Sept 5 - A bit more digging

After the brief interruption to take down about ten trees the digging for the foundations resumed. Here you can see the small dozer (bigger than the mini dozer used lakeside) working on making room for what will be the mud hall and downstairs laundry/storage area. The canoe had been stored next to the shed and had been moved for tree removal. Oh, and the small tree that can be seen at the corner of the digging.....it's now long gone.







This is one corner of what was dug out for the foundation. The white pipe is part of the line running to the septic field. And yes they broke it while digging. Luckily it was a quick fix. The front one that runs from the bathroom to the septic tank was broken as well. The good news there is that they also fixed the angle of the pipe so all will drain better in the future. Each time I was without water for maybe an hour or so. Not a big deal.

September 4 - Interruption

In early September I noticed a large branch had fallen by the back corner of the cottage. At first I chalked it up to a windstorm or something while I was out of town. But then the crew mentioned some thing about it looked like bugs. So I decided to take a closer look at what had fallen. The base of the rather large birch branch was completely honeycombed. At this point I looked up at where it had fallen and thought “ut oh, it looks like the top of the tree could come down at any time”. Way up toward the top the entire trunk was encircled with the same honeycomb effect. I got on the phone right away to the tree guys and they stopped by to check it out late that same afternoon. Thank goodness they did. I hadn’t thought about it but getting them in to take out this damaged tree as well as a few other standing dead ones would be a LOT cheaper if done BEFORE the back foundation holes were dug. What timing! A day later and I would have had much more outta my pocket. Lucky for me they were able to come out the very next day and remove a total of ten small birch trees.

Just below the bucket you can see how the trunk is completely honeycombed. The tree guys said it was from a woodpecker, not insects. Now if only the top had crashed through the roof I could have gotten insurance to pay for part of the remodel!













Here you can see where the first tree was located in relation to the cottage. You can also see that the rather large truck is right parked right where the foundation hole was about to be dug.

Diggin' in the dirt

Enough of the decking has now been removed for the digging to begin. Fred is making some final preparations before the mini-dozer sets to work







And the digging begins. Next will come setting the forms for pouring the base of the new foundation.

Photos taken on Sept 3, 2008

Taking things apart

Mike Lanham starting to take out the existing decking to the lakeside door.


















Mike and his brother Chris doing more demolition work in preparation for digging new foundations on the lake side of the house. Fred is supervising as usual.






photos taken Sept 3, 2008

A test of MacJournal + Blogspot

ok, just testing some new software here. Nothing much to see really

And so it begins

Hello and welcome to my latest blog. I don't know yet what this may grow into but I know where I plan to start... by documenting the remodel of my cottage. This is what we're starting with. These first two pictures are of the original cottage looking west toward the lake (road side)









and this is the view looking east from the dock