So, here is the deal

My expensive problem that I stated before? Yeah, half the bathroom doesn't have a foundation. Seriously. There was no way of telling that until Joe pulled the floor off and then started digging out some of the dirt to prepare it to put a new and level floor on. I guess that would explain why the bathroom was so uneven and sinking to one side. The entire bathroom is just resting on a wooden board. You couldn't see it from the outside because there was a cement lip poured around the base of the house (likely to help drive water away).  Some of the bathroom has basement under it, but the rest does not. My guess would be that many years ago there was a back porch area that was enclosed to make the bathroom space bigger. Building codes have changed over the years (keep in mind this house is more than 120 years old) and these are things they likely just didn't worry about.

The contractor got the building inspector out there yesterday morning and they came up with a plan together. We will need to put in a bunch of pillars and will basically build on those. I don't completely understand, but they think this is the best solution to this problem. Without a foundation, Joe has found a few fun things while digging.... including a mole who was quite surprised to be discovered by Joe's shovel as he was burrowing around. There was no harm brought to the mole, Joe is hoping that now that he has be disturbed that he will go burrow elsewhere.

I still don't know how much all of this is going to cost. While being all nervous about it, I cooked up a piece of thick bacon to eat and then after eating it realized that it isn't so good to sooth myself with food.... even if I do it in much smaller quantities than I used to. Oh well, I am only human and sometimes a piece of bacon works better than a prozac.

We ended up going out for dinner last night with my parents rather than working on the house anymore. I am thankful for that. I think we needed a wee bit of a break. Today, we will be back at it once Joe gets off work. Well, if the weather holds. We need to mow our lawn again and want to lay out some tarps for where we want our gardens in the future to kill off the grass. We also need to start thinking about prepping a few rooms for paint and finish pulling out all the staples in the girls' room floor so that it is ready for the carpet to go down. Their carpet is going to look so nice! And no animal urine!! And the lead paint issue has been being taken care of, which is making all the windows look nice and white and bright :)  You know, that is what is important, besides it suddenly being safe for the kids to eat the paint chips they find.