As can be expected with an old house such as this one, we started to run into some problems as the fall came to an end. First, the roof needed patching and replacing. We discovered a family of raccoons that had been using a hole in the attic as their own personal entrance. We needed to evict them and quickly seal the hole so that the home could be rain proof; completely dry for the winter season.

For the next step, the foundation needed to be re-set before we started building our new porch. This caused us a lot of problems, as the new foundation sunk after the first try and needed to be re-poured. After the second attempt, everything was securely set and we could re-build the new porch, complete with trex decking, wooden support beams, and a brand new roof. Later, we’d add a restored porch swing that was original to the house, as well as goat wire fencing around the ledge.

After finishing the porch, we dug up the backyard, built an outdoor entrance to the basement, and constructed a new deck off of the back door.

We dug one foot out of the basement floor to allow for more headroom, and installed a french drain in the floor. This was a huge undertaking as the digging needed to be done by hand! In December, the cold weather brought more problems, as we had to deal with a huge pipe burst and water leak in the basement that set us back thousands of dollars. The project was starting to feel more and more overwhelming, and was getting very expensive.