Water, water everywhere and all the boards did rot.

I had already planned on replacing some of the subfloor boards, just based on a cursory glance from under the house...they were nasty. But confirmation came when Grandma fell through the floor while cleaning.
Might as well make a project out of it. I removed three subfloor boards and the area where the floor decided to cave in. While I was at it I sistered in a joist next to a questionable one, you can probably see it on left side in this shot. I also secured another joist that was only sitting on about an inch of the cement support.
I also grinded out the old waste arm from the sink which was made of some soft metal, not sure what alloy, but the vent is cast iron.
And new boards for the subfloor in their place:

How to salvage old wood floors

I read up a little on the internet about salvaging old wood floors. There was not a lot of information and the consensus seemed to be that it was not worth the time. I disagree. Especially when you have old heart pine wood flooring. When you consider that this wood was probably here when some of the first settlers arrived. Some of the original trees harvested were over 300 years old. You don't get "heart pine" any more because they harvest pine before they get big enough to have this type of wood. Being that I have a little background in wood floors I decided to take on salvaging the wood that was not water damaged, because we have several areas in the house that need boards replaced or just plain holes in the floor from various old pipes etc.
I decided it would be best to set the nails. I used my long nail sets and a piece of the flooring to assist me. You can see the subfloor above where the floors used to be. Here is my fancy instructional video for all those people who say it's too much work:

New washing machine / laundry room update

We went out and got baby a nice brand new front load washer. It was a must, because no one should have to go to the Laundromat. Well at least not baby. We got an LG front load washer. The front load washers use about 14 gallons of water compared to 40 with the top loads. Plus it's cool because it weighs your clothing and then decides how much water to fill in. It also has pretty lights and plays a song when your laundry is done.
The washer arrived before I could finish fixing the weird conglomeration of wood that had been nailed to the wall, so I covered up the new washer and finished up ripping out the wood and putting in a new support for the water heater shelf across to some new studs along the outside wall.

The dryer courtesy of uncle Joe and Danielle arrived shortly after and it too had to wait for some construction in the laudry room.The new shelf support attached to new studs:
Finally I put in a new vent for the dryer and attached it with carriage bolts and caulked all around for a nice seal:
The laundry room will have to wait for a floor and finishing, it's functional, so I move on to the kitchen...

The magical dissintegrating wood

I just sat down with my hammer and chisel ready to remove the wood along the outside wall of the utility room and magiacally with the touch of my hand the wood came right out. I knew the wood was water damaged but it was practically a shell of a piece of wood.
After removing all the wood and nails from this section, I replaced the board with a nice new piece of pressure treated wood.

after

a floating wall

and the beast lay slain...

this palm really was a beast, but it had to go. It was right up against the house and in the way of the dryer vent and plumbing for the washer/dryer area. As you can see the roots are not very big, but there are a ton of them. I had this tree practically laying on the ground and there were still roots holding on.
Once the beast was out of the way I dug out the dirt against the side of the house and prepared a moisture barrier at the base consisting of tar, tarpaper, more tar, and more tar paper.
I still haven't found a good skirt for the bottom of the house there, but I still plan on digging a drainage ditch along this side of the house, since the neighboring lots basically drain down towards this side of our house.

Warning: If you have a fear of rodents...

Then you might want to skip this entry. In removing the plywood floor in the utility room, I may have uncovered part of the reason for the smell.
Here is a glimpse of our new friend after removing the plywood to revel the palettes that were holding it up:
Our friend and his nest:
The disinfected area:
(I placed a wood barrier on the left hand side with a layer of tar paper and two layers of that panel insulation.)
Finally I built a makeshift support for the water heater, because I plan to cut the shelf in half and remove all the crazy random boards they used to patch over the outside wall on the right.

Bacon 19 cents / lb!

You come across some interesting things when you remodel a 75 year old house. Remember when bacon was 19 cents / lb? Me neither.
We've finished gutting the sunroom of the wood paneling so now we're considering insulating with cellulose. You get your blowing machine rental free when you buy 20 bags or more of cellulose. Unfortunately it's about $11 per bag so it would be a minimum of $220. But the attic could be done at the same time. For now it's time to make sure baby has somewhere to wash clothes...i'm off to prepare the laundry room for the new washer.
vine growing inside the wall...nice.