I was recently asked advice on a potential renovation project. I sometimes get asked these things and, normally, the idea is that I should be the one to undertake the work. So, I get questions about all kinds of things that I should probably never deal with. For instance, someone once asked me about moving his driveway from one side of his lot to another.
“How much trouble would it be?” he asked.
“Not much trouble at all for an excavator and a paving company.”
“You couldn’t do it?”

What would I use to do it? I guess I could start with a shovel or maybe a pick. Pavement is a little hard, really. Perhaps a diamond blade in a gas-powered saw to make some cuts, a sledge hammer to break it out, a pick to pry it all up, a few days with a wheelbarrow, and so on. Or better yet: don’t do such a thing.
“Why do you want to move your driveway?”
“There’s more shade in the afternoon on the other side. The car gets hot in the sun.”
That’s just a case of someone confusing me for someone who is willing to do something stupid.
Most questions I get seem to be about walls. People just don’t like the location of walls in their houses. “What if I take down that wall along the back of the kitchen?”
“I think that wall is supporting the upstairs bathroom.”
“And?”
“I guess it’ll be ok until you fill the tub.”
People have no real idea how heavy things are.
“I want to take out all the cabinets along that wall and build out four feet to make a kind of solarium.”
“You mean get rid of that wall?”
“Yes. I think the light is best on this side of the house.”
“It’ll be a pretty involved project, you know. You’ll need a full foundation under the addition and you’ll need to provide support for the second floor. Maybe a beam will do….”
“Why would I need an addition?”
Apparently, you can just put walls and windows four feet away from your house and they will support themselves.

Basements are particularly perilous. People should be given a stern talking-to when they are granted permission to own a house. The first topic should always be electrical, of course. Namely, if you don’t know what “hot” means, don’t mess with any wires at all. But the basement is easily as important. Namely, those red or grey steel posts in the middle are not really in your way. Leave them alone.

Just before buying this house, I was in one that was almost identical, except the basement had been turned into a large rec-room. A winding staircase had been installed. As I walked down the grand curve, my line of sight aligned with the ceiling of the basement and I could see that the sag in the middle was nearly three inches. Not only that, but there was no support post anywhere to be seen. Rightfully, because of how this particular kind of house is made, those posts should be every ten or fifteen feet. The owner of the house had removed two of them to make the room more open.

The room would not be very open, however, if the ground floor suddenly fell into the basement.