The month of October was spent excavating and taking down cottage. By this time the cottage was uninhabitable. The metal roof had been off a month and we had plenty of rain so the inside was quite wet. The windows had been removed, a lot of the bead board walls were gone and it was ready to come down. We were able to burn quite a lot of it. We ended up having to take only 2 truckloads to the landfill. This was really good since they had to take them all the way to Crivitz - 50 miles away.
The new driveway starts near the NE corner and slopes down and around to the new garage.
Had to build a way to get to old cottage levelManaged to build road to bottom sacrificing only one tree - a dying birch
Last picture of cottage mostly standing. Bathroom has been taken down. This is when we moved the stove and refrigerator out because the little skid steer could get close enough to carry them.
Cottage Demo
We were able to save the stone wall.
Getting close to garage levelThe next week continued the digging. I had known all along there would be a big hole in the side of the hill, but I never realized how much they had to dig beyond were the house would be. Part of this was because it was so deep, they felt that they needed to leave room for collapsing banks. Anyway, it was a really big hole!
The septic got pumped finally after all these years!
Septic truck got pulled up the hill by the bulldozer.
Saved the stone wall. It will get back filled when we are done.
Burning the wood
Staking out the corners of the house and garage
I think they ended up with about 6 truckloads of crushed rock for the driveway
Starting to dig down to the basement level
Trucks took almost 200 loads of fill out. Fortunately found a place about 5 miles away that could take it.
Digging for the frost walls
Footings and frost walls are 4 feet below actual basement floor
This will be the screen porch but it too has a frost wall around it