The Work Moves Underground

Mike, Ryan's Dad and his faithful black lab Rudy arrived in Lewisburg Monday afternoon to tackle the hardest, dirtiest job thus far, the basement. Besides the now decrepit 1000 gallon oil storage tank, the coal burning furnace and many rotten sewer pipes, the basement remains exactly as it was first constructed in 1855, or was it 1825?? More on that later. Anyway, the foundation walls are constructed of 18" blue stone and the floor is dirt. When it was first excavated the height was probably less than six feet, but at some point in the early 90's one of the last two owners started to drop the floor. The basement is currently about seven feet deep in many places and our plan is to finish the job, pour a concrete floor and secure the basement as a sealed, relatively dry place for storage. Lewisburg is in a flood zone, so finishing the basement is not in the plan, but it certainly needs to be upgraded so that it can continue to be a good support for the rest of the house. All things considered, though, the basement is in very good shape structurally.

Before the digging could begin, the useless mechanical pieces of the house had to be removed. On Tuesday, Mike and Ryan made quick work of all that junk, cutting it loose, cutting it up, and hauling it up the stairs. Wednesday morning took the pair to the scrap/recycling yard separating the metal into brass, copper, and scrap. With the contents of the basement out of the way the digging began in earnest on Wednesday afternoon. Ryan doesn't have much good to say about the digging, just that it's back-breaking work and he'll be glad when it's done!

On Wednesday afternoon Dale Johnson, who grew up in the house from 1933 on and still lives in town, stopped by again. Ryan met him a few weeks ago, but this time he and Mike and Ryan were able to chat. As per our request Dale brought over some photos of the house from his childhood. I haven't had a chance to see them all yet, but we hope to be able to photocopy some to have better records of the way the house looked in its prime. Ryan did bring home a beautiful, almost haunting copy of a picture of Dale's mother Betty, sweeping the sidewalk in front of the house. The porch, which the Johnson's had removed in lieu of the bay window in 1936, is in the background of the picture that depicts the front of the house. Dale also gave Ryan a copy of the real estate information sheet that was put together when he put the house on the market in 1990. The most interesting item on the work-up is the birthdate for the house. Up to this point, the documentation we have found lists 1855 as the date the house was built, so we have a contradiction on our hands. You can be sure we will begin looking into this and get an update out once we have some more information.

To my surprise, I learned this evening that tomorrow will not consist of digging all day. I don't know what's so rough about digging through clay for 8-10 hours a day, but apparently Mike and Ryan plan to break up the basement work tomorrow by taking out the floor between the first and second floor in the back part of the house and completely taking down the back addition that has stood, although not very well lately, since 1936. The pictures of the basement are up and are pretty cool to look at but definitely check back for more pictures as the structure and layout really start to look different.