The Wall

A few years ago Moosbeere was visiting and noticed a crack in the stonework on the front of our house.  Being as interested in construction as he is, he got looking at it closely and came to the conclusion that the south wall of our basement had not had sufficient support put it in, particularly around the windows, to hold the weight of the house above it and so had settled, cracking the stonework.  The solution, he said, was simple - just jack up the floor boards above the wall and add some additional support in the way of an additional 2"x4" to both sides of both windows on the south wall.  That may seem like a simple idea to someone with a masters degree and several years of experience in commercial construction but to me it was a little more than I wanted to tackle on my own.  We also didn't have the money to hire it done at that point so it had to wait. After a year or two, the damage began to extend beyond the crack in the stonework. The windows in the basement began to move and crack as well.  Pretty soon, in the winter, the cold midwestern air could come in and and make our basement pretty cold, even after we filled the openings and covered the windows with stuff to slow the airflow and provide a little extra insulation. That began to add a little urgency to the project.

Fortunately, we were able to come up with the money to make the repairs this year. We began talking to a friend, who runs a small construction company, about doing the work back in the summer, back when the pandemic was still fairly new. The economy was just beginning to loosen back up. While the shutdown was in place his company's work had really dropped off but as things began to open back up he suddenly found he was very busy. He asked us if we had any kind of time frame to get the work done and we said we were just hoping to get it done before it got cold again. He said that shouldn't be a problem. In early fall we ordered new windows, we actually decided to replace all four windows in our basement. They weren't all damaged but we wanted them all to match. And they were all pretty old anyway. The work of adding the additional support to the wall was going to be done around replacing the windows. So during the weeks we were waiting we began cleaning out the basement, partly because we needed to be able to get to the wall, and partly because we wanted to start using the basement as living space again, instead of just storage space. After all, we had already started working in that direction by redoing the bedroom in the basement.

Finally, after a production delay because of the pandemic, the windows were ready and the work could start.  It had gotten a little farther into the winter than we'd hoped but there wasn't much to do - we had to wait on the windows.  

So the drapes came down and the paneling came off, exposing the inside of the wall.

They had a nifty little jack that raised up a section of the wall at a time. So, beginning at the west end of the area, where the sag was the worse, they jacked the wall up ...

... and stuck in an extra support.

That process was repeated a few times along the south wall until additional support had been added all along the wall.

They had measured the sag all along the wall before they began but as they worked, jacking and adding support as they went, the sag began to go away, until when they got to the east end of the wall the sag was nearly gone even without adding any that last, final support. Still, they put that last board in anyway.

Then, the next day, the window people came and install the new windows. They had engaged a local window company for that. In this shot (above), they were half done with the first window, the right side is the new window while the left side is the old window. Quite the contrast.

On the south wall, there are two windows but they actually count as two windows each. So, really, there were six windows being put in, those along the south wall and two more along the east wall. That's every window in the basement. It went fairly quick but it still took most of the day before he had them all in. He had to come back the next day to do just a little more work and put some trim on. But soon enough the new windows were in and we were ready to put the wall back together.

We had taken paneling off but decided we wanted to put drywall back instead. A much nicer look than the ugly paneling. And it's a little better for insulation as well. Not much, but a little. So up it went. 

Once the new walls were up and painted we also wanted to make some changes to the lights. For the whole the room, running the whole length of the house from west to east, the only ceiling lights were two florescent light panels in the suspended ceiling, both down on the east end of the room. They have always seemed oddly placed as well.  At least to me. They weren't in line with each other, they were offset from each other, in different rows of the ceiling tiles. And they didn't put out a whole lot of light, either. So we moved the first one closer to the east wall and the second one row farther to the west, more to the center of the whole, long room. And also we put them in the same row. Then we also added a third light, again in the same row as the other two, down on the west end of the room, in the family room area. Boy, did that ever brighten up that end of the room!

All that also required rewiring the switches. It worked out well because there were two switches that didn't do anything, they didn't control any lights in the basement. Maybe at one time, way back in the past, before we ever owned the house, they might have. But for the whole time we've lived here they did nothing.  

It actually worked out very well. Now each light is on its own switch and you can have as many of them on or off as you want. If Brombeere is going to be sewing in her space on the east end of the room, we can leave the rest of the basement dark. Likewise, if we're going to be watching TV or something in the west end of the room, we don't have to light up the whole basement. And we replaced the old lights with new ones, much more energy efficient and much brighter. Saves electricity, right? A much nicer arrangement, I think.

Once the new windows were in, framed, and all the painting done, along with the changes to the ceiling lights, we were finally ready to begin putting back all the furniture.

Brombeere rearranged her sewing area some, she added a little extra space and changed the layout of the table, cabinets, and other furniture.  She likes the new layout much better.  it's more roomy and easier to work in.  The downside is that by the time all this work was done, most of her Christmas sewing was pretty much one.  But, wow, is she ever ready for the next sewing project.  And the whole of the basement looks way better, is much more livable.  

In fact, since we put the new TV down there, it has actually become our preferred space for watching TV, on those occasions that we do watch TV.  Pretty nice!