Installing the down spouts!

It was a long Friday evening with Padge. Rob cut a large pine tree down that would become victim of a grading issue near the garage. In addition, we decided to install the down spouts ourselves to save some money. Sue and Kait were asked to go to Home Depot to get ONE thing. I will let you figure out if they got the correct piece of pipe. Needless to say Rob learned some new words from Padge while they were on their second trip to the Depot. See the pictures for more progress!

More pictures of the basement, pillars, garage...

The Bermuda Triangle

Click on the image to see it full size!

Minimal Activity

We have a foundation! All of the brick is in place, the waterproofing is complete, and we have PINK Styrofoam coating the outer wall of our basement.

I believe we have 11 beautiful brick pillars that will serve to support our wrap-around porch!

Saturday Big Al and I (mostly Big Al) have plans to do something that involves "down-spouts". Emshoff Excavating will be back next week to do the backfilling, and by the end of next week will be bringing wood in to begin framing!

A text message update from 'The General' has confirmed that the pillars to hold up our front porch have been constructed.

And also ROB'S garage!

May 24th, 2010

The word of the day is WATERPROOFING. Empire Masonry will be out again today to waterproof the cinder blocks that they have put in place. According to Big Al, this process involves smearing some sort of black cement-like product over the block that is in place, and then covering it with Styrofoam. After this process is complete, Empire will start the entire brick-laying process over to begin the construction of our garage!

The decorative brick that we selected has been placed on top of the cinder blocks all of the way up to our first floor. It looks magnificent. The original brick that Rob and I selected was unavailable when my Dad went to buy it. But he used his excellent judgment and selected for us something very similar.

Basement walls!

The nice weather today (May 20th) allowed the masonry company to pound out even more of the basement walls!!! See below.

Progress!

After a few days on non-stop rain, the brick layers were finally able to get some work done today!

ALSO WHILE ROB WAS AWAY...

I employed for the afternoon Relaxation and Leisure Specialist Sue Benedict to take a trip down to the valley with me. We ventured over to Welker McKee in Valley View to pick out plumbing accessories!

Corner Soaker Tub that I can swim in!

May 14th, 2010

Today was a slow day. Last night we experienced our first thunderstorm as homeowners and ended up with a swimming pool this morning.
While Rob is off playing in the wonderful city of Las Vegas, Grady and I had to handle things here ourselves. A truck load of stone was delivered around 4:00pm, and by 5:00pm there was no longer any water in our basement.

May 13th - more basement/garage progress!

Today, Thursday May 13th, Empire Masonry is out at 38180 getting everything set up to pour the concrete footers in the basement and garage. Check out the pictures below to follow their progress! Nice to see so much daily progress. Slowly but surely things are coming together. The machine/truck that pours the concrete is huge! Looks like a roller coaster ride at Cedar Point!