Opening a Can of Worms

So I go away for two weeks for a business trip and while I was gone hubby found a gaping hole in our foundation wall. How does this happen? We've been living in this house for over 10 months and we never noticed a HUGE hole in our basement wall? I'll do my best to explain a) how this happened and b) how my super handy rockstar hubby fixed the problem and fast!

The upper left corner of the picture above is showing the northwest corner of our basement. Yes, it's ugly, but I'm actually getting used to the creepy 'haunted house' looking interior of the basement. Someday it will be finished....

So we before this creepy crawler corner of the house was exposed - it was covered by a large floor to ceiling cabinet that had probably inhabited the space for at least 5o years. When the cabinets were ripped out (by hubby and entourage of awesome and equally handy friends) a massive gaping hole was discovered. The picture below shows the daylight seeping into the basement from the outside. The picture further below shows the basement from the outside. Are you kidding?! It's a miracle that our neighbors' rodent problems didn't become ours.

To fix the gaping hole problem, hubby cut a bunch of 2x4s to fit the gaps. To fix the problem of the wood rotting, hubby dug all of the dirt away from the house (dirt against siding and non-cement exterior walls is bad - fyi). Bad boards!

Lastly, here he is, my hero putting primer on the exterior wall board that will go where the siding had rotted. When we paint the house - no one will ever notice!