Darcy's Journal: Fall 2020 Cottage Renovations

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Fall 2020 Cottage Renovations - October

Dear Darcy,

So 2020, the Covid Year... the year everyone decided to renovate because we had to stay home and had so much free time... we decided to, too!

The wood posts under the cottage we leaning more and more each year. We had been keeping an eye on it, and speaking to different people about what they had done at their own cottages and speaking to people who did this kind of work... We knew that time was running out to get this DONE.

We considered trying to do it ourselves. We figured we could probably dig up and replace 2-3 posts per summer. There were 12 (I think) posts, so it would take us 4-6 years to replace them all. Wood posts need to be replaced or straightened again over and over every few years. So we looked into a permanent solution!

Thanksgiving Monday the renovations to replace the posts under the cottage began. We finally decided to replace the (slanted!) wood posts with permanent metal posts. The contractor gave us a very complete quote, we borrowed the money, set the date, got the permit and the work was expected to be completed within a week. That would not include the things we would need to do ourselves afterwards, such as adjusting windows and doors, putting a privacy screen around the posts, putting the plumbing and electrical back, etc. Little did we know that after a hot, dry summer, there would be a deluge the second day of work...

The crooked posts that needed to be replaced:

They leaned more and more each winter and luckily, the lean went away from lake - uphill!

later that day...stairs removed

getting ready to jack up the house to make room to put in the new posts.

(This is a screenshot so you can't click on the photos for captions, but everything should be included below.)

scary!!

Before:

Going up...

After:

...WOW!

To put it in perspective:

That's a lot of mud

Squishy!

My poor Tamarack...

This is one of the posts. They get screwed down into the ground below the frost level. When they hit bedrock before the frost level, they drill into the bedrock and put the posts into the bedrock.

Here you can see some of the posts in the front.

They will be extended and the house will also be lowered.

This is the machine that screws the posts into the ground.

more posts in

So. Much. Mud.

What a mess. The logs are the old posts. The stack towards the left side is the metal cross beams to go between the posts. The trelis was sadly piled on the Walker's old garden.

comparison before and after, but the pics are backwards OOPS!

same hillside:

bottom left: we found the deck of an old lawn mower under our house.

before and after:

Under the cottage looking towards the lake, before and during (almost after!).

Kitchen door before and after...almost done.

You can see how much higher the house is now. Darcy is standing on the landing that we used to walk into the kitchen from. The water pump is now in the kitchen! Yard has been as cleaned up as possible given the mud.