The renovations - to jack up the addition on the back of the house - are finally done, as of about 4 PM yesterday.

This is how it looked once they had the new floor in, and the baseboards and new door to the bedroom:




They worked both Saturday and Sunday to get it done. Sunday evening, I went over to the Rehab Center and discussed all of it with Dad. Only to learn we had a huge problem. The General Contractor - someone we have used many times including for the extensive kitchen redo 4 years ago - had his younger brother as Job Super for this project. Now, this is no kid, he is over age 50! He took a short cut. He "forgot" the concrete slabs to set the jacks and lolly columns, so he used . . . my decorative landscape blocks from the back yard. Cut them in HALF! So the 20 ton jacks were sitting on a weak block that measured 4 x 8 inches! That should be 16 by 16 concrete slabs, to spread out the weight, and to ensure the columns don't shift. I had the dubious pleasure of informing the GC of this when he arrived early Tuesday morning to collect his final payment.

To his credit, he knew straight away that this was WRONG. Didn't give me any issues, said he would correct it. He had to pull 2 guys off other jobs, pick up the needed supplies. And now, since the top was all finished, they had to go in through the cellar, and work in the enclosed crawl space. It is maybe 4 foot high -- not enough that they could crawl along on their hands and knees from the entry point to the work site, they had to roll and shuffle along. Under all that newly installed insulation. NOT a nice job at all. But they did it! I took a few pics from the entry point, then one of them took my camera, rolled back, and took pics for us from close to.






This jack is holding much of the weight:


We now have 5 lolly columns and 2 20 ton hydraulic jacks holding up the addition. AND they sistered up the beams under the Family Room floor as well. This "should" be plenty to hold the whole thing in place for years.

I am glad it is done. What with losing 2 dogs (Sugar and Marlin on April 30), one cat ((Chestnut May 15). having Dad in ICU for 5 days then hospital and then 3 weeks in Rehab, it's been a stressful time. I really wasn't "up" to handling the chaos of a renovation, but I knew it had to be done and that having it done while Dad was out of the house was THE time to do it. I spent 3 hours last evening reconnecting my TV, dvd/vcr, stereo and home theater system. The dvd /vcr is not working, so I'll have to phone the support line for help tomorrow. I have 3 wires coming out of it but no clue where to put them in ha haaa. I marked so much, and wrote things down, but there were 24 wires in all, 48 connections to be made! Now the work is done, that is a HUGE thing off our TO DO list. Still have to get someone to repair Dad's walk in shower, raising it up has caused the 40 year old grout to loosen up too much. That will be minor compared to what this was, though.