Yard Clean Up

After the concrete pour, we're back to do a little tidying up.  

Here's Sport and the Big Dog with shovels, that's Chris in the background.  I'm not sure what he's doing, but he's over by the hose bib.

The boys starting on the dirt and rock piles.

And miraculously, its all done!  This was actually taken hours later, after much shoveling and raking, and tractor work in the back by Chris.   Not only were we moving dirt, but there was broken up concrete we had to take out.  Chris uncovered and broke up the remains of the original drainage system in the front yard, so we had to take that out.

So nice and clean!

Let's look at it from this angle.

An update on the  backyard.  If you look closely, in the shadow outside the downstairs door, we now have gravel, so the guys aren't walking through dirt and tracking it into the house.

Where you ask, did those dirt piles in the front yard come from?  Right here, the back patio!  It's now all clean, except for that little bit up by the garage, and a little by the fence.

Thought you might want to look at the back from another angle.  Don't those new windows look nice?

This is the dirt by the fence I told you about.  We might need that later for landscaping, so its a stockpile.

My gloves.  So you'll believe me that I was working.

Chris and the boys loading up the tractor to take it home.

One last look at the work of the day.

Me and my fella.  A much more realistic portrait than one from a studio.

Daily Updates

Here's the new sidewalk and front porch from yesterday.

Just because I thought you might be interested, here's storage central, the garage.

And the other side of the garage.  Ladders, OSB, shovels, etc.

Today we have guys coming in to grind the concrete floor downstairs.

Here they are with their grinding machine and shop vac to vacuum up the water/grindings.

I'm not sure what the other guy's job is.  Not grinding, not vacuuming.....
Oh, also, that massive concrete thing behind them is the new foundation we poured a couple of days ago.

Also, FYI, here's an update on upstairs.  The OSB is going up on the walls.  This is the master bedroom -thats the closet on the right.

This is the interior wall of the master bedroom looking into the bathroom.

This is looking through to the new kitchen.  I'm standing just inside the front door (its behind and to my right).

New Porch and Walk

We're still pouring concrete, today its the front porch and sidewalk.

Here we have the forms.

Another view.

I took this while standing in the front entry.  Fancy, huh?

Again with the concrete pumping.

Chris's feet and some concrete.

There's Dan working the concrete already in the sidewalk forms.

More concrete in the porch forms.

Concrete's in, mixer and pumper are gone, now it's time for finishing.  Chris and Dan are measuring where the expansion joints will be.  Concrete will crack when it cures, so they put in expansion joints to control where it cracks.

Good ole Sport bringing me my camera bag.

Putting in the expansion joints.

Sport is hosing off one of the boards for the guys.

Dan putting in one of the expansion joints.

Dan again.

Chris finishing the rough edges.  Then he or Dan will go through and touch up the expansion joints too.

Chris.

Still with the finishing.

More finishing.  Concrete pours really take longer than one would think.

Chris finishing, Dan laying out the expansion joints on the porch.

Chris, surveying the job.

Pouring Downstairs

 Hi all! Well, to continue the story of the foundation downstairs.....

The mixer truck has arrived, full of redi-mix concrete.

Because the pour is downstairs, and around the back of the house, we've hired a pumper to pump the concrete to the forms.  Here the truck is backed up to the pump, and discharging concrete down the chute into the pump hopper.

Here it is from another angle.

And another angle.  See the concrete running down the chute?

Here's a closeup of the hopper and the grill on top.  So debris and big chunks don't get in the mix and plug the hose.  That would be bad.  Very bad.

Here's the pump.  The concrete goes from the hopper into the hose coming out the bottom.

Then the hose runs across the yard, down the side of the house...

Around the back yard....

In the downstairs door....

And across the floor to where the guys are pouring.  Note the connection between the two sections of house.  Just thought you might be interested.

Here's a picture of the concrete shooting out the end of the hose.

And here it is from the other side.  I just do my best to stay out of the way.

Here the guys have been working the top of the concrete, but stepped away for a moment.  Maybe they were too shy to be in my picture.

And here we have a shot of the most of the pour.  They started with the floor, then moved on to the  foundation along the wall.  In this picture, one of the guys is just finishing the top of the new foundation.  Now we just wait for it to cure for awile, then Chris will strip the forms sometime tomorrow.