Breaking ground!

It was a momentous weekend here at the ranch!  Day 1 & 2 of our addition phase have now passed us by.

Here's what was happening last time I wrote, earlier this year.  Two weeks ago, we received approval of the permit we submitted of the drawings for our addition.  Last week, an appraiser came out to survey the property to gain a more accurate construction loan amount based on existing conditions and projections of potential worth, when all is said and done.  Our contractor came out last week as well to mark out where the footings need to be dug.

Our extremely generous friend Mark, who works in construction, came out yesterday to help dig footings.  The excavator was delivered and he worked with Gabe to make quite a mess!  :D

Exhibit A:

Whereas, it used to look like this!:

back in 2015

The very exciting arrival of the excavator:

delivered at 2pm on Saturday

They started with the east side of the house and worked there from about 2:30pm until 8pm.  Mark brought his small excavator and laser leveling machine, which they set up first thing.  He operated the large excavator, while Gabe assisted.  The cinder block retaining walls had to be removed, which took some doing.  The septic line pipe location was marked with a broken rake handle, to avoid hitting it.  The large excavator bucket didn't have teeth on it, so it was tricky to get a grip under the gravel--it ended up taking quite a few passes to remove not very much gravel.

Here are a couple pics of them working on Sat:

In all of that, they did end up hitting the septic/sewer line, barely.  So, we weren't able to flush for a while!  It was a good thing the kids and I were leaving for a few hours...and it was fixed by about 8pm.

Here's a pic (above on the left) of the damaged pipe that was removed and (on the right) the next day, after it was repaired.  That iron pipe will all need to be replaced anyways!

They picked up working again on Sunday, from 8am until about 3pm, to dig footings on the east side.  30" footers at grade, to go below the frostline, is what is required.  On the ends closest to the house it is much deeper since it has to be level in the base of the hole.  The excavator will be returned today.

Getting started on the last footer on the east side:

What it looked like when I got back from church:

Look at all the piles of dirt!!

Proud daddy:

Lunch break!

I like to show comparison shots, this with the one below it:

:) I had to.  They are so cute!!

This basement entrance is what we have used predominantly to get to our cars when we leave, so it will be an adjustment figuring out how to move (without too much mud coming in my house!) around the piles of dirt!

Boys and dirt piles, I tell ya.

Gabe rented a "jumping jack" (which happened to sound like a helicopter from inside the house!) to compact the dirt at the bottom of the holes, which will help when they go to pour the concrete later this week.

Operating the thing:

Zoe watching the action from the basement door:

Later in the afternoon, around 3pm, Mark took the large excavator over to the west side of the house, up the hill, which will eventually be the master bedroom.  It was a lot more wet and difficult to maneuver with the large excavator.  I couldn't get as many good shots of this process, but I have a few of him getting started, from Zoe's bedroom window:

I should add, that the day before, Judah was helping Gabe dig a little to locate the Fios wire--

He was really getting in there!

Back to Mark and the large excavator.  It was so wet, that he got stuck!  A few times:

They had to get creative to get it out...here's a video snippet of the commotion:

So, when all was said and done, it was better if Mark would trade the large excavator for the small one to finish out the footings on the west side.

The mess that is my yard now:

There was a bit of rain expected in the night last night, so Gabe's final effort was to cover the holes with large sheets of plastic he bought since we would like to accomplish pouring concrete yet this week.  There is no more rain in the forecast (praise the Lord!) until Saturday, so we will hopefully be good to go with the next step after inspection of the holes dug tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

Bora-Bora Care

This past weekend was about tying up some loose ends before we start on FRAMING!!!  Yay!!  As per the plans, we will be taking out 3 of the downstairs walls and the kitchen/dining room ceiling (it leaks really bad).  We will be expanding up from the kitchen and dining area and framing a master bedroom and bath bigger than the two existing bedroom spaces---they were something like 8' X 12' each.  The footprint of the existing building will not change.

We have had a few weddings to attend since we worked last, (9th & 16th), so this weekend, we were raring to go.  Ok, Gabe was raring to go.  I was dragging my feet.  Gabe had opted to save the $150 delivery charge and pick up our 14' metal I-beam.  And instead of inviting any of his husky male friends to help him unload the beam, he chose.....me.  He ended up having a good system and it wasn't straining at all, it was probably just the intimidation of the thing.  We slid it off the truck and onto the porch, easy peasy.  And there it sits.

After spending some time cleaning the debris out of the kitchen/dining room side of the house, and making sure the ground was covered sufficiently with gravel, I vacuumed the perimeter, where debris always falls, especially from the ceiling.  I wish I could say my job was a bit more glamorous, but alas, it was not.  The next job is to spray Bora-Care, a solution of boric acid (and other not super toxic ingredients) intended to kill mold, mildew, termites and the like.  This was the alternative Dad came up with to buying treated wood, which would have been a whole lot more expensive.  The surfaces that require this treatment are the floor and walls that will remain that are not already pressure treated, as well as the plywood that is going down.  So, in other words, a lot.  The surfaces needed to be relatively clean in order for the solution to stick--hence my insistence the space be vacuumed.

While Gabe was brewing up the concoction, 5 gallons of water for every 1/2 gallon of solution, something else was brewing.  I had yet to experience a thunder/lighting show at the house, so it sure was nice!  The beginning part of the day was steamy hot, so when the winds blew, it felt glorious.

Here is a shot of the drama outdoors:

Such a lovely soaking rain.  It toned our next day of work into one quite beautiful.

We dyed the solution blue so we could tell which areas still needed to be covered:

Even with the air outside getting cooler and the fan blowing right on Gabe, look how sweaty he is!

And what a great choice of facial expressions! :)

Closing in on the end of days work:

Dad was in Minnesota for a conference that weekend.  So we went out to dinner and a movie with Mom to celebrate Gabe's birthday the next day!  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, Saturday, we brought in the 2' X 8' polystyrene sheets from the RV because we were going to install them on the side of the house where Gabe had sprayed the solution.  Little did I know that installation involved lying on our backs in the crawl space!  Also, the solution had dried on the joists as a powdery substance that came off on our hands.  Not too excited about that.  But, we got right down to it, and made sure the first row was straight, staggering the joints so there would be no weak spots.  We were nailing special nails to the underside of the floor joists.  Oh joy.


Here he is, installing the first sheet:

Once we get the polystyrene all hung, we will then put regular insulation on top of it, and then finally plywood. 

We only did about half of the room since there was a brace holding up the ceiling that Gabe didn't want to take out yet.  Next task was to cover up the areas we already did with plywood and transfer all the tools resting in the main space over so that we could start spraying it too.

This involved me cleaning the perimeter with the wet dry vac again as well as sorting the chaos that was in the crawl space.

I also finished securing down a couple of joist hangers that were remaining:

(Gabe thinks this should be my profile picture)

Mom stopped by too, to bring us lunch and to help out.  She moved the heart pine hardwood flooring that we brought down from the 2nd floor a couple weeks ago so Gabe could cover and spray the joists above with out them getting damaged.  We are waiting to re-plane them until we have a safe place to store them out of the elements (or until right before we install it).  She is wearing Gabe's construction hat---how cute is she?!??!

While I was vacuuming out the main crawl space, Gabe was spraying Bora-Bora Care in the other areas, where the bathroom and porch used to be, respectively:

Gotta love the red gloves and the blue spray:

Then Gabe spent a little bit of time mixing mortar and closing up a few holes in the foundation:

And I just took pictures and caused mischief, like usual.

Notice the pile of plywood and insulation in the above picture.  We must have moved the pile at least 2 times---it felt like plywood musical chairs, ei yei yei yei yei!

And that's a wrap!  We have a lot more work to do, but have made a lot of progress in the past few months.

We plan on leaving tomorrow for yet another wedding in Ohio, and then to Michigan to visit Gabe's family.

Have a Happy 4th of July!

All about the Foundation

It's time to write again...about the last couple of weekends!  I'm a bit behind, aren't I?  Well, we must consider the fact that I've been working really hard at my semester at school, and this one is a doozie!!

The only time I was on site working was Friday the when the cement truck came to fill up the trenches Gabe and Dad (mostly Gabe :0) dug underneath the east side addition as well as a few dining room interior underpinnings.  It arrived at 2:00, just after we did.  I chatted with a friendly neighbor while Dad and Gabe tried to figure out what would be the best way for the cement truck to back up into the right spot to pour.

They must work quickly!  The next shot Gabe is helping the chute to get directed into the opening for the underpinnings.

Here is a before and after of the underpinnings:

Before

After

It was a lot of work for the guys getting the concrete in the right places.  Gabe was carrying two 5 gallon buckets full of concrete all around!  Yowzers!  I came in handy when it came time to filling in the cinder blocks around the perimeter of the kitchen/dining room crawl space with leftover concrete.  Dad was placing anchor bolts into the wet concrete around the perimeter so as to attach boards for the joist support later.  Here I am, pitching in where I can:

  

It was our warmest day on the job too, getting up in the 80's, in the middle of March, how bizarre!!  Lovely though--lots of things are blooming early.

Gabe spent a good amount of time cleaning the concrete off the buckets and tools too.  What a renaissance man!  :)

I leveled out top of the concrete filled ditches such that about a 1/2" of rebar was sticking up:

Here's another picture from the next day, when it rained:

The next day, Saturday, Gabe went out to the house and I stayed home to work on a project.  He and Dad covered up the underpinnings with vapor barrier and gravel.

He also cleaned up the area in the other crawl space where the wood chuck had been digging around.  My aunt and uncle also stopped by the house, so Mom and I went out to meet them there for a half an hour over lunch.  It was a dreary, rainy day, but it was fun showing off our project!  Gabe finished up the day by making some sawhorses upstairs with some of our reclaimed wood with the fact in mind that we might be getting a good table saw from my uncle.

Last weekend, I didn't make it to the site at all!  On Friday, I went with my mom up to Delaware to a museum for school.  Gabe and Dad were on their own, ha ha.  They worked together to prepare the "outside" crawl space for the mud slab to be poured.  They dug down the grade a bit and laid vapor barrier and gravel.

Voila!

Looks good, eh?  If you are into that sort of thing.  When you are invested in the project, it takes on a whole new meaning :)

Gabe moved the conduit for the power line to the well so that it wouldn't be outside the wall:

We had lumber delivered from a local lumber yard and covered it with plastic in the yard.  Gabe also patched the roof where the was plastic covering the old chimney hole as it had become compromised.

Notice the patch in the upper left hand side

So the next day (Saturday) I was working on a project again and Gabe and Dad were back at it.  The next shot is of the boards having been attached to the perimeter with the anchor bolts.

Here is a wider shot of the crawl space and the lumber that was moved inside.  Also, more plywood is laid out on the joists to give us a little more room.

Gabe also removed some sections of the bottom plate of the dividing wall so he could add mortar to make it level. 

Gabey diligently taking pictures!

They finished up the day by adding some more gravel to the interior crawl space.  It doesn't look like a lot has changed in the last week, but we want to make sure the foundation is solid. So that was that for last weekend.