Part 17 (September 15)

Well, another successful day! John and Robert came over for a fun filled day of buildin'. all the framing is done on the inside, and the roof looks like a roof. all the in between work from part 16 was sheeting on the outside, the rest of the framing with the bathroom, and windows; we had to drill 6 1/2 inch bolts from our bottom plate down into the concrete every 24 inches. those bolts got a 3 inch square washer along with them. the heat is on now....not really, summer is over, and there is a change in the air. all i can hope is to have all the outside done before it gets too cold out.

Part 16 (August 23, 2007)

Well, with the help of John and Tom, I now have walls! It took us the better part of the last two days. mainly because our existing house only has 8 foot ceilings, and our addition has 9 foot ceilings. I had to rip off the over-hang where our addition sits. that was not easy nor was it fun. but its done of the most part. the picture from the inside is looking from the play room into the master bedroom and bath.

Part 15

OK so i need to bring you up to speed. we got the basement floor poured, then came the floor joists, and then the rest of the floor on the main level. the floor joists and flooring really didn't take all that long, and feels good to finally see it taking shape.

Part 14

Time to get rid of the over-head lines. The city requires a 30 inch deep trench dug. I did the ground level trench with a back hoe, up the hill, and on top of the hill had to be done by hand......what joy that was.... after the digging came 4 inches of "SAND" because most of the stuff that came out from where we are doing the addition was sand, and i do everything i can to save some money on it, we sifted all our sand. this consisted of making a wood frame with a wire screen on bottom that had 1/4 inch holes in it. that was placed on top of a wheelbarrow and the sand that had a TON of rocks in it got sifted into nice rock free sand. sounds easy right? no. 4 inches of sand in a 2 foot wide trench that was 150 feet long took forever! but we got it in, and the 2 inch pipe got put on top of the 4 inches of sand. the next fun part....12 inches of sand on top of the pipe.

PART 13

OK........wow.......lets just say that was almost going to be 3rd times a charm. due to the pressure, we had a few 2x4's snap like twigs, and our 8 inch thick wall quickly turned into a 12 inch thick wall. we had to stop everything several times to let is set up before we poured anymore from fear of it all coming out again. you could hear the wood cracking, and you can see from the picture they bent like crazy.

PART 12

HERE WE GO AGAIN, EVERYONE CROSS YOUR FINGERS!

PART 11?

OK so when you are digging, chipping, and hauling out spilt concrete for a week and a half, you kinda loose track of what day your on. so i will just call my house blogs "parts". like i said, the concrete is out, i have put the tar on the out side wall, got the window wells in, and back filled for the most part.

DAY 10 THE MESS

THE DRY MESS, NOT A GOOD SIGHT, IT GOT SPREAD THIN SO WE COULD CHIP IT UP AND TAKEN OUT. KEEP IN MIND IT IS NEAR OR OVER 100 DEGREES.

DAY 7, 8 &9

WELL WE GOT THE WALL FORMS UP AND SET. THEN WE ATTEMPTED TO POUR THE WALLS. THE WEST WALL UNDER THE HOUSE GAVE US A LITTLE PROBLEM....IT DIDN'T HOLD. OUR LAST TRUCK OF 4 1/2 YARDS SPILLED OUT THE BOTTOM OF THE FORM. LETS SEE, AT $125 A YARD, THAT'S $562.50 WORTH OF CONCRETE ON THE FLOOR AND ON THE YARD THAT WE, AND WHEN I SAY, WE, I MEAN, I, HAD TO SPREAD ALL OVER THE PLACE SO IT WAS NOT JUST ONE BIG BLOB. GOOD TIMES....

DAY 6

WELL THE FOOTINGS ARE POURED. WHAT A MESS. TO SAVE MONEY, WE DID NOT RENT A CONCRETE PUMP, AND GOT TWO WHEELBARROWS WORKING TO RUN THE "MUD" ACROSS TO THE OTHER END AND DUMP IT IN THE FORMS. NOTHING LIKE CONCRETE SPLASHING IN YOUR FACE AND MOUTH, IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER.