Beginning at "Ground" Level

As Greg examined the foundation and floor supports, his first major discovery was the kitchen drain had been leaking into the crawl space for some time.  It had rotted much of the floor supports, and wall framing in that area.  In the picture to the left Greg has pulled loose the flooring that was directly under the original kitchen sink.  You'll notice the hot water heater in the corner.  It's a gas unit that directly vented out through an original chimney used in the early 30's for cooking.  As he tore out the rotten flooring, the rank smell filled the back end of the house.  "What now!" kept running through my head....how were we going to be able to stay in here and work on such problems?  As we ran through possible remedies, we both realized that dirt had to be freshened.  So we did what any gardener would do...we limed the soil.

 We had not mentioned that we needed a clean sink for our cooking.  Obviously, the original kitchen plumbing was out of order. Greg installed a utility sink and tied the plumbing into the backside of our operational bathroom.  This has worked well for us.  I have a clean area for cooking and cleaning.

We were frustrated that our building permit was taking so long to approve.  Charleston City was going to require that Greg take a test to do our electrical, and we would have to find a licensed mechanical contractor to manage our HVAC.  He would have to brush up on the current codes for South Carolina and submit our plans for approval.  As hard as it was to wait, we still had tons of demo to do and it gave our kitchen soil time to "sweeten".

As a woman in these living conditions, I thought I had been doing well managing a very difficult situation and it was going from bad to worse.  Sitting down and crying was my first inclination. Instead, I put on my "Big Girl" panties and decided crying wasn't about to change our living space!  I spent the afternoon sealing the open doorways with a heavy, clear plastic to create a barrier that would keep that smell from spreading into our room.  It made a huge difference.  Stay tuned in because it just keeps getting better....