The Teardown

One task that I took on from the project was the teardown. This included taking up everything in the front yard, especially since I wanted to try and save most of it; salvaging the vinyl siding from the front of the house for later use; removing the front porch, the stairs and the cement pad in the front; and dismantle the basement room next to where the garage will be located so that a temporary support wall could be built.

After discussion with the contractor, and some testing, there were a few demolition projects that I turned back to the contractor. The hedge - I know I could do it myself because I did in the back, but what a pain. The driveway - it turned out to be inches thicker than expected with embedded wire mesh. No way I'd be able to do it in any kind of reasonable time frame. Anything structural - for obvious reasons.

As long as I was at it, and had a dumpster right out front, I took the opportunity to dismantle and dispose of much of the carport as well. I salvaged much of the wood, although much of it may turn out to be damaged by rot.

A big chunk of the work happened over time, as the permit process was going on. Taking apart the carport was first and included the fun of pulverizing a cement block wall with a sledge hammer. It also included finding storage space for everything that had been kept in the shed at the back of the carport, which turned out to be a constant theme during the project, "where can I keep this for now?" A lot of stuff was moved and stored several times as work progressed into the area where it had been kept.

Then I began removing pavers and plants from the front yard, gradually reducing it to dirt and the few large shrubs that I left until the last minute. I managed to schedule my project in a drought year so, despite the fact that it was mid-winter, the weather was good and having bare dirt over the whole front was not really a problem at this point.

I decided to see if there were any good options for removing the two trees in the front which were very close to where the finished addition would be. My first option was to see if either of the two trees in the front could be donated somehow. I discovered from the city forester that the star magnolia on the northeast corner was too large to be dug up and moved, especially with the complication of the power lines.

He also encouraged me to remove and destroy the elm in the northwest corner. Apparently, these self-seeded trees will eventually get Dutch Elm disease and die. In the meantime they harbor the disease which can then infect older well established elm trees in the neighborhood. The trunk was too big to remove easily myself so I arranged for the backhoe to take it out at the same time as the hedge. To make sure that the nearby phone lines were safe when the tree was pulled out, I removed all branches and stems from the tree down to well below the level of the lines.

The Porch

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