This Old House

Kevin arrives to find Tom having done even more demo than last time. The more he kept digging, the more problems he found: more joists and studs hacked up in the first floor bath, an enormous wasps' nest, a compromised kitchen floor structure, and even the rubble stone foundation under the office addition had to go. After a lot of hand digging and some new footings, today mason Mark McCullough is ready get the new foundation going using concrete block. Kevin jumps in to lend a hand laying the block, and Mark scribes it to an existing rock outcropping. Norm points out that the builders of this house never imagined a finished basement, but now that Tom is headed that way, the wildly pitched floor and ledge in the back have been carefully dug and cut out to make room for a level floor in what will be the exercise room. To protect and bolster the delicate fieldstone foundation, Mark and his crew poured a concrete curb that will also serve as a base for the new interior walls; now that it's cured, they release the forms and pour the new slab inside the curb. Determined to find out what's been hidden up there all these years, Tom and Kevin break through the living room ceiling and make a breathtaking discovery: not only is there another foot or more of ceiling height, but the original plaster cove moldings and medallion are still in place.