Come along with us as we renovate our 1946 home. This week’s home renovation update is about the progress on the foundation.

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Catch up on our home renovation updates here:
Update #1
Update #2
Update #3
Update #4
Update #5

It’s been a while since my last home renovation update, but that’s not because we haven’t been working hard at it. We had to take a few days off when my Papa passed away. Also my husband is working on a huge project at work and cannot take any more days off. Now that the sun is setting earlier there’s not a lot of time left when he gets home.

Needless to say we’re still on the foundation part of our home renovation. This part has been the longest, most frustrating, worst part so far. There is so much involved that I never even thought about when we first started this process.

After cleaning off the side of the foundation, which took a lot of time, the cracks had to be filled in and patched up, rubber cement had to go on the whole side, and foam boards had to be put up.

Related: Check out this great article by Holly at Cat Care Solutions on How to Keep Your Cats Calm During Home Improvements.

Home Renovation Update

Patching the cracks

Our foundation had lots of cracks, some small and some rather long and deep. They had to be patched up by first putting insulating foam sealant in the cracks, then after a few days of drying that had to be scraped off level to the foundation.

Next a layer of liquid rubber foundation sealant was put over the crack and then geo-textile was placed over that like a bandage.

Putting on the foundation sealant

Once all of this was dry and set, a thick layer of the rubber foundation sealant was put on the entire foundation wall. This had to be done to the front side as well as the side, however not as high up on the side.

Adding the foam boards

When the rubber foundation sealant was set and dry foam boards were added to the side of the house.

Since our foundation is crazy bumpy at the bottom, my husband made his own tool to trace lines along the bottom of the foundation onto a piece of cardboard.

After the line was drawn, he placed the cardboard down on top of the foam boards and poked holes through both pieces along the line he drew on the cardboard piece.

When he removed the cardboard piece you could see the holes on the foam board. He then connected the dots and drew the line on the foam board.

At this point I couldn’t help singing “Connect the Dots” by Pee Wee Herman. (If you’ve never seen Pee Wee’s Playhouse then you didn’t have a proper childhood.) I’m pretty sure I drive my husband crazy sometimes.

After the dots and line were in place it was time to cut the bottom off. He cut right along the line he drew, then trimmed up the edge that was cut.

This stuff is so messy! The little pieces flew all over the place, making it look like it was snowing. Which would have been nice considering how hot and humid it has been during this whole process.

Now the cut foam board fit perfectly against the bottom of our crazy bumpy foundation.

After the boards were up and in place, we had to put 3 strands of elastic bands over the boards and around the house to keep them from falling over. They are so light that even a slight breeze keeps blowing them away from the house.

Before figuring out the bands, we had one long rope all the way around. Unfortunately the rope started sagging overnight and all the boards were falling over. Lesson learned.

Laying the fabric

The next step in this home renovation process is to lay landscaping fabric down so we can put in a drainage system. This stuff is super long and smells so gross!

We dragged the fabric up the hill beside our house so we could lay it out flat and fold it in half just to get it into the trench along our house.

We finally got the whole piece in, then the fun started.

This piece seriously took two days to deal with. Once we got to the corner it started bunching up and no matter what we did it would not lay flat. We ended up having to cut it just to make it work.

The fabric has to go up on both sides so that when the gravel is put in, the rest of the fabric can be folded over top. (Then the dirt goes over that.) Yet another thing that caused so much frustration.

We managed to get the fabric up along the dirt side by sticking steel landscape fabric pins through the fabric into the dirt. But now the other side had to go up on the foam boards. (You can see the black elastic bands holding up the boards here.)

My husband put tacks along the top of the fabric to hold it into the foam boards. This helped a little, but he ended up having to buy some super strong tape as extra support.

We have wooden boards propped up against the foam boards to keep them in place.

Our next step is to lay down a layer of gravel, then pipes for our drainage system. On top of that will be another layer of gravel, which we hope to have a cement truck bring since the chute will make it a lot easier. The last layer will be the dirt.

After all of this the foundation will need to be repainted and grass will be planted. I cannot wait to have my yard back!

New Project

I wanted to give you guys another little glimpse at what I’ve been busy working on. Many of you know that I have an Etsy shop, however I have let a lot of my items expire from the shop. I plan to let them all expire and I will no longer be listing on Etsy. They keep going up on their fees and the rules keep changing so I’m pretty fed up with them. I’ve been doing research on other places to sell handmade items, but they’re not that much different.

Since I do not want to pay another site to list my items on, I have decided to create my own store using WooCommerce. This is seriously taking me forever as it’s so much to learn! I have a few items on there now, but it’s probably not going to be official until next year.

As of right now my store contains some of the crochet items I’ve worked on over the past year. I plan to keep adding more items and hopefully branch out with more items later on. This is a work in progress and it’s definitely not an easy one.

Can you tell we don’t do anything the easy way around here?

Here is a link to the store if you would like to take a look: The Shop at Blessings by Me. I welcome any suggestions and feedback!

I want to take a minute to thank everyone of you for your support! It is so very appreciated! More than you’ll ever know!