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.

Floor-less house & Friends

Howdy!  Bethany here.  It has been a while since I have last posted about our adventures--this is because I have been so busy with school, not for lack of progress.  I have promised pictures of our little floor-less house in the mountains....so here goes!

As I stated in the last blog post Gabe and Dad had pulled up the remainder of the first-floor flooring in the house the weekend previous as snow flurries were deciding whether or not to stick, the wind was howling, and I was finishing a school project.  (Mom was away on a birding boating trip that weekend.)  This particular weekend we had the most gorgeous weather imaginable for the dead of winter--not to mention we were having friends come to help us out!  God is blessing our socks off!!

Friday we worked to pare down the pile of wood flooring sitting on the porch.  I have a mind to re-purpose it as wood panel wainscoting in the dining & powder rooms.  It is good flooring, minus the 100 years of wear in some spots.  It looks like it has been sanded down and re-finished a couple of times.  Our friend Mark, who has his own construction business remodeling old houses in D.C. and came over to help the next day, thought our wood flooring is heart pine, a desirable wood that isn't sold in stores anymore, and can only be found reclaimed from old houses.  That was exciting news!  So, Gabe sawed off the un-salvagable parts while I worked to carry the goods upstairs where we actually still had flooring.

Our pile of pine

Here is from whence it came:

Notice the rubble stone foundation

                                                                                            Remember this?                                       Now this

                                                                               Plywood for ease of walking     Crawl space opening on left

Gabe and I (mostly Gabe) then worked on removing the mess of electrical wire from down below.

Isn't he a cutie??!?

My dad stopped by to check out the scene:

Here's how the conversation went regarding this photo:

Dad: That was my sexy pose!

Me: That was the first thing that I thought of.

Gabe: chuckling from the background :)

Dad made a fascinating discovery---the 1955 kitchen/dining room addition was completely level from front to back!!!

Impressive!

                                                                                         silly series of a photographer in a new jumpsuit

Done for the evening!

Saturday was an awful lot of fun.

We were all prepared with water bottles, snacks and gloves for friends and fun to begin.  Three couples from our small group were to come out to help.  The first couple, Evan & Sarah arrived promptly at 10:00 am, then Andrew and Becca with their toddler Carter, and general contractor Mark (his wife/toddler couldn't make it).  While the guys were trooping around, getting a general tour, Sarah and I realized we had a mutual acquaintance in the area!  My friend from church growing up, Kim, is Sarah's sister-in-law!  What fun is that?  Kim was in the area with her three little girls, so they were able to stop by and bask in the sun with us!!

The guys got right to work after examining the plans Mom & Dad brought out after while.  Us ladies took a walk around the small little town and then sat out on a blanket in the side yard and watched the kiddos play.

Barn nearly across the street from our house

                                                               Walking down the center of town    beauty in Eye of the Beholder

Another beautiful house nearby

View of our house from the furthest point on our lot

See how the house is nestled in the side of a mountain?

In the above photo, Dad is removing unnecessary plywood from the side of the house.  Mom wanted to get to work too, so she worked upstairs carefully removing nails from the floor boards of heart pine.

The order of the day was to get a vapor barrier and gravel to cover the floor in the crawl spaces.  Another job cropped up too, the need for a few underpinnings (additional supports under the existing foundation) on the shallow side of the north wall.  Mark and Andrew worked on that while Evan leveled out the ground and assisted Gabe on the other side.

Here is a fun video of the guys at work:

Gabe filling up some buckets to carry gravel inside:

Good picture of Evan:

The results of their hard work:

Here is Mark and Andrew working on some serious underpinnings:

I thought it was funny that they were chucking dirt out this window onto some plastic outside.

                                Chucking dirt out the window                          Those are some pretty sweet underpinnings

Meanwhile outside, us ladies were chillin' on a blanket watching the kids and talking :)

Becca pointed out this sweet cloud:

Around 1:00 pm, Becca, Carter and I went a couple miles away to a country store to get us all sandwiches.  They were delicious!!  Kim left after lunch.  It was so good to see her and meet her three lovely daughters!!

Carter was exploring all around.  He saw the commotion with his daddy chucking dirt out the window and wanted to check it out:

He even found a cute perch on the dumpster:

Becca and Carter left mid-afternoon so he could get a good nap.  All that excitement must have worn him out!!  Dad Andrew and Mark, in for the long haul, intended on carpooling back to Reston together.

Evan and Gabe eventually moved outside to clean up debris under the bathroom now that the plywood around the foundation was removed.  I warned them of poison ivy....

The branch/stump like thing in the middle of this photo looks pretty un-obrusive, but not so.  They were working for a while to uproot that pesky thing!  Eventually, the next weekend, Gabe had to attach it to his truck to pull it free.....  Also notice the bowl Gabe was chucking in the bucket trash can.  I pulled it back out as an artifact to keep.  Silly Gabey!

See, its a part of a still-life we composed, artfully inspired by Andrew.

All in all, it was more than a success, thanks to all of our amazing and wonderful friends.

I even got a sunburn!!!  YES!!!!!!!  Hey, anything that reminds me it's not the dead of winter gets me going.  The forecast had said around 55 degrees, but really, I think it was upwards of 70.

Many hands make for light work!!!  Or something like that.

Thanks again folks!!