Hmmmmmm. Well, within 24 hours of buying the house, our "friends" Brent and Brandon the builders arrived to start the first of the many construction projects we have lined up. I had prepared building permits to lodge with the council (referred to in the US as The City or in this case - The City of Bay City) before we bought it and so we immediately went down to lodge the first couple of permits. Here is the laundry room in the basement where construction is commencing. (Yes it did have an ok-ish concrete floor and partially linded walls before this). Note the foundation/footing of the house which is about 3 feet of old stones with brick that is 4 bricks thick on top of these. This is between 13 and 17 inches thick and solid all the way through! No wonder the engineer said 'this house is not going anywhere'!! We're not quite sure whether to have a feature wall of the stone/brick in the laundry or not. Apparently it can be sealed so no dust etc can fly about. I hope we get a decent 'after' picture soon...