The evolution of digging out a very deep basement, in parts…
To start, they had to dig out and under the existing foundation, so that it could be underpinned to support the open air of the MUCH deeper basement for the addition. To size, the existing basement has 7′ ceiling heights, and the new basement will be closer to 12′.
It looked like an archaeological dig site, and was definitely deep. It looks like they went down 15′ to be able to to pour new footers and foundation.
This side of the house is definitely not pretty right now. Besides the giant hole in the making, they also had to remove a brick chimney.
Here the hole is completely dug out on this side, but they’re still pulling loads of dirt out on the other end, towards the front of the house.
Once the dirt was all removed, and we were left with a 40′ x 25′ x 15′ hole, they could finally pour the bottom of the foundation.
You can start to see the two main rooms here take shape: in the front will be the theater, and in the back is the gym. Both with much higher ceilings than the rooms in the rest of the house.
And finally, the full basement foundation is poured and held in forms while it dries. This is the first picture that really felt like it could convey just how massive of a hole this was. And with that much volume, we’ll definitely need a lot of subwoofers!
A few other shots of progress over the last few weeks:
In addition to pouring the theater-side foundation, the garage side foundation was poured as well. The forms are now removed, and it looks like we’ll have the garage slab poured early this week.
We’ve also had to rip off the entire back of the house to straighten out some inconsistencies between levels, so we get this amazing shot now:
Major progress continues to be made, but there’s also a few challenges behind the scenes: crooked foundations, inconsistencies between the two floors, some basement waterproofing needs, which are all adding up a lot. Win some, lose some!