime view of the work.

 Done and gone.

 It stayed like this for a couple weeks until the mason could come and lay the block. He works for another crew and was doing our job in the evenings and on Saturday.

 In the meantime, we had the exterior our of house prepped for paint. Jacob, as Mason knew him well, was here for about a week wrapping our window trim with aluminum, replacing trim boards on the garage, nailing in boards, building a new step for the side entrance, and a new roof for the front entrance.

 The block and sand was delivered and made a nice home between the house and garage until it was laid at the steps.

 It felt like there was always someone working at our house, and that the outside was in a continuos state of mess! There were several days when the boys couldn't nap very well because of sawing and nailing close to their rooms.

I was shocked to see how rotted the side step was. I knew it was bad, but that looks pretty sad!

The new roof and posts at the front entrance.