From structural disaster
to rebuilt home.

An older brick home in Utah. From the street, it looked like a straightforward renovation candidate — dated finishes, tired layout, solid-looking brick exterior. But “good bones” is a phrase that gets thrown around too loosely. The bones need to actually be good.

Once the drywall came down and the floors came up, the real story emerged: undersized footings that predated modern code. A crawlspace with barely enough clearance to move through. Moisture paths that had been quietly working against the concrete for decades. Support posts sitting on pads that were never designed for the loads above them. Floor joists sagging visibly from years of inadequate support.

Most contractors see dirt and concrete. We see load paths, bearing points, and a sequence that has to be executed in exactly the right order.

This wasn’t a cosmetic renovation anymore. This was structural surgery — and the patient was still standing. The homeowners had a vision for a second-story addition, but you can’t add load to a structure that’s already failing. First, you fix what’s broken. Then you build what’s next.

The original support system — wood posts on undersized concrete pads — was never designed for the loads a modern renovation demands, let alone a second-story addition. The solution: engineered steel beams spanning the full basement, supported by properly sized columns on new deep footings.

Installing a steel beam in an existing basement isn’t like framing a new house. The beam has to be threaded into position in a confined space, leveled precisely, and connected to columns that sit on footings you just poured days earlier. The sequencing is everything — you can’t load the beam until the concrete has cured, which means temporary shoring stays in place for days while the permanent structure comes together beneath it.

We used laser levels to map the floor sag, then brought in hydraulic jacks to lift and level the floor before installing the permanent beams. You get one shot at this.

Once the steel was in and the new footings had cured, the concrete crew came in to pour a new slab — level, properly reinforced, and sitting on compacted gravel with a vapor barrier beneath. The basement went from a dirt-floor crawlspace to a structurally sound foundation capable of supporting two stories above.

Connecting new framing to an existing brick structure isn’t a matter of nailing boards together. Every connection point requires engineered hardware — metal joist hangers, LVL beams, and Simpson ties that transfer load from new wood to old masonry without compromising either material.

The original brick walls were never plumb. The old concrete wasn’t level. The existing framing had settled and shifted over decades. Every new piece of lumber had to be custom-fit to an imperfect existing condition — shimmed, scribed, and connected with hardware rated for the actual loads being transferred.

New construction is easy. Renovation is hard. Structural renovation on a house that’s out of level, out of plumb, and out of square? That’s where experience earns its keep.

The arched front entry door — a signature design element — required custom framing that integrated with both the original brick below and the new addition above. It’s a detail that looks effortless in the finished product but required careful geometry and structural coordination to execute.

Here’s a problem most homeowners never think about: when you install new windows in an old house, the rough openings aren’t square. The headers aren’t level. The jack studs aren’t plumb. Decades of settling have shifted everything just enough that a window installed “flush to the framing” would be visibly crooked.

The solution is precision shimming — leveling each window unit independently within its rough opening, regardless of what the surrounding framing is doing. It’s painstaking work that requires a level on every unit, shims on multiple sides, and the patience to get it right before the foam and trim lock everything in place.

The annotated photos tell the story: “Shims on top to level.” “Level windows.” Every unit individually adjusted because the old structure doesn’t give you anything for free.

The diamond-pane leaded glass windows are a design statement — they reference the home’s original character while being modern, energy-efficient units. Installing them in a Boise Cascade engineered header (an LVL that doesn’t bow or twist like dimensional lumber) ensures they’ll stay level and operable for decades.