It was nearly two years ago that Vanessa and I decided to begin renovating the basement. This meant removing the remaining "finished" basement from the previous owners and starting from scratch.
Along the way some additions and improvements were in order. As you can see from the pictures below, I smashed up the floor, cut the original cast iron piping, and roughed in a bathroom as well as relocated the main floor drain, and added a gravity drain for the condensate and excess water from the a/c and humidifier in the furnace room (which wasn't built yet)...
Next I jacked up the house and replaced the rotten 4x4 and brick supports with proper steel teleposts. I also removed the 4x4 supports under the original basement stairs (they carried the load of about 6 floor joists from the kitchen) with a 2x6 supporting wall.
The images should explain the rest...