Beechwood Revival Episode 8: Pouring Concrete Foundation and Burying Our Family Bible

Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.

Catch Up On the Renovation Story So Far

If you are just finding the Beechwood Revival Project, pull up a chair, friend. Here is where we have been.

In Episode 1 we shared how we bought the Beechwood house to be closer to my son’s high school. I fell in love with this street and I fell in love with this house, and together with my husband Daron, we made it ours.

In Episode 2 we started demo and took the house all the way down to the studs.

In Episode 3 we said goodbye to two things I genuinely was not ready to let go of. The trees I fought hard to save. And the original sunroom.

In Episode 4 we went underground. We dug for the new addition, ran into a sewer pipe nobody expected, and found an old cistern that had been sitting under this house for a hundred years.

In Episode 6 the walls finally started going back up. We framed, moved the staircase, and pulled out an old fireplace only to find hundreds of pounds of concrete poured on the original hardwood floors underneath.

In Episode 7 we tackled the roof. We stripped every shingle, waterproofed the whole exterior, and got the first foundation walls in for the new addition.

Now we pour.

Pouring Concrete Foundation for the New Addition

Welcome back to Episode 8 of the Beechwood Revival.

This episode is about pouring the concrete foundation for the new addition, and before we get into the details of that, I want to tell you about the part of this week that mattered most to me.

We dug up a spot in the ground before the pour was finished, and we buried a family Bible there. Then we stood together and prayed over this house before another single truck of concrete went in.

There is a verse I could not stop thinking about that day.

Psalm 127:1 says unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.

We have poured a lot into this house. Money, time, sweat, tears, more decisions than I can count. But none of that means anything if this is not built on the right foundation, and I do not just mean the concrete kind. We wanted this house to start with prayer before it stood on anything else.

What This New Addition Actually Includes

So here is what we are actually building. We are not just extending the original house out. We are adding a whole new addition, and that addition includes a two car garage in the back.

Here is why that matters. Beechwood Road is historic, and you cannot park on the street here. Parking has been tight since day one. So we already planned a two car garage on the front of the house, and now we are adding a second two car garage in the back.

We have older teens now, and every one of them has a car. That is multiple vehicles in this family before we even get to guests. We also want to host and have people over, which means even more cars showing up on any given weekend. We wanted to be responsible about it and make sure we built enough room for everybody, not just for us today but for the life we are hoping to live in this house.

Why Concrete Matters More Than It Looks Like It Does

Concrete is one of those things you do not think about until it goes wrong. It looks simple from the outside, but there is so much involved in getting it right.

Every single wall has to be set exactly correctly before the pour even starts. Then the concrete itself has to be poured and set correctly, because everything else we build from here on out is going to sit directly on top of it. There is no going back and fixing this part later once the rest of the house is standing on it.

I tried working some of it myself with a rake and oh my goodness, it was so much harder than it looked. I have complete respect for the guys who do this for a living. What they made look easy is genuinely one of the hardest parts of this whole build.

Building on the Right Foundation

Every episode of this renovation keeps teaching me some version of the same lesson, and this one might be the most important one yet. You can pour all the concrete in the world, but if it is not set on the right foundation, none of it holds.

That is true for a house. It is true for a family. It is true for a life. We buried that Bible in the ground on purpose. We wanted this house, and everything it is going to hold for our family for the next hundred years, to start with prayer.

You Might Also Enjoy

Beechwood Revival Episode 7: 100 Year Old Roof Restoration and New Foundation Walls

Second Sunrise: How a Sunrise on the Farm Became a Song About Second Chances

The Heart of the Home: What Went Into Our Award-Winning Kitchen Design

What’s Next

Next up, that foundation cures and we start building the addition up from the ground for real. Follow along at @OurFarmerHouse so you do not miss it. And come back next Sunday for the next chapter of the Beechwood Revival. We are not done finding surprises in this old house.

XO,