I came home from my marathon trip to lots of progress! The slab is poured. Here’s a video tour, and – with some imagination – you can begin to see how the first floor will be laid out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hda2WGTW1Sw

And framing on the old cottage is coming along well. The inside is still a bit of a mess, but – again, with some imagination – you can see how it’s taking shape:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S_lDcZUqQ

The crew began framing this week, so for the next post I’ll have walls!

I’ve been out of town since the foundation pour, but it’s exciting to see work progressing – Lev is sending documentary evidence of the progress!

After the stem walls cured, and the formwork was removed, the next step was to fill in the areas between the stem walls with layers of rock and gravel. So now it looks like this:

To really see how the foundation is shaping up, take a look at Lev’s video (on my new YouTube channel): http://youtu.be/s7wzh7Cupng

This week Gar – my contractor – will be pouring the concrete foundation slab, which in this house will actually be the flooring for the ground floor. We’re going to dye the concrete a medium charcoal grey. To “finish” the floor, we’ll score it in various places so it doesn’t crack, and then polish it and seal it. Once it’s done, hopefully it will look something like this:

Or maybe like this – here you can see the score lines on the floor:

But that’s getting way ahead of myself. . . Let’s just hope the rain holds off and Gar can pour the slab this week!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I keep promising to post more regularly. But then crap keeps happening that slows down progress – like the city refusing to issue my building permit because I requested an exemption from the requirement to install sidewalks. Yes, the Great Sidewalk War of 2014. More on that in another post, but right now I can’t talk about it. I’ve got PTSD. (Post Traumatic Sidewalk Disorder).

But finally, logic prevailed, and while the GSW rages on, I convinced the city to at least issue a conditional permit that lets me continue building. So, as they say in the construction biz, we’re “out of the ground!” Which means there’s more than just holes in the ground to look at. (Which is another reason I haven’t been posting. Holes are boring.)

We got outta the ground on Monday, October 6, with the pour of the concrete stem walls. It was pretty fun to watch, although it was impossible to get close to the action, partially because the site is so small and packed with equipment that it’s hard to walk around, and partially because I didn’t want to get knocked unconscious by a blow to the head from the big boom swinging all over the site.

When I pulled up, I realized Harold Smith – our local concrete and materials supplier – was on the job:

I’ve been over to their yard a few times, but I haven’t met Harold. Or his son.

So here’s how the foundation pour works. First, the concrete rolls up in a big mixing truck:

I’m not sure how many truckloads we used – maybe 5 or 6? Then the concrete pours out of the mixing truck into a second truck, where a guy stirs it up and feeds it into a pump:

The pump sends the concrete into a hose with a nozzle, which the crew moves around the site using the boom, filling up the foundation trenches. The trenches run all along the perimeter of the foundation, and are shored up by wood forms and filled with rebar:

Sorry, I have no pictures of the filled trenches – I had to go to work.

Once all the trenches are filled, you let the concrete set for a couple days, then you pull away the wood formwork, and then you’ve got foundation walls! Pics of that soon. . .

Some more fun things that happened this past weekend –

I played.

Lev worked.

Yes, I disappeared for a while. Without getting into the details of the drama, I had to find a new contractor before the one I originally selected even started the job in earnest. So I had another delay. . . But now we’re back to work!

Demolition is almost done – the additions to the old cottage are gone, and we’re working this week to tear out all the concrete. All the gypboard in the old cottage is gone, as well as all the insulation in the ceiling. We may even been pouring some foundation this week! Now that there’s real progress being made, I promise I’ll be posting often. And I may even post some video.

Here are some shots of what thing looked like this weekend:

Got a porta potty!

Sadly, one of the glass panes in the old cottage broke:

The interior of the old cottage:

What will eventually be the side of the old cottage, viewed from the back corner yard:

Piles o’ rubble:

As the demolition of the old house was approaching, I began to feel really guilty about sending so much stuff to the landfill. But what to do with it? We contemplated a yard sale/craigslist sale, but the hassle factor seemed just too much to handle. There are services that you can pay to come and dismantle and recycle a house, but my investigation of those outfits made me suspicious that they are a rip-off. And then. . .

I stumbled across Habitat for Humanity’s web site, and discovered that they do demolition and dismantling FOR FREE. As long as you have a certain amount of stuff that they can re-sell in their ReStore or re-use in a Habitat project, they will send out a crew to take apart your stuff, load it on their truck, and take it away. I get a tax deduction for the contribution of the stuff they took, I save money on demolition costs, and I support a good cause. Everyone wins!

The crew came out earlier this week, and they could not have been nicer. And they were amazingly efficient – it’s unbelievable how much they accomplished in a morning. Here are some shots of the team and their handiwork:

Salvaging an old wall AC/heater unit —

The ReStore truck —

Getting ready to pull out some re-usable vinyl windows —

Not much to look at anymore —

Next step – taking the rest of that old house down!

Tearing stuff apart is kinda fun! This weekend we managed to take down all of the old fence that was still left standing. And we dismantled all of the planter boxes, and all of the irrigation lines. And took down the string lights. (Don’t worry, mom, I packed them up nicely in their original boxes, and they will be re-installed in the new house! Maybe you’ll have to come out and help with that.) And we packed up all the random stuff that had accumulated at the house – dishes, glassware, cleaning supplies, towels, swimsuits, tools, candles, flower vases. . . All of it’s tucked away for safekeeping. Along with the silly (rusty) bell at the front door, which Lev insisted we take down and save.

Here’s an action shot of me taking apart a planter box. The awesome debris box is in the background! That thing will hold a whole lotta sh*t.

Hallelujah – although there are trace levels of asbestos in the old cottage walls, the readings are so low that no abatement is required. Let the demolition begin! (Respirators required, though.)

Yeah, nothing but crickets here for a while, I know. Sorry. But after a few fits and starts, we may be ready to roll soon. Construction financing is secured, loan is closed, money is in the bank and soon will be available to spend.

Signed all the loan paperwork this week. The “realness” of it was pretty scary. But now it’s time to get excited! Let’s get this house built!

Scott Street has delivered a few nice surprises for springtime – random bulbs throwing up flowers!